Line upon Line

For many singles, loneliness is not a constant roar, but a persistent, low-frequency hum. It is the cumulative weight of “small silences” that build up over weeks and years. I remember one time in my first year of mid-single life realizing that I had never truly lived alone. Growing up, I lived with my parents. When I left for my mission, I had companions. In college, I had roommates until I got married. So, until I separated from my former spouse, I had never known the silence of living alone. That silence sometimes felt unbearable.

This oppressive silence is the echo of an empty house where no one asks, “How was your day?” or notices if you’ve arrived home safely. It is the invisible burden of a triple load—logistical, financial, and emotional—that must be borne by a single set of shoulders. Logistically, there is no “backup” for the mundane tasks that prove vital when they remain undone. 

Financially, a single adult navigates a world built for two incomes, where every emergency threatens your financial foundation. Emotionally, the lack of a daily witness to your life—someone to share a small victory or a burnt dinner—can lead to a profound sense of invisibility. We often feel like observers in a world designed for pairs, whether we are sitting alone in a church pew, at a dinner party, or during holiday celebrations. When the phone remains silent, the weight of being “unseen” can feel like a heavy shroud. (Have you ever sat for a couple of hours looking at Facebook, just thinking about who you might be able to chat with—just for a little company?)

Holy Week offers a profound, almost jarring irony to the experience of being lonely. We might call this the Gethsemane Paradox. The most important and universal act in human history—the Atonement of Jesus Christ—was performed in absolute solitude.  Centuries before Jesus went to Gethsemane, the prophet Isaiah recorded the Messiah’s own description of His coming moment—perhaps the most visceral acknowledgment of divine loneliness in holy writ: “I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me” (Isaiah 63:3).

In the ancient world, treading a winepress was a communal, rhythmic task—a harvest celebration involving many hands and joyful songs. But the Savior’s “harvest” was different. To truly suffer for everyone, He had to be separated from everyone. In Gethsemane, when He asked His closest friends to “watch with [Him],” they fell asleep. Even in His moment of greatest agony, those who loved Him most could not comprehend His burden. He was physically surrounded by people yet, emotionally and spiritually, He was in a vacuum. 

The irony deepened on the cross when Jesus experienced the ultimate human fear: the withdrawal of a loving Father who had always been there to comfort and protect Him. His soul cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34), was the moment He became the ultimate patron of the lonely. Jesus didn’t just observe loneliness. He fully entered it. He did this so the single person sitting alone in a quiet room, feeling forgotten, may have the sincere comfort that only the understanding borne of experience can deliver. You are not talking to a God who looks down on you with pity, but a Savior who sees you with the experiential insight of one who has been there and will never forsake you–who will walk to Gethsemane and back with you in your moment of maximum loneliness and despair. And you are never more in His fellowship and embrace than when you feel utterly alone.

While the “Saturday” of our lives can feel like an eternal waiting room, the scriptures promise that restoration is a central, literal law of the universe. Consider the woman who had suffered for twelve years with a blood issue. She had spent everything she had on doctors, but none had cured her. She must have been spiritually exhausted. Her society branded her as perpetually unclean, and she was isolated. No one would have wanted to touch her! She was “fearing and trembling” when she realized that Jesus had sensed her touch. Yet the moment she touched the Jesus’s robe, she was “straightway” healed (Mark 5:29). Perhaps the most profound moment of her restoration was not the physical healing, but the words Jesus spoke next. He called her “Daughter.” Jesus didn’t just mend her body. He welcomed her into the family of God, replacing her twelve years of isolation and loneliness with an immediate and eternal sense of belonging. Twelve years of suffering and despair ended in a single second. 

Similarly, Job’s story reminds us that long seasons of loneliness and loss do not dictate the speed of recovery. After a grueling trial of isolation, where even Job’s friends turned against him, the Lord “turned the captivity of Job” and “also, the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before” (Job 42:10). His restoration was a double blessing that arrived as a divine gift—not a relentlessly slow climb that He had to make alone.

The Resurrection itself is the ultimate example of an “overnight” transformation. On Saturday, the cause seemed lost as the tomb had been sealed. By Sunday morning, the entire direction of the world had shifted forever. Restoration doesn’t always have to be a slow, agonizing crawl. It can come like a thief in the night—sudden, miraculous, and total. The message of Holy Week is that morning is coming, and it has the power to restore everything loss and despair took away.

Deep inside, I have understood this truth for a very long time. I think, in a large sense, virtually everyone has known the loneliness of feeling misunderstood, forgotten, or dismissed. 

As a newly returned missionary, I wrote the following poem— before knowing the lonely darkness of rejection by a wife I loved; before watching my beloved 17 year-old brother suffer and die a horrific death from brain cancer; before a second divorce; and before the loss of my sweet 24-year-old son in a tragic rock climbing accident—then burying my mother only four months later. Life has been harder than I might have thought when I wrote this poem. But I have held close the promise that, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Psalm 30:5), and that has made all the difference. 

Joy Cometh in the Morning

Life began, for Adam, in sweet innocence,
But it didn’t endure very well,
For Eden reigned but one shining moment,
And shortly gave way to pure hell.

Days can be filled with sweat on our brows,
And the pain and sorrows of life.
Headlines read of murder and drugs,
And of international strife.

In humanity’s quest for the good things of life,
Everything got all mixed up.
It turned from a charming garden of God,
To a relentless bitter cup.

So, what of the sorrow and all the despair,
That seems our common lot?
Of the hopeless depression,
The lifeless shame of every negative thought?

For they seem to canker the souls of many,
With bitterness and with gloom.
An existence that is not really life,
Is the poison of Satan’s doom.

Yet in the beginning God made a plan,
To renew and refresh and redeem,
To give each soul some hope for itself,
And a little courage to dream.

God called the light day, and the darkness night,
And gave laws to govern their dawn,
And with the dawning of each new light,
Comes new courage and strength to go on.

As the sun descends in the death of the day,
And the chill of twilight is born,
God’s children lie down to the death we call night,
No more their sorrows to mourn.

Then morning comes, first in one golden strand,
Later in brilliance clear,
And with the night flees the desperate sorrow,
With all its burdens and tears.

The soul is renewed in each new morn,
With new mercy and grace from above,
For God wants to lift the spirits of all,
To eternal temples of love.

As one walks through this veil of tears,
Forgotten by all his friends,
And feels forsaken by God himself,
Approaching a bitter end,

Morning’s dawn heals the broken heart,
And makes new the wounded soul,
And gives strength to bear mortality’s cross,
With an eye on eternal goals.

Let us take hope in a gift that is real,
To see and taste and hear and feel…

All the wonders of each new day,
And of every sunlit golden ray…

Which gives a heart the hope to believe,
That after that very darkest eve…

When the Prince of life hung on the cross,
And the depths of hell he knew,
That His morning of resurrection came,
And eternal hope was renewed!

Resource:

Intentional Courtship can help in this journey.

About the Author

Jeff Teichert, and his wife Cathy Butler Teichert, are the founders of “Love in Later Years,” which ministers to Latter-day Saint single adults seeking peace, healing, and more joyful relationships. They are co-authors of the Amazon bestseller Intentional Courtship: A Mid-Singles Guide to Peace, Progress and Pairing Up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Jeff and Cathy each spent nearly a decade in the mid-singles community and they use that experience to provide counsel and hope to mid-singles and later married couples through written articles, podcasts, and videos. Jeff and Cathy are both Advanced Certified Life Coaches and have university degrees in Family & Human Development. They are the parents of a blended family that includes four handsome sons, one lovely daughter-in-law, and two sweet little granddaughters.

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