Only Lonely Understands

I found some old CDs at home in NC this weekend. As I drove back to SC last night, I listened to three of the CDs, singing along and feeling grateful for the music that was keeping me company. Toward the end of the trip, a song came on that I wasn’t expecting and the next thing I knew, I was crying. The song that played was “Tonight” by Sara Evans and the tears that flowed were from deep inside me...

I’m not exactly sure what hit me so hard when the song began. Maybe it’s my being a sucker for songs with a prominent piano part and it includes a strong emphasis on the keys...or maybe it’s the fact that the chorus says, “I don’t want to go home tonight,” and I was feeling sad about having to drive away from my family and friends again (although I realize that that’s totally not what that line is about in the song)...or maybe it’s the loneliness that I could hear throughout the storyline of the song and my self-proclaimed spiritual gift of crying for others who cannot cry. Whatever it was, it smacked me in my gut and left me crying an ugly, gasping cry for at least twenty minutes after I got back.

Despite fast-paced technology and social networking/media that keeps us instantly connected, we live in what I believe to be a lonely world. My dad recently told me that some of his most lonely moments occur when he is surrounded by people. I understand. It’s very possible to feel lonely when surrounded by people...especially when loneliness extends beyond passing feeling into permanent state of being.

I think that Sara Evans describes that permanent state of loneliness so well when she sings, “There's just some things only lonely understands.” [She also uses incorrect grammar, but I can forgive that here because of the profundity of the statement.] She also sings:

“I might be just a sinner
Who wants to be a saint
One justifies the reason
Oh, one understands the pain
And I don't know what's wrong baby
And I sure don't know what's right
But I don't want to go home tonight.”

Living in a permanent state of lonely leads one to do a lot of unhealthy things, and when unhealthy actions result in sinful actions—actions that hurt others and go against God’s design of love—the permanent state of lonely justifies the action out of a need to feel wanted, needed, and good enough—or maybe just to feel anything at all. The permanent state of lonely, I believe, stems from a hole in the core principle that we are loved—that we are authentically created beings with worth, value, and potential, and that despite what this world says, we are good enough—imperfect, different, and unique we may be. The permanent state of lonely, I believe, leads to isolation and secrecy that lead to more isolation and secrecy until we feel as if we are completely alone in our thoughts and often our shame—regardless of how many people truly love us.

I know what it is to live in the permanent state of loneliness while surrounded by love, but I also know what it is to have permanent made temporary through the transformational process of time, hard work, confession, acceptance, and grace.

So for everyone who has felt the “silent desperation” of loneliness, I must have hurt for you last night. I must have remembered that place and hurt for you—hurt for you and for those affected by and hurt by you—because we really are all connected. And while I was sad to drive away from my family and friends, and while I recognized the feeling of loneliness stirring inside me, I knew that I was not truly lonely in life anymore. I don't have that silent desperation. And I'm so thankful. And I’m so hopeful for everyone living in a permanent state of desperation—hopeful that it will be made temporary, that it will pass, and that each of us will daily realize that we are loved with a love so much richer and deeper and steady than anything we can comprehend.

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When You Can’t Escape
(from the lonely years)

Descending out of nowhere,
Exploding like a bomb,
Pressure securely locking windows and doors
Rendering daylight worthless.
Exaggerated lies become truth,
Stealing life from the breathing,
Smothering breath from the trying.
Intense heat scorches hints of soothing balm
Opening wounds that dangle between
Numbness and pain.
Heaven cries.
I love you falls on deaf ears.
Tomorrows linger.
Sleep cannot come soon enough.
Hearts shatter from calloused hands
Operating on figments of imagination.
Merciful Lord! Please break the fall.
Eternal God! Please hold me now.