Day 91 - Remedy for Loneliness: Reach Out
One of the most effective ways to come out of loneliness is to reach out to others who are hurting or in need. Even if you don’t feel like reaching out, discipline yourself to do it anyway.
Dr. Ray Pritchard says, “There comes a time when you have to wipe the tears away. There comes a time when you have to stop thinking about what you have lost and start thinking about the needs of the people around you.
"I don’t say that’s easy. I don’t think that you can always do that overnight. For some people it will be after a period of weeks, for some after a period of months. For me it was a year after my father died.
"It might be as simple as baking cookies for the neighbors, going to visit the hospital, going to the nursing home. It might be as simple as writing letters to others who have also lost loved ones and sharing with others what God has given you. There is an amazing therapeutic value in not only telling your own story, but in pointing people back to God.”
To escape loneliness and despair, you must take action and reach out to others, and you will experience the light of hope rising up in your life.
“If you give yourself to the hungry, and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness, and your gloom will become like midday” (Isaiah 58:10 NASB).
O Lord, loneliness and despair have weighed me down for too long. I want to reach out to others and experience Your hope and Your light. Amen.