Participants: Shelley Quinn (Host), Derry James
Series Code: IAA
Program Code: IAA000235
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00:30 Hello, I'm Shelley Quinn and welcome again to
00:32 Issues and Answers. Today we're going to be talking 00:35 about the cousins of fear and 00:38 loneliness. I have a scripture 00:40 that goes along with that. In Psalm 68 let me read to you 00:44 verses 5 and 6. The Bible says: A father of the fatherless and 00:50 a judge and protector of the widows is God in his holy 00:54 habitation. God places the solitary (or the lonely) in 00:58 families and gives the desolate a home in which to dwell. 01:03 He leads the prisoners out to prosperity but the rebellious 01:07 dwell in a parched land. We're going to learn today that 01:11 the rebellious here are those who are sinners which can lead 01:15 to loneliness and leave you in a dry spiritual place. But God can 01:20 lead you out of the prison of loneliness and into the 01:23 prosperity of a personal relationship with him and 01:27 enjoying fellowship with many other people. So if you're 01:30 lonely or you know anyone else who's lonely then I just 01:34 encourage you to stay tuned for this wonderful program. 01:37 Our special guest today is someone that I just fell in love 01:41 with the first time I met her. She and I have become great 01:44 friends. I'm pleased to introduce to you Derry James. 01:48 She is a Doctor of Ministry and she is a board certified 01:52 chaplain. She comes to us from Grass Valley, California. 01:56 Derry, I am so glad that you are here today and it's good to have 02:01 you back at 3ABN. Thank you Shelley. I always love 02:04 coming back here and visiting with my friends and sharing with 02:07 our audience. It's always a blessing when you 02:10 come because you've done a lot of spots for us and you've done 02:13 these issues and answers for us before and we're hoping to bring 02:17 you in to do some more programs. One thing I appreciate about you 02:21 is that you are a real prayer warrior so you and I are just 02:24 kind of spiritual cousins aren't we? 02:26 We are indeed, just at a moment's notice we break into 02:29 prayer don't we? Yes, amen. Now speaking of 02:31 cousins though, your title fascinates me talking about the 02:36 cousins of fear and loneliness. How is fear a cousin to 02:40 loneliness? Shelley, we're not going to talk 02:43 a lot about fear today, but I 02:45 think I just would like to 02:47 introduce that topic and maybe 02:49 give some definition to different types of fear before 02:52 we go into the loneliness part and how they interact together. 02:55 Okay, that would be great. 02:57 As we think about fear, there is perceived fear. For example, I 03:02 heard a story of some friends that went to visit their friends 03:06 They came into the house. The friends said come on in and sit 03:10 down. They sat down on the sofa and there in front of them right 03:15 after they sat down sat a huge Doberman and the Doberman was 03:19 just showing its teeth. They sat there and they didn't want to 03:24 move and they couldn't wait for the host to come in and get the 03:28 dog out of there. They just sat there frozen. They were afraid 03:31 that dog was going to attack them just sitting there showing 03:35 his teeth. When the host came in he said, oh I'm so sorry. Grace 03:40 was sitting here and she's smiling at you. All you had to 03:43 do was reach out and pet her and she would left. 03:46 I think that would have gotten my attention too. 03:48 So that was perceived fear, you know. The dog didn't mean 03:51 any harm; he was actually smiling. And then there's 03:55 perceived fear. I can remember when I was a child and we were 03:58 all sleeping on the living room floor during the holidays and 04:02 I woke up to a sound and, as a little girl, saw these shadows 04:05 on the wall and I was convinced that someone was outside the 04:08 window trying to break in and it was just a bush and the tree 04:11 was moving it. So these are perceived fears that can 04:14 actually cause terror. Then we have genuine fear. Like the time 04:19 I walked into my house and there was a picture of me drawn on my 04:24 window. Someone had definitely come into my house, broken in, 04:29 and my life was in danger. So genuine fear needs to be dealt 04:33 with. Perceived fear we need to let go of. But then we have 04:38 imagined fears. These could be simple things. It could be going 04:42 to church and a dear friend didn't speak to us today and we 04:47 walked right by and so suddenly we imagine that they don't like 04:52 us or they don't care about us or we're not important or there 04:56 is a problem that's developed between us. We may have an 05:00 imagined fear that if a family member isn't home on time that 05:04 something has happened. Or if someone calls when the 05:08 phone rings at 3 o'clock in the morning. We never expect good 05:11 news. It alarms us and