For four years I was an Assemblies of God monk with the Brothers and Sisters of Charity. This is an excerpt from my yet-to-be-published book Taking Off My Comfortable Clothes. The chapter is called When God Alone Is Enough (Isolation). It was originally posted Nov. 6, 2008.

There were times at the community when I felt so alone I could hardly express it. I would often go to the chapel, find a dark corner to sit in, pull my hood over my head and mutter over and over, “It’s just You and me, Jesus. Just You and me.” I felt so very lonely, isolated, and separated from all that was familiar.

These were also times of questioning God–big, loud, bodacious, tear-filled questions that seemed to bounce off the ceiling of the chapel and slap me in the face. “Are You still with me? Did I miss Your will? Whose idea was this monk’s life, anyway? Does anybody care? Will I always feel so alone and without a friend? Do You hear me?” If you are interested, the answers to those questions were: yes, no, mine (I think), yes, sometimes, and always.

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