There’s the alone where you feel sort of abandoned by everyone – where you feel friendless, even if it’s not really true.

There’s the alone where, even though you’re sitting in a room full of people, it feels like no one truly knows you’re there.

There’s the alone where you feel like no one really understands you – your soul feels like a stranger to everyone.

There’s the alone where a best friend or lover once fit into the space beside you that’s now empty.

There’s the alone where no lover has ever fit, and it feels like an aching gap.

There’s the alone where you are the only one who believes in your standards – or so it seems.

There’s the alone of an empty space – an empty house, an empty park, an empty street – empty but for you.

There’s the alone where you feel rather comforted by the absence of people – where it’s just you sitting cozily with your own thoughts or a good book or the Word of God.

There’s the alone of setting forth on a new venture to which God has called you and you alone.

But the loneliest kind of alone is far worse than any of those already mentioned.

The loneliest kind of alone is terrifying – forever separation from the Truest Comforter and Father of our souls for all eternity.

And God the Son willingly took on this separation briefly in our place – so that we never have to experience it, if we trust in Him for salvation.

Even at my loneliest of times, my refuge is found in God, who always reminds me that I am never truly alone.

But Christ was on the cross. In deepest agony, He cried out,

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

The loneliest alone. Forsaken by all, including His own Father. What we could never imagine.

And because He was alone on the cross, we never, ever have to experience that kind of loneliness.

When we are His, He covers us with wings of shelter when the loneliness comes creeping in. When we feel like no one truly understands us, He does. He understands far better than anyone else what it’s like to be alone – and He has come to carry that burden of ours.

When we are His, the silence doesn’t have to be permanent. We can turn our eyes to the music of His promises in Scripture, which take us into the hiding place of His wings. And in this refuge, this “secret place” that no one else can know or understand, our Savior meets us there and holds us close to Himself.

How rich a treasure we possess in that kind of comfort. He promises us that we will never, ever have to be permanently lonely – the loneliest kind of alone, separated from Him.

How sweet it is to have that kind of God – the God who intimately knows our deepest struggles because He once walked them Himself on earth. He is not a God who can’t sympathize with His dearest creations. He loves us far too much to ever leave us on our own. And He will forever keep reminding us of that love when we run to Him and throw our desperately lonely hearts into His.

And the python called forever loneliness is destroyed by the One who rose from the grave and conquered its death grip. It can never be ultimately victorious over the believer who clings fast to Christ – because Christ died in loneliness, and rose triumphantly over it only three days later.

This is what makes my heart secure and comforted. I am His, forever His, and no one can ever take that away from me.

What a priceless gift. Never alone. Forever.