“The difference between school and Life?  In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test.  In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.”

— Tom Bodett

Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend.  We skipped over the weather, the news of the day, and the predictable stories of family life.  She wanted to tell me that she was struggling.  She wanted to tell me that she has been depressed and is keeping a promise to herself by telling the people she has been hiding from.  We skipped all the surface things that have little bearing on what really matters and talked about the difficult times that we all face from time to time.  Interspersed with all of the events that connect one day to the next and keep life flowing in a predictable manner, we all face tests from time to time.  We love.  We lose.  People come into our lives and people leave.  People are born, and people die.  We suffer illness and pain.  We are vulnerable to the challenge of being human, being real, being alive.

We talked about the way we feel isolated in our pain.  We talked about the ways we often make our tests more difficult by judging ourselves and feeling as though we have been singled out for misery because we somehow deserve to be punished for our inadequacies.  We talked about persevering and forgiving ourselves, and learning to love the tests for the lessons they teach us.

We talked about learning from the judgment of others to be careful not to judge.  We talked about learning from our pain to cherish the days when we are healthy and strong.  We talked about learning from our losses that as we face our fear, we become fearless and ready to live with our eyes and our hearts wide open.  We talked about the way that we learn to see past the temporary obstacles that life sometimes sends our way and to see the bigger picture where love and light dominate the landscape in the tapestry of our lives.

When challenges come, we often wish that we had been taught the lessons that would help us to find our way.  We wish that someone had told us what to expect and how to manage it.  Being fully human and fully alive is far too vast an experience to be either contained, categorized, or predicted.  The more tests that some our way with their lessons that blaze the trail to life beyond, the more abundant our lives become.

Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend.  It was a test.  And the lesson we both learned is that we are never really alone, we are not really singled out for misery, and if we love ourselves enough to take the risk, an understanding friend might be only a phone call away — waiting for the lesson that only this moment can offer.  My life is richer today because a friend reached beyond her fear and touched a familiar place in me.  Today I remember t hat I am never really alone.