Loneliness is definitely one of the strongest and most difficult emotions to shake.

I know of a few friends who at the moment are in the middle of a lonely season. I say season, because I firmly believe that it will pass. Loneliness is something each one of us has experienced or will experience at one time or another. 

Loneliness is a season, that God will use to teach you things about yourself and about Himself.

What I learned in my season of loneliness is:

1. God is the only one who can satisfy you. When you try to use people to fill the God shaped space in your heart – you will put too much pressure on yourself and them, they will fail as will you, you will get hurt and He will patiently wait for you to realise that.
2. The pursuit of a relationship or the desire for romantic love, can become an idol. You really don’t want the type of relationship that you will settle for when you are at this point. You don’t want to make someone who you know doesn’t really fit the bill – fit the bill.
3. God will give you His best when He can see that is what you want. Surrendering your own will to His is an ongoing daily practice – always.
4. God will give you His best when you realise and acknowledge that He is all that you need. I believe we all reach Abraham and Isaac moments in our lives, sometimes we have them multiple times. God will ask you to show Him what it is that you truly believe you need. Hint: it’s Him.
5. God doesn’t ever forget you – you forget Him. He wants your attention. He is, as His word says, a jealous God, talking about this recently I think all that phrase means started to come home to me. God is a jealous God, He is not envious, He is jealous. One definition of jealous is: fiercely protective of one’s rights or possessions. What this means for you, is that you are His, He does not like to see you placing more importance or significance on anyone or anything that is not Him. 
6. Feeding on the entertainment offered by a world that does not value Him is going to do nothing other than stir up dissatisfaction within you. All it will do for you is leave you feeling discontent, unsatisfied, unhappy and … Our world places too much importance on who we are with romantically rather than who we are. We, none of us, should be defined by any relationship other than the one we have with our Saviour… If you are right now thinking the perfect relationship will make you complete, it won’t, it may, in fact, just highlight for you how incomplete you truly are without Him.
7. You can’t short-cut this process – you can’t trick God into believing that you are through these steps. I know because I tried. My friend, He knows your heart. He sees the things that no one sees. He knows when you are ready.

Spend your time praying in the way a wise friend of mine always tells me to pray.

Ask God to remove desires from your heart that have not been placed there by Him.

Ask Him to strengthen you as you wait on Him.

Ask Him to help you to surrender your will to His.

Ask Him to prepare your heart for His will, whatever that may be. He will honour your prayer.

If you are at all like me my friends, it’s going to hurt, it will be worth it, you will get through it.

He will be with you.

At this time pray also that if there is a partner of His choice waiting for you that they too, will be doing this while they wait for you.

If, at the end of this season, God grants you the desire of your heart and you do end up with someone – you won’t end up with a perfect person ( sorry dear husband). As I heard a preacher once say “if you’re looking for the perfect person, what makes you think that they will be looking for you?” A little confronting – but true. God will place you with someone who will encourage you to continue to grow more into the image of His Son. In the experience of most, this does not happen in the days of wine and roses. This happens in times of adversity,  you won’t always make each other happy, you won’t always agree, but the one thing you want to be sure of is that you will always encourage each other to cling to Him, to trust in Him, to rely on Him, to turn to Him, and to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Pray for this – while we pray for you. . .  and maybe have a read of this old one too.