aloneness

"You and I are people alone. Aloneness is a natural fact. No one else in the world is like me: I am unique. No one else feels and experiences the world the way I do: I am alone...But, as Christians, we are called to convert our loneliness into solitude. We are called to experience our aloneness not as a wound, but as a gift - as God's gift - so that in our aloneness we might discover how deeply we are loved by God. It is precisely where we are most alone, most unique, most ourselves, that God is closest to us. That is where we experience God as the divine, loving Father, who knows us better than we know ourselves." - Henri Nouwen