We all know the story narrated in the bible about Jacob fighting with God. Until this point, he spent his life stealing and swindling. He deceived his brother, his parents and his uncle Laban. But God led him to a time alone, and he experienced loneliness brought by isolation.
 
Another way of loneliness is alienation. It’s the loneliness of those who were excluded from fellowship with others. This happens in the neighborhood, schools, social clubs and even into churches. 
 
Another type of loneliness is called loneliness of separation. It may be caused by divorce, death, or simply by seen our children leaving home to start their own lives. It doesn’t matter the reason; loneliness is always very painful.
The loneliness in its most deep level is called Existential Loneliness. It’s experienced by people who don’t have a personal relationship with God. Those people exist but have no purpose or reason of life. When they loose all kind of support, as it happened to Jacob, they get lonely.

All of us experience one or more types of loneliness. When we retire, we need to live together with another kind of loneliness. We miss our friends at work. Our children are married already and have their own children. Many of our friends, who also retired, moved to distant regions and a big sense of emptiness starts in us. If we aren’t prepared for that, we can feel devastated and lost.

Fortunately, we don’t need to be destroyed by loneliness. We can make new friends and get involved in other people’s lives. The story of Jacob has a happy ending. He became obedient to God and his life was transformed. He won a new chance, a new name, a new personality and a new hope. His loneliness became victory. And this can happen to any of us.

“Lord, in times of loneliness, I ask you that you may fulfill my life with your presence. Amen.”

Leroy Patterson