I find an answer to my deep and undefined loneliness

Faith is deeply personal. It touches areas of your inner being that, if you don't know faith, simply remain untouched. People in the church have come up with a lot of descriptions for this (like the "Jesus-shaped hole in all of us"), but the best way I can explain it is with the concept of the soulmate, the "other, actual half" that Plato refers to. 

My wife Kristen and I are happily married. Both of us feel that we are good matches for each other, increasingly so the longer we're together. But do we believe that we are each other's "soulmate" in the sense that there could have been no one else for us? I don't think so. Both she and I could also have tried this investment with someone else—and it might have worked. Or not. It's not exactly a romantic image, but maybe a hopeful one because no one has to worry that they've missed the only one they were destined to spend their life with.

Still, it continues to amaze me how increasingly closely Kristen and I are aligned. I see something while driving in the car and I don't even have to point it out to her before starting to talk about it. I know that she has also noticed it. I know when she feels happy, when she's nervous or excited, often even when I'm not with her.

I don't think I'm describing anything extraordinary here. It's what happens when you spend 30 years living with each other and caring for one another. 

But do I know everything about her? Do I understand every little change in mood or every thought that goes through her head? Clearly not. And I know the same is true for her as she sees and knows me.

In my late teens and early 20s, there was no topic that occupied my thoughts and emotions more than the concept of loneliness. I was neither super popular nor super unpopular. I had good friends, and still I felt completely lonely. I felt—I knew—that I was not able to fully share who I really was with anyone. In fact, I had this ongoing vision of literally opening up my chest so I could show people what was in my heart and what I was truly made of. Since that was not possible, I filled journal after journal with my thoughts on my isolation. That relieved the pain of loneliness a little, but it could not resolve it. It was a loneliness that went far beyond words and images. It was a sense of complete isolation—even from myself. I sensed all those feelings and longings inside of me, but since I could not even share them with myself, let alone someone else, were they really real?

I'm sure that not everyone experiences loneliness in the same way I did, but I do think everyone experiences some of it. It only makes sense. We are complex beings, more complex than we ourselves can completely comprehend or express. At the same time, we're also deeply social beings who are constantly looking for counterparts to share and be with. 

Christians are convinced that we have an answer to this: We believe God knows us at an unspeakably deep level.

This is "unspeakable" in the truest sense of the word, this central place that cannot be expressed with words, with paintings, sculptures, or songs, but still cries out to be seen and heard. Why? Well, there are two options. Either we exist with an eternal place of longing and despair, one that does not have a possible counterpart. Or, and this is what Christians believe, there actually is a reason for that deep and hidden place in all of us: it's the place that is there to be known and understood by God.

This has been my personal experience. I suspect that no one who has ever made that jump into becoming a Christian, into a relationship with God, knew what the results of that decision would be. For me, the greatest surprise was an almost immediate sense of relief. The burden that I had carried with me all my thinking life, the pressure that had continued to build and wanted to be released into a relationship that would adequately respond to that longing, happened to be God.

Why? Any answer to that might seem somewhat trivial or cliché. All I know is that I had come home. Without being familiar with any theological or biblical reasoning, I knew it was real. I had understood that the only one who could understand my wordless expression and call for community was God. It felt so clear that it was designed that way.

Since then I have learned that the Bible spends a lot of time discussing the intimate ways that God knows each one of us and understands us—words or no words. I expect that in 10 or 20 years, Kristen’s and my intimacy and knowledge of each other will have become even more profound. But it will be a lesser familiarity and trust than either of us continues to experience as we turn toward God.