The Bible is about loneliness. Can loneliness be a good thing? Why God gives loneliness
Archpriest Alexander Shestak
What is loneliness?
Each of us has at least once experienced a situation in which we felt abandoned, and, above all, by our loved ones. This sometimes brings tears to my eyes. And if a loved one leaves, then it’s almost a tragedy, and you want to howl or cry bitterly because he (or she) suddenly finds himself without his other half. According to one lonely woman, she is ready to cling, like an autumn leaf, to any passing back, or to constantly catch someone’s eye with one goal, so that they will notice, so that they will somehow guess that besides them there is also her, who needs the very least - communication, even just drinking tea together - and happiness for the whole day.
It’s strange, but lonely old women or old people who have children and grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren, feel exactly the same way. But they live alone and suffer because neither their children nor grandchildren even invite them to visit. And they don’t call and aren’t interested in your health, and they won’t think that maybe this old woman or this frail old man died a long time ago and the smell of death hovers in their one-room apartments.
How scary it is to be alone... And every year loneliness becomes more and more intolerable torment. This is probably why they get cats or dogs - at least some kind of living creature in the house. And if you look closely at this prose of our life, you will very soon find the reasons for this state. Its roots are bashfully hidden in the egoistic film of a person’s proud soul. When, in your still young years, you pass by, wasting your health and mental strength on nothing, without noticing your lonely neighbor on the landing. And you remember him when an ambulance or another car arrives to take away forever what is left of a person who has passed into another world unnoticed by anyone.
Or do you treat your own children in such a way that, upon reaching a certain adulthood and material independence, they literally run away from their home with one goal - to gain freedom, so that they are not bullied every day for every little thing, and to finally feel like a human being, and not the fruit of the dictatorial love of parents.
However, it is not only the elderly who suffer from loneliness. The feeling of loneliness has become a kind of disease in modern society.
Even very young people often complain of loneliness, although outwardly everything is fine with them: family, children, but, nevertheless, a feeling of loneliness periodically arises not only among adult family members, but even among children. In teenagers, this feeling appears after they irritably tell their parents: “Don’t teach me how to live!” And very little ones, recently born, cry because they are not picked up for a long time, and already at this infancy they unknowingly suffer from loneliness.
Another very young girl lives in a large and seemingly friendly family. And, nevertheless, she also suffers from this feeling, although she is not soon to get married.
Even in the families of priests the same problems occur. One woman, a relative of the priest’s wife, while on a pilgrimage trip, shared her observation: the mother was completely taken up with the children, there were practically no helpers, and, despite the large family, she felt simply abandoned. Of course, the priest has a lot of worries, and he is always in public. Everyone loves him, and he loves everyone, and everyone needs him... But at home he is completely different, as if someone is replacing him: not only is he strict, but sometimes he can even be angry, and his words are so prickly. And he justifies his attitude towards her and his elder by the fact that he is raising not a mother’s boy, but a warrior - in severity and unquestioning obedience. Is it really that modest seminarian whom she once chose as her husband - and he has changed so much, even if he gets a divorce? Where will you go with small children? So he humbles himself.
How can this be, can you believe it? The saint wrote about this: “...if your children are evil, then your grandchildren will be the worst, and your great-grandchildren will be the worst. An evil father will not teach his son good, and so evil will grow until it is eradicated by the judgment of God; and the root and beginning of all this evil is our evil upbringing.”
It’s hard to get married, no matter how married you are, this Russian proverb is so accurate. Maybe that’s why Orthodox girls are careful and don’t throw themselves on the neck of the first person they come across. They don’t risk starting a conversation first. And even if they talk about any topics, the question of marriage is bypassed on the tenth route, so that no one could even think that she likes some young man. So she sits at home alone, and suffers from loneliness.
Of course, if love touches young hearts, then the words will come naturally, and no special words are needed. You just need to see these eyes, these beautiful faces of two people who don’t notice anyone around them, and they don’t need anything else... You’ve seen the faces of lovers - they are always beautiful, they glow. And they walk around happy until the wedding. As a rule, they are then happy, until old age, and everything is fine with them, and loving children, and grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren.
It happens, however, differently. They live a little - the first two or three weeks, and then suddenly their character appears. Everyone has their own. Then it turns out that he snores at night, and you have to get used to it somehow. And she loves to go shopping. Then it suddenly turns out that she doesn’t know how to cook lunch; at best, she can make sandwiches. Then she suddenly catches his glance at other women, even a fleeting glance. She doesn’t have jealousy yet, it will come, but doubt is already creeping in. Every day more and more unread pages are opened, and not always pleasant ones. Some people are not surprised by this prose of life. You can get used to everything if there is love, but if there is none, then this prose of life gradually begins to truly depress. And a feeling of loneliness appears, just at the moment when love subtly dissolves in everyday trials.
And there are families without children. At first there are no big problems: they live, as they say, for their own pleasure. But every year this pleasure disappears and the moment comes when a question arises. Why can’t they, so young, healthy and strong, give birth to a child? Believers find the answer relatively quickly - which means they need to change their lives, get rid of some sins, or it is God’s will and they need to be patient and wait for God’s mercy. Most likely, these young people are not yet quite ready to have a child for some reason. And the Lord hesitates to fulfill their request. And this is also a kind of loneliness.
In such a situation, people often begin to think: “Perhaps we should take the child from the orphanage and raise him, and replace his natural mother and father?” But are young people ready for such a feat?
