We put the last suitcase in the car, and I gave Mom one more tight squeeze. Then we were pulling away from the curve, and I was waving goodbye at the corner just before we drove out of sight. There she was, standing alone on the sidewalk.
“That is painful,” I said.
“Yes. That is very painful,” Matt said.
I miss my dad, for sure, but the grief of seeing my mom alone has been even more deeply cutting and unbearable to me.
A few miles down the road, I tried to pull my heart away from the pain, by opening to a book I was reading on my Kindle. The title is Enough., by Helen Roseveare. Helen was a medical missionary to Africa.
On the first page, I read:
Chapter title: Enough in Emotional Support
Question: Can God cope with someone’s loneliness and fearfulness?
Verse: “In that day you will call me husband” (Hos. 2:16).
This was the opening paragraph to the chapter:
Singleness is obviously a problem for many girls, no less on the mission fields than at home. We all have a need for companionship, someone to chat with and share problems with.
Helen went on to write the words God spoke to her heart during a very lonely season of her life:
“Can you not trust me to be the companion you so long for?”
In proof of this companionship, my God showed how close He was to me yesterday. He encouraged me that I was not alone in my sorrow. He assured me that my mom was not alone on that sidewalk.
This was a moment of astounding intimacy with my Creator.
At the same time, the Lord asked me also to look at the coming pain of taking my baby to college in a month. The house is soon going to be very quiet, and already the loneliness wafts across my heart.
The Lord spoke to my heart of the coming opportunity to seek companionship in Him—to discover a richness in relationship with Him that is different than I experienced when I had two little kids to fill my days.
I hope that this fall my husband will see a woman who, between boxes of Kleenex, is deeply satisfied in being with the Lord all day. I hope when he gets home from work he will find a woman who has enjoyed the companionship of her Lord, Jesus Christ.
And what about you? Are you in a lonely season?
Let us pray a simple prayer today:
Be enough for me, Lord.
