ManageYourEmotionsBook8.5x5.5_RevJULY.indd

not a dating or escort service, but simply a friendship business). 12 Vicky (not her real name), a 31-year-old talkative type who never meets a stranger, is making a living as a “Friend for Hire.” She keeps an online profile at RentAFriend.com where strangers can view her profile and get her phone number. “The thing with these people is they just want someone to listen, like a presence. It’s not about me. I’m just this… thing, this person, that’s there for reassur- ance.” 13 As unorthodox as this may sound to some, it’s an unsurprising development given the society in which we live. Country music icon Waylon Jennings admitted, “The world that I live in is empty and cold.The loneliness cuts me and tortures my soul.” 14 “If I’m a legend, why am I so lonely?” questioned actress and singer Judy Garland. Albert Einstein candidly commented, “It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely.” 15 Although these quotes come from modern times, loneliness has been around since the beginning of time. John Milton, 17 th cen- tury English author of Paradise Lost, stated, “Loneliness is the first thing which God’s eye named no good.” 16 As the Bible says, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make a helper suitable for him” (Genesis 2:18). Loneliness is no respecter of persons, crossing gender, ethnic, cultural, and economic barriers. Being in a position of power and au- thority doesn’t insulate one from such a state, in fact, it often times accentuates loneliness. David, ruler over the vast kingdom of Israel and “man after God’s own heart,” candidly admitted, “I resemble a pelican of the wilderness; I have become like an owl of the waste places. I lie awake, I have become like a lonely bird on a housetop” (Psalm 102:6,7). Examining this tormentor of the soul, let’s begin by discuss- ing what loneliness isn’t. First, loneliness isn’t the same as being lonesome . You can be lonesome without being lonely. Leaving the familiarities of a town I lived in my entire life, I was lonesome as a

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