we wake up and we're just expecting a 05:15 bad report. Right, right. Well it's those 05:18 imagined fears that actually can roll right into loneliness 05:23 because when we imagine that we're not being accepted or that 05:28 there's a problem, then we tend to isolate instead of deal with 05:33 things directly often times. And as we begin to isolate if other 05:37 people don't recognize we have chosen to isolate and they don't 05:42 draw us out, then we begin to feel more lonely, more unloved, 05:46 more unaccepted and we have set ourselves up. We've actually set 05:51 ourselves up. So fear can lead to this state 05:55 of mind where you are isolating yourself from others and it 06:00 actually is... loneliness is a state of mine, is it not? 06:04 Well that's true, that's exactly true. And I think that we also 06:11 need to recognize it as a sin because often times it's because 06:18 of our pride or it's a form of selfishness and then that 06:23 intensifies. So it's' this little root that can begin to 06:28 build. I'd like to define loneliness for a minute because 06:33 there is an undesired aloneness that we have to deal with but 06:38 then there is actually the solitude part which is just the opposite which is a 06:42 desired aloneness and that's healthy; that's a healthy thing. 06:47 And we'll talk a little bit more about that. 06:49 But before we do because I know there's someone who's sitting 06:52 out there that something that you just said that loneliness is 06:57 a sin. It can be a sin. It's not always as sin thought. Because 07:01 there are times when you are forced into a situation or 07:04 perhaps you've lost a loved one and you go through that natural 07:09 sense of loneliness. So it's not always a sin. But something else 07:13 that you said, you know, I'm thinking about Hebrews 13 that 07:17 says that Jesus is always with us; that he never leaves us or 07:21 forsakes us. And there are people who almost choose in a 07:26 selfish way to isolate themselves from others because 07:31 of fear and they do suffer that loneliness and it is almost a 07:36 sin. It's like they are not recognizing the presence of the 07:41 Lord or they're choosing to close God out. 07:43 I was just going to say, they're also pulling away from God. 07:46 They isolate from people but then they begin to isolate from 07:50 God and then they begin to question God. 07:52 Well, let's define loneliness, Shelley. Loneliness is solitary, 07:59 it's without company, it's destitute of sympathetic or 08:03 friendly companionship. It's depressed by being alone. It can 08:09 be sorry for yourself or self pity and weepy, you can get 08:13 weepy, and it actually can develop into severe illness. 08:17 So loneliness can go into depression; I mean it can make 08:21 a chemical change in your brain, right? 08:25 Right. Okay. And it's kind of the dark night of the soul. 08:28 You know people go through these tragedies or these 08:33 difficult situations in life and we come apart to deal with it 08:37 and then we become so isolated and so alone that we cut 08:43 ourselves off from other people, we cut ourselves out from God, 08:45 and it truly can be a dark night of the soul. 08:49 I've been there. As have I, and I think anybody 08:52 that's going through a really severe case of loneliness knows 08:57 what that's like. But, may I ask you a question? I have a friend, 09:01 I recall this story so vividly because she was my college 09:06 roommate. She married, she was 09:08 living on a ranch and I had 09:11 called her one day just to catch up and she told me, she said, 09:15 Shelley, I am so lonely. She and her husband were quite isolated 09:19 from others. I think their closest neighbor was maybe 50 09:23 miles away. So she was in the middle of this huge ranch and 09:27 she said the loneliest time of my life is in the evenings when 09:31 comes in from working outside and she said we're in the same 09:35 room but there's no real communion or communication. 09:39 So you can even feel alone or feel that loneliness when you're 09:45 with someone, right? Absolutely. Yes we are going 09:49 to address that precise thing that you have the loneliness 09:54 even when you're not alone. So what does that feel like. Let's 09:58 talk about some definitives of what that loneliness feels like 10:02 that probably our audience can identify with. Feelings are 10:05 obviously depression. We've talked about how it can go into 10:08 even deep depression. But a person that is lonely feels 10:13 detached. They feel like a zombie, they feel hollow, 10:17 sometimes even totally empty. They can feel intense emotion, 10:24 vulnerable, helpless, hopeless. It's a powerful emotion and they 10:30 can have a lack of direction, a lack of hope, a lack of purpose, 10:36 it gets to the point where there are no goals, there are no plans 10:41 Values are questioned and there is a loss of significance. We're 10:47 talking about intense, intense feelings and responses and 10:52 reactions as we deal with the aloneness and loneliness that 10:58 isn't chosen. So I'm listening to you and 11:01 what's coming into my mind right now, Derry, is that loneliness 11:05 and when we entertain loneliness for an extended period of time 11:09 it's almost like a switch that can shut down the rest of our 11:13 emotions and it's like we're turning off from the world. 11:18 Some people may not recognize it, but they are lonely by 11:23 choice. Is that correct? Because there are people who will say 11:28 you know I go to church and I come home and I don't think 11:32 anybody really even notices me. Have you ever had somebody 11:36 say nobody talked to me, but what they didn't recognize was 11:39 that they went in and they sat down and maybe it was their 11:44 fears, but that they sat on the back row and hopped up and left 11:48 and they kept their head down and they just scurried in and 11:52 scurried out. These things happen but it's not always a 11:56 choice but sometimes it is a choice. 11:58 In your sharing that it made me think of a little comment: 12:03 To have friends, we have to prove ourselves friendly. 12:05 You know, that we have to reach out as well as expecting people 12:09 to reach out to us. And when we have ourself in this kind of a 12:13 deep hole, it's hard to do that, you know, because we're rather 12:17 cocooned ourselves. But if we think of loneliness, there's 12:23 actually an implied absence of God in that whole thing and we 12:28 can think of David in Psalms 142 and 143 who cries out. 12:33 He just cries out to God and he wonders about where God is and 12:38 why God isn't there. And Job; Job expressed it over and over 12:43 again, particularly in Job 23. But Jesus expressed it on the 12:48 cross too, that absence of God his Father in his life. That 12:56 aloneness. So the feelings of aloneness can be misunderstood 13:01 when we're going through that. But also it's very easy to 13:05 misunderstand other people as we are in this state of 13:10 loneliness. You know, I'm thinking of a text in Hebrews 13:14 12:14 & 15 when you're talking about that we can feel lonely 13:18 even when we are with other people. It says pursue peace 13:23 with all people and holiness without which no one will see 13:27 the Lord, looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace 13:31 of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up cause 13:37 trouble and by this many become defiled. You know, when we're 13:41 feeling alone even when we're with people then we begin to 13:46 develop resentments and bitterness and it's interesting 13:50 that when we don't come and talk it out, if we don't 13:54 confront people that we think there may be a problem that 13:57 we're having, this is all an imaginary case that we've set 14:00 ourselves up to just get into a deeper, deeper hole. 14:04 But, Derry, what about the person who is very shy by 14:07 nature and they've grown up and they're more introverted than 14:12 extroverted, what about that person when they're in this 14:17 pain; because loneliness can be very painful and I think you 14:21 said that you've been through it, I've been through it and 14:24 sometimes it's circumstantial. You know circumstances, you may 14:29 be cut off from your family. I'm just thinking about this last 14:34 Christmas when everyone was snowed in in the airports and 14:38 maybe if you were traveling alone and you ended up spending 14:42 Christmas in an airport isolated from your family, totally 14:46 surrounded by strangers, if you were an introvert, how painfully 14:52 alone you must have felt. But is it not true that in a sense, 14:57 as a Christian in particular, that being alone we should never 15:02 feel loneliness recognizing that God is the God of relationship 15:07 and that he is with us always. 15:09 Absolutely. Shelley, you're talking about that shy person 15:14 and some people are alone and comfortable with that. They 15:19 enjoy their aloneness. But we're talking about the person that 15:24 needs others and so they need to think outside of themselves 15:30 a bit. For the shy person, we'll talk about this more later, 15:34 we'll give some actual tips on how to come out of our 15:39 loneliness but for that shy person, if they are not 15:43 comfortable being communicative face to face, they could write a 15:47 note. They could do something that's thinking outside of 15:50 themselves and and reaching out. When we think of aloneness and 15:57 when we think of broken relationships, those are the kind of things that are 16:02 difficult to deal with, when we have that lack of intimacy any 16:07 longer with people that are around us that we love. It's 16:10 feeling alone when there are people with us. So we have two 16:14 groups of people really; we have those that are actually alone, 16:18 living alone, they're alone for whatever reasons and then we 16:23 have people that feel alone in the midst of family or 16:26 friends. But the answers are the same. I was just thinking of a 16:34 scripture here in Philippians 2:3 - 4. It says: Let nothing 16:41 be done through selfish ambition or conceit but in lowliness of 16:46 mind let each esteem others better than themselves. Let each 16:51 of you look out not only for his own interests but also for the 16:55 interests of others. See this is really key; it's scriptural, but 17:00 it's a key to stop thinking of ourselves and think of others. 