For one week today, I will have been in my home without my wife. Now, ok, that sounds a little more serious than it is. She is in Alabama with her mother and is spending two weeks with her. I am halfway through my solo adventure of living alone in a time of pandemic.
I have had to relearn several things: how to sleep in a bed with no one else in it, how to make a breakfast smoothie (she would always make both of ours), what clothes need drying and which need hanging up, and many more things, but most of all I’m relearning what being alone looks like.
I’m an extrovert and thus I love having people around. I don’t normally choose to be alone, so this has been an interesting time for me. I’ve started filling my time with things that I think might be beneficial to me: learning Spanish on Duolingo, keeping my mind sharp with Sudoku and Words with Friends, going on more and longer walks, and picking up my guitar and learning new songs and finding peace and holiness in old ones. Even with all of these additions, I have found that I get lonely quite quickly. I’ve been in this state for a week and I cannot imagine being in it for several months and yet, that is the reality that some people are facing.
It is with these people in mind that I am reminded of Hebrews 12:1 where Paul tells the other Christians,
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.”
This cloud that surrounds each and every one of us is not just those that have pioneered the faith, not just those that have come before us and laid the groundwork, no WE are the cloud for each other. We must remind one another that none of us is alone. Reach out to those friends and family who are living alone, in nursing homes, or are otherwise quarantined and remind them that they aren’t alone. If you are feeling lonely, reach out to the pastors, to the church community, to me (734) 624-6682. That is my number, call me if you need to, text me if you want to. You are not going through this alone, you are surrounded, and you are surrounding others.
I want to leave you with the inspiration for this devotion, which is a couple of lines from a Mumford and Sons song called Timshel.
“You are not alone in this. You are not alone in this. As brothers we will stand and we’ll hold your hand, hold your hand.”
