THE ONLY ONE

 

Some years ago, another divorced, single mother moved into my Ward which made us the only two women of that marital status in that ward. We struck up a friendship and I was grateful that there would be someone around who would understand me and my life. This proved more difficult than I thought.

The sister in question was vastly different from me. She was a career woman managing her own business and I was a lowly office worker, with no professional aspirations, struggling to make ends meet. She was a very strong, independent individual who handled her four children with ease and trained them well for a life of independence. I was a self-sacrificing mother who turned herself into a taxi driver for my young teenagers and who did everything in my power to spare them any discomfort and difficulty.

With time it became apparent to me that my new friend and I were reading the same book but we were not on the same page. In other words, we were two different individuals in the same situation but with different responses to that situation. We were different people and the same difficulties were affecting us differently. This taught me that it is futile to seek understanding from other people because of our differences.

I also came to understand another truth. Be careful of turning a close friend into your mentor. I had a handful of close friends that I used to seek advice from which I narrowed down to one confidant who I considered understood my spiritual journey more than anyone else but even though we had a very strong spiritual connection, our lives were vastly different. She was married and I was single, she was well and I was sick. I noticed with time that her advice was often, if not always, from her frame of reference and her experiences in life. I used to value whatever she said until I noticed that some of the advice she was giving me was not applicable to me.

When I became sick two years ago, I retreated into myself a lot and became very alienated from people I knew because I felt nobody understood what I was going through. Pain has a way of teaching you that. I had never been in a more isolating situation before in my life. All of a sudden I was incredibly alone with something I was dealing with that was very difficult. I knew it was futile to expect others to understand because nobody else had ever experienced what it is like to live in my skin……except only one..

I came to understand the Saviour’s lonely road He trod when He was here. This scripture seared my heart: “Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.” (Psalm 69:20). I understood a fraction of what He felt during the crucible of His life when He was forsaken by all. If Christ’s Atonement was a descent into the ‘bottomless pit’ of human agony, then I know that He alone understands my life and my sufferings…..because in that bottomless pit was my agony too.

I met You on the lonely road

And heard You say to me:

You will ever be mine

If you walk with me.

 

Your presence enthralled me,

Your exquisite love nearly ripped me apart;

I walked away from all else

Just to have You in my heart.

 

I walk now with Your hand in mine,

The lonely road paved with tears of love

Oh, if only everyone knew where to find You

And long for You to come!

 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Artist Unknown)