What to Do When You Feel Like a Stranger in Your Own Home

You can be lonely in a crowd. Most people have felt

like that before. Here's the one thing that catches people off

guard. You can be lonely lying next to the person you're

married to. A few years ago, AARP ran a national survey on

loneliness. They asked married people over the age of 45 a

simple set of questions, and close to a third of them said

the same thing. They were lonely. These were married couples

sharing a house and a bed with someone and feeling alone anyway.

We'll come back to what's behind that number, but first,

Welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart I've been

on the causing end of this one. There were years in ministry

when I was out of the house most weeks. T weeks at a time, to be

exact. I was flying all over the country, consulting for

different churches and schools. All of it was good work, and all

the while, Catherine was holding everything together at home.

about yourself. Some of the loneliest people I know are

living in a house full of people. Your spouse is buried in work.

The kids are behind a bedroom door with their phones. You get

through a whole event under one roof and exchange maybe 40 words,

most of them about the schedule. Then you look around at the

family you helped build and you feel like a guest in it. It's a

strange kind of lonely because you can't point to the one thing

that went walked out. It came apart slowly over a few years

while everybody was busy being responsible. There's a promise

about this in Psalm 68 that's easy to read past. It's in Psalm

68, verses 5 and 6.

You read that line with your house in mind.

Look at who God is in these verses. He is father to the

fatherless, defender of widows. He goes straight to the people

who have no body, and he does something about it. So the

loneliest person at your dinner table already has God's full

attention, and there's a good chance that person is you. The

AARP number is about marriages, and the ache runs wider than

marriage, though. Plenty of parents feel it with a teenager

who used to talk to them. Plenty of grown children feel it with a

father who has gone somewhere else inside himself. Same

distance, different chairs at the same table. So ask God to

change what you can't change on your own. You can't reach inside

your spouse and make them want you again. You can't schedule

the moment a 16-year-old decides to open up. God moves on people

you have no leverage with. Ask Him to. Then start small. One

meal at a table with the television off. One conversation

where nobody is holding a phone. A week of that won't repair a

household, but it does give the repair a place to start. So

here's what's going on in a lot of those homes. A relationship

expert named Pepper Schwartz put words to it. You can have a body

right next to you, she said, and still feel that your deepest

needs go unseen and unheard by the one person who should know

you best. That's the ache. Most of these are ordinary marriages

where two people slowly stopped seeing each other. And the

distance crept in without anyone choosing it. And the good news

is that a home like that can be rebuilt one small turn toward

each other at a time. Look at what Schwartz put her finger on.

Being unseen by the person who should know you best. That calls

out what's missing in your house, and it also names what you have

to give. Somebody under your roof is going unseen tonight,

and you're able to be the one who sees them.

and it may as well be you. Here's today's challenge. Pick

one person under your roof and give them 15 minutes tonight

with no screen in your hand and no agenda in your head. Ask them

one question you don't already know the answer to. Then, wait

long enough for the answer to come. And before you go to bed,

pray this over your house. God, you placed me in this family.

Make me the one who moves first. Father, thank you that you place

the lonely in families and that you haven't left the people who

feel like strangers in their own homes. You see the house where

nobody talks much anymore. You know every name at that table.

For everyone listening who eats dinner with people who feel far

away, be near to them tonight and give them the words to start

something. Move on the hearts of the people they can't reach on

their own, and let them be the one who turns first. In Jesus'

name, amen. If this episode encouraged you today, would you

share it with someone who might need to hear it? Just go to

dailydevotionsforbusylives.com slash 323 and copy the link. It

only takes a second, and it might make a real difference in

someone's day. Thanks for joining me on Daily Devotions

for Busy Lives. Remember, God placed you in that house, and He

is still in it. Be the one who moves first tonight. Come back

next time for more encouragement to help you live grounded in

God's truth. Until then, God bless, and have a great day.