This week, I had the opportunity to go out for lunch with one of my newest co-workers. As we got to know one another, she started telling me about her experience in her new position. Some of the challenges she described were very familiar – they were ones that I had experienced just six months ago when I was hired. For example, we both struggled with understanding the expectations of our positions and how to do our jobs well. Since both of us have very little guidance in our roles, it has been hard for both of us to feel like we are doing good work. I told her that I had gone through the same thing and that she shouldn’t feel alone in her struggles. Despite having different positions and daily expectations, my co-worker and I were able to connect through our shared experiences in our workplace.

This meeting that resulted in an opportunity to connect led me to think about the experience of feeling alone. Lately, I have found myself struggling with feeling satisfied and content in various areas of my life. At their core, I believe that these powerful, negative feelings originate in the experience of feeling alone. Further, I believe that I often ignore or underestimate the power that feeling alone can have over my thoughts and actions.

One of the most powerful lies that Satan tells me is that I am alone. He puts a little voice in my head, telling me that I am utterly alone in having specific thoughts, feelings, desires and experiences. He tells me that I do not deserve love or will ever be worthy of it. Sometimes, it can feel impossible to resist lies that target my deepest fears an insecurities.

Deep down, I know that these lies could not be further from the truth. I have found that the lie that I am alone in my experiences to be wrong for two different reasons. First, I am never alone because Jesus is always with me. He understands every thought, feeling, desire and experience known to humanity. Honestly, sometimes the truth that Jesus is with me and knows my pain just isn’t very comforting. Why? Often when I am in my deepest despair, when I feel most alone, when I need God the most, my impulse is to do the opposite of the thing that I need to do. I run away from God instead of running toward him. When I feel unworthy, I turn inward and away from God in shame. Thus, I increase the distance between myself and my Father, which ultimately makes the negative thoughts and feelings of isolation even worse.

Not only do I have Jesus, but I also have other people. Over and over throughout my life, God has used other people to show me that I am never alone in my struggles. When I am able to quiet the negative voice, put away my shame and share my struggles with others, I have found that God uses other people to show me that I am never alone. In the same way, I have found that God has been able to use me in the lives of others, to join them in their struggles and remind them that no one walks through this life alone. This experience makes me think of the following quote from C.S. Lewis:

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What? You too? I thought I was the only one!”

This quote speaks to the power of human connection in times when I feel that I am most alone. Even when I feel like I am far from God, He often uses people in my life to reflect this nature through their stories and experiences. In a similar way, Proverbs 17:17 says, ““A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.”

This is why you should never underestimated the impact that you can have in the life of another person. Trust that God will give you the right words, for just the right person, at just the right time. Sometimes, we are called to speak and other times, we are called to be silent and listen without judgement. To listen in love is to reflect the heart of God, because He listens to our struggles and failures in love all the time. When I feel like I can’t connect to God, He uses other people who love Him to show me His love in a way that I can understand and experience it in more human terms.

In the end, Satan loves to tell me that I am alone in my struggles. He loves to emphasize my failures, flaws and shortcomings until I feel utterly hopeless. The truth is that I am a flawed, failed human being. I often turn to things of the world for satisfaction and contentment rather than turning to God, then have the audacity to wonder why I feel hollow and empty. But the beauty of the gospel is that even though I am unlovable and deserve to be alone, God seeks me, loves me and is always with me. Just like the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), my impulse is to run from God when I have sinned and to return in shame. Just like the father in the parable, God is waiting for me to return to Him. When he sees me in the distance, He comes running to embrace me. I find this image of the gospel to be amazing every single time I read it. Why? Because it reminds me that even when I feel alone, someone who loved me enough to die for me is watching from a distance, anticipating my return and preparing to embrace me with love and joy. It reminds me that even when I sin, fail, fall short or believe the lie that I am unloved, nothing I could do can prevent God from waiting, watching and ultimately, loving me. It reminds me that no matter how alone I feel or how far I try to run from His presence, God delights in closing the distance between my heart and His own.