Loneliness seems to be a characteristic of contemporary society. Many people live alone, separated from friends and family, having to care for themselves. Then there are homeless and wandering street people, often forsaken, abused, afraid.

Other people may feel alone even though they are surrounded by all their loved ones and by the apparently valuable things the world says are sure to flood us with gaiety.

But loneliness can be healed. No one needs to suffer from it. The Bible promises: "Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate ... for the Lord delighteth in thee." ^{Isa. 62:3, 4.}

This Bible passage gives us a clue to healing loneliness. We must turn to God and away from the suggestions that we are mere mortals. We have the right to reject the agony-producing argument that man is a lonely mortal who has to be always surrounded by other attentive mortals in order to be happy. Isn't satisfying companionship really the result, rather than the cause, of joy? We need to yield to the powerful and authoritative truth that man is the blessed and perfect child of the one God. This is what the Bible reveals man to be because that is the way man is, and we all deserve to bask in the inspiration from God that blessed the Bible writers.

This may not seem as easy as basking in the sunlight. Those who are tempted to regard loneliness as a deserved curse from a wrathful God may believe they should not want to be free of it. But through the grace of God, we can awake, want to be free, and be free. No pit of loneliness is so deep that the saving Christ, the divine message of Truth and Love, cannot reach it. As a matter of fact, Christ is always here, saving human consciousness from false beliefs and hurt by giving us the true concept of man as God's perfect child. Since God is infinite good, He includes all good and there is no evil in Him. Man as His likeness manifests all good.

One of the basic beliefs that make people feel lonely is the thought that they are separated from God. "God may be good," this error would have us believe, "but that doesn't help me, because He is far from me."

We may all feel far from God at times. But just because we have been deceived into thinking we are far from God, that does not mean we actually are. On a dark night we may think a boat we are in is far from land when it is only a few yards offshore. When light comes we discover the fact.

Loneliness is darkness. We feel lonely when our thought is so absorbed with false beliefs about God's nature and man's relation to Him that it is not aware of spiritual facts. Jesus showed us the way out of all loneliness when he said, referring to Christ, "I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness." ^{John 12:46.}

To "believe on" Christ is to do more than cling to the person of Jesus, as grateful as we should be for his incomparable example. It is to cling to the truths that he taught—that man is the perfect child of God now and forever, reflecting Him and therefore complete and needing nothing. It is to cling to God, to Truth itself. Jesus himself clung to Truth. He said, "Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me." ^{John 16:32.} He had a clear understanding of his oneness with God as the Son of God.

We need a clear sense of our oneness with God. This fact heals the sometimes deep beliefs and hidden sins that may lie behind the loneliness.

As odd as it may seem, desperate feelings of loneliness can bring rich blessings. They can force us to face certain very unlovely thoughts and characteristics we may have been cherishing, perhaps even unkind attitudes toward others. Sometimes selfishness, pride, self-will, and arrogance are behind friendlessness. Others may have avoided us because we have not been very pleasant people. If this has been true, the pain of being left alone can bless us by forcing these wholly false traits of character to the surface of our thought where they can be healed through Christly prayer.

Even those we may have been self-righteously feeling were callous, uncaring, and indifferent are actually children of God. Even if they have acted in these ways, that is no license for us to believe they are that way. Our orders about how to think of others come from God, not from others. God, who is Mind, commands that we know His children only as He knows them, perfect in every way. God has not a single selfish reflection, nor does He hold such a view of man. To be truly happy means that we love ourselves as God's child and that we love others as ourselves. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes: "Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it." ^{Science and Health, p. 57.}

Actually, when we are spiritually alert, being alone can be a blessed time of more deeply cherishing the reality of God's creation. We can gain a clearer sense of our own mission and be better prepared to help others. Far from feeling lonely, we can feel complete and satisfied when we are alone with God, obediently and humbly doing the work He would have us do.