Last Saturday was particularly rough. I was very tearful and feeling quite lonely. I was missing my mom, who died this past February. I was longing for a companion, friendship, anybody.
I was thinking of the verse in Ecclesiastes Chapter 4, verse 9-10, which says, “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!”
So I was thinking something like, ‘Woe is me, I have no one to help lift me up and out of my sorrow.’
Earlier, I left my apartment and went to the library just to get out and read one of my lessons from Re:generation, a ministry at church where I am a co-leader. The question in the lesson asked, “Do you truly believe that God’s love will satisfy you? List specific parts of your life for which you doubt God’s love will satisfy you?”
I answered, ‘No,’ to the first question, and to the second question, I doubted that God’s love would satisfy my need to belong.
You see, I had a deep longing to belong that I wasn’t trusting God to help me with. I have stuff to do during the week with people I enjoy, but the weekends are particularly difficult, and I get lonely.
That was Saturday.
The next morning, Sunday, on April 6, 2025, the focus of the sermon, entitled “The Power of Our Reconciliation: Our Justification,” was that we belong in Christ, with Christ, and to Christ.
Was it a coincidence that I just felt the need to belong on Saturday and then on Sunday, the sermon at our church was on the same topic?
Let me just say that I believe it was no coincidence.
I believe that God the Father was showing me that He was actively interested in my deep longing to belong. God the Father had made a provision not only to show me that he loved me through a sermon but also to show me that I didn’t need to feel lonely because I belong among the brothers and sisters of the kingdom of God.
Which means that I belong to God the Father, to Christ, and to the Holy Spirit.
Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
And Romans 5:9-11 says, “Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
Faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection grants us eternal life.
But God’s provision doesn’t just rest in the afterlife. He has provided all I need now. I belong now. What a comfort this really is.
I belong now. Now, I just have to put that belief into practice and act like I belong.
–Ann Elizabeth Yeager