Not Meant to be Alone: The Longing for Community

Not Meant to Be Alone

      There is a particular kind of loneliness that comes with grief.  The grief of losing a spouse is considered to be the worst human experience that a person can endure.  The scale of trauma and emotional ache is considered a 100 out of 100.  It is especially difficult for a younger person.  Losing someone when you are young steals your identity.  It is the worst identity theft that can be committed against you.  It exposes parts of you, it robs you of purpose.  It steals affection and human touch.  It is almost as if someone sets fire to your dreams and you are left with nothing to do but to watch it go up in smoke.  I cannot express to you the agony that my mind, body, heart, and soul have felt.  Grief doesn't just touch one area of your life, in invades each corner, leaving no area untouched.

      If I were to pick the worst part of my grief journey thus far, it would be the indescribable loneliness.  For me personally, I am an extrovert.  My exchange of conversation isn't just who God made me to be, but it's therapy for my soul.  I need to talk, I need to be around people, I need to communicate, but no amount of communication can quench the longing that you have for that one person.  That one person who gets you, who sees the worst in you and still loves you.  Loneliness in this instance is like a black hole that seems to suck in all joy and happiness.  It isn’t just the absence of noise or company.  It’s the ache of realizing that the person who once stood beside you, your witness, your teammate, your home is gone.  Gone.  I hate that word.  A former life is gone, a chapter is closed.   The world keeps moving, but you feel suspended in a silence that no one else seems to hear.  Loneliness after loss is not a personal failure. It is a human response to something God never intended for us to carry alone.  It is so odd being a person who grieves.  We want to be isolated away while still wanting connection.  Those two feelings are like a proverbial tug of war in our souls.

      From the very beginning of Scripture, God makes a striking declaration, “It is not good for the man to be alone (Genesis 2:18)."  I've sat with this passage for quite some time in the past year plus.  I find it amazing that it wasn't good for Adam to be alone.  Beloved, this was before sin.  Before shame.  Before brokenness entered the world.  Loneliness was the first thing God called “not good.”  Let that sink in, even before Adam and Eve ate of the fruit from the Garden of Eden, God said, it is not good.  I have wrestled with this and I have also embraced this.  Adam had a need that he didn't even fully understand but God did.  God saw the heart of His creation, knowing that He created a social being, and knew that in some capacity, Adam felt lonely. Maybe I'm being sacrilegious, but God created Adam with a need, a need for community.  That need didn't spring up when sin came, it was pre-existing.

      Even creation knows better then to be isolated.  There is a bird called the Starling that rarely, if ever, lives alone. Starlings are intensely social creatures. They move together, roost together, and survive together. If you’ve ever seen a murmuration—a swirling, synchronized dance of thousands of starlings in the sky; you’ve seen something extraordinary, something that only a Creator God could do.  One bird does not lead.  One bird does not survive alone.  Their safety is found in togetherness.

      A lone starling is vulnerable.  The life span of a starling that gets separated from it's group is tragically in the single digits.  This bird was not made to live alone.  It was given a God given mechanicsm for social interaction, for community.  What benefit comes from them being in a group?  A flock confuses predators, finds warmth, and navigates the sky with beauty and precision.  Creation itself testifies to a truth we often resist in grief: we were designed for companionship.

      The problem is this, grief tries to isolate us, to make us feel like we are an island in an ocean.  Grief has a way of whispering lies like you don’t want to burden anyone, no one really understands, you should be stronger by now, or it’s safer to be alone.  So we withdraw.  We self-protect.  We learn how to survive quietly.  But isolation is not healing, it’s exposure.  Just like a solitary Starling, grief makes us easier targets for despair, shame, depression, and exhaustion when we try to endure it alone.

      God’s answer was relationship.  When God said it was not good for man to be alone, His solution was not productivity, purpose, or distraction.  Our God is incredibly creative.  He could have chosen any means to meet this need for Adam.  How did God solve this dilemma?  It was relationship.  Even now, after loss has torn something sacred from our lives, that truth remains. Grief does not erase our design. If anything, it reveals how deeply we need one another.  For me personally the loss of my wife revealed the depths of that verse, "it's not good for man to be alone."  Needing companionship does not mean you are weak.  It means you are human.  It means you are created.  There is never a moment in your life when your need for community will be greater.  There will also not be a moment in your life with a greater struggle to find community.

      Starlings don’t ask if they’re “too much” for the flock.  They don’t apologize for staying close.  They don’t try to grieve in isolation.  They gather—because that’s how they survive.  If you are grieving and lonely, hear this clearly: your longing for connection is not a lack of faith. It is an echo of Eden. It is God’s original design still calling out from within you.  You were never meant to walk this road alone.  You were never meant to carry sorrow without witnesses.  You were never meant to heal in isolation.  You were built for community.

      So you must not be like the starling that has lost his flock, you must seek the flock out.  The flock may not look like it used to.  It may be smaller.  It may be made of people who understand loss because they’ve lived it too.  But community—real, imperfect, present community is part of God’s care for the grieving.  Even Jesus, in His deepest sorrow, did not choose solitude. He asked His disciples to stay close.  If the Son of God did not grieve alone, neither should we, neither should YOU.

      The loss of my wife scattered my life.  The loneliness of my heart seems to have grounded me at times, keeping me from flying.  Loneliness feels like an anchor, or worst yet, shackles.  But you and I are still meant for connection.  Still meant for shared space.  Still meant to be seen in motion with others.  We are still meant for the skies.  Like the starling, your survival and your healing are found not in flying alone, but in finding the flock again.  Because from the very beginning, God was clear:  It is not good for us to be alone.

Reflection Questions

1. In what ways has grief caused me to withdraw from others, even when I long for connection?
2. What lies have I believed about loneliness?
   (For example: “I’m a burden,” “No one understands,” or “I should be stronger by now.”)
3. Who has God already placed in my life as part of my “flock,” even if I haven’t leaned on them yet?
4. How does remembering that God said “it is not good to be alone” change the way I view my grief and my need for others?

A Prayer for the Lonely and Grieving

Father God,

You who saw Adam’s loneliness and called it not good,

You see me now.  You see the empty spaces in my life—the chair that no one sits in, the conversations that no longer happen, the quiet that feels heavier than words.

Lord, grief has a way of making me want to hide, to pull away, to believe I have to be strong on my own.

But You created me for connection.  You designed my heart for relationship, for shared burdens, for the safety of community.

Give me the courage to not isolate.  Give me the humility to be seen.  Lead me to the flock You have prepared for me, people who can walk with me, listen without fixing, and sit with me in my sorrow.

Remind me that needing others is not weakness, but obedience to the way You made me.

Hold me when the loneliness feels overwhelming, and help me trust that I am not forgotten, not abandoned, and not meant to grieve alone.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen.