Loneliness? There is a better companion.

Maybe this has happened to you: Someone on the street smiles at you and you smile back. Or the other way around. My favorite is simultaneous smiles between a stranger and me, as though some shared good moved our hearts at the same moment. In any case, such moments – however brief – indicate to me that being connected to others is completely natural and available for all of us.

Around the world, efforts are being made to combat loneliness and isolation. For instance, the United Kingdom and Japan have established Ministers of Loneliness, and some countries have set up “happy to chat” benches in public places to encourage conversations among strangers. It’s encouraging that this issue is being taken to heart.

Whether loneliness comes as a sense of isolation from others or as a feeling of separation from purpose and meaning, at its root is the notion that we are lacking something essential to our wholeness and bereft of opportunities to give and receive good. I’ve found that turning to God in prayer is a vital way to arrive at healing solutions for well-being and completeness, including meaningful relationships and activities.

Allowing the divinely directed desire to bless others and glorify God to gently replace a human striving to change the human scene, is a tremendous help in lifting thought and gaining freedom from loneliness. This inspired frame of thought enables us to drop material reasoning and lights the way forward as we sincerely and expectantly seek divine guidance.

The phrase “God with us” has been helpful to me in praying about loneliness. It’s from a passage in the Bible prophesying Jesus’ birth: “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us” (Matthew 1:23).

The teachings of Christian Science, which are firmly grounded in the Bible, bring out the spiritual import of biblical truths, making them very applicable to daily situations. Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, highlights the profound significance of “God with us” in her primary work, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” when she writes of “the revelation of Immanuel, ‘God with us,’ – the sovereign ever-presence, delivering the children of men from every ill ‘that flesh is heir to’” (p. 107).

How powerful this is when we consider another passage from Science and Health that describes “God with us” as “a divine influence ever present in human consciousness” (p. xi). This influence – Christ – was the basis of all the good, healing, and transformation that Jesus brought to others as he ceaselessly lived “God with us.” Jesus showed us that through the eternal Christ, each of us can feel moment by moment the “sovereign ever-presence” of divine Love and Truth right here with us, healing and bringing abundant blessings to all, just as it did during Jesus’ time.

The powerful spiritual fact of “God with us” is a solid basis for praying about loneliness. Christian Science teaches that God – divine Love, ever-present Spirit – is our divine Parent. Therefore we are the preciously cared-for sons and daughters of Spirit – each one of us spiritual and complete with every useful quality derived from God. This divine relation, in which we are the reflection of Love, is indissoluble and eternal.

It is so natural to feel the harmonious spiritual reality of our unity with God, and therefore with each other as brothers and sisters. This enables us to freely share our innate kindness and joy with whomever we meet. We can rule out as illegitimate any sense of separation from good, because such separation is not possible in God’s creation. This results in more consistently feeling His goodness right with us. And as we’re receptive to the spiritual reality of everyone’s inherent completeness, this brings into our experience all that fully enriches, inspires, satisfies.

I have found over many years that praying to feel embraced in the tenderness of God’s presence causes life to blossom with meaningful relationships and activities. And it fills my moments of solitude with sweetness.

“God with us” is the reality right now. As we welcome this companioning every moment of the day – no matter who’s there or not there – we’ll find that it begins to shape, fill, and bless our lives.