Alone vs. lonely

OK...to deal with the common theme of late (of this blog at large?)...we've all been home alone on a Friday night, aight? Even the most beautiful shallow girls that all the Christian guys are asking out instead of you - they, even they, have had their lonely nights at home, where everything just seems empty.

Frankly, in the past 6 years since college (SIX YEARS SINCE COLLEGE) - most Friday nights I'm so overworked and under-rested that I collapse on the couch with take-out Chinese and a glass of wine and a good movie - and I couldn't be happier. But I still know the feeling. 6 years is a lot of Friday nights spent by yourself. Its a hell of a lot of mornings to wake up alone. Stop your shock factor, I am talking about waking up with my wife.

Sleep is still most perfect, in spite of hygienists, when it is shared with a beloved. The warmth, the security and peace of soul, the utter comfort from the touch of the other, knits the sleep, so that it takes the body and soul completely in its healing. -- D.H. Lawrence

It sucks. The feeling sucks. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. Literally.

But the Biblical response is this: to say, "OK, God. This is what you want. I accept Your plan - maybe tearfully, maybe joyfully - but I will walk this path." And then live out a life devoted to Him. (Someone else said this once - hint: he said it in a garden while everyone one else was asleep).

I know that doesn't make you all warm and fuzzy and make the lonely Friday nights go away. But it is where you start. Take it from someone who's walked the longer road. Day in and day out, you begin to focus on what's more important - on reaching a world in need. Your heart starts to soften in new ways. You begin to learn things you never knew you needed to know. You find true sorrow and even truer joy.

It takes a rather stern setting of the jaw to get past your self pity. And I'm not accusing anyone here of the embarrassing sin of self pity, but since I was once there, perhaps someone reading this will honestly connect with that position. Once you make that decision - to be busy being the right person rather than finding the right person, your whole outlook begins to change.

And you realize that someday, if you do cross paths with that person, you'll be no needy wretch that's been pining away all these years, but a busy, beautiful, well-purposed being that is a light in a dark world - and what an attractive light it will be.