I went to Jim ‘N Nick’s BBQ after church yesterday. It was a beautiful fall day in Denver. The temperature was in the upper 60s, so I ate my usual Pig-in-a Garden pulled pork salad out on the covered porch that overlooks the Rockies…alone.

It’s strange doing things you normally do with family and friends, but alone instead. It makes you feel all the more alone. I’m used to the many ministry trips I’ve been on where I would be alone for a few days at a time. But being home and alone is completely different.

Reading this post, one would think that it’s been two months since I drove Patti to DIA to go visit her mother in Houston. But it’s been only two days. Even so, in that brief time I’ve come to realize that I hate eating at home alone, watching TV at home alone, sleeping in bed at home alone, doing the dishes at home alone. At least I can write about loneliness in a blog so I don’t have to commiserate at home alone (which is an oxymoron).

But the thought struck me late yesterday afternoon as I was walking (again, alone) that every married person should spend a couple of days at home alone every now and then. The reason is because it reminds us, if even in just a very small way, what it’s like to be widowed, divorced or never married. Family life is busy life. Married Christians easily forget the “solos” in their church (as they call single people in New Zealand) because their own lives are so full…of people.

Ultimate reality, Christianity teaches us, is multi-personal. God is a community of three. And having been created in God’s image, we only experience a limited, stunted reality when we’re alone. On the other hand, we thrive when we are in relationship – with God and others.

And so, my dear married Christian readers, take a moment to think about the solos in your church. Are they thriving because you and your fellow betrothed Christians are practicing the love of Christ towards them on a consistent basis? Or are they wilting because you in your marital bliss are ignoring them?

Don’t think it matters? Send your wife to go visit her mother and sleep alone in your bed for a few nights.

This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.

Published: October 14, 2019.

Updated: December 24, 2021.