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Have you ever been handcuffed? Even for fun? It’s limiting, restrictive and a bit intimidating.

That’s how I feel about fear. Fear limits, restricts and intimidates me. And it limits, restricts and intimidates you. Doesn’t it?

What causes your fears may be different than what causes mine, but we feel the same way. God wants to free us from the handcuffs that bind us. God wants to free us to be who we were created to be:

“Do not fear, for I am with you;
Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God
I will strengthen you, surely I will help you,
Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’” [Isaiah 41:10]

While H1N1 dominates the media’s attention and ours, there is a far more devastating pandemic that never makes the nightly news: loneliness.

Every day I read texts, Facebook updates and listen while people express the pain of their loneliness.

Loneliness takes many forms. Longing to dress up for a party Jeanette sits alone on Halloween. Wishing and hoping that her phone would ring Debbie keeps her cell phone volume on “Outdoor” fearing that she might miss the one call that she might receive. While his lunch table mates laugh about the fun they had the night before David suffers in silence wishing that they would finally invite him to join them.