The Lonely Daughters of Eve

I wonder if Eve felt it. Outside the garden, looking in. Fractured relationship with God and her hunky hubby. Standing there in animal skins, wondering if she looked hippy, did she feel lonely?

It surprised me to walk on two continents with God’s girls and find that we are plagued by the same lie. Satan whispers foul-stenched deception....You are alone...no one cares about you. 

And despite being in churches, Bible studies, fellowship groups, families, and neighborhoods, we believe it. We stand knee-deep in a river and die of thirst, because a lie keeps us bound in sadness and isolation.

As she sheds tears over her loneliness. As she leans in, sobbing, while I beg God for community and love for her. As I stand giggling with her on her doorstep in the rain. I see we are the same, she and I.

Strange, a woman marginalized in a society where relationships are of the highest value and a woman’s Bible teacher who feels friendless even when gathered around the Bible with other women, could be knitted together by a common heartache.

Loneliness.

The woman I spent sixteen hours next to on the flight home shares her story with me. The thread that ties it all together. Despite a family, a business, and international travel, she feels alone.

Friendless.

On a Facebook group, a woman shares her prayer request about feeling lonely, alone, and as though no one cares for her. Another woman offers the same feelings as comfort.

And I begin to wonder, how did we come to this point?

Daughters of the King made for greatness and grace. Glory bearers who carry life and light are locked in a dark dungeon of despair and longing. (Not unlike the pit of despair. Princess Bride, anyone?) As we swallow Satan’s lies, believing we are the only lonely ones, we put on blinders and somehow think we are the only ones sitting in this pit.

Girlfriend, take off your blinders and look around.

The woman across the aisle from you. The woman behind you in the mile-long line at Walmart. Your neighbor. The woman who sits next to you at Bible Study. Your seatmate on the train. Your boss. The barista who draws the heart on your cup every morning.

We are all daughters of Eve. (I suddenly feel like we should find a wardrobe and push through the fur coats together.) Satan knows us by our righteousness, and he seeks to wound us and draw us from the One who clothes us.

You were created for holiness, for divine relationship, for abiding, light-carrying glory. The holy hole inside of you belongs to the One who carved out that hole and can only be filled by Him.

But along the path we walk to discover the character of our God, He has given us sisters. Women who desperately want to laugh, to connect, to lean into you while you hold them up, to hold you up when life is too heavy to bear alone, to tell you that those skins do make you look hippy, but your big hair helps balance it out. There are women who will spend their little to feed you. Women who will stand in line at Walmart after midnight, because chocolate, after a night of long talks and deep tears. Women who will build you up in the Holy Spirit in one text and send you a snarky meme in the next.

It is a divine sisterhood. And that scares the tar out of the devil. Because where two or more are gathered.....

It doesn’t take much to defeat the lie and beat back the devil. Just reaching out. A heartfelt greeting. An invitation to coffee.  A listening ear.

You aren’t alone; look at the woman beside you and tell her she’s not alone. (Go ahead. I’ll wait. She probably needs to hear it too.)