In a Lonely Pew.

She fumbles with the keys in her pocket.

She smiles as she steps up the stairs and the door flashes open.  The cool breeze of the air conditioning touches her face and seems to reflect the feelings of her heart.

"I am here.  I am walking into a world of perfection while my world mocks me of it.

Here, where the husbands and wives serve together, teachers of the little children, ushers, nursery workers who smile as they take the children from cluttered arms,

while I struggle to juggle not my things, but my own uncomfortable thoughts."

"Where do I fit into this perfection?"

She jostles her things as she sits in the pew.

The emptiness of the seat beside her seems to yawn at her.

She is single, not by choice, but by circumstances she can't control.

He's not there, the one who would, it seems to her lonely heart, make her "perfect,"

like the others who serve.

He has either never appeared in her life,

 this unattending 'soul-mate',

or he was there and has moved on,

or at work,
or any number or reasons.

Perfection, like those around her, seems so intangible, she wants to scream,

but instead, she forces a smile as she picks up a dropped bulletin and hands it to the clumsy hand that dropped it.

She feels the weight of the loneliness by the exclusion she faces from the other couple activities around her.

It seems to push at her, board her up hopelessly, into the world of her loneliness.

And yet, if she could see into the perfect homes of the perfect ones,

she would see that loneliness has a way of hiding under the seats of the busy,

less obvious, undoubtedly, but like a smelly dog snoozing, making the owner uncomfortable with what is trying to be hidden.

Loneliness hides more easily from view beneath the weight of the babes in arms,

the piles of busy work, the consuming career,

the uncleanliness of a prideful heart.

It does not have to be the determining factor of the joy in her life. 

Loneliness can be replaced by perfect peace from a God who walked an imperfect earth as well.

And yet, He sees;

He beckons to us to come up beside.

Where do we stand when we sit in our pews of satisfaction?

When the loneliness we could know avoids us to slip it's icy fingers around our neighbor's throat?

Careless are we when we count our "blessings" to be our own work or merit.

Our boasting of blessings may be the noticeably lacking weight that another views as the trial they have been forced to carry.  

When we are lonely, may we look to the one who sees our pain;

when we are full, may we lift up the hands of the weary sitting beside us.

 

No lonely heart should go untouched in the house of God.

(This post was written to join in the writing at Gypsy Mama's 

Five Minute Friday,

where she gives the prompt and we write for five minutes.

I did not have anybody in mind while writing this,

just from observations and thoughts,

 and,

 I suppose we all have been in the seat of the lonely at some time or another.)

If you would like to see the process of the above drawing,

you will find it at Pails of Paint.com: Seeing and Drawing in Reverse.