Left Lane for Loneliness

It is hard to be lonely. And it can be tricky to figure out that you are lonely when you are...it can kind of sneak up on you. I have been pretty hard on myself lately, going into this drill sergeant mode with myself mentally, and then today, I was standing at the bus stop alone, after having gone to the physical therapist to continue recovering from an injury, and it hit me like a bus: I am lonely. I am not unlovable or being punished for some sort of moral failure, the world has not turned against me because I was a bad girl. I am just in a season of loneliness.

Even though I'm married.

Even though I live in America's largest city, with 8 and a half million other people...or maybe because of that fact.

But there it was: the truth that I am lonely. And that makes me sad and I feel like my heart is in a desert, sucking up sand instead of drinking down revitalizing water. And that is tough. And I miss family road trips. And I understand the Cheers theme song that's all about coming to a place where "everybody knows your name."

You don't just get into your car and end up in the Sahara...every destination is caused by a journey in a certain direction. I think I am in a lonely place, well, maybe because that is just where God wants me to teach me something new about His love and His plan, but also because I drove myself here. I fueled up my tank, got out my map, and plotted out my course to Lonelyville. Along the way, I passed through shiny towns with pretty people and noted signs along the highway labeled, "Fame Exit 2B", "Your Picture in a Magazine Merge Left". But for some reason, these signs never pointed me in the right direction. I would end up out of gas in a ditch somewhere, out on a long stretch of farmland with no houses in sight. Thirsty. And very, very needy. Then someone would come along with gas, fuel me up, and I'd drive back onto the same highway, headed straight for Isolationopolis (fun to say, hard to live).

I am ready to get on the right highway. And by right, I mean the one that can take me to love, to community, to wholeness, to abundance, and with only HOV lanes, so that no car contains a solitary sojourner.

Where's my exit? Let me know if you see the sign.