Loneliness (June Hunt Hope for the Heart) Read Online Free Page A

couples are not emotionally connected because they do not share their dreams or desires, their trials or temptations, their hurts or hopes. They fail to listen to one another and merely share the roof over their heads.
    Therefore, many couples experience “together loneliness”—being physically together but emotionally estranged and isolated, not feeling understood or appreciated. Instead of feeling wanted inside the warm security of home life, they feel an unwelcome coldness or an apathetic indifference inside their sterile, stymied existence.
    “I lie awake; I have become like a bird alone on a roof.” (Psalm 102:7)
WHY DO People Seem to Be Experiencing More and More Loneliness?
    There are several reasons loneliness is on the increase. 29
People are becoming more urban and less rural.
The closer people live to one another, the more they tend to emotionally isolate from one another.
The further people live from one another, the more they tend to emotionally become closer.
Rural communities have a much greater sense of community than urban communities.
People are much more transient than in years past.
Those who move on a regular basis are reluctant to “put down roots” anywhere.
People who move often “know” more people but don’t know how to “get to know” people in an intimate way.
Frequent movers isolate from others, feeling it is emotionally too painful to get close to people and then have to move away from them.
People place a high value on mobility , privacy, and convenience.
Many people spend their spare time traveling rather than staying home and spending time with their neighbors and friends.
The desire for privacy drives many people to fence themselves in and others out.
Since establishing relationships takes time and energy—which is often inconvenient—many decide it is not worth the trouble.
People are no longer maintaining intact families.
The increased divorce rate fragments families and damages or destroys primary relationships.
Separation of elderly family members from younger members leads to isolation and a crisis in relationship between generations.
Parents having different work schedules become estranged from one another and sometimes from their children.
People are becoming less and less involved in neighborhood churches.
Many churchgoers see and interact with each other only for a limited amount of time when attending weekly church services.
Church “socials” in urban areas are often centered around eating and making light conversation rather than on meeting one another’s emotional needs.
Lack of Christian community leads many members to establish superficial relationships rather than deep, Christ-centered friendships.
    “I am a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my own mother’s sons.” (Psalm 69:8)
WHAT IS the Root Cause of Loneliness?
    The suffering servant laments, longing for days past “when my path was drenched with cream and the rock poured out for me streams of olive oil” (Job 29:6). Prosperity, prestige, peace, no longer flow into Job’s life.
    But he misses something else: the major lesson being reinforced through his trials—the privilege of fellowship with the Lord God Almighty. Wrongly believing that God has abandoned him, Job reminisces about when “God’s intimate friendship blessed my house” (Job 29:4), and it turns out that the traumatic testing and the seeming absence of God has taken a toll.
    Job indeed may be blameless, exhibiting a life characterized by obedience, but he certainly isn’t sinless.
    Pride and rebellion surface as Job’s vehemence in defending his integrity soon malign and misrepresent God, prompting a sharp rebuke from God Himself.
    “Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him! ... Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?” (Job 40:2, 8)
    Job’s story ends with the man of God humbled, repentant, and doubly restored of all he had lost. Job never