Anyone who has been to children's institutions knows how difficult the soul reacts to such a visit. It is enough to cross the threshold of an orphanage, and forty pairs of curious eyes are already looking at you, and almost everyone tries on themselves as an adopted son or daughter. Someone may even come up and say: “Take me with you, I will be very obedient.” Such cases were reported by those who had already visited these institutions, including on official duty. Children try to use every opportunity to be taken into a family, even if it’s incomplete, but they are taken so that suddenly a mother can be found, and even better, a father too. How can you refuse here, and if you refuse, what will you answer to your heart, which will ache for some unknown reason. This is not some kind of dog or an abandoned cat, which you also remember and cannot forget the cat’s eyes, waiting for at least the touch of a hand or something edible.
It’s not for nothing that the language has the word “gender”, which means a group of only men or only women. But this is also half of the whole, for neither a man nor a woman can form a whole in their solitude.
Is there any way out of loneliness? Without sacrifice - nothing.
A person in whom the pride of an egoist sits deeply gets used to living alone because he is so comfortable, because he cannot come to terms with the fact that someone will be nearby and demand his time, his attention, and perhaps even begin to command, subjugate yourself, your whims and habits, and without love you can endure this only if this someone is your own mother or father, brother or sister.
This is probably why there are so many divorces; two loneliness, two people cannot get along, each of whom is looking for his own benefit, his own pleasure from life, but only until life itself makes serious demands on them. And then this cohabitation crumbles into dust, two loneliness scatter and each rush into their former shell until the next meeting with the same loneliness. There is no family here, there is ordinary cohabitation. In our society, a morally tolerant lifestyle of young people who allow themselves everything without being married has quite openly developed. They are also lonely, realizing that their relationship is temporary. Girls and women suffer especially from this, almost always striving to start a family and have children.
And how do those who have chosen loneliness as the only way to save their souls live? How do monks live? To answer this question, you must be a monk, otherwise all the answers will be far from the truth.
From literature, including fiction, we know about the difficulties of monastic life. How amazing for us are the examples of the holy saints of God - St. Sergius of Radonezh and. After all, they literally doomed themselves to loneliness: they set up their cells in the deep forests and prayed day and night, not fearing either cold or heat, eating what God would send. To enter a monastery and take monastic vows, you must be ready to die for the world. They will give you another name, but yours will disappear into oblivion and will remain only in the passport and other government records, and the surname will be mentioned in parentheses after the name given at the time of tonsure.
But what does it mean to die to the world? Forget all your friends and even relatives and move from a comfortable apartment to some kind of cell? But this life will someday come to its last frontier, and then real loneliness will come, when a monk or nun, burdened with illness and fairly old, will face not an imaginary, but a very real death. The imaginary loneliness will end with a meeting alone at the last minute. A man dies alone, just as mortals have always died and are dying, and the soul trembles from the horror of a mortal and his loneliness.
Our Lord God Jesus Christ himself, when he was crucified on the Cross, also experienced a feeling of loneliness and abandonment. In the Gospel of Matthew we read: “...about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice: My God, My God! Why have you forsaken me? (Matt. 27:46). Blessed Theophylact, Archbishop of Bulgaria, explains these words of the Savior as follows: “...He is a true man, and not a ghostly one, for man, being a lover of life, by nature wants to live. Therefore, just as in the case when He grieved and yearned, He showed in Himself the fear of death that is naturally characteristic of us, so now, when He says: Why have you forsaken Me? - discovers in Himself a natural love for life."
How to avoid feelings of loneliness? Is there any medicine of a spiritual nature?
The Holy Fathers of the Church, and not only them, say that there is. And we hear about this almost every time we are in church at a service, when they sing or read texts filled with the divine love of our Lord Jesus Christ for us sinners. Do we remember our Guardian Angel? But he is always there, we just forget about him, and therefore we do not turn to him for help, because our spiritual life, at best, is limited to church and worship. And therefore we do not feel his constant presence. It is he who will accompany the soul of the deceased after earthly life, so that it will not be afraid of the picture of the Last Judgment. We even forget about it when we are faced with a choice: to commit a sin or to abstain from it. In this situation, each person is somewhat alone, because no one will decide for him whether to sin or not to sin. Moreover, he even forgets to pray for advice and help from God, his Guardian Angel, or simply his spiritual mentor. And after committing a sin, he suffers because the feeling of loneliness intensifies, and the person wants to hide from people, like Adam and Eve tried to hide from God after the Fall.
Together with the Guardian Angel, the holy saint of God, whose holy name he bears, prays for every baptized person. The Most Holy Theotokos herself extends her honest Veil over every lost soul, because the Lord God Jesus Christ loves everyone immeasurably. Here it is, the cure for loneliness - fulfill God’s commandments, love your neighbor, ask the Lord for help - and you are no longer alone.
Love is the sure cure for loneliness. Even if you feel very bad and you are in an extreme situation, but you love someone and are trying to help a loved one, or a stranger, or a total stranger, then for the sake of this sacrificial love of yours, the Lord will send you helpers and strengthen your spirit with His grace, with nothing incomparable on earth. To be together with God, to unite with him, means to achieve the Kingdom of God, which is within us. The inability to see God, much less connect with him, is a state of hell.
Lord, save us all from the feeling of abandonment and loneliness!
Creations like the saints of our father. Published by the Synodal Printing House. Moscow, 1889. - P.118.
. Blagovestnik. Book one. Publishing house of the Sretensky Monastery. M., 2000, p.245.
Loneliness - the path to God or the implementation of Satan's prayer?
