Imagine that you’re 16 years old.

You’re full of energy and finally beginning to feel like you understand life. You have big dreams that reach far beyond the shores of your native island. But everything changes when raiders sail across the North Channel and storm your hometown.

You’re captured and dragged away from your family, your home, and everything you’ve ever known. For the next six years, you will live a difficult and lonely life as an enslaved herdsman in a foreign land.

This is how the story of St. Patrick began more than 1,600 years ago! Today, most people associate this historical figure with St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. But there’s a lot we can learn from St. Patrick’s missionary story and experience with God’s Word—especially about God’s promise to never leave us alone. In his autobiographical Confessio, St. Patrick details his captivity in Ireland and escape back home to Britain. He also describes how God called him back to Ireland to share the gospel with the people who had once enslaved him.

Can you imagine returning to the place where you spent the loneliest, most difficult years of your life? Or sharing God’s love with your worst enemies? According to St. Patrick, it was God who made it all possible. Through Scripture, St. Patrick grew to realize that he was never truly alone. This helped him follow God’s calling to share the good news in Ireland. Ultimately, St. Patrick went from a lonely shepherd to the man who helped transform Ireland’s future with God’s Word.

6 VERSES TO SHOW YOU THAT YOU AREN’T ALONE

God communicates his love for us through his Word. Whether you’re struggling with loneliness like St. Patrick or simply want reassurance of your heavenly Father’s care for you, you can find comfort in Scripture. Here are six verses from the Bible that show you that you aren’t alone.

No matter what you’re facing, you can be confident that God will rescue you.

[The Lord says:] “Call to me when trouble comes;
I will save you,
and you will praise me.”

Psalm 50:15 (GNT)

Other people may abandon you, but God promises to care for you.

My father and mother may abandon me,
but the Lord will take care of me.

Psalm 27:10 (GNT)

You can trust that God will provide a refuge for you in times of loneliness.

God, who lives in his sacred Temple,
cares for orphans and protects widows.
He gives the lonely a home to live in
and leads prisoners out into happy freedom,
but rebels will have to live in a desolate land.

Psalm 68:5-6 (GNT)

You can cry out to God and echo the words of Scripture when you feel alone.

Turn to me, Lord, and be merciful to me,
because I am lonely and weak.

Psalm 25:16 (GNT)

God’s love for you means that you live in eternal union with him.

God is love, and those who live in love live in union with God and God lives in union with them.

1 John 4:16b (GNT)

You can be confident that God is with you even when you feel alone or afraid.

[Jesus said] “When I go, you will not be left all alone; I will come back to you.”

John 14:18 (GNT)