Chapter 2: SUFFERING ALONE
Luke 12:15-21 And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.
Friday, 17 July 2026
Suffering Alone: How Loneliness Grows a Wound
Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness. — Gabor Maté
Pierce sits across from me on the edge of the couch, his foot anxiously tapping, his eyes scanning my office. I’m his pastor, and he’s come to ask for advice about his brother.
Chase, his twin, is a thirtysomething marijuana and opioid user who also attends the church, but who often arrives disheveled and, at times, high. He struggles to keep jobs, sometimes teetering on the edge of homelessness.
Pierce, on the other hand, shows up at church early each Sunday, a bright and charming full participant who seems to be adored by everyone. He dresses well and always appears cheerful.
I don’t know either man well, so Pierce tells me a bit of their backstory. They grew up in a wealthy community in the South Bay, their father a high-powered lawyer for top Silicon Valley tech companies. “Dad’s affairs and Mom’s depression wrecked Chase,” Pierce tells me. “It’s sad to see him suffer while I’ve managed to navigate it all so well.”
Pierce’s comment provokes curiosity, so I ask him about successfully managing these challenges. “Be strong,” he says. “People will let you down, but you can always count on yourself!” For Pierce, to be a real man is to never ever need someone. This is the lesson he learned from his father.
As I spend time with Pierce, the fuller picture begins to develop. While Chase’s substance use seemed to sabotage any forward progress in career or relationships, Pierce took a different route. He followed his father into law, his new wealth funding an extravagant lifestyle that included consensual hookups. Early on, one son began coping with substances while the other chased success and sex.
But each was running from a painful wound.
Pierce doesn’t expect what I share next. “Somewhere along the way, you both lost track of yourselves,” I say. I tell him how sad I feel. And he sees and feels my sadness. “You seem so very lonely, too,” I tell Pierce, my eyes now welling with tears.
I expect him to evade or disengage, but instead he locks eyes and lets me see him, even the emptiness behind his eyes. “I’ve been so worried about Chase,” he says, “but I sometimes feel as lost as he is.” Hanging his head, he finally lets the tears come. And he allows me to sit with him, no longer alone in his pain.
All the Lonely People
Instead of catching the bus after leaving the office that day, I walk down Van Ness Avenue to Market Street, through San Francisco’s Castro district and uphill toward our new apartment in Noe Valley, where we moved in hope of a bit less fog. Inspired by Pierce’s vulnerability, I walk deliberately, making eye contact when I can with people I don’t know.
God’s first question, “Where are you?” grows as a longing within me, for myself and for each image bearer designed for worth, belonging, and purpose whom I pass that day.
Unlike my normal routine of walking with eyes averted and ears covered by headphones, I try to stay present amidst a sea of lonely strangers, each with their own story, all in a rush to get somewhere, perhaps even to evade themselves. Continuing on, I find myself pondering the Communion table, where I’d met Chase and Pierce time and again. Do they know how hungry and thirsty they are? Is there any deep satisfaction in the food and drink God offers? In their lostness, do they feel found by God each week? Suddenly, I am overcome with the collective ache of the hundreds of people who come to the table each Sunday with their own stories, their unique pain, and their irrevocable inheritance of worth, belonging, and purpose. Can they let their hearts be touched? I imagine myself asking each one of them the same question: “Where are you?”
Even as I ponder it, I recognize how ironic it is that I, their pastor, feel so lost and lonely too. The truth is, so many of us are alone in our pain and alienated from our deepest selves in God.
“Disconnection in all its guises—alienation, loneliness, loss of meaning, and dislocation—is becoming our culture’s most plentiful product,” addiction and trauma expert Gabor Maté observes. “No wonder we are more addicted, chronically ill, and mentally disordered than ever before, enfeebled as we are by such malnourishment of mind, body, and soul.” We’re literally lost without connection. We’ll go searching, to be sure, just as Pierce and Chase did, surviving off the breadcrumbs of pseudo-connection. But it’s a recipe for painful isolation, even unhealth.
Yet it’s the recognition of this aloneness that is a necessary first step toward reconnection with ourselves, with God, and with those we love.