Today there is a lot of talk about the disunity of people. In the bustle of this world, the problem of human loneliness seems to be as acute as never before. At the same time, you can increasingly meet those who consciously strive for loneliness - they are burdened by relationships with friends, do not want to start a family and exist in their own separate internal space, where they are comfortable and even joyful. Why is loneliness a torment for some, but bliss for others? The editor of the newspaper, Abbot Nektary (Morozov), reflects on how a Christian should properly treat loneliness.
Trouble or blessing?
When it comes to loneliness, we often remember the words of the Bible: It's not good for a person to be alone(Gen. 2 , 18). In my opinion, they should not be taken literally: the Lord saw the Adam He created and, realizing that he lacked something, created a helper for him, Eve. Both Adam and Eve were in God's original creative plan, which existed before the creation of the world and anything that came after began to be(In. 1 , 2). We cannot explain why it happened this way and why exactly two, he and she, were created. It can be assumed, according to our human reasoning, that it would be very difficult for one person after falling away from God. Someone may object: after all, it was Eve who tempted Adam, which means that without her there would have been no Fall. However, it is obvious that one person does not need another in order to be tempted. Adam initially carried within himself the possibility of falling, so the serpent would have found a different approach to his heart. But after the Fall, it would probably have been more difficult to get out of the state in which a person found himself alone, which is why Adam and Eve found themselves needing each other.
The feeling of loneliness is a consequence of the Fall; before it, a person was able to feel the constant presence of God in his life in a direct way, which now we are able to do very, very rarely and to the very minimum extent. As soon as a person dissolved his union with God, he became lonely. Therefore, no matter how many helpers or close people there are around, even if they are truly loving, attentive, caring, still, as long as a person lives on earth, loneliness to some extent will be his lot. After all, even the closest and dearest people who understand us and give us much-needed warmth cannot always be there and cannot fully relieve us of the feeling of loneliness. Because in everyone’s heart there is such a depth to which no other person can go down with him. And this is the depth of joy that we can still share with someone. This is the depth of sorrow. When we experience grief, extreme mental pain, we find ourselves face to face with the abyss of our own suffering heart. But it is there that the Lord meets a person, and at this meeting with God, while being with God, loneliness disappears.
We can say that a person’s ability to feel lonely is a huge blessing - after all, it is this feeling that should lead him to God. St. Augustine wrote: “God created us for Himself, and until then my heart is troubled until it rests in my God.” The abyss of the human heart can only be filled by the abyss of the Divine, and only God can give a person everything that he needs. Man is created so amazingly - he will always either seek God and in Him find a way out of his loneliness, or he will suffer and suffer from loneliness.
Not contrary to design
The biblical words that it is not good for a person to be alone refer primarily to marriage, but nevertheless they can and should be understood more broadly. The fact that a person is alone and has no one very often means that he does not love anyone, lives in himself and for himself. Anyone who loves people and knows how to value them, as a rule, even if he is alone in this life, does not suffer from loneliness, because the whole world is in front of him and he feels unity with this world created by God. But when a person is fixated on himself and does not notice those around him, he becomes truly painfully lonely.
It also happens, of course, that a person is truly attentive to people, he has many relatives and friends, but he cannot find a spouse for himself and suffers. Such loneliness can hardly be called good. But the fact is that God has a certain plan for every person, without exception. And this plan did not appear simultaneously with the birth of this man into the world, but existed initially even before the creation of the universe. This is the eternity of each of us: I will not only always be, but in some sense I have always been - present in God’s intention. Therefore, a person’s torment from the absence of something or someone in his life occurs because he is trying to live contrary to the Lord’s plan for him. There is the will of God, which gives us the best of those opportunities that we could find in this life. And if we don’t receive something, then one of two things: either God has some other plan for us, or there is something in ourselves that prevents God from giving us what we want and ask for.
Sometimes a person lives with clearly defined instructions for himself: I must start a family, give birth and raise children, plant a tree, buy a car, an apartment, achieve this and that at work. And he just can’t complete any of these tasks, and suffers from fruitless efforts. And the other simply tries to reveal himself to the maximum extent in everything that the Lord has given him and to which his activities extend. And everything happens on its own: he meets his life partner, everything works out with work, and everything else gets settled. It’s just that when we become fixated on one thing, even the necessary and important, and begin to demand it from life, from God at all costs, we don’t get it. We need to be able to accept the gifts that the Lord gives us, to be grateful for them, and He will give us much more - perhaps, including what we so desire. And the fact that a person categorically wants something that the Lord does not yet consider useful for him is the essence of unfaithfulness to God.
How to come to the feeling of loneliness as a blessing, and not a torment? There is only one path to this, indicated by the Apostle Paul: to those who love God all things work together for good(Rome. 8 , 28). The same things can both create and destroy a person, depending on his ability or inability to see the hand of God, the gift of God, in what is happening to him.
Lonely but united
The fact that today many people are fatally alone with that painful and evil loneliness from which they go crazy, commit suicide and die is not an illusion. The world is aging and one way or another approaching its end—close or not—and it is natural that this movement is filled with all those processes that the Lord warns about in the Gospel: both the diminishing of faith and the impoverishment of love. Our time is characterized not just by the flourishing of pride, but by a downright painful falling in love of people with themselves. And the more a person loves himself, the more lonely he is. The reluctance to notice anyone around is the implementation of Satan’s prayer in a person’s life, one might say so. We remember the so-called high priestly prayer of Christ the Savior, in which He says: Father (...) may they all be one(In. 17 , 21). The will of God is that the people He created, lonely by nature, should nevertheless be united in love, in their faith in Him, and form a single whole - the Church. But we know that Satan asked for power sow these of people created for unity, like wheat(see: Lk. 22 , 31), that is, to scatter us in different directions, so that we do not abide with each other in Christ’s love. Therefore, the one who rejects himself from unity fulfills precisely this request and, of course, falls into a very evil, disastrous state.
