I think especially in the Christian community, that’s supposed to be the remedy for loneliness. I think a lot of it is because we assume that if you have a husband and children, you’re not going to be lonely. What does that reveal about the causes of loneliness, or maybe the ways that we incorrectly assume what the causes might be? It might be surprising to some to hear that 51% of young moms, according to that study that we talked about-people who presumably have a lot of face time each day with their kids and probably also their husbands-they, nevertheless, said that they were struggling with serious loneliness.
I don’t think society has come up with anything yet, but at least they’re talking about it. People are trying to put in place ways of dealing with it. If you think about that, the pandemic did bring this to the forefront, and now people are talking about it. The government recognized it as an epidemic actually. The UK, actually, addressed this before the pandemic when they appointed a Minister of Loneliness. It can definitely be one if it’s used to address the problem. Would you say that’s maybe a silver lining on the pandemic on this front, in that it maybe has made it more okay for us to vocalize our experiences of loneliness in a way that maybe before it wasn’t as culturally acceptable? It brought out what I think was probably there to begin with. So, those numbers in the study, I think loneliness has come front and center through the pandemic because suddenly people are isolated-they’re cut off-and then it became more of a topic of conversation. Are you lonely? It’s there, but sometimes we don’t recognize it as loneliness. It doesn’t come up in conversation: I’m lonely. Or, if we’re aware that something is a little off, we don’t define it as loneliness. It runs as an undercurrent like white noise so much of the time that we’re not even aware it’s there. I think loneliness can be one of those things that is in everyone’s life to some degree. In fact, I would say that they were probably in place before the pandemic and it just wasn’t talked about or recognized. Loneliness appears to have increased substantially since the outbreak of the global pandemic.” Are you surprised by those numbers? They write: “Our new report suggests that 36% of all Americans, including 61% of young adults and 51% of mothers with young children, feel serious loneliness. I want to read their summary of their findings and then hear you respond to that. Just this month Harvard University published a study that they ran related to loneliness in the US during this COVID pandemic that we’ve been living through together. We always have good conversations on this podcast.įor sure. It’s fun to reconnect, this time at a distance, but still really good to chat. Lydia, thank you so much for joining me again on The Crossway Podcast.
Experiencing the Pandemic as a Single Person.Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | RSS Topics Addressed in This Interview: Lydia Brownback offers biblical encouragement for women to help them see how God can redeem seasons of loneliness and draw them to the only true and lasting remedy: union with Jesus. Finding God in My Loneliness Lydia Brownback
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