Loneliness and the Ministry Wife (an interview with Rivers Partin)

Author: North American Mission Board
Published: Mon 30 Jan 2023
Episode Link: https://www.namb.net/podcasts/ministry-wives-podcast/loneliness-and-the-ministry-wife-an-interview-with-rivers-partin/

Loneliness can be a very troubling feeling for us as ministry wives. How can we be surrounded by people and yet still feel totally alone? Rivers Partin joins me today to explain how acknowledging loneliness and its gifts has allowed her to become more connected to herself, others, and most importantly, God.

SHOW NOTES

Loneliness is a gift–our soul signaling to us that we need to make some changes.

Acknowledge the loneliness and try to identify which of the three types you are experiencing: with self, others, or God.

Sometimes God allows seasons of loneliness to drive us to Him.

QUOTES

“The answer to why loneliness exists would be that we were created for relationship. We were created for intimacy. We were created to be known and to know others. You can’t escape it because it’s what we were designed for. What loneliness does is it drives us. It’s a signal to us that we aren’t in strong, solid relationships where we’re known, where we feel like we belong. There is goodness to that.”

-Rivers Partin

“I think sometimes God allows seasons of loneliness, because He wants to teach us that relationships with other people are never going to fully satisfy the longing that we have for connection. He’s going to give us the gift of community and friendship, but ultimately we need Him.”

-Christine Hoover

“Intimacy is the opposite of loneliness. It’s mutual knowing and being known. Vulnerability begets intimacy, being known, being laid bare. ‘This is me, these are my faults, this is who I am.’ Intimacy is not saying, ‘I’m gonna stay here or you’re gonna allow me to stay here in my faults or brokenness or mistakes.’ But it is allowing another to know those things and then moving forward with grace and kindness for one another.”

-Rivers Partin