Why does the prayer that the Lord gives us begin with the words “Our Father”? Many interpreters have paid attention to this - namely “ours”. Not “mine” only - no, ours. We are Family. Only through this understanding, this feeling does a person take the path of salvation, but as long as “mine”, “mine”, “me”, “me”, he remains outside the path of salvation.
Photos from open Internet sources
Newspaper "Orthodox Faith" No. 9 (533)
Answered by the rector of the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Khokhly (Moscow):
– A person may ask the same question: “Why is this happening to me?” in completely different, diametrically opposed cases. It’s one thing to have some kind of everyday, current troubles, annoyance at oneself, at the inability to cope with basic things. The other is global, serious, existential issues, such as loneliness, loss of a loved one.
That is, it’s one thing when a heel breaks while a woman is rushing to a meeting with her boss, but in the end she is late and loses an excellent vacancy. Then the question is also asked: “Why did this happen to me?” It’s pointless and stupid to answer it, because... it’s pointless and stupid. But we cannot ignore serious issues, such as the question of Elena, who really wants to have a family, strives for marriage, has maintained chastity, lives among good and kind people and who, in general, is not deprived of anything in comparison with others. But something doesn't add up. What's wrong with her and why? How should she accept this will of God within herself? Is this even God's will?
Here another question arises: is there even God’s will for suffering, for loneliness, for anything else that brings pain to a person? And this is a cardinal question.
I don't think it is God's will for people to suffer. It is not God's will for little children to die from terrible diseases. It is not God’s will for people to remain lonely and suffer from this, because the Lord Himself said: “It’s not good for a person to be alone"(Gen. 2:18)
It is not God's will for people to be disabled. It is not God’s will for people to be unhappy, for people to be born into defective families. And for children to suffer because their parents don’t love them.
So you can’t ask the question “How to accept God’s will”? If the question is posed this way, then we shouldn’t be surprised when people from the outside ask us: “Why do you have such a strange faith?”
If we assume that there is God’s will for some negative, tragic phenomena, we must answer: “Everything happens because it is God’s will.” And how blasphemous it will sound that there is God’s will for the death of babies, for cancer, for the brutal murders of innocent people, for wars, for lies, for deception, for betrayal, for treason, for crimes. How could this be God’s will?!
Change the picture of the world...
Let us remember the Gospel story about the healing of a blind man, about whom the disciples asked the Lord: “Rabbi! Who sinned, he or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered: “Neither he nor his parents sinned, but this was so that the works of God might be revealed in him” (John 9:1-3).
The Lord comes to heal him. But the Lord comes not to heal one particular blind man and not to heal all the blind people in the world. And in order to change the picture of the world. So that in general blindness, deafness, dumbness and everything else cease to be the law, the norm of this world.
The Lord takes upon himself the sins of this world on the Cross, redeems this world with His own blood, resurrects and gives this world Eternal Life, where there is no illness, no sorrow, no sighing, but only the great bliss of man’s presence in fullness, beauty, happiness and love .
After the Resurrection of Christ, people did not stop being born with diseases, they did not stop fighting and killing each other. But people can stop doing this if they finally become Christians. And in general, when people become Christians (for real, not nominally), life changes.
Perhaps their outer shell does not change, people do not cease to be people with all the consequences of human life. But a person who is truly connected with God changes greatly. He ceases to be blind, deaf, and dumb internally, because he comes to life. Although physical life remains the same. Perhaps the hardships of this life are physically getting worse for Christians. But inwardly a Christian is renewed from day to day. As the Apostle Paul says, if the old decays, then inwardly it is renewed.
There will be no more questions
When a person finds himself in a difficult situation, or when something extraordinary happened to him, and at the same time in his life he was able to feel the presence of God, to feel that God is with him, next to him, he no longer asks God questions. He doesn’t ask why this happened to him.
It so happened that in the last few years I have often had to communicate with children with severe cancer. During this time, many have already gone to God.
I talk to them about the Kingdom of Heaven, about whether they feel the presence of God in their lives. And for me it is always some kind of miracle, a discovery, when I hear from these very small, but very real Christians that they feel this presence of God very clearly, very close. When they are able, for example, in situations where they have to endure terrible pain, fight and try not to show these pains to their parents. And the main thing is that these children (this will not reveal the secret of personal confession) repent in confession that they do not have the strength to endure pain and their parents, seeing their suffering, suffer themselves. It is clear to me that he and God are very close.
Of course, situations are different. There are children who are 16-17 years old, they are very depressed from what is happening. They cannot fully accept much, but they try. They try, realizing that the hour of death is near. Their parents are also trying.
Recently I told one mother: “Be strong.” And she answers me with a smile: “What are you talking about, I accepted everything a long time ago.” And such peace is visible, peace in her soul from the fact that for her God is nearby. Despite the fact that she has a tragedy, it is simply scary for an outsider to look at a child in his stage of illness.
If a person is not a doctor, not a priest, not a parent, it is difficult to be around for more than a few minutes, seeing such a little person suffering.
Is this suffering the will of God?
Can this be accepted as the will of God?
Is it possible to accept God into your life?
How to do it?
Don't know.
How do these people do it?
Can not say.
I don’t have a method, a magic formula, a ready-made recipe.
It is very important if a person is able, in a situation of grief, misunderstanding of God, in a situation where life seems completely meaningless and useless to him, to think: “How can I get to know God better, how can I accept God, how can I receive this Light from Him so that , having enlightened me, removed this question from me.” Because this issue cannot be resolved. There is no answer to this. And if you ask it constantly, there will still be no answer, but there will be a constant state of despondency, a heartbreaking state of irresponsibility. But you can remove this question from your life.
