How did we get here to lonely statistics baffling the theologians, the medical community, the social workers, and the anthropologists?
I shared some of the tough stuff from my childhood, but I have some wonderful saints in my lineage. My maternal grandmother was an amazing North Georgian hilly rocky working farm saint. She had 13 children and she lived through losing one of her two sons when he was two years old. She made her own soap; cooked on a wood stove; put up all the food her family ate all year. She designed and made beautiful dresses and clothes for her 11 daughters who were all shapes and fashion challenges. The pictures of these girls looks like Chanel designed everything they wore.
That was Mamie's day life. She had a gift of helping the sick get well and she was a self taught midwife. Many of her nights were up with sick whooping cough babies or delivering babies for black and whites in those hills. They were too far out for the doctors to come in emergencies. I don't believe Mamie had any lonely issues. Now she'd known great hardship...wars, depression, droughts, two houses burned to the ground by lightning. Those are the big ones along with my blessed Grandaddy losing his hearing from lightning in one of those storms.
When the blues, lonely tugs come to me I claim out loud that I am my grandmother's grandchild. There may have been some "issues" in my parents, and they had great qualities. I am believing Christ in me and the lineage God blessed me with is more than enough for circumstances to overwhelm me. Who is that teacher, relative, friend that has modeled for you how to pick yourself up and connect?
You who are lonely: make baby steps and move toward others. Just like Sailor Cross wrote in and admitted she sometimes feels lonely even at church. She's a knitter. She had an aha moment and plans to start a knitting group to make some connections. Why not you initiate something that will connect you with others who may have similar interests? Why not?
You who don't have any lonely issues.......get at it. Pray for God to show you who needs a smile, an invitation to a meal, a phone call, a note. I promise He will show you someone who's hoping that someone will validate they exist and they have value.
What if?
