We’re approaching a time of year that is difficult for many people for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is loneliness. While some are gearing up to spend the holidays with families of all shapes and sizes, others are feeling that loneliness and isolation more than ever.
Our families and other relationships in our lives can help center us, especially when we are going through a hard time. Those are the moments we face when we need our tribe the most because, often, those hard times can be very isolating. You can be surrounded by people and feel so utterly alone simply because it feels like no one truly understands your experience. A popular bible story is the one of Jonah. He was in a difficult situation inside that belly of the fish. Let’s not discuss how he landed himself there, but rather what he experienced during a dark and challenging situation.
I just imagine Jonah’s experience inside that fish as being in a dark, isolating place from which it seemed like there was no escape. His only recourse was to pray. It’s comparable for me to those types of situations we face today. Plenty of us have experienced moments where the pressure of our circumstance seems inescapable. It feels isolating and like no one else can even begin to imagine what you are enduring. Surely, we are the only ones who have ever gone through anything like it. But what stands out to me with Jonah in that moment is that he was alive. Not only was he alive, but imagine the many dangers he was actually spared from in being swallowed by that fish. He could have drowned or been harmed by any number of things out in that ocean. Yet, in that isolated state he found himself in, his life was spared.
That got me thinking about the situations we find ourselves in today. The ones where the pressure is as great as the weight of the ocean. I read a book recently that talked about water pressure. It noted that for every ten meters down in the ocean, the water pressure increases by about fourteen pounds. The deeper you go, it’s darker, more isolating, and the pressure builds up swiftly. In our natural bodies, that means we are drowning. That pressure is too much to fight against. Especially on our own. Often when divers and swimmers find themselves in trouble, they need someone’s intervention in order to escape.
So, when I’m faced with increasing pressure, spiritually, then I know that I can’t handle it alone. I need spiritual intervention. While it helps if I have a family and close friends to encourage me, that’s not the experience that those without those relationships endure. But what we all have in common is that none of us are ever truly alone. A promise we can each cling to is that God will always be there. When we feel like the pressure of our situation is too much or when we feel like there is no escape, we again have the promise of a way of escape. Like Jonah did from the belly of the fish, we have to commune with God and truly cast those cares and anxieties on him. When we do that, whether we are by ourselves or surrounded by hundreds of people, we can truly value that relationship that we have with the one who will never forsake us.
Stay Sunny!
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