The world we live in is completely distorted, it’s like a minefield, like a battlefield. Where can you find something like that, some kind of oasis where you can sit quietly until the Last Judgment? There is no such place on Earth.
And here the words of Kierkegaard are very important to me: if a person treats God as Power, as Reason, as such a Miracle, which one must always focus on, then a person must somehow try to understand God all the time: why is this so? why this happens. So as not to make a mistake before such a Powerful, Reasonable, Super-just and such a Correct God. But if “God is Love” (1 John 4:16), then it’s not at all scary not to understand Him. You just need to learn to feel this Love, be able to get closer to this Love, so that it truly deeply touches the human heart. Because if it touches the heart, then, firstly, a person then begins to have a different attitude towards the Gospel, towards his religious life, towards himself. And, of course, he begins to relate to God differently.
So a person needs to make up his mind and accept God into his heart.
Folklore
The idea that God sends some kind of tests to the one whom He loves most is folklore, like ditties. It’s like there is no cross beyond our strength, God sends us only tests within our strength.
Forgive me, the Gospel is what you can do?!
How can we say such nonsense that the cross is not unbearable?
Yes, the cross is always overwhelming. There is no cross that is feasible.
But these words: “Whoever wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Mark 8:34) – is this possible?
Is it possible for a person to hear such words?
Can he do something on his own without letting God into his life?
If so, then perhaps there is some other “gospel” that everyone can do. There is a “gospel” adapted in human minds, where Christianity and national ideas are approximately the same thing; where our folk traditions and, in general, the traditions of centuries and life in Christ are one and the same. Yes, if this is the “gospel”, then it is quite possible. The “gospel” of traditions, the “gospel” of statutes, the “gospel” of imperial-power consciousness, the “gospel” of anything. Only Christ in His Gospel did not say anything about traditions or national ideas.
When everything is right
Often a person thinks: “I’m doing everything right, why does this end up happening to me?”
But our life does not depend on what we do right or what we do wrong.
Yes, in the categories of Old Testament justice, such an establishment, so to speak, of the rules of the road, of course, works. If you go to the left, you will lose this, if you go to the right, you will lose that. Better go straight. It's hard, but at least it's correct. “See that you do as the Lord your God commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left; walk in the way that the Lord your God commanded you, that you may live and prosper, and may live long in the land which you will receive to possess” (Deuteronomy 5:32-33).
But what did the apostles do that was so bad and wrong that each of them was executed with terrible, terrible torture, that throughout their entire apostolic life they were constantly stoned, humiliated, imprisoned, and persecuted? Why didn't they have a normal family life? Why didn’t they have a good apartment, a dacha within easy reach of the center of Moscow, a good car, a job, a salary, a pension and respect from the population?
I repeat, what did they do wrong? Whoever can answer this question will probably answer what he himself is doing right or wrong.
As for the main question we are discussing: “Why is this happening in my life?” – I repeat, there is no answer to this.
There is only one possibility - to remove this issue from the agenda. It can only be removed when a person is very close to God.
Loneliness is not sweet for every person. But it is especially sad for women. Her calling is to live for someone. This is the meaning of her existence and the path of salvation. She was created as a helper, as a second person. And what does it feel like for her when there is no object of care? A woman is born with the need to love. The nature of love is unusually strong even in the most selfish and selfish woman. The mental world of a woman with such a character is restless and unbalanced. Because she lives in disagreement with her nature.
Speaking about Christian marriage, the Apostle addresses husbands: Husbands, love your wives (Eph. 5:25). And then he repeats this repeatedly. The Apostle never addresses the commandment about love to wives. A man, to some extent, forces himself to love; his love is more conscious. Women's love is more natural. She, as the Russian philosopher says, is destined “to be a living source of love.”
In marriage, a woman's vocation is realized more simply and naturally. However, not everyone is blessed with a happy marriage. What about those who haven’t found a groom or have gone through a divorce or lost their spouse? Do not perceive your situation as an absolute misfortune, a failure in life, the collapse of all hopes and aspirations. Remember that there is nothing random in the world. Everything that happens to us is the good will of God. Any of our everyday misfortunes, including loneliness, is more likely not a punishment, but a call. And perhaps the love of a lonely girl or woman is capable of more than a family. The object of her love and care may be the Lord Himself. The Gospel tells of a woman who bought a vessel with fragrant myrrh at a great price and, breaking it, poured myrrh on Jesus. Someone began to grumble about this, in his opinion, irrational waste of money that could have been distributed to the poor. But Jesus said: Leave her; Why are you embarrassing her? She did a good deed for Me. For you always have the poor with you and, whenever you want, you can do them good; but you don’t always have Me. ... Truly I say to you: wherever this Gospel is preached throughout the whole world, it will be said in her memory what she did (Mark 14: 6-9). And for almost two millennia, Christians around the world have been edified by her deed. Now we cannot serve Christ directly, as that woman did, but we can serve His Church. And if we take the women’s ministry of the Church, then it has always been and is. It’s easier for single people, of course. The unmarried woman is concerned about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord, ... but the married woman is concerned about the things of the world, how to please her husband (1 Cor. 7:34). The matter is both simple and wise. It is difficult to imagine the life of an Orthodox parish without the active participation of women. Cleaning the church, mending or sewing vestments, cooking, and the parish tables are sometimes very crowded. Then - flower beds, distribution of things and food to the needy, wall newspaper and parish leaflet, accounting. The choir is also mostly female. Prosphora, teaching in Sunday schools. Those who love Christ come and work. And work in the temple, even the simplest, is always creative, because it is for the sake of Christ and before Christ. This is a common prayer, a common cause, and the fact that “no matter how weak and bad we may be individually, it is so joyful to feel that for all of us there is one most important thing” - Christ.
