The remedy for loneliness & estrangement at Christmastime

Christmas can be the best time of year, and it can also be the worst.

For most, it marks a time to celebrate, share gifts and revel in times of holiday festivities from work to home.

For too many, however, Christmas can be a time that exacerbates their loneliness and estrangement from family and friends.

Gallup reported in a new poll (October 2024) that “Daily Loneliness Afflicts 1 in 5 in U.S. – an increase to 20%, the highest level in two years. (No blaming that on a government shutdowns or COVID, right?)

And if you think those increases are restricted to the U.S., think again.

Increased feelings of loneliness span the globe and all ages, as the stats abroad are marginally worse: “Over 1 in 5 People Worldwide Feel Lonely a Lot.”

Among the reasons for the loneliness growth is that more and more people are experiencing estrangement from family members.

One recent study found that “as many as one in four people are estranged from at least one family member.” One in two adults are estranged from some relative.

Why the growth of estrangement within families?

Psychology Today explained that a few of the factors that drive estrangement include mismatched expectations, clash of values and emotional abuse. Adult children also expressed that they wished their parents were more positive, unconditionally loving, warm and emotionally close. But it’s also true that more and more parents are missing and wishing for the very same from their adult children.

Today’s divisive political climate isn’t helping either. As I pointed out in last week’s column, “Divided family this Christmas?“, a staggering 25% of Americans are simply skipping holiday celebrations to avoid more potential political conflict.

Loneliness and estrangement have so proliferated our lives that mental health professionals are now calling them both epidemics. They are also huge culture-war societal problems!

You’d think with all the explosive growth of “social” media platforms over the years, we would feel far more connected and far more relationally satisfied, but just the opposite it true.

A few years back, NPR reported that “Social media use was tied to loneliness as well, with 73% of very heavy social media users considered lonely, as compared with 52% of light users.”

“But feelings of isolation were prevalent across generations. Gen Z – people who were 18 to 22 years old when surveyed – had the highest average loneliness. …”

And if you think fame or fortune can buy-away loneliness and estrangement, think again.

I’m sure it’s no surprise to most of my readers that even “famous” people suffer from loneliness.

Truth is, the percentage might even be higher for us who are deemed so. We think all that “people attention” satisfies their loneliness, but it can actually deepen the hole.

Here’s a shortlist of some famous people who have been honest about their loneliness:

• Oscar-winning actress Anne Hathaway confessed, “Loneliness is my least favorite thing about life. The thing that I’m most worried about is just being alone without anybody to care for or someone who will care for me.”
• Joss Whedon, director of the movie “The Avengers,” said, “Loneliness is about the scariest thing out there.”
• Marilyn Monroe said, “Sometimes I think the only people who stay with me and really listen are people I hire, people I pay.”
• Writer Ernest Hemingway wrote, “I live in a vacuum that is as lonely as a radio tube when the batteries are dead and there is no current to plug into.”
• Scientist Albert Einstein wrote, “It is strange to be known so universally, and yet to be so lonely.”
• Winona Ryder said, “When I was 18, I was driving around at 2 in the morning, completely crying and alone and scared. I drove by this magazine stand that had this Rolling Stone that I was on the cover of, and it said, ‘Winona Ryder: The Luckiest Girl in the World.’ And there I was feeling more alone than I ever had.”

So, is getting more money the answer and remedy? Think again.

According to a 2017 article in Rolling Stone magazine (RS), tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has it all – except love. Musk started four billion-dollar companies – PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX and Solar City, and then acquired a fifth in Twitter (X).

However, after his third divorce and his breakup with his actress girlfriend, Musk confessed that he had no one with whom to share his luxurious lifestyle.

The richest man in the world, now worth over $430 billion, explained to RS, “Going to sleep alone kills me.”

He hesitated, shook his head, faltered, then continued. “It’s not like I don’t know what that feels like: Being in a big empty house, and no footsteps echoing through the hallways, no one over there. … How do you make yourself happy in a situation like that?”

He then added, “When I was a child, there was one thing I said: ‘I never want to be alone.'” And then he whispered again, “I never want to be alone.”

I agree. Who does?

All the above examples of famous people are more proof that wealth, popularity and worldly success can’t satisfy a lonely heart.

There’s no doubt that most of us have tried to fill that hole in our hearts with the worldly stuff of this life, and that includes me. For too many years, I bit the hook of the Hollywood lifestyle. It gave flickers of temporary highs and happiness but no permanent remedy to the longings of the soul.

