For as long as I can remember, there was a feeling of loneliness that covered me and became a root that grew deeper in my heart year by year. Unknowingly, I helped water that weed continuously and was completely blind to the way its roots became tangled around countless lies in my mind as I grew up into adulthood. In my loneliness, the enemy tempted me with fear through nightmares and being in the dark alone. In my loneliness, I was comforted by isolation to avoid the depths of pain my tender heart didn’t know how to process as a young girl. In my loneliness, I clung to independence and striving. In my loneliness, I grieved being directionless amidst my emptiness. In my loneliness, I found identity.
“...I am with you always, even unto the end of the world…” Matthew 28:20 NIV
I put my faith in Christ in 4th grade at a Christian camp when I received the gospel. I quickly knew Jesus was real and I loved Him deeply! I began to thirst for living my life with Him. Unfortunately, after such a powerful encounter, I didn’t have many discipleship opportunities around me and I had very little understanding of the Bible. Despite this, the Holy Spirit graciously helped me begin to cling to the promise of Jesus’ presence in my life. I remember repeating “I am with you always” at night to help me fall asleep and in the moments of loneliness to temporarily soothe my soul. Fast forward to 23-year-old Kaitlyn… loneliness had such deep roots in my heart that I became stuck in my faith and didn’t feel like I could continue to grow. It was as if there was a brick wall in front of me that was so tall and so wide, that it was unbearable to get through to reach Jesus. I began to believe He was out of my reach and that it was better for me to be alone.
As I reflect now, I realize that I had no idea how the true understanding of the presence of God inside me was a piece of truth the enemy was fighting relentlessly to keep me away from. I knew in my head that Jesus was always with me growing up, but I did not yet have freedom and healing in my heart from this truth. I was truly stuck in loneliness.
I went to Kingdom Equip in the summer of 2023 and this is where God chose to pour His truth over me, free me from strongholds I didn’t know I had, and begin to show me the power of His redemption through a new identity. He began to move that head knowledge about God’s presence into heart transformation.
38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. Luke 10:38-39
Before God let me experience a breakthrough from loneliness, He began to teach me how to sit at the feet of Jesus like Mary last summer. However, God didn’t just begin to teach me about Mary so that I would soon move on to the next thing He would share with me. He began to show me who I was made to be and what I was to carry and share as His daughter! God didn’t want to just free me, He desired to empower me in who He saw Kaitlyn to be in His Kingdom and in His family.
So I began to make acts of obedience in faith to choose to worship God wholeheartedly and be still before Him at His feet that week, regardless of how I was feeling or what I wanted in the moment. Then, instead of listening to Jesus at His feet like Mary… Jesus wanted to take me deeper. I began to desire contentment in His presence alone over what His voice could offer me. My heart’s thirst for the presence of God began to be quenched by sitting on my knees before Him, letting His breath cover me. No words. No thoughts. No requests. My desire to hear His voice speak truth and guidance over me began to lessen over my desire to just be near Him. Beyond this, I was beginning to feel what God has felt for me all along… His desire for MY presence. Something He has always yearned for.
13 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.” Ephesians 1:13-14 NIV
God led me to breakthrough at the end of that week and redeemed the weed of loneliness in my heart with a new seed of confidently living in the promised seal of God’s presence. The presence of God isn’t a feeling we seek after, it’s a promise we have the choice to live in. God’s presence can’t be taken away from you, it’s yours in Christ!
My prayer for you is for God to bring you clarity if you have something in your life, like loneliness, that has covered you. I pray that with bold humility you would ask the Lord if there’s something He desires to redeem for you like He did for me. He desires to bring you freedom and empowerment in who you are in full purity! May your head be lifted higher and your heart be encouraged to deeply understand that you are sealed with the presence of God inside of you. This can change your daily life in the sweetest of ways, may you ask Jesus how today.
