Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dr. Charles F. Stanley was the founder of In Touch Ministries and pastor emeritus of First Baptist Church of Atlanta, Georgia, where he served more than fifty years. He was also a New York Times bestselling author of more than seventy books. Until his death in 2023, Dr. Stanley's mission was to get the gospel to "as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, as clearly as possible, as irresistibly as possible, through the power of the Holy Spirit to the glory of God." This is a calling that In Touch Ministries continues to pursue by transmitting his teachings as widely and effectively as possible.

Dr. Stanley's messages can be heard daily on In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley broadcasts on television, radio, and satellite networks and stations around the world; on the internet at intouch.org and through In Touch+ and the Charles Stanley Institute; and via the In Touch Messenger Lab. Excerpts from Dr. Stanley's inspiring messages are also published in the award-winning In Touch devotional magazine.

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The Source of My STRENGTH

Nelson Books

Contents

Introduction: Setting Down Our Emotional Baggage..........................ixWords of Comfort and Healing to ...1. Those who are LONELY...................................................12. Those who are FEARFUL..................................................213. Those who are suffering from ABUSE.....................................574. Those who are feeling INFERIOR.........................................815. Those who are struggling under the weight of GUILT.....................1076. Those who are FRUSTRATED...............................................1297. Those who are BURNED OUT...............................................1758. Those who are being PERSECUTED.........................................203Conclusion: The Purifying Power of Pain...................................225

Chapter One

The scene is etched sharply into my memory. I can see it as clearly today as the day it happened.

Two of my friends-Jimmy and Rob-had come to spend some time with me on a Saturday afternoon. We had laughed and talked and played games together, and then the father of one of the boys came to pick them up in his car.

As I stood in the yard and watched the three of them drive away down the street, a sickening, sinking feeling hit the pit of my stomach. I clearly remember thinking, I have nobody.

A feeling of utter loneliness welled up in me-a feeling that was all too familiar, a feeling that had been there for all of my thirteen years.

My very first memory is of sitting up in a bed in a room that had brown boarded walls and was lit by a kerosene lamp. I had a terrible earache. And I was alone.

My father-a worker in a textile mill and the son of a Pentecostal evangelist-died of kidney disease when I was nine months old. At the time, we lived in a little place called Dry Fork, Virginia, just outside Danville. On the Sunday afternoon he passed away, just before he died, my mother asked him, "What will I do if you die?" He replied, "Well, you'll have to do the best you can." His advice sounds cold to me now, but the year was 1933, and probably the only thing that any person could do at that time was "the best you can." For my mother, "doing her best" meant going to work immediately to support the two of us.

Although I do not consciously remember my father's death, I have come to recognize that the little boy in me knew somehow that my father had gone away. In the deepest recesses of my heart I had the knowledge that I had been left alone.

For the first couple of years of my life, various women took care of me while my mother worked. And each day when my mother walked out the door to go to work, the little boy who still lives inside me said, "She's gone. She left you. You are alone."

I remember crying every morning of my fifth year as I prepared to go to school. My mother had to leave early to go to work, so she was always gone by the time I got up. For the first few months of that school year, Uncle Jack came over and helped me get ready for school-he'd comb my hair and cook my breakfast. Before I was out of first grade, however, I had learned to comb my own hair and cook my own breakfast-including an egg and a piece of bacon.

When I came home from school in the afternoon, my mother still wasn't home. She didn't arrive until about five o'clock. Coming home to an empty house really bothered me. It was a constant reminder that I was alone.

I got to the place where I could play all day by myself-riding broomstick horses and playing with toy soldiers. As I got older, I built model airplanes. I had a few friends who would come over to play with me-we could play Monopoly all day-but most of my days were spent by myself. Later, as a teenager, I'd take my .22 down to the creek bank and spend entire afternoons shooting at birds. Alone.

Even during the brief periods through the years when we lived with my aunts and uncles, I suffered from loneliness. My grandparents and uncles would frequently leave my mother and me at home when they'd go out. Although I feel certain now, as an adult, that their leaving us behind was probably a matter of convenience or necessity, as a little boy I saw their leaving as abandonment. I felt it as loneliness.

On one particular Saturday, my mother left our home and didn't return all day. I cried the entire time. I had no idea where she had gone or when she was coming back. Until about three years ago, the loneliest times of my life were Saturday afternoons.

I know I am not alone in my experience.

Although the loneliness of my childhood may be more severe than that experienced by many people, I have met hundreds-even thousands-of people through the years who have felt utterly alone, abandoned, isolated, ostracized, and thus, lonely.

It is one of the most excruciating feelings a person can ever have, and one that nearly every person attempts to avoid at all costs. Those who have spent time in solitary confinement consider it to be one of the worst forms of punishment or imprisonment on earth. They say, for example:

"I can't bear the loneliness. The walls seem to close in on me. The days seem never to end."

"Even when I'm in a crowd, I have this strong sense that I am alone-that nobody really knows I'm there. It's almost as if I'm invisible."

"The day he walked out the door, I thought I'd scream. Not that he was gone. But that he'd left me alone."

"I feel as if I'm swinging my arms in a fog-but rather than connect with anybody, the fog grows thicker."

People who are divorced nearly always give testimony to loneliness. A divorce is an extremely traumatic situation. It literally tears away at the emotions, and very often, the overriding feeling is one of intense loneliness, of being isolated from the rest of the world.

Older people give frequent testimony to loneliness, especially after the death of a spouse. Grief becomes coupled with isolation-an excruciating combination, and sometimes a deadly one. Old friends, old associations, and old responsibilities have sloughed away-leaving only an inner ache for what once was and for friends who are no longer accessible.

Young people cry out in loneliness. Whether latchkey kids or the children of indifferent, self-absorbed parents, our young people frequently speak out about the isolation they feel from peers and from their society as a whole.

Salespeople on the road are lonely.

Mothers of young children and homemakers are lonely.

Those who have moved to new cities and those who have started new jobs are lonely.

College students who are out on their own for the first time, especially those who have gone away to school, are lonely.

Those who have empty nests after years of raising children are lonely.

Newly retired persons, so accustomed to a wide circle of acquaintances and colleagues, are lonely.

Look around, and you'll find lonely people everywhere.

The Lord's Response

What does our Lord say to people who are lonely?

In the creation story of Genesis 1-3, we have a picture of God desiring the fellowship of human beings. He says, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness" (Gen. 1:26)-a likeness complete with an emotional capacity to long for companionship. That desire resident in humankind to seek...