This Is Not the End

Life is a lonely venture, often lonelier when it doesn’t meet our expectations. And we think we’re the only ones; no one could ever have possibly felt just as we feel right smack in the middle of our circumstances. But if you look long enough or maybe just “Google” it, you’ll soon learn that there is pretty much nothing new under the sun. Someone has been there, experienced that.

Life is hard. We’d all do well to acknowledge that fact right off the bat. Despite whatever degree of charm some of us appear to live with, we each face adversity at some point, somewhere, somehow along the way. And even for the one who still manages to keep up appearances, not letting on that there has been any undue pain, there is the missed opportunity for growth, the kind that only happens when we embrace hardship. Life doesn’t always go as planned. Relationships end. We are declined for a job. Our child gets sick. The car breaks down. Our best friend dies unexpectedly and all too soon. Or we have a harder time adjusting to life changes than we would have expected from ourselves. How do we leverage any one of those things for good? How can we possibly grow from adversity? What do we do when life doesn’t go as planned?

There's really very little in life that should come as a surprise if we are living with our eyes wide open, trusting our intuition, and listening. Everything that happens has happened before in time, in space, to someone. The danger comes in living as if we are the exception to pain. The element of surprise lurks in our belief that we are somehow different. Not to steal anyone's thunder, but we are all the same. Each one of us composed of flesh and bones. Each one of us is capable of good and evil. What should really surprise us is when we live unscathed, when things are easy and all is well. And for those times, we should be thankful, rest in them, make peace in them, lavish on others all the love we have to give during those times. Instead of being surprised by the unexpected and unwelcome hardships we each encounter, let's be surprised, instead, by the grace afforded each of us to get through it.