Tag: alone

IT IS JUST ME

On By SandraIn death, faith, grief, lossLeave a comment

It is amazing.  I grew up knowing I should be married. I fell in love with a wonderful man. I shared a life with him. Fifty-four years we were together.

As God said, “We became one”. Then one day he left. He joined God. But he left me behind.

It is just me.

I feel so alone at times. I am sad that he is gone.  It is as if I have lost my being. I have lost my understanding of life. I don’t know what is expected of me. What is my goal for the rest of my life. I don’t know what God wants me to accomplish. What is my purpose?

I carry on each day.  I try to work on the dreams that we built together. I work hard to stay busy and to finish projects that were important to the two of us. But I wonder, does it really matter? Were we living out a dream of things that were important to us but not important to God? Should I just give it all up and stop trying to complete our dreams?

I sometimes feel so alone. I have a very loving family. They are so good to me. They care, they are concerned and they try to be sure to care for me. I have friends that love me, communicate with me and want the best for me.

However, I find that I am alone.

It is just me.  

In the midst of all the love of my  family and my friends, I am still alone. The eighth month was very hard. I am feeling my alone-ness more than ever before. I miss my best friend. It is as if part of my body was amputated that day in July. Whether it was my limbs or my spirit, it has disappeared. I feel so alone.

When I am with others, I laugh and joke as part of a social group, but I am still alone. I know when I am interacting that I am playing a charade because I feel that part of me is no longer there. I act as though I am still all together but I am really alone.

God promised that He would care for me. I know that promise to be true. He has cared for me. I am making it financially. I am existing in the world. His presence is with me as I go through each day. I cannot say that God has forsaken me. He has kept His promise and has cared for me. But I sometimes feel so sad and alone.

Maybe I am selfish. Maybe I feel that I need more than is due me. I don’t know. I just know that there is a void. There is a deep hole. There is a part of me that hurts so hard it takes my breathe away.

I was not prepared to deal with the depth of this hurt.

I pray hard for forgiveness of my selfish spirit that I should expect happiness. I pray that God will understand the bottomless pit of my hurt. I pray that He knows the agony of my loneliness. That He will not hold it against me. I trust Him. I love Him. I know that He has a plan and that I am in His hands. Also, I know somehow that this deep hurt that I feel has a meaning and will be used to His greater good.

I know that from the moment we met, my husband and I were meant for each other and we were God’s children. We loved Him, served Him and lived for Him. Therefore, I know that in the overall plan of God for our lives, my husband was called home and I was left to be here for Him. It is just really hard. I hope I am doing it the way my God would want me to live.

Even if that means that I feel so alone.

Deuteronomy 31:8 The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.

Alone

On By SandraIn death, grief, lossLeave a comment

I had an epiphany the other day.

I. Am. Alone.

I guess as you read this you would say, “Really, you are just realizing that?”  But yes, it just became so apparent to me that I am all alone.  I realized that we are all traveling through this world alone; as an individual.

We come into this world as a single being.  Although we have relationships, we are still individuals.  Some of us have very good relationships.  We have close friends with which we can share both the happy times, as well as our sad times. In fact, some folks share every intimate detail with close friends.  Some of us never have close friends and we are only comfortable sharing a limited amount of our lives with others.

In retrospect, I had a great relationship with my parents.  I don’t remember having many moments that were trying with them.  They were reasonable, flexible, and easy to get along with all of my life.  My mother died at 98 1/2 years old and was a good friend the entire time.  My brothers were younger and different from me, but we always got along.

I left my parents home after college and married my best friend. We had 54 1/2 years of great friendship.  It was such an amazing journey through life with him. We enjoyed years of goal setting and accomplishments.  We were partners in raising six children and fulfilling our mutual desires.  We dreamed our dreams and worked on them through the years. We sort of melted into one person, instead of two, living together.

Then, life happened, and he left me abruptly.  I now realize I came into this world as an individual…I traveled these years as an individual…I will leave this world as an individual.

I cannot expect anyone to be responsible for me.  I don’t have to get permission from anyone to do something.  Sometimes there is no one that actually knows what I am doing or cares what I am doing.

I am alone.

As this concept occurs to me, I find that there is some good and some not so good things to this.  The good is the independence.  If I want to eat chocolate all day I can do that.  I am the only one that is accountable.  But eating chocolate alone is no fun.  As a person that always had a partner, I really prefer the connection to another person.  I want someone to know where I am and what I am doing.

There are lessons to be learned here.  First, I think we have to appreciate the persons with which we are connected.  With all of their faults or irritations, we need to stop and consider that if they were not there, we would be so lonesome.

Second, I think we need to prepare ourselves for the alone-ness.  What will you do if you find yourself alone without people around you. Do you have hobbies? Do you have projects to do?  Can you amuse yourself enough to be alone? Do you feel comfortable reaching out and starting over to find new relationships?

I am very alone.
I am experiencing major loneliness.

My comfort so far has come as I am experiencing a great joy in my relationship with God. I am trying to deal with this new individual life.  It is God’s will and he will give me the courage to be alone. Then someday, as an individual, I will return again to God just as I came alone from Him.