Ferries, Quarantines, and Loneliness
This all happened on a ferry last summer. I was traveling between spaces, and I was weeping. I thought I would hide in the bathroom until I stopped, but I emerged and fell apart again. I didn’t want to walk all the way back to the bathroom and parade my grief before strangers a second time, so I sat on a bench, as children and couples passed. I cried for the whole hour. It was humiliating, embarrassing, and yet, I couldn’t stop myself from sobbing. I was shaking, my whole face was damp, and you might be wondering what on earth happened to me?
I had spent two days with dear friends en route of my latest adventure. The ferry was transporting me to the next phase of my journey; an entire day and night alone. In the morning I would board a plane which would take me to people I had never known before and places I had never seen. I told myself it was exciting, and I’d be fine. I’d enjoy exploring the city in between ferry and flight, and I like meeting new people. I’ve never been afraid to spend time by myself, and at home, I actively seek personal space. But as I stood in line for the ferry, something sank into me, cold and sharp: loneliness.
I was alone on the ferry. There would be no one until I stepped off my flight the next day. I am an introvert, and on paper, this sounds like an amazing break to soak in life. However, I couldn’t seem to settle into the stillness and quiet. I was alone.
There have been so many days where I have found ways to distract myself from loneliness, and sometimes I even enjoyed the loneliness. But this, it was like having the rug pulled from under me, and suddenly I was falling into a well of these empty emotions that seemed to have no end. Every sound, smell, touch, struck acute on my nerves. There was no buffer between my soul and the present world, and it was as if someone had paused the film of my life at that moment, and there would be no escape until they returned from the bathroom or something. And I found myself weeping, and I could not stop.
Where was God? Why did I feel as though He was gone also? It’s funny, in the moments of total despair, faith asserts itself, because I began to pray. I prayed honestly. “You said you are the God of comfort, and I don’t feel comforted right now.” I confessed. Literally, one minute later, a couple walked passed, and then, the woman double backed to me. She came right up to me and said, “Hi, I hope you don’t mind if I give you a hug?” I nodded, and she hugged me. “Whatever you are going through, hang in there.” She whispered and then left.
It was an answer to my prayer. God comforted me. In the following moments, the inexplicable happened. I encountered the bizarre paradox of grief and joy. Anguish that seemed an endless pit, and yet joy that matched in peak. I made it through to the flight, and I reflect on that time often. Through quarantine, I found myself battling the same emotions, the same sense of stuck and helpless that had found me on the ferry.
Loneliness can become an acute pain. Usually, I feel the pain, and I take a social aspirin, so to speak, to keep it at bay. Which is not inherently a bad response to loneliness. Community and fellowship is something beautiful that God created us to participate with. However, He draws us individually to the wilderness at times too. If the ferry taught me anything, it was that there is life in loneliness. There is fullness of life in the middle of harsh emotions. It was on this ferry, in the middle of being a hot mess that I found myself in deep communion with my creator, and after the woman who hugged me left, I took out my bible like a hungry creature and began to pour through the psalms. The words read differently, and resonated in new ways.
David wrote a large portion of the psalms while he was on the run from King Saul. He spent a lot of time in caves, cut off from family. He had men with him, so he wasn’t in total isolation, but he was forced to be away from everything he knew. He was the only person going through exactly what he was going through, and he didn’t keep those emotions from God. He lays them all out in his psalms.
“Return to your rest, my soul, for the LORD has been good to you. For you, LORD, have delivered me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the LORD in the land of the living.”-Psalms 116:7-9
“Record my misery; list my tears on your scroll- are they not in your record?”-Psalm 56:8
“My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death have fallen on me. Fear and trembling have beset me; horror has overwhelmed me. [...] Cast your cares on the LORD and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous be shaken.”- Psalm 55:4-5, 22
“I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay. You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.”- Psalm 16:7-11
God is big, deep, and capable of holding and comforting you through wherever you are right now. He is able and willing to meet you in your deepest loneliness and highest joy. Let this encourage you today to lean into the arms of the God who is waiting to embrace you. He is constant through the ever-changing, peace through the news, hope through the long nights, and love in the middle of pain.