For those who feel unseen, unknown, and unloved, the sense of relational loneliness can be depressing. But God offers us a different reality.
Who Will Love Me?
For those who feel unseen, unknown, and unloved, the sense of relational loneliness can be depressing. But God offers us a different reality.
Eliza Tan
Who Will Love Me?
“Oh no. Another elderly man died alone in his flat, and no one discovered it till weeks later,” bemoaned my friend, Carmen.
A single lady in her late 50s and staying on her own, she has been particularly attuned to news about seniors dying alone at home. Now that she’s retired and at home most of the time,
the fear of being missed and not missed—being overlooked and forgotten—has become more pronounced.
“Maybe we can arrange to play mahjong regularly, so that you know something has happened to me if I suddenly go silent or missing!” she told me, half in jest.
I can understand how Carmen feels. Not having a partner in an intimate relationship, or someone to grow old with, can be a lonely experience.
And it’s not just singles like Carmen who struggle with feeling unseen and unknown. The stay-at-home mother who feels unsupported and unacknowledged in her housekeeping and child-rearing duties; the person suffering from a chronic disease who spends most of the time at home or in hospital; or the disabled or intellectually impaired who cannot go out without help—they may feel forgotten by family, friends, and society.
The Bible, too, acknowledges the plight of such people—like the lepers excluded from the community, the woman who was deemed ceremoniously unclean because of chronic bleeding (Luke 8:43–48), and the invalid man who couldn’t enter a pool to receive healing because no-one helped him (John 5:1–7).
Today, many older people also feel unseen. Some women suffer from what sociologists have dubbed the “Invisible Woman Syndrome”—once they hit their mid-40s, shop assistants ignore them, people push past them in queues, and men look through them.
For many people, to be ignored and left alone is not an introvert’s dream. At the root of their sense of loneliness lie unmet relational desires—for emotional connections, for attention, for affection, for affirmation, or, simply, for someone to think of them.
“Loneliness and the feeling of being uncared for and unwanted are the greatest poverty,” Mother Teresa once said.
“Oh no. Another elderly man died alone in his flat, and no one discovered it till weeks later,” bemoaned my friend, Carmen.
A single lady in her late 50s and staying on her own, she has been particularly attuned to news about seniors dying alone at home. Now that she’s retired and at home most of the time,
the fear of being missed and not missed—being overlooked and forgotten—has become more pronounced.
“Maybe we can arrange to play mahjong regularly, so that you know something has happened to me if I suddenly go silent or missing!” she told me, half in jest.
I can understand how Carmen feels. Not having a partner in an intimate relationship, or someone to grow old with, can be a lonely experience.
And it’s not just singles like Carmen who struggle with feeling unseen and unknown. The stay-at-home mother who feels unsupported and unacknowledged in her housekeeping and child-rearing duties; the person suffering from a chronic disease who spends most of the time at home or in hospital; or the disabled or intellectually impaired who cannot go out without help—they may feel forgotten by family, friends, and society.
The Bible, too, acknowledges the plight of such people—like the lepers excluded from the community, the woman who was deemed ceremoniously unclean because of chronic bleeding (Luke 8:43–48), and the invalid man who couldn’t enter a pool to receive healing because no-one helped him (John 5:1–7).
Today, many older people also feel unseen. Some women suffer from what sociologists have dubbed the “Invisible Woman Syndrome”—once they hit their mid-40s, shop assistants ignore them, people push past them in queues, and men look through them.
For many people, to be ignored and left alone is not an introvert’s dream. At the root of their sense of loneliness lie unmet relational desires—for emotional connections, for attention, for affection, for affirmation, or, simply, for someone to think of them.
“Loneliness and the feeling of being uncared for and unwanted are the greatest poverty,” Mother Teresa once said.
Loneliness Is Not Natural
Loneliness was not part of God’s original plan. From the start, He had declared: “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). So God created Eve, giving Adam not only fellowship with himself, but also companionship with another human being.
After the fall of man, however, there was a breakdown in relationships, both between humans and God, and also between human beings themselves. Relationships became tainted by guilt and shame.
When God first asked Adam and Eve, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9), He wasn’t inquiring as to their whereabouts—after all, the all-knowing, all-seeing Maker would have known where they were.
Rather, He was inviting the couple to come out of hiding and return to a full relationship with Him. He was offering to meet Adam and Eve amid their brokenness, to help them sort through the messy consequences of sin within the safe confines of their Creator’s love.
Sin has created a distance between us and the One who knows us best, as well as isolated us from one another. It has created a relational loneliness that can afflict anyone.
Even Jesus Christ experienced loneliness in His last hour. As He bore the sins of the world on the cross, His perfect communion with God the Father was broken. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He cried (Matthew 27:46).
Jesus personally knows our pain of loneliness; He knows exactly how empty, sad, and forlorn we feel when deprived of companionship and connection with others.
Jesus personally knows our pain of loneliness; He knows exactly how empty, sad, and forlorn we feel when deprived of companionship and connection with others.
God Sees, Knows, and Loves Us
If you find yourself saying things like, “No one knows the real me” or “No one misses me”,
or feel a longing for a relationship in which you are known and loved, you’re not alone.
In her book, You are Not Alone: 6 Affirmations from a Loving God, Christian writer Elisa Morgan describes this as relational loneliness, which can stem from one avoiding the risk of being misunderstood and rejected. But she also reminds us that
God affirms us: “I know you because I made you.”
Psalm 139 tells us of a Creator God who sees and knows each one of us intimately. The psalmist says: “My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place . . . Your eyes saw my unformed body” (vv. 15–16). Not only does God know each spoken word before it leaves our lips, but He also knows every hidden thought (vv. 2, 4). He knows our every love and hate, joy and woe, more than a spouse or a best friend.
One of the many people who discovered this truth in the Bible is Hagar, who fled from her mistress, Sarah, after being mistreated. God saw her troubles and heard her cry of distress, and gave her a promise of blessing for her yet-to-born son. She would later name him Ishmael (which means “God hears”) and declare God as El-roi, which means “the God who sees me” (Genesis 16:13).
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God sees us in our brokenness, inadequacy, and suffering. He also knows our fears, anxieties, and plans. Our El-roi is always watching over us.
For those of us who love Him, we can rejoice that we are known by God (1 Corinthians 8:3). “To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear,” writes well-known author, theologian, and pastor Timothy Keller.
“But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything.”
He adds: “It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.” Such is the sufficiency of God’s perfect knowledge of us and extravagant love for us.
Elisa Morgan, too, notes that the assurance of God’s heart for us can make all the difference. “It’s from a foundation of being known and loved that we can venture into relationships with other people, those God can use to ease our relational loneliness,” she says.
For my friend Carmen, I hope I can help to remind her of her Creator God, who sees her solitude at home, knows her fear of being missed, and loves her so much that He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die for her. Together, we can be assured that we are seen, loved, and not alone.
Although Eliza Tan eats to live rather than lives to eat, she still enjoys her food and wholeheartedly agrees with Ecclesiastes 3:13, "That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God."
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