You're listening to the Allender Center podcast with Dr. Dan Allender. This week, Dan and his wife, Becky Allender,

launch a three-part series about loneliness. As study after study confirms that loneliness has

devastating effects on an increasingly significant number of people, Becky and Dan invite us to

consider the different ways we are all affected,

and how we might begin to engage the loneliness in ourselves and each other.

You may have heard that Britain now has a new executive board member called the Secretary of Loneliness.

As well, loneliness has come to be often in the news.

And it is a topic not only worthy of our consideration, but one that as we enter, it's awfully

difficult to address this without, in one sense, coming to address your own sense of loneliness.

And I am joined by my beloved wife.

So I feel slightly less lonely doing this with you.

It's good to be here with you today. And yeah, loneliness is something that I've experienced in different degrees. So it's good to ponder this together.

Well, and as well, we do this a few hours before I depart for about a seven-day,

eight-day trip, I already feel that sense of loss in our departure.

And I know it is, frankly, seemingly always easier to be the one to depart, to have the flight, the activities, the new

that will come versus being the one who is left. And I have seldom been in the position

of being the one who is left as you go travel, but it's coming more

and more, and that experience is one that we want to come back to.

Yes.

Well, let me just, as we begin to address the reality of loneliness, one of the things

to be said is there is so much debris that comes with this topic.

And debris that affects our bodies, our relationships, really our relationship with God.

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