“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”  1 John 4:10-11

My Aunt Margaret and Uncle Wilbur raised sheep.  For the twelve years I was in elementary school through high school, some portion of the summer was spent at their home.  One Wednesday evening we were getting ready to go to church and my uncle got a call that dogs had gotten into one of their pastures.  My aunt and I went on to church while my uncle and older brother went to check on the sheep.  While the dogs were removed quickly, it wasn’t until we had the light of day the following morning that the damage that they had done could be assessed.  I remember riding in the back of the truck looking for injured sheep.  There were several and the scene wasn’t pretty.  Uncle Wilbur loaded a couple on the truck to take home, but most, if not all, of the attacked sheep died.  The basic tactic of the dogs was to chase the herd until one of the sheep got separated, attack it and then repeat the process.    In most situations, there is usually safety in numbers, but isolation weakens our level of protection.

Isolation comes in many forms.  Like many, mine is associated primarily due to illness and my inability to work.  For others, it may be personality type, a change in marital status, leaving the work force, increasing frailties as a result of age, or any of a number of other issues which may present themselves individually or in concert.  Further, one does not need to spend a lot of time unaccompanied to feel isolated.  Often I have felt completely alone while surrounded by people.  Satan loves to find us isolated as it makes us more vulnerable to his attacks.  Just like the dogs with sheep, he uses our vulnerability to undermine our thought processes and, thereby, erode our faith.  One of his first targets is our sense of worth.   He works on us until we begin to forget our true value.