Text: An­na Pärk­kä

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

Many pe­op­le close to us may ex­pe­rien­ce lo­ne­li­ness, though we may not even be awa­re of it. What could we do if we find that so­me­o­ne is strug­g­ling with lo­ne­li­ness? We can in­vi­te them over for a vi­sit, a cup of cof­fee or sau­na or sug­gest that they join a hob­by group. It is of­ten enough just to re­cog­ni­ze them by gree­ting or smi­ling. Pe­op­le feel good when they are seen and spo­ken to.

Ser­vi­ces and ot­her cong­re­ga­ti­o­nal ac­ti­vi­ties are open to all pe­op­le. They pro­vi­de fee­lings of to­get­her­ness, but it is al­so pos­sib­le to be feel lo­ne­ly in such si­tu­a­ti­ons. There may be per­so­nal mat­ters that one would like to share con­fi­den­ti­al­ly with so­me­o­ne or to ask qu­es­ti­ons and re­cei­ve ans­wers. A lo­ne­ly per­son should pray that God would give them friends.

Pe­op­le may even feel them­sel­ves bul­lied among be­lie­vers. The vic­tim may, for ins­tan­ce, feel left out of group they would like to be­long to. This prob­lem is pro­bab­ly most com­mon among yo­ung pe­op­le still on their way to adult­hood and un­cer­tain about them­sel­ves.

Pe­op­le may al­so ex­pe­rien­ce bul­lying in eve­ry­day si­tu­a­ti­ons, even by their boss at work. It is hard to live one’s dai­ly life as a vic­tim of bul­lying. I have won­de­red how cons­ci­ous­ly pe­op­le bul­ly ot­hers. Ma­y­be the bul­lies have poor self-es­teem and bul­lying ot­hers ma­kes them feel bet­ter about it.

God’s word, ho­we­ver. te­ac­hes us to love our neigh­bors, even our ene­mies. It may al­so hap­pen that we treat our neigh­bors bad­ly wit­hout being awa­re of it. I think most bul­lying is de­li­be­ra­te, but there are si­tu­a­ti­ons where we may not ne­ces­sa­ri­ly un­ders­tand that our be­ha­vi­or of­fends the ot­her per­son. Pe­op­le al­so feel dif­fe­rent­ly about things. Some pe­op­le are more sen­si­ti­ve, while ot­hers are less ea­si­ly of­fen­ded. These dif­fe­ren­ces can be due to many things.

Bul­lying and malt­re­at­ment le­a­ve scars. Pe­op­le with such scars may in­terp­ret anot­her per­son’s be­ha­vi­or more sen­si­ti­ve­ly as bul­lying, even when the ot­her per­son has not me­ant any harm.

I have of­ten won­de­red about the ways in which we pass on to our child­ren the things we have le­arnt. How we com­mu­ni­ca­te with our spou­se, how we speak to our child­ren, what kind of lan­gu­a­ge we find ac­cep­tab­le bet­ween child­ren, and so on. Child­ren are gifts. Who would want to break their gifts?

If on­ly we could com­mu­ni­ca­te with ot­hers kind­ly, even in our ho­mes among our dear ones. Mot­hers and fat­hers of­ten use their aut­ho­ri­ty on their child­ren wit­hout pa­ying at­ten­ti­on to the child’s emo­ti­o­nal state. A child may have ex­pe­rien­ced chal­len­ges at school, but we just or­der them to do their home du­ties wit­hout re­cog­ni­zing their ne­ga­ti­ve fee­lings. As pa­rents, we should sen­si­ti­ve­ly lis­ten to our child­ren and ado­les­cents and not just or­der them cold­ly.

There are many chal­len­ges and dif­fi­cul­ties in our time, but God has pro­mi­sed to help us all. We can trust that God will gui­de our li­ves. He will see in­to our he­arts and will know what we need.

There are many re­a­sons for us to be hap­py and gra­te­ful. God’s grace is abun­dant and the gos­pel is po­wer­ful. We can trust in that even to­day.