Solitude: Finding Inner Fullness in Quiet Places

The Sound of Silence

The following essay is the second reflection for our June focus on the spiritual practice of Solitude. Read more here about our exploration of the spiritual disciplines in 2025 through creative and reflective writing.

By E.L. Sherene Joseph

Image credit: Joel Holland via Unsplash

I am sitting at my dining table, which also serves as my workspace. The window near me is open. The rain lashes down. The thunder rumbles. A thunderstorm in early May is not uncommon in Texas, and a sudden drop in temperature is a pleasant change.

Apart from the rain, there is silence around me. I can faintly hear my husband on a call from his study, and occasionally, a car drives past. While I don't always enjoy the quiet, I do enjoy the sound of falling rain. Its rhythm and harmony soothe my spirit.

But not every day is like this one.

Most of the time, I find my head filled with sounds and noise. It's either the notifications from emails, streaming entertainment, or social media. Sometimes, it’s the "noise" that comes from opinions, people around me, outrage over politics, and culture.

I can even handle the cacophony of traffic, trucks, and airplanes because they are all signs of life around me. It is the noise inside my head and heart that is the loudest.

Loneliness vs. Solitude

For most of us, being alone and being lonely are the same thing. We believe they go hand in hand. When we sit down with a cup of coffee, the Bible, and a journal, we spend time alone. When we meet friends for lunch or a walk, we are in the company of others.

But for many of us, loneliness is a great struggle. It is often the biggest complaint in counseling and therapy sessions. Hundreds of songs have been written about being left alone or asking someone to never leave you.

Loneliness can produce bitter fruit, but choosing to be alone for a time to focus on other tasks can yield healthier emotional, physical, and spiritual outcomes.

Despite what we may think, loneliness and solitude are not the same or synonymous. Loneliness is being alone and can make an individual feel an inner emptiness; solitude, on the other hand, is being alone but with an inner sense of fullness.

But followers and believers of Christ are never alone. When we feel lonely, we can trust that God is always with us. And when we seek to spend time with God, practice contemplative prayer, and other forms of quiet time, we are moving from loneliness to solitude.

Finding God in the Quiet

Mother Teresa once said, "We need to find God and He cannot be found in the noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence."

The two primary places we discover God are in community—in deep, long-term, loving relationships with others in the family of God—and in solitude, silence, and stillness in God’s presence.

However, we often focus on community. We fill our lives with people and do life with them so much that we forget the solitude.

Hear me when I say, community is much needed and valuable. We learn in community and grow in the knowledge of God and others. But just as Jesus did regularly, we also need to slip away into the desert places, into the quiet places, to sit with Him, pray, talk to the Father, and commune with the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:35). It is from this time that we can get wisdom, direction, and joy (Psalm 28:7). The Holy Spirit fills us to such an extent that we can then pour out love and serve others.

The Rhythm of Solitude in a Digital Age

It is wise to build a regular rhythm of solitude. Our modern age dictates that we desperately need it. The majority of us are victims of the digital age, which plagues us from dawn to dusk with endless entertainment, dulling and distracting our hearts and minds. Sadly, it takes time for us to become aware of our dilemma.

We are also constantly bombarded with opinions, content in various forms, the 24-hour news cycle, and much more. It often takes decisiveness and prayer to walk away from consuming content, to slow down, read a book, think, contemplate, and just be still. Being still with ourselves is a skill we all need to practice if we are ever to learn to be still in the presence of God.

We all know that community and relationships with other followers of Christ are essential to thrive, but we often lose sight of the need for an intentional quiet time with ourselves and God. Henri Nouwen says, "Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life."

The Place of Encounter

Solitude is the place of encounter. We often run into it exhausted and worn down by the stress and strain of our daily lives. We are a broken people living in a fractured world. Solitude provides a space for us to lay down the exhaustion and emotions that lie below the surface of our lives.

We seek solitude to meet God and wrestle with Him, and free ourselves of the entanglements of this world, our flesh, and Satan.

Being in solitude can be emotionally exhausting. Everything we are chasing, seeking, all catches up with us, and we lay it down at the feet of Jesus, desperately crying out to Him, for Him. We seek God in solitude just because we need God (Psalm 62:1-2). Some days we are not seeking anything from Him, just Him, and that is what solitude creates for us (Psalm 27:4).

In solitude, we follow Jesus' example. We seek a quiet place or a closet in our home, and we meet God and encounter whatever pain we are going through. We work through it, crying out to Him and allowing His presence to fill us.

Solitude affords us the ability to recognize the emotions that plague us, name them, and give them up to God. Prayerful solitude helps us become deeply formed into the kind of people God desires us to be.

Sherene Joseph lives in Dallas, Texas. She is a freelance writer and editor who finds herself at the intersection of faith, community, and culture. Sherene is a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary and also serves as a Deacon at her local church. She loves good coffee and engaging in deep conversations on various subjects.

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SAVE THE DATE - upcoming webinar

Big Picture Editing: Why to Leave the Red Pen in the Drawer

Thursday, June 26 · 10:00-11:00am PT / 1:00pm-2:00pm ET

How do you approach editing a manuscript independently? How do you know when it's ready for an editor? And what kind of editor?

Not every editor looks at your manuscript with the same eye. If she is a line editor, she is deep into the process already and expects tidy storylines, fully-developed characters, and tight dialogue. But a developmental editor has her watercolor pens out, ready to paint broad strokes that help you define the direction of your work in progress. Copyeditors fall somewhere in between.

This webinar will discuss the different editing stages and a few simple ways to prepare your work for an editor.

This webinar is free for Redbud Writers Guild members (no need to register), $15 for non-members. All proceeds go to support our Women of Color Mentoring Program.

Recordings will be sent to everyone who is registered.

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