Following lock down, I was just forging a friendship with one of the Mums, we are both so excited about each other and talking about what we would do to develop the friendship. I said we could go out for coffee, she said maybe we should do mulled wine in the park, especially as it is cold. Sounded like a fun idea to me, except that I don’t take alcohol, though I didn’t think this was the time to start telling her my dos and don’ts. That got me thinking about social drinking, heavy drinking, how drink loosen a lot of people and allow the otherwise shy, maybe reserved person to come out of his shell. I have heard drinkers tell me how it allows a certain flow when they are with their peers. I have been told by some that they never drink to a state of stupor, they know how to control themself.
This issue of control has always puzzled me, some have been social drinkers all their life, know the limit, use alcohol in a social context and it helps them to forge some long lasting beneficial relationship whereas others with the first sip starts an unconscious downward slope to addiction and destruction. I have heard it said some people just can’t handle their drink. Some people use marijuana regularly and they become creative and give us some of the greatest music, writings, etc other use it and become paranoid and depressive in no time. I am not espousing alcoholism or drug use, but trying to make a point. The same goes for wealth, some people come into money and totally loose their mind, they become arrogant, belligerent, get involve in all manner of unspeakable vice other use their wealth for philanthropic activities and benefit mankind. The same can be said of fame, the more famous and popular some people become, the less in touch with reality they become, they think they are God, full of pride, waddling around like an overfed megalomania. Yet some use the fame to reach and touch the forgotten and deserted, to give a voice to the otherwise unheard
All of these made me think about loneliness. Some people find themselves lonely and engage themselves positively, they develop they minds, body and spirit. They read, write, produce incredible material that progress mankind, they use the quietness and lack of distraction to focus and strengthen their mind. They break through barriers in the spirit realm. They work on their physical bodies. They milk the loneliness for all its worth, they go into battle with that time of aloneness, determined to come out on top and I guess that is what it’s all about. When we find ourselves in times and seasons of aloneness, and loneliness seeks to swallow us up whole, it is battle time, it is fight of the mind, it is far from passive as it seems, a ferocious war is waging, seeking to deter us from our destiny, to slow us from advancing and evolving, to beat us down with the pain of loneliness, to bastardise our minds with depression and victim mentality, to bombard us with untruth about our worthiness, to put us in a state of misery, to tell us we are no good, that is why we are alone, that is why we have no friends, why no one wants to be with us. Yet there is another narative, a better one and the more honest one. The lonely times are special times when barriers are broken, when the curtain is rent into two, when revelations are received, when breakthroughs are discovered, when advanced thoughts are formed, when we are able to go to the top of the mountain and receive the commandent of living a fulfiling life, when the secrets and strategies for a successful life are revealed to us.
How do you handle your lonely times? Can you handle it? Can you keep it together? Can you battle through? Can you steady yourself or do you get intoxicated with excess free time and squander it on aimless pursuit? Do you become despondent and lament your lot in life or do you drill deep and resolve to milk every possible benefit of those times. Do we allow the unseen force determined to cheat us of the benefit of those times to win or do we set our eyes like a flint?
My friend, lonely times are battle times, it is warfare, straighten up, square up, chest up and fight for the advancement of your soul, our enemy will not consume us, we will not squander our lonely times on aimless pursuit or pity party. With strength, with diginity, with integrity we will handle those times and we will come out of each phase holding the fruit of our warfare.
How well do you handle your loneliness?
Beautiful Ivory 