The woman is entrusted with the birth. This is also her calling - to give herself to another being. And for most women, the inability to have children is a tragedy. And Rachel saw that she was not bearing children to Jacob... and she said to Jacob: give me children, and if not, I am dying (Gen. 30: 1). But even here you can rise above the everyday situation to a higher goal. A woman can have children without giving birth to them in the flesh. Good deeds, deeds of mercy, love for God and people are also her children. A woman's story comes to mind. She was married, loved her husband very much, wanted children. But family happiness did not work out. At first, an unsuccessful pregnancy closed the child issue forever. Then illness. To top it all off, my husband left for someone else. Divorce and loneliness. She suffered extraordinarily, especially since she often saw her ex-husband and his wife and knew that they had a child. And she was a teacher and all the love that was not given to be poured out in her family, she gave to other people’s children. Then she started going to church. First out of curiosity. And then, when she became a church member, she found something to do in the parish. She did not leave her schoolchildren, especially children from disadvantaged families, and took them to church services. It was amazing to see how these poorly educated children, actually abandoned by their parents, obeyed her. They didn’t make any noise, they stood patiently in place. And this is on your legal day off! Only love can give such authority. And then - many years of teaching at the parish Sunday school. In the beginning, when there were no methods, every lesson had to be invented and created by yourself. Then - catechist courses. Moreover, she “gave birth” to the parish theater. Would a family woman have enough time and energy for this? She is alone, but not lonely; the words of the Apostle are especially suitable for her: she who is abandoned has many more children than she who has a husband (Gal. 4:27).
Loneliness is a challenge. Not everyone manages to pass it correctly. How many human tragedies are behind the self-confidence brought up by a godless world: “I, too, have the right to my female happiness!” How many women defend their “right” to a man in every possible way. When it happens to point out the sinfulness of meetings with a married man, or of prodigal cohabitation, most often you hear these very words about the right to a woman’s happiness. Often the position of getting one’s “female happiness” at any cost justifies the destruction of someone else’s family, depriving children of their father, and turning to sorcerers and magic. And all this is done “in the name of love”! The magic word that justifies crime and stupidity. And it has nothing to do with true love! Once, a friend brought a young man to me and said that they were going to get married. She asked to bless and marry. Of course, it is difficult to penetrate into the future, but their union seemed so unreasonable, so absurd, and the decision was too quick that I asked them to postpone the event for a couple of months. Then the bride said: “And I ask you to bless. Because if you don’t bless, we will still do it our way. No blessing." Soon after the marriage, the sorrows according to the flesh promised by the Apostle came (1 Cor. 7:28). And the spouses, as people who had almost nothing in common and hardly knew each other, were unable to resist temptations. And the “female happiness” of the ex-wife was embodied in a bitter painful experience, which perhaps (God willing) will stop her in the future.
Family happiness cannot be the lot of everyone. There have always been lonely women. Wars, accidents, and diseases take the lives of men much more often than women. Hence the shortage of grooms and frequent widowhood. And there were always wise wives and maidens who, in their loneliness, knew how to see not deprivation, but a calling. “When a person finds the strength to agree to a test sent by God, he takes a huge step forward in his spiritual life.” Correctly managing the state of loneliness means trying to become like the love of God in your human love. Selflessly pouring it out to everyone who needs it. Such loneliness can lift a person to a new level of communication with God. And the Lord Himself will bring him closer to Himself, for God brings the lonely into the house (Ps. 67:7).
Article from the magazine "Slavyanka" No. 4 (46) for 2013
The feeling of loneliness can be different, sometimes it can be false. I have met people who had many friends, but they still felt lonely. So there is an imaginary loneliness associated with the fact that a person wants to be given a lot of attention, to be loved, but he himself does not know how to live the lives of other people, does not strive to love, is self-centered, fixated only on himself and exaggerates his feelings, sorrows , experiences...I think that before Christ came into the world, all people were unhappy, all people suffered: whether they were married or not married, whether they got married or not, whether they were rich or poor, hungry or well-fed, sick or healthy - all the same, suffering appeared inescapable, suffering remained insurmountable... Sin distorted the world. The Lord gave Adam a wife - and the man felt good, but when sin entered the world, the soul of a person, even one who has a wife and children, still cannot find peace, and therefore what comes forward here is not the problem of loneliness, but the problem sin. And if a person struggles with his sin, if he seeks Christ, unites with Christ, then loneliness can be overcome, like any other tragedy of earthly human life, just as a person can overcome the tragedy of poverty, hunger or mortal illness if he knows Christ and seeks Christ if he thirsts spiritually and not materially. We know that among the saints many were very seriously ill. Such sickly saints suffered greatly, endured a lot, and yet they were still joyful and found bliss, found happiness not only in heaven, but also in earthly life. Likewise, a person, if he believes in Christ, then for the sake of Christ he is even ready to GIVE UP earthly happiness.
Just as there are voluntary and involuntary martyrs, so there are monks called to the feat of a lonely life, and those who freely chose this path, and those who did not choose this path, involuntarily living in chastity. For example, the holy righteous Alexy, the man of God. He voluntarily gave up what many young men and women are now looking for, and was happy to find his bliss in Christ. There were many martyrs who suffered for Christ in the 20th century, but among these new martyrs the Lord, according to Elder Paisius, includes the disabled, the seriously ill, children deprived of consolation, and people who suffer suffering and illness. If a person selflessly, with trust in God, endures all the sorrows sent to him, without complaining, then this is imputed to him as martyrdom.
