Lonely at Christmas?

With the approach of the Christmas season, carols ring out and hearts are inspired by the new-old message of "Peace on earth, good will to men." Tinsel, wreaths, and lights beautify streets, businesses, and homes. They seem so welcoming!

But sometimes people feel that happiness during the Christmas season (or at any other time) has passed them by. They may think they have lost out on it somewhere along the way or that the holiday season is just not for them. To someone who is lonely, it may not matter much if it's Christmas or summertime. But there is an answer to loneliness that will help no matter what time of year it is. The answer is in a practical understanding of God—of what God is and how this understanding can be utilized in our lives.

The Bible tells us that God is Love, that He is wholly good and is ever present. Man, then, is inseparable from God, Love. Since God is ever present, man can never be cut off from Love, God. Wherever man is, God is. And anything unlike God, good, is no part of His man.

Here a skeptic might say, "How can God keep me from feeling lonely? I can't see Him or touch Him. I need something tangible and concrete. He doesn't even know I exist."

Christian Science teaches that man exists because God exists, and God, Love, knows and loves man because He created him. In fact, it is possible to begin to learn that man is totally spiritual and coexists with God. He actually has his being in God. You and I in our true being are that man. Moreover, divine Love is the source of all tenderness, compassion, beauty, understanding, and love. Love cares for its own creation. Love loves. In Love's knowledge of and care for its own creation, man, there is no deprivation, no separation from good, no lack of companionship or understanding.

As we begin to accept the concept of a God who is ever-present Love and of our inseparability from Him, we consequently deny the presence of anything ungodlike, such as loneliness. We are starting to see loneliness more for what it is: a mistaken belief that we can be separated from God. This is a suggestion we don't have to accept! As we persist in prayer, and reason from a spiritual basis, we begin to feel our actual spirituality and oneness with God, divine Love.

The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, was acquainted with loneliness. In founding Christian Science more than a century ago she endured many trials and more than once stood alone in her position. But she also recognized that the solution for loneliness lies in an increased understanding of man's inseparability from God, divine Love, who is always with us and always caring for us.

Of man's inherent oneness with God, she writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "In divine Science, God and the real man are inseparable as divine Principle and idea." This inseparability of Principle and idea, God and man, Father and son, cause and effect, completely eradicates the suggestion of loneliness. Since we can never be separated from good. Nothing can ever shatter this unity of God and man.

Christ Jesus is sometimes referred to as the man of sorrows, and he certainly knew loneliness. Even his disciples did not understand his mission. Misunderstood, persecuted, and vilified, the Way-shower correctly predicted that before his crucifixion he would be deserted by his followers. In his Gospel, John tells us the Master 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." Jesus, more than anyone before or since, knew the comforting touch of God's presence and love. He realized to an unlimited degree the inseparability of God and man, so much so that he said, "I and my Father are one."

In man's oneness with God there is no loneliness or broken family relationship. There is only the unbroken—and unbreakable—unity of man with his divine source, God.

Let us then claim through prayer our inseparability from divine Love. Let us reject the suggestion of loneliness at Christmas or any other time and see it as the falsity that it is. Let us open our hearts wide for others in need of knowing and feeling God's ever-presence, because in God's allness and largess is care not only for us but for others whom we might help.

As we put our lives on this spiritual basis, we find that the happy sounds of Christmas are really beautiful anthems telling us that divine Love is always with us and is caring for each of us and for all. Such sounds can never ring hollow in our hearts.

The Christmas reminder of him who overcame all things is a comforting note that our problems, no matter how large and ominous they may seem, have their solutions in an enlightened understanding of God and of His tender love for each one of us.