Loneliness: Cliches Don't Help Anyone

Happy New Year,

It was never helpful advice, yet over the years people said many of the cliche things about being single. Coincidentally, someone made a video about "Stuff Christian singles hear", and I posted it on my Facebook wall a few months ago.

Sidenote: I made a BINGO card, and in the squares I wrote some of these sayings. I did, however, leave a couple out for the purpose of analyzing them closely.

Do you know who else was single? Timothy...

If I ever say something like that to a young man suffering with loneliness, battling with patience, and on the brink of raging against his beliefs and relenting to sin and guilty pleasure, then stuff me in an automated funny car with no brakes, and force me to drive against traffic during Friday rush hour.

I have no right to disregard his emotions and feelings by comparing an insecure teenage male to one of the principal figures of the early Christian church. In both situations someone said that to me, it was done to shut me up, and focus on who I was not.

My life history is full of stories which
should have ended with me doing such things.

I am aware Timothy and his spiritual mentor, Paul, were single dudes whom God instructed to preach. The history of the kid pouring his heart out to you, however, is not yet completed; who are we to relegate his life concerns? Dudes, please listen to that young man speak before addressing his concerns and praying for him. There may come a time when you shouldn't say anything and just listen; he may need a sounding board to bounce ideas off, and pick the healthy ones from those that are disgusting.

Pray Harder

Nothing says "I don't know what to say to you" more than that statement. Praying for anything, should it be a person, place, or thing, any "harder" will not make it happen or change God's mind. His Holy Spirit determines whether that happens or not (Luke 11:9-13). There are proper and more important things that are essential in every walk of life to ask for in prayer, such as wisdom, discernment, patience, trust, devotion, and understanding. The benefits of using these gifts are in the obedience and adherence with God's will; knowing God's will also comes from reading His Word (Luke 19:11-27).

Therefore, listen to those with concerns, and pray for things they will definitely need in the future, even though they are asking and/or using little bits of it in the present.

That's all I can think about on this subject. Sorry for the unusual break, but the other half is on a different post. I thought it was important enough it deserved to be on another post.

Jumbo

It killed him.

He told me how he took my advice, and told her how he felt. He told me how they met at their usual spot every Wednesday for lunch, and how she sat in complete silence as he told her. He told me how she said nothing when he finished. He told me how he asked her what she was thinking. He told me how everything he said made her cry.

Her tears hit him like a left hook. It carommed off his cheek, reverborated to his molars, split his jaw, shot up his skull, shook his brain, buckled his knees, and crumpled his lifeless body to the floor. I knew that feeling, but he said he could take it: He made adjustments to the pattern, and thus became adjusted to the pain. He could take the punishment, the repeated shots, and the constant punches. He wasn't in love, he was punch drunk.

It killed me to watch him get up from his stool with his eyes swollen shut, his nose bloody and broken, and his jaw enflamed with two teeth missing. Between pitiful gasps for any kind of air, he would say "Sheesh da one, Filff. I can doo ith! Sheesh da one! I nooo ith!" He wanted the same thing I did, so I let him go, "Fine, finish the job." I said. Before leaving the corner, he turned to me to wink as best he could with the one good eye he had. "Noo plaablem!"

Now, here we were. I found him still sitting in the chair later that night. His parents called me asking where he was, and I told them I had an idea, nevertheless I would call them once I found him, and drive him home. There was so many wrappers on the tray in front of him; if I didn't come earlier, the manager said, he would eat the entire menu in another hour. Without saying a word, I slinked into the booth and sat there across from him. Mixed with saturated fats and absolute sorrow, his tears flowed from his face and onto the paltry board the fast food joint called a table. I watched him cry for a couple of minutes, before a pair of eavesdropping teenagers in the lineup began whispering about us. "With the way he's going, I wonder if there is anything left." One of them said, which got both of them chuckling. I knew we had to leave, and sadly so did he. As I put my hands on the table to rise from the booth, he stop sulking and asked, "Why duss no one luv me?" I knew there was an answer for him somewhere. Such a question followed other men right into the grave, but other men were not like him. He would die that night if he didn't know.

"I love you, Phil." I said. "We all love you, man."

His sulking quieted down, but he kept crying. Reluctantly, after I rose from the booth, he followed me out of the restaurant leaving a ton of crumpled wrappers, a bewildered manager, and a pair of laughing teenagers behind.

As I opened the trunk to get a pair of water bottles, he sank into the passenger side of my car. When I closed the hatch, I received a text message. It was her: She "heard from friends I was back in town, and since she wasn't doing anything maybe we could..."

I got in the car, gave him a bottle, and put mine in the cup holder.

"Was dat her?" He asked.
"Yes, it's her." I replied. We stared out the car as it started to rain.
"She alweez lucked at yuu." He added.

"Wha dit yuu say?"