Four boys at summer camp for a week.
I looked forward to this all summer and this morning it’s here! I’m supposed to LOVE this! For the first time in my five years since losing Tom, I’ve got the house to myself for a full week! Woohoo! The prayer time I’ll have with God. All the projects I’ll get done! The writing! The organizing! The…
. . . silence
Ladies, that first day after the kids flew off on their adventure, I climbed the walls, asking myself, “why is this so hard? Can I really do this alone?” And…
Is this what it will be like when they grow up and move out?
I know all about the enemy and his plans to derail me from my purpose. I did have a purpose—I have goals to meet this week with uninterrupted time. I won’t be tempted into calling friends and filling my time with social calls. In my early years of grieving that was appropriate. Now I move forward.
So the enemy steps up his game. Regina calls. “Come hang out by my pool with me.” Oh that’s tempting. She’s so godly and full of wisdom. Maybe for just a little? No, child. This is your time to focus.
Okay, God. I’m back to my purpose.
Then Ellen calls, “You don’t have the kids this week! Let’s have coffee!”
Oh, Ellen is so incredible. The mission work she does and her love for her four adopted children with special needs. If she can carve time out of her crazy schedule for me, how can I say no? Because I’m asking you to, my child.
Okay, God. Back to my purpose.
Ladies, I just wanted to share with you this moment when I feel so inspired by the Lord to walk forward, alone, without the crowd around me, to complete a work He has for me. To pull away from the noise, and not be deterred from His plan.
I know there were times when the Lord wanted me to hold back, mingle with the supportive crowd, and take in nourishment. And there are times when He’s asking me to reach out to encourage others. And then there are times when He’s asking me to step forward alone, and continue on His plan for my day with Him and only Him.
Try it sometime, you might feel what I felt after even just one day of forcing myself to walk alone with only God speaking to me throughout the day–serenity!
There’s a neat poem written by a secular poet, Tanya Davis, encouraging you to learn the art of being alone. This is what my week feels like. I’m relearning the art of being alone.
I hope that somehow the Lord speaks to you through my experience today.
Blessings, sisters!
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
A beautiful post, sister! He cherishes and craves us so!!! I love that about Him. He doesn’t want our fragments…He wants all of us! He’s been teaching me that all over again this week as well. Love you!
Dear Kit, I will be praying for you as you work through the silence. This was me last week as the three girls went off to church camp. It was intense. I felt that I needed to be alone with Him as well. God used it in good ways. Despite the intensity I wouldn’t trade the time for a full social busyness. He loves you! been waiting for this time. It’s
Excuse me…pushed the wrong button. He’s had this time set aside to spend with Kit marked on his day planner for awhile. In fact, it might be on a post it note on his fridge.
Thanks again for a wonderful post.
Love, Jill B
Oh thank you Kit…I take my youngest to college across country this weekend. Thus begins yet another “new beginning”- the empty nest. God will give me the strength to face this aloneness. Loved your post. Thank you!
This story does not help me. I don’t like being alone all the time. I don’t want to get use to it. I feel I don’t belong anywhere or to anyone. I hear others say, ‘learn to be content with yourself’. For most people, I feel they are made for the company and companionship God intended. I want to share my life with someone…the right one…the one who God intends for me.
Thank you for sharing this post – I need to believe this was for me. My kids are grown and I’ve only been a widow for one year and 4 months. The first year I was numb – full of shock and disbelief, this year I feel so lonely. I wonder often how this could be my life. How can I be so lonely, I have friends and family but I don’t know how to be content with myself. Last night I was thinking of my grandmother who was widowed at 60 – and wondering if it would be easier if I were a little older. Probably not – probably it would still be lonely. I need to adjust my attitude – I need to lean on my savior and embrace being one and today here’s your post, a tangible answer to my thoughts and prayers last night about how I could go on alone.
Kathryn, I get it.
I don’t know how long it has been for you since you lost your husband but please know, I do get it. Be encouraged, Kathryn that it gets better, and there is lots of hope that you will be with someone again. I’m one of those who completely believes the Lord designed us to be together with another, and that He will place me with someone again.
Kathryn, I almost married someone last Spring and changed my mind. It has to be right, and the Lord will give you that peace when it’s right.
Meanwhile, I want to encourage you that all the talk people have of learning to be content by yourself– it’s not a lie. There are a few episodes in my life – in college before I met my first husband, between my first and second husband, and now as a widow, that I had to go through where you are– that feeling of hating solitude, and then acceptance of it, and then a strange love of it, before I was open and ready for a healthy relationship with another.
If you watch the video again, you’ll notice something really wise she says– if you hate being alone, or you are not practiced at it– give it time.
I’m going to pray for you, Kathryn. That the Lord gets you ready because I just know He’s going to bless your sox off!
Blessings,
Kit
I like that you pointed out how the Lord told you not to give in to the devil’s “good” distractions from what He wanted you to do. There is a time to be alone and a time to fellowship. Your friends were probably just afraid you couldn’t stand to be alone or were sitting at home feeling unloved. God has to be our first love. I am still working on it. Kathryn, I know what you mean. Woman was specifically created to keep a man from being lonely. We are sort of only half a person.
(Psalm 37:4) “Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” Spending time with God has eased my loneliness some and asking Him what He wants me to do today makes Him seem more real (though He was real all the time). Sharing with my kids what I got from my Bible reading helps me. It touches me that my 18-year-old son prays for me when we pray around the circle in the living room: “Please help Mom not be lonely.” I don’t talk about it much. But he cares about it and remembers the few times I’ve brought it up, several times because I was talking about resisting the temptation to be friends with this man or that man because I KNEW he would not be a good spiritual leader for me or my family and I would only be doing it to not be lonely. As you said, it has to be the RIGHT man. I dated several men before I met and married Ken. And he was completely different from all those other guys I dated. So I was happy God picked out my first husband and I trust Him to do a great job picking out the next one. And if I’m flirting with someone I picked myself, I might not be free when Mr. Right comes along! I would hope a godly man would not want a flirt for a wife. Maybe this Scripture passage will help us:
“But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.” (James 4:6-10)
“We love him, because he first loved us.” (1 Jn. 4:19)
I could have responded this way:
I. DO. NOT. WANT. TO. BE. ALONE. But until God says I don’t have to, I will learn to be content being that way. Even with a house full of kids, we feel alone. Let’s remember the kids feel that way, too. The way they latch onto the carpenter and tell him all sorts of details of their lives. Hanging out with our female friends is just not the same as having a man to talk to. Oops, I’m getting wordy again.
Not wordy, Jamie– wise. Thank you for sharing and blessing us with your experiences.
Kittie,thanks for a wonderful perspective on alone and lonely. I sat on the back deck Saturday night watching the sunset, waiting for the chicken to finish grilling…feeling…something. Lonely? Alone? Wanting to talk over the day, and the kids, and share a glass of tea. In the end I just breathed in the quiet, and breathed out the questions and sat there. And it was ok.
Danita what a picture you drew of sitting on the back deck, watching the sunset. I does sound lonely, and yet it also does sound…. ok.
Blessings.