A prayer in loneliness

Master of the World, I am lonely. There are evenings when the house is too quiet, when the phone does not ring, when I have no one to share what I went through today. And there is also another kind of loneliness, the kind one feels precisely among people, when everyone is talking and I feel that no one really sees me.

I do not want to pity myself, but I do not want to pretend either. You know how much I need a real connection: a person who will ask how I am and wait for the answer, beside whom I can be silent without worry.

Send me a true friend. And help me take the first step myself: to reach out, to invite, to call, even if I fear being turned away. Let me also see the other lonely people around me, those who may be waiting exactly for someone like me to reach out to them.

And let me be good to myself even when I am alone: not neglect myself, eat properly, go out of the house, do something that makes me glad, even when no one is there to see.

And meanwhile, in the moments when there is no one, let me feel that You are here. That I can speak to You out loud, the way one speaks with someone sitting across from you, and tell You everything. If You hear, I am not completely alone.

And let me remember that even loneliness can turn into closeness. In these quiet moments one can pour out the heart before You with no one interrupting, and perhaps precisely from here a new path will begin, toward You and toward people.