17:04 And even in our pain and the things we're going through it's 17:09 trying to refocus. I remember when my sister was 17:12 living in Chicago and she called me once and she was really 17:15 lonely because she wasn't working, her husband was gone 17:19 all day and he didn't get in till late at night and had to 17:23 take the AO coming home. She would call me and she was going 17:26 into depression because her loneliness was over a protracted 17:30 period of time. I told her, I said, You know what you need to 17:33 do, you need to quit focusing on yourself. Go volunteer at the 17:37 Salvation Army, go volunteer anywhere; and when she did take 17:41 that advice it totally turned her life around because her 17:45 focus was so much on self and just being isolated when she 17:49 didn't want to be. But when she got out and reached out to 17:53 others it totally changed her life. 17:56 Yes. There's a creation account that I'd like to go back and 18:01 talk about because I like to tie everything back to the 18:04 scripture. You know, humans were created maybe out of loneliness, 18:08 God wanted relationship. I don't know that God was lonely. He had 18:12 the angels and so on around him. But Adam was lonely for a 18:18 companion and what did God say in scripture. He said, It is not 18:22 good for man to be alone. That came straight from the mouth 18:27 of God. So Eve was provided for companionship for Adam. It is 18:33 also interesting to me that when Cain slew Abel, what was the 18:38 judgment? It was a curse. He had to be 18:42 alone. That's right, he was sent out 18:44 alone and he even said this is more than I can bear which kind 18:48 of makes me think of you know punishment when you're in prison 18:52 What is the worst punishment? 18:54 Solitary confinement. That's right. So this is an 18:57 amazing state of mind, it's an amazing thing that can happen 19:03 to us in that aloneness and lonely time. 19:07 Okay, we only have about eight minutes left, so let's talk 19:12 about some therapeutic actions, how we can come out of 19:16 loneliness. What do you say to people who are listening to us 19:20 right now. How do they overcome this loneliness? 19:23 Shelley, I think that before we go into that I'd like to back 19:27 track a little bit, because in order to come out of it we have 19:31 to be aware that we're in it. So let's talk about how can we 19:34 be aware, awareness of loneliness, because loneliness 19:39 is actually a control of our heart. First of all we need to 19:44 recognize and admit that we are lonely. Then we have to look at 19:49 ourselves and think what inner need is not being met that 19:54 this is happening to me and how can I get them met. Then if I 19:59 can't, how can I adjust under these limitations or these 20:04 circumstances. It puts us in a position where we need to 20:09 actually make some new choices, make some conscious choices. 20:17 We can't confuse the person that is actually alone or even alone 20:24 and married, we cannot confuse sexual deprivation with 20:31 loneliness. We need to actually admit just like in your advice 20:38 to your sister, we need to admit to ourselves that 20:40 inactivity can contribute to loneliness in our lives and 20:47 that loneliness itself can lead to a spiritual development where 20:53 we need spiritual healing. 20:54 Yes, because loneliness can lead to self-pity and self-pity is 20:59 straight from the pits of hell. That's right. It is. 21:02 So I think if we have these awarenesses then we can move 21:05 into the therapeutic solutions. So it's admitting, it's taking 21:10 a kind of an inventory of ourselves. 21:11 You know, I'm the type of person that required some solitude. 21:16 I don't get nearly enough, but I don't function well without 21:21 it. So we're not talking about if you choose to be alone. 21:25 There's nothing wrong. If you're 21:27 happy and you're alone, you know, 21:29 you might be spending great amounts of time in deep study 21:33 of the Bible or you may be doing a great work. That's not what 21:36 we're talking about. We're talking about people who find 21:40 it painful, they're suffering this condition of loneliness. 21:44 Remember Jesus even took time to 21:48 be alone. So there are benefits 21:50 in taking this solitude, this 21:53 alone time, this healthy alone 21:56 time. Exactly. Okay, so some therapeutic actions would be 22:01 number one, not to blame anyone else for our loneliness. 