HGBM Author, Daniel K. Held lives in Huber Heights, Ohio with his wife of 53 years. He directs Dan Held Ministries and Therapies www.danielkheld.com where he provides Individual, Marital, and Spiritual Counseling as well as public-speaking and workshops addressing issues of Anxiety, Depression, Relational Conflict, and Faith Deconstruction. He is a graduate of United Theological Seminary of Dayton, OH (M.Div) and The Ohio State University of Columbus, OH (MSW). He is a Licensed Independent Social Worker in Ohio and a retired Elder in the United Methodist Church. His previous book, Love’s Resurrection: its power to roll away fear’s heaviest stone, a spiritual autobiography, pinpoints critical faith development issues within 21st Century Christianity.
Dan's latest book, Redeeming Gethsemane, discusses the issue of loneliness. Maybe you and I have been there where Jesus was. Abandoned by others at the very time we craved connection. Misunderstood in terms of wanting to be with others and not “just left alone” to get over it by ourselves. Maybe we’ve entered our own age of loneliness. Maybe we’ve felt as if we, too, were sweating blood while others were off taking it easy.
Maybe we’ve had our own Gethsemane moments.
And, then again, maybe we’ve been where Peter, James and John were. Tired. Sleepy. Oblivious to the cries of another person who we’ve interpreted as being “alone” instead of “lonely.” Maybe you and I have also been the Church asleep at the switch during someone else’s worst ever time of fear, loneliness, temptation.
If so, there is hope.
There is redemption available for our Gethsemanes in this world. Redemption for us when we are living in our own age of loneliness. And redemption from us when we are called to wake up and change our own response to others during their times of fear, loneliness, and temptation.