Can you take a pill that will cure loneliness?

Researchers at the University of Chicago Brain Dynamics Lab think they’ve found a hormone that may “reduce an exaggerated threat response similar to the kind of hyper vigilance lonely people feel” (https://nationalpost.com/health/all-the-lonely-people). It seems to work in mice–although how they can tell when a mouse is feeling lonely is more than I can say.

They got into this study because some of the researchers themselves were feeling lonely, they “felt their relationships seemed superficial and forced.” They say they are not trying to “cure loneliness with a pill.” What they are trying to do, well, search me.

In a fallen world, everybody has a time in life when they feel lonely, sad, unable to connect. You can feel that way even if you’re surrounded by other people. For most of us those times are something that passes. For a few, they don’t. Some continue to feel lonely even when family and friends who love them and care about them try to reach out to them: it doesn’t seem to help. I once had a friend like that, many years ago. We were toddlers together. But his life fell into a bad way, his family couldn’t help him, he seemed to lose interest in his real friends, and the story had a tragic conclusion.

We were young and didn’t understand or appreciate the power of prayer. It never even occurred to me at the time. I wish it had.

In a world stocked to the gills with false prophets, preposterous ideologies, rampant immorality and selfishness, lying as a means of communication, fake nooze and foolish public figures shouting doom and gloom, it’s a wonder there isn’t more loneliness.

God labors to preserve us in spite of ourselves. He sees something in us that a lot of us will never see–His own image, ransomed and saved by Jesus Christ.

“…And He shall win the battle.”   –Martin Luther