22:06 Sometimes we want to shift the blame and make it someone else's 22:11 responsibility to get us out of that loneliness that we're going 22:16 through. So we can't shift the blame. Then it will help if we 22:21 stop living in the past and we look forward to the future, 22:26 because living in the past puts us in a position often of living 22:32 with bitterness, guilt, some of those unhappy feelings that are 22:37 causing us to blame ourselves, regrets that make us feel 22:43 unworthy maybe to be with other people. 22:46 Amen. You know, I had a scripture. Let me turn to that 22:49 real quickly here because Isaiah 43:18-19 says: Do not earnestly 23:12 remember the former things neither consider the things of 23:16 old. Behold I am doing a new thing. Now it springs forth; do 23:19 you not perceive it. So if you're living in the past, 23:23 remember Isaiah 43:18-19, God saying quit looking in the rear 23:27 view mirror because you can't go forward, you can't see the 23:31 new thing that I'm doing. He wants you to look forward to the 23:35 plan that he has for your life. Right? Amen, Yes. 23:40 Well, another therapeutic point might be to realize there's no 23:45 shame in being alone. Sometimes when we go through death or loss 23:51 divorce, we're not used to being alone so we feel like we're very 23:57 conspicuous and again we begin to cocoon. People aren't really 24:02 paying any attention. They're not recognizing or noticing as 24:07 much as we might think they are. So there's no shame in being 24:12 alone. We need to find the joy and the possibilities of that 24:17 alone time as well. Then to get help we have to give help. 24:23 That's exactly right. I think that if we don't hang 24:27 onto anything else, that's a very important point to remember 24:31 that in the very fact of giving help we are helping ourselves 24:35 heal and get out of this whole dilemma. 24:37 May I share a quick story. We have a widow in our church and 24:42 she was devastated by her husband's death. She had married 24:47 quite early, had a background of growing up with severe abuse 24:52 and he had rescued her from this and they had had a very 24:56 beautiful happy marriage for over 30 to 35 years maybe and 25:00 she was so devastated. We were all so concerned. You know what 25:04 she has done now? On Friday evenings she has opened up her 25:09 home to a vespers program. She recognized her need for company 25:14 and she started becoming involved herself and giving help 25:18 to others who had no place to go. I mean she volunteers for 25:22 potluck teams and she's so involved in the church now and 25:26 we've watched her blossom, it's really been wonderful. 25:31 Actually that ties in with our next therapeutic point, Shelley, 25:36 because it's simply do something do something. Put your energy 25:40 into something else, whether it's reaching out to people or 25:45 whether it's a new hobby or interest but do something to 25:49 get yourself active and involved because so often you're shutting 25:54 out life, you know, and you're not participating in life at 25:59 all. Replace loneliness with love and those all tie in 26:03 together. Okay, you're going to have to explain that one, 26:07 replace loneliness with love. 26:08 Well, when we're so isolated and we're so hurting and we're 26:14 nursing those hurts then we're not reaching out, but as we put 26:19 others before ourselves just like we read in scripture, think 26:22 of others as more important than yourselves and we make an 26:26 investment into others and it may even be a pet for a while. 26:30 The more we begin to invest the more we can allow ourselves to 26:35 open up those feelings and let that love begin to flow. So let 26:39 the loneliness begin to express itself in love and in loving 26:44 ways and actions. I liked your scripture that you opened with 26:48 today and I'd like to use that maybe as one of our closing 26:52 scriptures as well that God takes the lonely and he places 26:57 them in families. God doesn't want us to be lonely. God is a 27:01 God of relationship and he wants that personal relationship 27:05 with us and he wants to have that us have that relationship 27:09 with others. That's what we're here for, that's what it's all 27:13 about, to interact with each other and to have fullness of 27:17 joy and fullness of life. Jesus promises that he will restore 27:22 our soul. In Psalm 23:3 that's a promise we can cling to; Jesus 27:27 will restore our soul. No matter how we feel or what we're going 27:32 through Jesus says I will never leave you or forsake you. 27:37 So even if we think we're alone there is the promise that Jesus 27:43 will never leave us or forsake us. 27:44 Derry, we really appreciate you being here today. Thank you for 27:48 coming. For those of you at home please look to the Lord and he 27:52 can bring you out of your loneliness. 27:53 May he richly bless you. |
Revised 2014-12-17