Feeling Alone? Consider a Walk

Counteracting unpleasant emotions (such as feeling alone) with my walking exercise made me even more conscious of my spiritual walk to the Kingdom.

Apart from keeping myself healthy through walking, I also try to sustain it to manage my ever-swerving human emotions. This past Sunday morning’s walk was a lot different, though, because it ended up as a spiritual check-up.

While my feet were busy treading the road, my mind also raced to do an inventory of those occasions when I felt most alone. Then as I slowly examined my list, I noticed that these were the times when I focused too much on myself. And, I thought, if physical walking makes me feel physically better, perhaps I also need to consider a spiritual walk to combat feeling alone and help me practice selflessness to be spiritually healthy as well.

“Walks of selflessness”

I pondered three examples of walks that teach me lessons of selflessness:

• The single woman’s walk—the emotion of feeling alone, associated with the longing for that special someone in one’s life, can sometimes be overwhelming. However, when she reminds herself that marriage is not just about the wife receiving affection, care and love from her husband, but it’s about the husband receiving the same from his wife, that can make a big change in her perspective. All relationships are that way, and the single person can learn selflessness in giving to others in every relationship and situation.
• The widow’s walk—the emotion of feeling alone that creeps in when someone is grieving over the loss of a spouse can be engulfing. But again, it gives others inspiration and encouragement when she gracefully manages her circumstance by thinking less of the wife who lost her husband and by thinking more of the children who lost their dad and the others she can serve.
• Jesus Christ’s walk—the emotion of feeling alone is evident in His statement, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46), when He was waiting for His imminent death. That drew me to the most inspiring example of combating the unpleasant feeling with pure selflessness. Jesus Christ thought more of the whole of humanity that needed to be reconciled to God the Father than of His human flesh that would go through the excruciating pain (Luke 22:42; Galatians 2:20).

Reflecting on these three walks made me conclude that there’s more to our feeling alone than meets the eye. God doesn’t want us to feel this way, no matter how our individual instances trigger us to feel so. He desires us instead to imbibe of selflessness to fight this human emotion.

After all, this spiritual walk to the Kingdom of God teaches and trains us for that Kingdom. This walk isn’t just about making it to the finish line and receiving a certificate of competency as a reward. It is more about the others who haven’t even started the walk and who will be depending on our competence in spiritual walking (Revelation 5:10 and 20:6).

Cathy Castillano is from the Philippines. She finds time for brisk walking on Sunday mornings only, but she’s thankful she can freely do spiritual walking anytime of the day, all throughout the week.

For more about combatting loneliness and preparing for the Kingdom of God, see:

• Love in Action: Prayer Plus
• She Reaches Out Her Hands
• In Training to Be Kings and Priests