Embarking On the Sweetest Loneliness

Sweetest loneliness with the Lonely Shepherd,

Comes the time... now,

Together, alone, we walk gently by the stream.

Jesus, my Saviour, for Whom I do so esteem,

You bring my soul to completion this moment,

Even as if it were the surest dream.

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Sadness within the purest loneliness invites us to enter the Presence of God... and there can be no better experience... paradox of paradoxes... ironies sweeping past ironies... the worst brings the best into view.

How do we get our heads around this fact, that there is a lonely place that really is never better? We have to experience it to believe that, surely.

Embarking on the sweetest loneliness is willingly entering in on the heart of God – to receive the invitation that exists and persists eternally – to come home within the communion moment.

Journeying with the Lonely Shepherd

We may not be used to thinking in terms of God as a lonely shepherd, but in such a case as seeking our souls he can be seen to be just that – forever lonely in seeking us out, to commune with us.

This is not about a lonely emotion within the heart of God, but it does resonate with the sense of desire God has that we would come home.

God has journeyed with us since before our birth and he journeys with us after our death. But we do not always journey with God; like the proverbial footprints in the sand, God walks most of the journey alone, carrying us – when we would be doing our own thing.

Journeying with the Lonely Shepherd, therefore, is our opportunity to not only return to God what rightfully belongs to him – us, of ourselves – but to be blessed, also, by knowing the richness of God-felt Presence in our loneliness moments.

At the end of ourselves is the power of God, and we redeem this power in the foreclosure of our insistence to run the other way. When we are willingly lonely with the Lord, we are graced by his Presence.

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Sadness within the purest loneliness invites us to enter the Presence of God... and there can be no better experience... paradox of paradoxes... ironies sweeping past ironies... the worst brings the best into view.

Loneliness can be like a gateway into the heart of God, where we present as we are, with nothing added; where we do not hide from our loneliness. We let it be. In such a place we are safe; it’s a sanctuary where God heals us for that moment.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.