In reality, here on earth, we all suffer to one degree or another, including from loneliness, the feeling of which can be very difficult and difficult for a person, but if he carries his cross complacently, without grumbling, it becomes for him feat. The most important thing is that after the coming of the Savior into the world, we have the One who calls Himself our Friend - Christ - the One Whom we call, singing the troparion to the Great Martyr Catherine, the Bridegroom, the Heavenly Bridegroom. And communication with Christ helps a person overcome loneliness, and the joy of being with Christ is much greater than the joy of being with the closest person. And here natural loneliness is overcome by supernatural communication with Christ, and a person makes up for what he lacks by nature, what he lacks according to the ordinary laws of this world, through communication with Christ. Natural loneliness is overcome, and a person finds much more than a friend, much more than a groom, much more than a wife and children - he finds God Himself in his soul.
I believe that all problems of human communication are overcome when a person goes to God. Without raising these problems to another, completely different level, it seems to me impossible to solve them. All the controversial problems of our earthly life, located on its plane, are resolved only when a person goes beyond this plane, when he turns to God in prayer, when his life begins to be built on faith in Christ - then all these issues can be resolved.
The Gospel does not say that we will be loved by other people, although it is said that if a person leaves his father, mother, relatives, he will gain much more than he had. / Compare: Matthew 19:29 / You must be able to do this feat of self-denial, self-sacrifice. When a person stops living for himself and begins to live for others, begins to live for God, he changes and becomes close and interesting to many people. There are such lonely people (lonely in the sense of having no relatives) whom everyone loves very much. I remember, for example, how one woman died. Very often, unfortunately, it happens that for a long time we cannot find a person to help care for dying people. Everyone has their own affairs and worries, and if the patient does not have close relatives, then it is very difficult to organize care for him, and sometimes such care is needed around the clock. So, when this woman was dying, people lined up to watch at her bedside, so everyone felt happy and good with her. Therefore, it is obvious: very often a person is in a difficult state of loneliness only because he does not know how to serve others, does not know how to love and sacrifice himself, but only constantly demands something from others. In this case, you need to learn to live for others. If you have some kind of sorrow, if you are lonely and despondent, you need to find a person whose loneliness is much greater than yours, who is even worse than you, help him, and your loneliness and despondency will definitely pass. As the holy righteous John of Kronstadt said to the holy righteous Alexy Mechev, when he lost his mother: “Go to people and, helping them in their sorrows, you will forget about your sorrow.” So it is here: when a person shares the sorrows of his neighbors, when he helps others in their illnesses and sorrows, then his own sorrow becomes much less: he sees that there are people who suffer much more than he does - and comes to a sober, correct internal state.
For example, an unmarried girl suffering from loneliness... She can go to work as a school teacher and devote her whole life to her students: love these children, who very often have problems, take them into her heart, take care of them, love them, serve them, to help learn... Such a feat may be very difficult, but also joyful if there is love. You need to learn to love - then there will be no loneliness.
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Some people actually have many friends and acquaintances, but they still feel lonely. This, I think, is loneliness without God, without spiritual life, loneliness, perhaps from fatigue, and here we are faced with an imaginary, unreal feeling of loneliness. A person considers this loneliness, but in reality it is something else. I knew one woman who, in confession, constantly complained to me about her loneliness, although she had wonderful sons, one of whom is a priest, a good daughter-in-law, wonderful grandchildren who all loved her. This woman continued to be, in a sense, the center of the whole family, but she still complained of loneliness and said: “All my friends are dead, my husband is not next to me.” She seemed to be missing something. It seems to me that she lacked the correct structure of her soul.
I believe that whenever some kind of sorrow, tragedy or drama befalls us, when we encounter some inconvenience in life or suffer a lack of something, we must not just ask and demand something from God, and think about the reason for what is happening to us. No, let’s say a young girl has a groom. We must not just ask God: “Give me a groom,” but we need to think: “Why doesn’t God give me a groom?” What is the reason for this? Maybe there is something I need to learn before God sends me a spouse? Or maybe my path is different and the Lord is calling me to some other, higher feat? Perhaps other people need me, and not just one person: not the groom, but the same children? For example, the director of our orphanage is a single woman. And if she had a husband, we might not have had an orphanage, because everything rests on her. Some need to sacrifice their personal happiness in order to serve others if we are Christians! There is such a will of God about someone! And the fact that sometimes it is hard and difficult is natural; without difficulties you cannot learn anything. One senior nurse of a hospital ward said that when she encounters problems, obstacles, temptations in her work (she doesn’t want to go to the ward, she’s tired of caring for the sick - nurses have different difficulties) and she gives up, begins to be in a bad mood, goes to his about it, it becomes even worse. But if you still overcome yourself, if you pray to God, ask Him for strength and try to treat your service as responsibly, as seriously as before, then even greater joy comes, even greater grace is given from God and others open up. strength, another skill appears in the soul.
Learning to walk is very difficult. You fall, crawl all the time on the floor on all fours. But if you crawl on all fours, you will never learn to walk. And learning to speak is also sometimes difficult, just like learning to write. In general, acquiring certain skills, and here we are not talking about some natural skills, but about supernatural ones: about love, about real faith - this is always very difficult. But when a person acquires them, these difficulties begin to seem unreal to him and no longer bother him.