Try as we might, and most of us do, we can’t find contentment under a Christmas tree either. Not even the great St. Nick can gift us the holy grail to satisfy our longings for relationship.

In fact, study after study shows, overexposure to wrong remedies for loneliness can multiply its intensity and be physically crippling, even deadly.

We all can feel lonely or estranged sometimes, but prolonged or intense experiences of loneliness have been proven to have serious negative impacts on our lives, health and well-being, including:

• Greater risk of poorer mental health, including depression;
• Loss of confidence in themselves;
• Elevated blood pressure and acute stress responses;
• Poorer sleep quality;
• Poorer work performance;
• Decreased passion to want to progress in life, work or relationships;
• Increase losses of money and/or debt as we often try to “buy off” our loneliness and estrangement to escape the feelings;
• Most detrimental is the increase risk of early mortality (death) by 26%!

So, what, then, is the real remedy or cure for the “epidemic” of loneliness or feeling estranged from loved ones?

I’m sure many of you have your prescriptions.

For my wife, Gena, and me, we believe the answer lies at the heart and purpose of Christmas, with all due respect to those who believe otherwise.

We believe loneliness doesn’t have to be detrimental or fatal. In the end, maybe it’s nothing more than a road sign intent on leading us to a larger picture about ourselves and others. In that respect, it’s like homesickness. It can drive us to a destination.

If there’s one purpose for life that is universally crystal clear, it is that we were created for community. We might think we are islands, self-sufficient strongholds, but isolation can slowly kill us, literally.

Gena and I believe the two primary relationships that can fill our loneliness cup are with God and others. Both are critical; you can’t have one without the other. The former empowers us for the latter, which is why our relationship with God should be our greatest priority. We properly love others because He first loved us.

The Christmas season reminds us of this relational reality. It holds the cure for loneliness. It is the pot of gold at the end of the loneliness and estrangement rainbow.

The gospel writer Matthew, one of four who documented Jesus’ life and ministry, cited the prophet Isaiah, who said that the Messiah would be born 2,000 years ago and be called “Immanuel,” which means in Hebrew “God with us.” Or as my pastor says, God with skin on.

Jesus is the very image and reflection of the Invisible God. We are made in the image of God, but He is the image of God. He showed us perfectly who God is and what He’s like.

He also came to restore our relationship with God. He calls us into a living, breathing relationship with Himself, with a promise to never leave us or forsake us. He calls us His friends and children if we believe in Him. Do you?

That is the reason He told us that the greatest commandment was to “love God and love others.” In other words, it’s our relationships with God and others that are the primary duty, purpose and connection of our human life. That is why they are also the cure (or goal) for our loneliness.

Pastor Rick Warren, author of the New York Times bestseller, “The Purpose Driven Life,” put it perfectly: “God hates loneliness, and community is God’s answer to loneliness. When we walk alongside other people, we find a community where we learn how to love.”

For those who are struggling particularly with family estrangement, I highly encourage you read the inspiring article, “The Holy Family and Mine,” by Nadya Williams, who was born in Russia to a secular Jewish mother and atheist father who later “disowned” her because of her conversion to Christianity. In the article, Nadya reflects on how what the Holy Family (Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus) endured 2,000 years ago can encourage all who feel estranged today.

Nadya experienced what is offered to all of us, as the Hebrew Scriptures proclaim:

“Even if my mother and father forsake me, the Lord will take me in: (Psalm 27:10)

“God sets the lonely in families” (Psalm 68:6)

And the greatest of all families is God’s family – a community of like-minded faith and friends.

To celebrate with others this holiday, you might even consider attending or watching (online) a Christmas Eve or Christmas church service, or maybe start a spiritual resolution in 2025 by participating weekly to learn how to grow in your faith.

Who knows? You might even find friends and family there!

The angel Clarence in the climactic ending of the classic Christmas movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” was spot on when he told George Bailey (played by Jimmy Stewart): “No man is a failure who has friends.”

From our house to yours, we wish you a very soul-filling Merry Christmas and the most prosperous 2024!

(If you doubt, struggle, seek or want to further explore faith and spiritual issues during this Christmas season and new year, I encourage you to download this FREE E-copy of the book, “God Questions: Exploring Life’s Greatest Questions About God,” which tackles tough questions about God and gives evidence to support them. And to help your smaller kids and grandkids, our good friend and former Arkansas governor and soon-to-be U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, is giving away FREE copies of “The Kids’ Guide to the Bible” and more. Simply go to FreeJesusBundle.com and request yours!)