Never Alone: Unpack Loneliness and Revitalize Your HeartSample

Devotional

Community seems like a big word, but it’s really not. The National Alliance on Mental Illness has detailed the critical importance of community on mental health, stating it creates a sense of belonging, support, and purpose: all significant factors in determining a positive quality of life.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the globe, we saw the ramifications of what isolation can do. All over the world, we saw an increase in mental health diagnoses and people needing a doctor for things like back pain and stomach upset. Our bodies manifest stress into physical symptoms, and we saw it vividly on display. Throughout this time, we also saw rates of suicide increase.

We have the power to change how our story goes. If you start feeling unattached or disconnected, reach out to your neighbors, talk to your local businesses or church, and find your community. Wherever they are. Life wasn’t meant to be lived alone, and when you are struggling or experiencing a lonely season, there are people just waiting to step in and help carry you through it, just as God planned all along.

Clinically, working together for the collective good is the goal of many within the mental health field. There’s a reason God commanded us to love our neighbors as the second greatest of His holy commandments (see Matthew 22:36–39).

Wearing horse blinders and only focusing on your three-foot world can, most of the time, do one of two things. One is that you could easily become much more selfishly minded, which leads to a lack of empathy and grace for others. You’re so focused on running your own race you begin trampling over everyone on your path to perceived success. After a time, nothing satisfies, so you could go numb emotionally, which has consequences detrimental to your well-being.

There’s a whole host of mental health disorders accompanying this tendency: post-traumatic stress disorder, schizoid personality disorder, and depression are some of them. Another potential result of your commitment to “go at it alone” can slowly become a mental prison of your own making. You’ll spiral so far out of control you’ll feel like you’re lost in a maze without a true way out.

If we consider the story of Ruth, look at what and how the lack of community impacted Naomi. She became bitter and raged against God. But she was also weathering unimaginable loss without support. Though I am adding to the story, I’d like to assume that had she been surrounded by her community of faith and never left them behind, her reaction to the losses would have been different.

But there again, we see the beauty in what we cannot foresee. Without those hardships, we wouldn’t have Ruth or the really really Good News. We all have stories. How we use our personal struggles and trials is everything.