Nowadays, you often encounter the fact that a person deliberately remains alone in order to better, as it seems to him, arrange his life - and this, of course, is selfishness. Many modern people now DO NOT even WANT to get married, DO NOT WANT to get married, striving to live the way they like. “I,” they say, “haven’t worked up yet, I haven’t done this, I haven’t achieved anything in life yet. When I achieve something, when I get all the pleasures, then I will look for a wife.” This is a different, sinful lurch in a completely different direction.
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You can understand that this is a wrong relationship this way: if it becomes mental and not spiritual, that is, if attachment, resentment, jealousy, envy appears towards those who take up more time from the confessor, then there is something wrong in this relationship. So, that means there is something wrong in them and we need to fight it.
Regarding the desire to compensate for the lack of communication with people by communicating with animals, it should be said that man is an amazingly rich being; in his life there are various elements, including communication with animals. I know one girl who communicates wonderfully with horses and dogs; she once saved a little crow by bandaging its wing - but all this is not at all a substitute for communicating with friends, since one does not interfere with the other. The human heart is wide enough and can accommodate a lot, the whole variety of relationships with earthly creatures, with the animals that inhabit this world.
I think the feeling of loneliness occurs when a person does not feel the love of God and strives to receive it from other people, but people will never give a person what God can give, so in this case it is best to pray to God. And the Gospel directly tells us: “Do not do good to those who answer you this, but do good to those who cannot answer this.” / Wed: Matt. 5:44-47 / That is, the Gospel calls us to learn selfless love, to rise above the natural order of things that exists in this world. But, on the other hand, due to human frailty, we still need friends. And Christ himself had friends, He called Lazarus His friend / Compare: John. 11.11/, so friendly communication is natural and to some extent necessary.Moreover, in the Church we still try to talk about the spiritual factor, and not the psychological, and friends, first of all, should be close spiritually. The psychological factor takes a back seat: it often happens that completely different people become wonderful friends.
Elder Father Pavel Gruzdev said: “Love everyone and fear everyone.” These words imply some caution and a certain distance in communicating with other people, because communication can be not only love, not only friendship, but also affection and have some distortions.
Sometimes loneliness is good. Sometimes I would really like to be alone, but God doesn’t give me this, because I have to communicate with different people, do many things, and being alone is sometimes useful and necessary. The Gospel says that in order to pray, you need to close the doors, remain alone and turn to God alone / Compare: Matt. 6.6/. The saints sought loneliness, went into the desert, and hid from people in the forests.
Sometimes it’s good for a mother with many children to remain alone for a while, because she also needs to be with God and pray. It is very important for a mother to sometimes be in silence. But at the same time, you need to bear your cross and follow the will of God.
If we talk about real friends, you can find them both at work and during study. One of the graduates of the College of Sisters of Mercy told how she found friends while she was studying at the school. So for young people there is such a way to find comrades: find a place where like-minded people study, where there are people who think the same as you, think the same as you, strive for achievement, seek service to their neighbors...
If you live with God, pray to God, everything can be overcome, and loneliness itself, which is so hard for people to experience, can be for the benefit of a person if he seeks the salvation of his soul, if he is with God.
Marina VASILYEVA, coordinator of the “Mercy” volunteer service: I usually encounter feelings of loneliness not in myself, but in other people: our wards or friends. Moreover, if you can still let your friends read these words (they, as Orthodox people, will try to at least to some extent apply your advice to themselves), then with your wards the situation is much more complicated.
Yes, on the one hand, we (volunteers) are needed in order to, with our presence, communication, and help, make up for the lack of love in our charges as much as we can. On the other hand, their sense of loneliness is often so acute that relationships with volunteers turn into a kind of “terror”, when the volunteer begins to almost be ordered: “come to me every day,” “why don’t you call me every two hours,” etc. P.
We try - again, as much as we can - to promote the churching of these people. But even when it is possible to more or less improve the spiritual side of the life of the wards: they read the Gospel, prayers, regularly receive communion, have the opportunity to talk with the priest - still, loneliness haunts them VERY strongly. Maybe this is some kind of “hunger for love” that is not satisfied even by several years of single life?
If a person lived a spiritual life before he grew old, fell ill, or was left alone, he usually does not have such experiences.
Although probably, in reality, everything is simpler - we are not able to give them true love - it is unlikely that people next to the saints felt their loneliness?
Prot. Arkady SHATOV: Once, one very good priest, Father Alexander Kiselev, said to his interlocutor, who was giving him advice on how not to grieve after the death of his wife: “Yes-ah-ah! It’s easy to give advice, it’s like throwing pebbles down from a bell tower, and following them is like carrying heavy stones from bottom to top up a bell tower!”
The vast majority of our volunteers are young and healthy, and we cannot feel the grief of lonely, abandoned, sick, and elderly people. We can help to the best of our ability, comfort these people, pray earnestly for them, and endure their whims and nagging.
Their suffering should not plunge us into despondency and despair. There is One who loves them more than us and can help them more than us. They accomplish their feat of enduring illness and loneliness, we must support them in this.
Father John (Krestyankin) told me that the task of a nurse is to teach the patient to love his illness and understand its meaning.
I don’t know if there are people among us who could do this. To do this, you need to love your cross yourself, experience illness and sorrow, overcome despondency, and learn to love.
Let us do what we can, let us ourselves try to fulfill the advice of the holy fathers and the Gospel commandments, and place all our and non-our sorrows and sorrows on the Lord, Who has no shortage of love!
Can loneliness be a good thing?
Holy Righteous Elder Theodore of Tomsk Prayer of Saint Theodora
Red bow - Symbol of the victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War