God and Suffering : Loneliness : Lela McConnell, Emma Booth

One such person is Lela McConnell, the founder of the Kentucky Mountain Holiness Association. She writes: “Loneliness is the Christian worker’s worst enemy. It is the open door to Satan’s most vicious attacks. Temptation that make little or no appeal under normal conditions become almost irresistible it times of solitude. . . No one to talk to, no one to pray with—I mean, no one who sympathizes and understands. It was just such an experience that caused me. . . to express my feelings in the following lines:

‘Lonely! lonely! lonely!
In the heart of the mighty hills
And I sigh for the dear, home faces
And fancy a thousand ills.

‘A dog! A friend! A loved one!
Or anything that has life;
But I wait alone for the answer
And alone I face the strife.

‘The work, the care, the struggle,
I greet with a thankful heart;
But to be alone in the mountain—
That is the hardest part.

‘Lonely! Lonely! Lonely!
In the light of the waning moon;
Dear God in Heaven have mercy
And send a friend to me soon!’”
—Used by permission of K.M.H.A. (Loneliness, p.p. 15-16.)

Emma Booth, daughter of William and Catherine, founders of the Salvation Army, also experienced loneliness as she worked for Christ, not in the mountains, but in the heart of busy London. And then she thought of Christ and was comforted. “I was thinking last night,” she writes, “it was not the thorn or the spear which made Calvary hardest to bear. It must have been the keen sense of loneliness that made the cup the bitterest. And yet, we know He was not alone.”