7 Ways to Stay Encouraged When Life Is Lonely

If you don’t have a local church – somewhere you can grow spiritually and connect with others – find one. It’s essential for anyone to mature as a follower of Christ. It’s also a key ingredient in overcoming loneliness. Because of the COVID pandemic and previous “shelter-at-home” mandates, it became too convenient and comfortable for many of us to “do church” on the couch. But the church exists not just to help us grow in our faith through passively listening to the teaching of the Word, but through interaction with other believers for their edification and for ours.

Hebrews 10:24-25 exhorts: “let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another” (NASB). The church was never designed to be a place or event that we observe from afar, but a home or sanctuary where we find comfort, share common interests, and interact with one another, face to face. I know of many believers who admitted they never realized how much sweet fellowship, encouragement, and spiritual edification they were missing by not being in person with other believers until they returned to their local fellowship. Also, once you find a church, you can become involved in a small group and meet others, you can find a place to serve, and you can find a place to give, financially. God will bless all of those areas and take care of your loneliness issue, too. Trust Him to be faithful that as you honor Him, He will honor you.

2. Look for ways to serve others.

Many times when we are feeling lonely, our focus is on ourselves. No one calls anymore. Where are all my friends? Why hasn’t anyone checked in on me? When we are lonely we can even tend to send off an unintentional signal to others that says “I’m needy.” And that can push people further away. But you can change your attitude and perspective by starting to think about what you do have and how you can share it with others.

Do you have a specific talent or ability that others can glean from? Put it out there and see what God does with it. Do you have extra time in which you can serve others? Find ways to volunteer at your local non-profit center or at church even if it’s just holding a baby in the nursery during a church service. (I guarantee you’ll get to know that child’s parents that way). As you extend toward others you will find your focus changes from “who will be there for me?” to “whom can I be there for?” And that might make you a magnet that draws others toward you.

Every person needs to be mentored, regardless of their age and season in life. Titus 2:3-5 instructs believers to be involved in the mentoring process – allowing someone to pour into your life so you can then pour into someone else and they can then do the same.

In my book, When Women Walk Alone, I encourage women, regardless of their age or stage in life, to find a woman to walk on both sides of them – one on their right to pull them up spiritually and one on their left whom they can help edify and build-up, as well. None of us have ever arrived personally and spiritually and there’s always something more we can learn, and more ways to grow, develop, and mature. Seek out someone to not just spend time with you but to hold you accountable in your personal development and spiritual growth. Mentors often become lifelong friends. And that is what you need right now.

4. Offer to mentor someone else.

In addition to having a mentor to help you along, find a younger person you can mentor, too. Even if you are a young person feeling lonely, there’s always someone younger than you who could use a friend who’s been where you have been. You have life experiences that can help another person struggling. You have learned certain lessons during pain, betrayal, and hopefully where God is when it hurts. As you seek to share your life and wisdom with others, God will bring that around to comfort you, as well.

I remember, as a young wife and new mom, feeling very alone in the first church that my husband pastored. I was the youngest woman physically in the church yet in many ways the oldest woman spiritually. I pleaded with God to bring older women into my life who could mentor me because there appeared to be a void of mature Christians available and interested in spending time with me. So, I began teaching an adult Bible class and sharing with many of these older women my love for God and His Word and my desire to grow closer to Him. By teaching that class, and subsequent ones, I made many new friends, some of whom I’m still in contact with today. And as I continued to pour into them and eventually began to reach out to serve in other areas, God soon surrounded me with many older women spiritually (not from my church, but through a regional network of women in ministry). Looking back now I can see that as I sought to bless others, the blessings came back around at me tenfold!

Photo Credit: Unsplash/Alexis Brown 

Every one of us is wounded in some way. It’s inevitable on this earth. And every one of us feels lonely at times. Become a blessing to someone else by taking one of the reasons for your loneliness and turning it into a ministry to others. For example, are you lonely because you’re a widow? What can you do to encourage other new widows in your neighborhood or church? Are you lonely because you lost your job and you feel invaluable? Look for ways to support others who are in the same situation and start collecting resources and ways to help one another. Are you lonely because you’re new in your community? You aren’t the only one. Find others who are new to the area and share a need to connect and make friends.

Look at how you can get outside of your comfort zone and pour into someone else’s life instead of waiting for them to pour into yours. As you do, you will not only experience joy, but you will be living out the truth and power behind 2 Corinthians 1:4 which tells us God “comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (ESV).

6. Start a gratitude journal.

Attitude is everything. If you wake up in the morning grateful to be alive, grateful for what you do have rather than looking at what you don’t, it will completely change your day and your perspective and may even help you become a person who draws others toward you because of your grateful, optimistic spirit. Even if you don’t feel you have much to be grateful for right now, as you begin to follow God’s command in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 to “give thanks in all circumstances” – even the difficult ones – God will honor that and perhaps eliminate your feelings of loneliness altogether.

You can keep a gratitude journal by daily spending time with God and in addition to recording what you are thankful for, making a list, or setting goals of what you’d like to accomplish in terms of impacting others or growing spiritually. A good reading plan, while making entries in your journal, is to go through the Psalms – all songs written and sung by real people who felt many of the same emotions you do (like loneliness, discouragement, and confusion). As you read through the Psalms, paraphrase and personalize them in your journal and your gratitude journal can also become your personal praise book as you dialogue with God through the Scriptures. A person of praise attracts others toward them. Pretty soon others will be asking to spend a little time with you.

Many times, loneliness happens because we’ve lost someone we love, or we feel we are no longer loved. Yet this is a special time to draw closer to the One who has never left us nor forsaken us (Hebrews 13:5). After a breakup in my 20s with the man I believed I would one day marry, I was lonelier than I had ever been in my life. Yet, it was also the season in which I drew the closest to my heavenly “husband” (Isaiah 54:5). When no one else is occupying our time or possessing our hearts, we can get to know God in ways we never had before. We can put ourselves in the position to hear His voice, follow His lead, experience His presence, and come up closer to His heart than we’ve ever been.

Psalm 139:7-12 assures us there is nowhere we can go where His love will not follow, no place we can hide where His love will not pursue. Even Romans 8:38-39 comforts us with the promise that nothing on this earth (including anything we’ve ever done or ever will do) can keep His pursuing love from us. That is a companionship, security, peace, and protection with which no relationship on this earth can compare. Don’t you want to get to know that love better? This can be a precious time to do so. James 4:8 encourages us with the words: “Come near to God and he will come near to you.” And in Jeremiah 29:13, God promised: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

For more on growing closer to God through your alone times, see Cindi’s best-selling book, When Women Walk Alone, now available in a limited edition at an economy-sensitive price.

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