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What to Do When You Feel Like a Stranger in Your Own Home · Daily Devotions for Busy Lives

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  Bart Leger: You can be lonely in a crowd. Most people have felt
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  like that before. Here's the one thing that catches people off
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  guard. You can be lonely lying next to the person you're
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  married to. A few years ago, AARP ran a national survey on
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  loneliness. They asked married people over the age of 45 a
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  simple set of questions, and close to a third of them said
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  the same thing. They were lonely. These were married couples
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  sharing a house and a bed with someone and feeling alone anyway.
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  We'll come back to what's behind that number, but first,
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  Welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart I've been
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  on the causing end of this one. There were years in ministry
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  when I was out of the house most weeks. T weeks at a time, to be
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  exact. I was flying all over the country, consulting for
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  different churches and schools. All of it was good work, and all
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  the while, Catherine was holding everything together at home.
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  about yourself. Some of the loneliest people I know are
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  living in a house full of people. Your spouse is buried in work.
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  The kids are behind a bedroom door with their phones. You get
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  through a whole event under one roof and exchange maybe 40 words,
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  most of them about the schedule. Then you look around at the
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  family you helped build and you feel like a guest in it. It's a
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  strange kind of lonely because you can't point to the one thing
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  that went walked out. It came apart slowly over a few years
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  while everybody was busy being responsible. There's a promise
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  about this in Psalm 68 that's easy to read past. It's in Psalm
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  68, verses 5 and 6.
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  You read that line with your house in mind.
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  Look at who God is in these verses. He is father to the
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  fatherless, defender of widows. He goes straight to the people
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  who have no body, and he does something about it. So the
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  loneliest person at your dinner table already has God's full
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  attention, and there's a good chance that person is you. The
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  AARP number is about marriages, and the ache runs wider than
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  marriage, though. Plenty of parents feel it with a teenager
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  who used to talk to them. Plenty of grown children feel it with a
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  father who has gone somewhere else inside himself. Same
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  distance, different chairs at the same table. So ask God to
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  change what you can't change on your own. You can't reach inside
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  your spouse and make them want you again. You can't schedule
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  the moment a 16-year-old decides to open up. God moves on people
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  you have no leverage with. Ask Him to. Then start small. One
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  meal at a table with the television off. One conversation
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  where nobody is holding a phone. A week of that won't repair a
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  household, but it does give the repair a place to start. So
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  here's what's going on in a lot of those homes. A relationship
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  expert named Pepper Schwartz put words to it. You can have a body
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  right next to you, she said, and still feel that your deepest
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  needs go unseen and unheard by the one person who should know
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  you best. That's the ache. Most of these are ordinary marriages
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  where two people slowly stopped seeing each other. And the
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  distance crept in without anyone choosing it. And the good news
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  is that a home like that can be rebuilt one small turn toward
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  each other at a time. Look at what Schwartz put her finger on.
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  Being unseen by the person who should know you best. That calls
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  out what's missing in your house, and it also names what you have
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  to give. Somebody under your roof is going unseen tonight,
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  and you're able to be the one who sees them.
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  and it may as well be you. Here's today's challenge. Pick
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  one person under your roof and give them 15 minutes tonight
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  with no screen in your hand and no agenda in your head. Ask them
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  one question you don't already know the answer to. Then, wait
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  long enough for the answer to come. And before you go to bed,
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  pray this over your house. God, you placed me in this family.
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  Make me the one who moves first. Father, thank you that you place
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  the lonely in families and that you haven't left the people who
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  feel like strangers in their own homes. You see the house where
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  nobody talks much anymore. You know every name at that table.
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  For everyone listening who eats dinner with people who feel far
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  away, be near to them tonight and give them the words to start
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  something. Move on the hearts of the people they can't reach on
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  their own, and let them be the one who turns first. In Jesus'
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  name, amen. If this episode encouraged you today, would you
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  share it with someone who might need to hear it? Just go to
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  dailydevotionsforbusylives.com slash 323 and copy the link. It
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  only takes a second, and it might make a real difference in
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  someone's day. Thanks for joining me on Daily Devotions
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  for Busy Lives. Remember, God placed you in that house, and He
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  is still in it. Be the one who moves first tonight. Come back
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  next time for more encouragement to help you live grounded in
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  God's truth. Until then, God bless, and have a great day.