I serve an immigrant ministry. I came out of the country in 2000 and have been living in a foreign country until now. He embraces his vision and fulfills his mission with his own loyalty. Since 2009, he has been serving a church community as a senior pastor for 14 years.

The given ministry is handled with full grace. Looking back on that journey, I remember fighting loneliness for quite some time. Having lived in an English-speaking country, I am quite used to it now, but English is still uncomfortable. Is it like a sense of loneliness that comes suddenly even after a busy life? I think it would be an appropriate expression to say ‘loneliness too close to be far’, which I coined a few months ago.

As I think of my hometown, miss my siblings, and miss my innocent friends, the feeling of loneliness that comes over me seems to be trapped in emptiness and emptiness. And in the end, there are times when you hit the bottom and go down to the point where you wonder if life is free. In the midst of such empty feelings, I remembered the word 'solitude', similar to loneliness, that came to mind while meditating some time ago.

Naturally, I dug the difference between loneliness and solitude as if I were digging the ground of my thoughts. I did some digging, but it didn't seem to make a big difference. But when you dig deeper, you can see a stark difference. On the floor struggling with loneliness, life is free, but on the floor of solitude, I felt the breath of a completely new God.

After summarizing the journey of my past life, I was more certain. Loneliness and solitude, both seem to have a sense of isolation in common. It means a feeling of isolation, like being alone in a wide world. But I seem to have found something different. Loneliness is when people around you leave and you are alone, while solitude seems to be isolation where you leave many people and become alone.

Pastoral ministry in the midst of immigrant life, I don't think there will be much difference between living in the world anyway. Even if you are with many people in the middle of the city, you will not be able to solve or relieve your loneliness. If it's too close to stay away, I've tried the alternative of changing my thinking patterns and going into voluntary isolation, leaving people on my own for fellowship with God.

What I sought and felt at the bottom of that isolation was the breath of God. I wondered if many medieval monks had tasted this kind of solitude. But I found myself unable to stay there for that long. After this, these days, I am taking care of my mind by tasting it occasionally during the morning prayer time.

(Proverbs 4:23) Guard your heart above all else.