I wonder how you make decisions in your life? Have you got any underlying ‘issues’ which have guided decisions unconsciously? I would have said that I did what was needed, or on offer. But in truth there were key points where I clearly made a decision based not on wisdom or full consideration of the truth involved, but because of fear of being alone. I see now that I could have accepted an offer of a temporary lecturers post at a Christian College of Education, following on from an Advanced Diploma at the University of Leeds. This would have set me on a career path I would have enjoyed, with the open door back to faith lived out in the church. But, although still following a teaching career, I chose a path of marriage to a man who had already shown bad temper, and was an ex- catholic atheist. I did not know how to read the signs or to protect myself! But God is faithful, despite my wilfulness, I was upheld in the marriage and taught how to love, forgive and forebear, until he betrayed my love by lying to me after 17 years of marriage.
I could illustrate further the sin I fell into in order not to be alone, but more important here is to look at the mindsets that create these feelings and actions. ‘When I was a child, I thought as a child……’ says St Paul, ‘but when I was a man I put aside childish things.’ As a child, having been unwanted in utero, and then unwelcome as a girl at birth, I had an underlying need to be welcomed and wanted. Many women suffer from this underlying problem and the fact that many abortions are sought simply because the foetus is female, illustrates the extent of this unspoken despising of women. If we hate ourselves, we cannot enjoy being alone, as we need someone else to indicate we are worthwhile. And society has loaded on women the images of slimness, sexiness, fashion, face makeup etc which purport to make women desirable and wanted.
So how do we get beyond these images and lies? I didn’t realise I was held by this self-hatred, and even though I rejected worldly values in relation to dress and make up etc, I still did not know how to face and overcome what was within me. But God literally called me when I was weeping because the man I was living with did not want to marry me. This was the beginning of a call to faith, and maturity in Christ…. letting go of false dependencies, but learning to lean on and trust in Christ in God, in all things.
Its been a long and frequently solitary journey. Yet I know I have never been alone. The constant prayers of the Saints, in heaven or on earth, and the gentle kindnesses of fellow travellers make the trials fruitfully healing through repentance, love, forgiveness and all forms of prayer.. Some of my spiritual guides have been priests or nuns/monks but also lay people, some of who I knew well, others I knew hardly at all, but each gave the piece of jigsaw needed for that day and time prompted by the Holy Spirit.
In all this I gradually came to believe that I was chosen for His purposes, was open to receive the love of God for me through Christ. When I had held on to bitterness, complaints about what I never had or what people never did for me etc etc, I could not receive Christ’s love and forgiveness in that area of my life. Whilst pride made me cling to what I thought life should be, I could not receive what IS, nor accept change. I needed to seek and love the humility of the heart, mind and will of Christ, always obedient to God the Father even unto death. We need to ask for and seek maturity and wholeness in Christ. As females, are we willing to be women for God in the world, not childish notions of needing to be ‘girlish’.
There is absolutely no doubt that before God we are children, and He is our Father. But we are His children through Christ, and each precious in His sight. ‘In Christ is neither Greek not Jew, male nor female….but all are One in Christ’……thus we are all His children, and we are not girls, or boys – except when we were pre-pubescent. But the powers of darkness do not want children of God. This is why even when we have ‘given our lives to Christ’ or live within the Church, we still find the old man pulling us back to old mind sets. This is where we have to take up our crosses and fight!! Thus we start to become warriors for Christ, putting aside all passivity and standing for the Way, the Truth and the Life of Christ, on our own or with others.
Alone-ness, being solitary, is not being lonely. Being lonely is self-centred and full of ‘poor me’. But Being Alone with Christ, allows a greater freedom to love God and all humanity – gives more space for God’s love and purposes to love and embrace us in harmony with others. Being alone with God gives breathing space for your soul to be refilled with the pure love of God, and mankind, and for Him to speak His Word in your heart. And when we’ve accepted our alone-ness in Love, accepted the Kingdom of God, ‘all the rest will be added to you’. Thus, and I speak prophetically, with the fullness of God’s love, ‘All will be well, all manner of things will be well.’
Dearest fellow travellers, may we pray to accept our alone-ness when it is offered, or needed, within the Love of God. Let us pray to become mature in Christ, setting aside childish things, and reaching each moment to stand in Christ by His Spirit, knowing we are well-beloved by God, through Him, and open to His Spirit working through us to bring purity of heart to all our decisions. Amen