I sat quietly in my living room, embers glowing softly in the fireplace, as I felt a familiar pain begin to flicker in my heart. The kind of pain that wells up from somewhere deep inside and burns in places I didn’t realize had nerves – a throbbing heartache. My husband had gone to work, my workday was done, and an open evening lay ahead. There, in the dim light of the lamps and the fireplace, snuggled up in my favorite spot, I felt utterly lonely – a familiar feeling, a recurring experience in my life. “Why do I feel so lonely” I wondered.
I’ve known the burning heartache of loneliness for as long as I can remember – an incessant unpleasantry always humming in the background of my mind. As a shy little girl, I felt lonely when my introverted and cautious nature prevented me from diving into new experiences or talking to new people. As a newly outgoing teenager, I wondered why finally diving into new experiences and meeting new friends didn’t drive out the loneliness. As a 20 something adult, I harbored feelings of guilt and shame regarding loneliness – “I have a wonderful husband, the most amazing friends, a family who never fails to say ‘I love you,’ a job where I’m valued, and enough involvement to keep me busy for days… surely there must be something wrong with me because I still feel so lonely!” At every stage in my life, loneliness has visited and befuddled me. And, at every stage in my life, I have sought to rid myself of this chronic feeling – by any means necessary.
I tried anything and everything to avoid, dismiss, and work around that uncomfortable feeling of being all alone. I discovered good distractions and not so good distractions. I did both harmful things and healthy things to cope. When the harmful outweighed the healthy, I sought professional help and discovered these recurring feelings of loneliness have in some part, a scientific explanation. Working with a therapist I focused in on healing and learning more than I ever wanted to know about what makes me tick as a human and journeyed to a place of understanding and compassion for myself. Yet, even after a couple of years of hard and honest work, that deep sense of loneliness continued to pop up from time to time, much to my dismay. With a sense of defeat, I finally dubbed these episodes of profound and confusing feelings of abandonment as bouts of “chronic loneliness” and resorted myself to the fact that perhaps, this wasn’t something I could change.
“I think I’m just chronically lonely and I think I might always be” I said to a close friend as we talked one day last year. As I poured out my heart, that sweet and loving friend said with her welcomed and cherished encouragement “it sounds like you might need to talk to God about that loneliness.” Her words pierced my heart and like finally turning the light switch on in the dark room where I had been searching for something for so long, I thought “why didn’t I think of doing this sooner?” After a lifetime living with this heartache always buzzing deep inside, I finally realized that until I entered that space of discomfort with a curious heart, hand-in-hand with God, I could never imagine “healing” this seemingly perpetual wound. I use the quotation marks around “healing” on purpose because I’ve discovered that this story isn’t about healing at all.
At the advice of that dear friend, I took this feeling to prayer and the next time I felt utterly lonely, I asked “what are you trying to tell me here, God?” Slowly, day by day, bout of loneliness by bout of loneliness, I began to uncover a beautiful and merciful gift – the gift of sacred longing.
Our hearts are like magnets, dear sisters in Christ. Whether we realize it or not, by their very nature, our hearts are designed to be pulled toward heaven by an invisible and powerful force. In magnets we know that opposites attract: the north end of one magnet will be attracted to the south end of another magnet. In our humanness, our sinfulness, our imperfection, we are the south side of the magnet. And Jesus? He is our True North. He is the other half we cannot help but be pulled to. In magnets, just as opposites attract, conversely, the same side of two magnets will repel each other, pushed in opposite directions by a powerful and invisible force. When our hearts long for the connection for which we are predisposed and we seek it in the things of this earth, we are like the south side of a magnet trying to connect to the south side of another magnet. No matter how hard we push, try to force it, and struggle, we will never be able to rest until we seek the connection, the correct side, for which we’re designed.
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
– St. Augustine of Hippo
That feeling I once understood as “chronic loneliness,” that heartache that still lingered after so much learning and healing took place, I now realize is a natural condition of my human heart. Yes, there are things of this life that can cause recurring feelings of loneliness, but there’s also a reality of the life to come, eternity with God in Heaven, that has placed in every heart a deep and perpetual longing. We were not made to remain in this broken world forever. Instilled in us from the moment of creation, is a desire to return to the One who gives us life. A desire born from a bond that has already spanned a million human lifetimes. A plan for reunion that was written in the book of life millennia before my heart and yours began to beat. It’s no wonder that our souls long so deeply for the Lord – that is precisely what our souls are made to do!
This sacred longing, therefore, is a gift to be embraced. A homing device, a magnetic force, that is constantly tugging on our hearts and calling us to our predestined home – the very heart of God. That constant tugging can get uncomfortable, and through the lens of our humanness it’s easy to misinterpret this longing and respond in ways that will never satisfy the soul. In our brokenness, we may turn in on ourselves or turn to worldly remedies to comfort our longing hearts, to cease the tugging, if only for a moment. But let us not forget, dear sisters, that this sacred longing will only be satisfied in Christ. When we seek a deep and lasting relationship with God, then and only then, will this longing be enveloped by the most powerful force of all – God’s unceasing and chronic love for us.
This gift of sacred longing is beautiful – it showcases our truest and purest selves. This beautiful longing highlights the unbreakable bond between creation and Creator. And this sacred longing is a merciful gift. Thank you, Lord, that even in our sinfulness and brokenness, in the deepest parts of us, we will never cease to long for You and for your everlasting love!
As we close in on Lent, a season primed for deep reflection, I invite you to ponder where this sacred longing might be present in your life, and most importantly, how you respond to this longing, as you answer the following questions:
- In times of longing, emptiness, or restlessness, what things do I turn to instead of turning to God?
- In what ways can I open my heart this Lenten season, and allow God to meet me in my longing?
- When I feel God tugging on my heart, how do I respond? Is that response bearing fruit in this life?
Note from the Author: This blog post was originally written for Women at the Well and was published on their blog in February of 2022. Women at the Well is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and empowering Catholic women to grow in Faith + Community. Women at the Well has been such a blessing in my life. Check them out at Women at the Well to find out how you can bring Women at the Well to your parish!
