I'm Lonely.

This is probably the most difficult thing for me to admit, both to those around me and to myself.

But it's true. I am lonely sometimes, mostly when I'm not actually alone.

And the loneliness has been a strange thing for me to navigate, mainly because it has brought to light so many of the contradictions that make me, well, me.

For example: I am fiercely independent. I process information quickly, I don't often hesitate when it comes to making decisions, I am comfortable with large amounts of responsibility, and I enjoy leadership roles. I am also an introvert; I possess a need deep within me to be alone at some point each and every day. I very literally need that time to remain sane.

I also, though, long for companionship. My heart aches for intimacy. I believe I have a God-given desire to know and be fully known, and I am thankful for God's promise that one day I will experience relationship at its finest. I will know, and I will be fully known, and I'll be loved just the same. And how beautiful it is to know that even now, even as I sit here on my sofa and pour my heart onto a computer screen, I can rest confidently in the fact that I am already known, and already loved, and that it has been that way for a long, long time.

Little do we realize, though, the power that we, as humans, have to shape perceptions of relationship.

I believe, with all that is in me, every word written in the paragraph above. I cling to the promises of God found in the Bible. I hold fast to the ways in which I've seen the power of Jesus alive in my life.

And yet, the desire for earthly relationship, and, more specifically, the desire for the husband-wife relationship, still permeates most of my thoughts. Is it because I have a vision in my head of what I think a marriage is supposed to look like? Is it because I've tasted the sweetness of a marriage relationship and therefore now know what I'm missing? Is it because, by the grace of God, I've learned more about marriage in the last nine months than I did in the entire seven and a half years I was actually a wife?

I do not have the words to describe how much I genuinely love and appreciate my friends and family. My life has very literally been upheld by people who love me, care about me, and would do absolutely anything to support me. I know they have given up time with their friends and families to call me, to hang out with me, to help me bathe the kids, to feed me, to listen to me gasp and cry and weep and wail, to hear my complaints, to fast and pray with me, to play with my children, to care for my children...you name it, and it has been a blessing given to me by God through friends and family.

But, at the end of the day, and as it should be, I'm the one sitting at my kitchen table eating dinner most nights with an almost-three-year-old and a one-year-old. I'm the one carting my kids home from the church softball game without a husband next to me in the passenger seat. I'm the one who wants nothing more than to collapse into bed at night and find myself wrapped up in my husband's arms. I'm the one with stories from my day that seem to be spilling out of my mouth, and yet they're not being heard. I'm the one who tucks my babies into bed each night, all the while remembering, faintly, that this used to be a task I shared with someone else.

I used to share my life with someone else. The good, the bad, and the ugly. There was someone here with me, and I thought we were in it together; I thought we were in it for the long haul.

I feel like I've been cast aside, thrown away, told that I'm not worth the fight.

I feel like things got tough and he quit.

And, every once in a while, I'm lonely.