One Solitary Man

About a half dozen times a year, I get a phone call that I immediately sense is going to draw me into one of the least favorite of my pastoral tasks. One of our local funeral homes calls to tell me that Mr. Jones passed away and that while neither Mr. Jones nor his family has any church affiliation, the family has requested that a pastor conduct the funeral service. So they call to see if I will do so. As much as I dread conducting these services in which I have absolutely no knowledge of or connection to either the deceased or their family, I always agree to do them if my schedule allows.

A recent difficult funeral experience was for an 85-year-old man named Clarence. His funeral was attended by a grand total of five people. Before the service began, I circulated among the guests to see if any of them wanted to say a few words of remembrance about their relationship with Clarence. Clarence’s two grandchildren, in their early 20s, declined to make any remarks, saying that they hadn’t really been very close to their grandfather. In fact, even though they all lived in the same town as he, they hadn’t seen or spoken to him since they were very small children.

A woman in her mid-40s declined to make any remarks, saying that she only knew Clarence as a customer in the restaurant where she worked as a waitress. Clarence came in three or four times each week and always by himself. Their conversations never went beyond, “Hi, what can I get you?” In fact, until she saw his picture in the newspaper, she’d never even known his name. She said the only reason she decided to attend his funeral service was that she had a sense that there might not be anyone else there, and she didn’t want that to happen.

The only people left were a senior adult couple. The husband turned out to be Clarence’s brother, and he jumped at the chance to talk about his brother. I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that the service would at least have a hint of a personal touch. When I called on the brother, he stood up and talked about how close he and Clarence had been—as children. Living on a farm, they had no other companions, so they played together all the time. Then Clarence moved away from home when he was 16, and each of them went their own way. That was 68 years ago, and they really hadn’t had much contact since then.

When the service was over, I shook the hand of each one there and told them I was sorry for their loss. But quite honestly, I couldn’t imagine that Clarence’s absence from their lives would even be noticed. And I couldn’t help but wonder if Clarence had died with a sense of being totally and completely alone.

There is nothing greater in life than knowing that we are absolutely loved and totally secure in that love. And there is nothing worse in life than feeling—rightly or wrongly—that we are completely unloved—that we are completely alone. Over the years, the issue of loneliness has been one of the most frequent concerns people have shared with me. And along the way I’ve made a few observations.

Loneliness—a Universal Disease

There is no stereotypical “lonely person.” They come in all shapes and sizes, from all walks of life. They are young and old; single and married; sometimes they have few, if any, friends, but sometimes they seem to be surrounded by friends. They can be people who have achieved great successes, as well as people who have endured one failure after another. Loneliness is an equal opportunity afflicter.

Lonely people are also often willing to do just about anything to feel loved, to fill up the emptiness they feel inside.

—“If I just sleep with this person, surely that will make them love me.”

—“If I just earned more money, I know that people would love me.”

—“If I just say ‘yes’ to everyone who wants something from me, that will surely make people love me.”

Somehow, it never works. We can’t make someone love us—love is always given freely.

Also, people who feel unloved often have a distorted view of reality. The emotional pain they feel blinds them to the fact that there are actually people, both family and friends, who love them dearly and care for them very much. But their pain keeps them from seeing and feeling love. However, there is hope for all who have ever felt lonely, uncared for or unloved. This hope comes from Someone who loves us very much, and who has gone to extraordinary lengths to prove it.

A Different Story

In the Bible, there is a story that beautifully depicts the breadth of God’s love for us, the scope of God’s love for us, and the extraordinary lengths to which God has gone to demonstrate His love for us. The story is found in the Old Testament book of Hosea. As the story begins, God tells Hosea to take as his wife a woman by the name of Gomer. The most startling thing about this match is that Gomer was a woman of questionable moral character. In fact, she is described as “an adulterous woman.” Why would God tell Hosea to marry a woman He knows is going to be unfaithful to him? God uses this marriage to teach us about the nature of His love for us.

As the story unfolds, Gomer gives birth to three children, then abandons Hosea and the kids and runs off to become a prostitute. After a time, God tells Hosea to search for Gomer and take her back into his home to be his wife. And he did! He found Gomer being auctioned off to the highest bidder, so he outbid everyone else and reclaimed his bride.

This amazing and startling story is the story of God’s love for us. Just as Hosea loved Gomer, God loves us personally. God knows us personally, even intimately, and still loves us. There is no part of our life that is unknown to God. He knows our needs, our hurts, our strengths and our weaknesses. He knows our successes and our failures—every one of them, and yet He still loves us. That’s about as good as love gets! No matter how unfaithful we have been in the past, or how far we have wandered from Him, no matter how unlovable we may feel, God still loves us. He is devoted to us, and His great desire is to tenderly draw us into a secure, intimate, loving relationship. God loves each of us personally.

God also loves us permanently. In the book of Hosea, God says, “I will betroth you to me forever.” The word betroth is basically the same as what we would call an engagement. And while engagements today are often exited as easily as they are entered, it was not so in Hosea’s day. And it is certainly not so when God is involved. Once God declares His love for us, He never changes His mind. He never has a change of heart. Our love may come and go. Our love may change as circumstances change, but God’s love is not like our love. God’s love for us is forever. God loves us because love is an ever-present quality woven into His character and His being. Jeremiah 31:3 says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.”

Lastly, God loves us completely. God doesn’t do anything halfway; He is totally and completely committed to loving us with all of His being. God hasn’t committed Himself to a wholehearted love relationship with us because we are righteous, just, loving, compassionate, and faithful. No! He has committed Himself to a wholehearted love relationship with us because He is righteous, just, loving, compassionate and faithful. God loves us so much that, as Romans 5:8 says, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” God responded to our sinfulness in love and sent Jesus to pay the penalty of our sin with His life, death, and resurrection. We can be completely forgiven and experience God’s full, free, wholehearted love today, tomorrow, and forever. God says in Hosea, “I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness.”

When Hosea went out searching for Gomer and found her on the auction block, her services for sale to the highest bidder, there may have been a moment when she looked across the crowd of men gathered in front of her and saw Hosea standing at the back of the crowd. In that moment perhaps her eyes locked onto the eyes of her husband and she realized there was absolutely nothing that she could do to change her past. There was absolutely nothing she could do to make herself worthy of Hosea’s love. All she could do was accept the redeeming gift of love that Hosea was offering her.

Each one of us is in the same place when we stand before God. There is absolutely nothing we can do to change our past. There is absolutely nothing we can do to be worthy of God’s love. All we can do is accept the gift of God’s redeeming love offered to us through Jesus—love that is personal, permanent, and complete.

(Rev. Tom Marcum is the pastor of Petaluma Valley Baptist Church in Petaluma, CA.)