Loneliness Awareness Week 2022: what can faith teach us about isolation and despair?

Loneliness happens to Christians, too.

While the cross is an everlasting source of certainty, Christians can suffer from depression, struggle with anxiety and experience the full, isolating spectrum of mental health problems – all of which can inflict painful loneliness. Circumstances - from separation and bereavement, to disability, abuse and old age - may leave us in a lonely position, struggling to find others to connect to.

Loneliness and mental suffering aren’t just modern issues. Dig down into the Bible, and you’ll see Job longing for a death that will not come, Naomi hardening into bitterness and despair, and King David – the precursor to Jesus – pouring out lament after raw lament in the psalms.

For Loneliness Awareness Week 2022, we’re highlighting some of our books that speak profoundly to mental illness, and how to pursue faith amid loneliness and lament.

Depressive Illness: The Curse of the Strong, by Dr Tim Cantopher

If you have depression, do you blame yourself or wonder if you and God have somehow failed each other? Don’t struggle on alone - mental and emotional health issues strike the strongest of us. King David led a nation – yet wrote some of the Bible’s bleakest laments. Naomi experienced deep emptiness and bitterness following devastating loss. This book explains what happens in stress-related depressive illness and presents effective ways to get better and stay well.

'People affected by depression tell me this is the most powerful and helpful book ever written on the topic. I keep meeting people who say this book changed their lives.' - Jeremy Vine, BBC Radio 2

And Yet, by Rachel Newham

In the depths of depression and plagued with suicidal thoughts, Rachael Newham never thought she’d find herself writing a book on joy. And yet, if her journey with mental health illness has taught her anything it is that true, deep, lasting joy can only be experienced when we allow ourselves to enter into lament and be honest about our pain before God.

In a life full of highs and lows, choice and challenges, the words ‘and yet’ can change everything. We are surrounded by darkness and yet there is light. We feel we are lacking and yet God provides. We are broken and bruised and yet there is hope.

Out of Control: Couples, conflict and the capacity for change, by Natalie Collins

Domestic abuse is one of the most isolating experiences in existence, especially with the secrecy, shame and uncertainty that so often surrounds the subject. Over the course of a lifetime, 30% of women and 16% of men will be subjected to abuse by a partner, yet so many of us are unsure exactly what constitutes domestic abuse, and wouldn't know how to react if we, or one of our friends or family, found ourselves in a relationship with an abuser.

Natalie Collins is the perfect guide to lead you through this subject, amassing over a decade's experience leading workshops, raising awareness and capturing national media attention in her work against domestic abuse.

Highly readable, invaluably insightful and steeped in theological insight, Natalie starts right from the basics, exploring what domestic abuse is, why it is perpetrated and the impact it has on children and adults. Filled with case studies, including Natalie's own story, this book offers much-needed advice on how we can address domestic abuse, both as individuals and as a church community.

I Thought There Would be Cake, by Katharine Welby-Roberts

Ever thought life isn’t turning out quite as you expected?

Growing up, Katharine Welby-Roberts imagined that being an adult was one big party. But depression, anxiety and crippling self-doubt led her to alienate herself from others. To replay events and encounters as nightmares. Occasionally, to be unable to leave the house.

Aware of the cacophony of voices in her head, Katharine invites us to join her as she journeys to the depths of her soul. Here, with instinctive honesty and humour, she confronts the parts of her story that hinder her most.

As she charts a course that offers ways of coping with everyday issues, we are encouraged to embrace our own self-worth. To recognize the value of our existence. To let ourselves be loved. Exactly as we are.