25th Sunday in Ordinary Time
R. The Lord is near to all who call upon Him.
Written by Ally Gary
Recently, the Surgeon General of the United States released an advisory listing loneliness as a public health crisis. According to the research done in the past twenty years, the average American lives a life of increased isolation and desolation, which increases the risk of premature death by sixty percent. At first glance, this news may seem like an overreaction. Or you may question why human bodies are put under so much stress during periods of loneliness.
The answer, of course, is that we were created to be communal beings. This problem of loneliness was something God recognized back at the inception of humanity–Adam, despite having all of his physical needs met by everything in the Garden of Eden, was still unhappy because he felt alone. Therefore, God created Eve, so that Adam would never feel that despair.
God saw the need in humanity for companionship and satisfied it. He did not let Adam wander around waiting to see if he could figure it out on his own. And just as God attended to Adam’s needs then, He attends to our needs now.
If you’re like me, you struggle to ask for help. You are worried that reaching out to others will make you seem like a burden to them and this probably trickles into your relationship with God. For some reason, I wanted to solve all my problems first so that I could return to God and give Him thanks. I wanted to show Him that I was grateful for how He worked in my life, but I was not willing to ask Him to work in the first place. I did not want to make myself a burden to God.
Through some intense therapy and a lot of prayer, I realized that being a burden is alright. In fact, in order to show and give love, I had to accept that I would be asking other people and God to see me at my worst and love me anyway. I would sit in adoration and just lay everything out to God–the good, the bad, and the ugly. I would ramble a lot. Suddenly, I started seeing God everywhere, not just at the end of things.
God created us to be in communion with one another and with Him. Loneliness comes when we are fearful of reaching out, because there is vulnerability in putting ourselves on the line for someone else to see. The beauty of God’s love is in the great desire He has to be close to us. The Lord is near to all who call upon Him. How will you call upon God this week?
Allyson Gary has been working in ministry for the last ten years. She spends her free time writing, cooking for her friends, and psychoanalyzing Taylor Swift’s lyrics. Find her on Instagram.
Pray with today’s psalm.