Alone in Our Pain
“To suffer is as human as to breathe,” the wise Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore declares. Indeed, none of us are spared from the struggles and sufferings of life within the 1,185 chapters between creation and re-creation. What wounds the soul to its depths, however, is solitary suffering. Here, our pain simmers unaddressed. Here, we begin to forget who we are.
It wasn’t meant to be this way, of course. “It is not good for the man to be alone,” God says (Genesis 2:18). God’s imagination is for a world where humans are offered the chance of real spiritual, emotional, and physical companionship with one another. And in the very first chapter of Scripture, this design is described as tov meod in the Hebrew—“very good” (Genesis 1:31). Even before birth, we were designed for connection, for slow growth within a human womb, nine months in complete union with our mothers, literally connected to them for support. This is our very first embodied taste of Eden, of home. And when we’re ready, we’re born into the world with indispensable, relationship-rich needs to feel safe, seen, soothed, and secure. Connection is the most important need of any infant, essential not just to survival but to human flourishing. Without connection, an infant will die. Indeed, without connection, we cannot truly live. Connection is how we are equipped to navigate life’s inevitable trials, how we can experience emotional regulation after we’re hurt, how we gain the resilience we need for whatever comes next. Connection is our relational home and the biggest hint of our spiritual inheritance.
But suffering is inevitable. And suffering alone is what leaves an incalculable wound. Trauma’s best-kept secret, well-articulated by therapist Bonnie Badenoch, is that the “essence of trauma isn’t events, but aloneness within them.” What has been called a “loneliness epidemic” is now known to be dangerous to both our physical and emotional health. Chronic disconnection magnifies the risks of illness and death, mimicking the impact of smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. Humans literally wither without connection.
Think of it like the thirst your plants experience when they’re not sunned and watered... When we’re alone and go it on our own, we, too, begin to wither and fade. In time, we may actually habituate to our dulled and lifeless state, creating the conditions for the festering wound of trauma. Connection is water and light to weary and withered souls.
In our suffering, we need an empathetic witness, someone to say, “Where are you?,” someone who’ll see us as we are, someone who’ll be with us in it. Absent this, the wound festers, it severs, it tears us up from the inside.
The Slow Wither of Loneliness
Pierce began to see that though he’d never arrive at church without a companion or eat a meal by himself, he was just as lonely as his brother. And I’d once come to realize that I was withering too...
An expert on stress and how our bodies hold it, Peter A. Levine writes about how subtle the path to loneliness can be: “In short, trauma is about loss of connection—to ourselves, to our bodies, to our families, to others, and to the world around us...”
Of course, stress doesn’t always turn into trauma... But what happens within us may be vastly different depending on whether we have connection and support.
Say “Ouch!”
One summer, I convened a support group for survivors of significant spiritual abuse... Participants began minimizing their pain through comparison (“someone had it worse”).
“You know, each of you has a nervous system,” I told the participants. “And your nervous system isn’t comparing what happened. It’s coping with the consequences, and it’s craving connection.”
Peter A. Levine’s car accident story powerfully illustrates the healing power of presence: A caring woman’s simple act of holding his hand and speaking soothingly helped regulate his body out of shock.
What Levine’s story tells us is that no matter how we’ve suffered, we need attuned care and compassion amidst it. We need someone to say “Ouch!” We need a present person who will be with us and who won’t minimize what we’re feeling.
The Practice of Befriending Suffering
“Embrace your grief, for there your soul will grow,” noted psychologist Carl Jung. Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4) and “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
Practical Steps:
- Write your own laments in the spirit of the Psalms.
- Practice “Separating and Attending”: “I am not my [sadness/shame/addiction]. I am feeling/coping with... At my core, I am loved by God...”
- Seek soul companionship — invite someone to walk with you in honesty.
You don’t have to suffer alone. Bring it into the light and let your leaves unfurl.
Resources
- Amanda Held Opelt, A Hole in the World
- Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow
- Curt Thompson, The Soul of Shame (and others listed in the original)
Reflection Questions
- Can you think of an experience when you suffered alone? How did it feel?
- How did your family talk about painful things?
- Has suffering alone become normalized for you?
- How have you minimized your suffering through comparison?
Practice: Befriend your suffering through lament, separating/attending, and companionship.
To see the Summary Report on this material Click HERE
No comments:
Post a Comment