I get it now.

As a kid, I never could quite understand my mom's obbession with nighttime soaps. Knot's Landing. Dallas. Hill Street Blues.
I get it now.
Other than ER, Grey's Anatomy is one of my first "can't miss an episode" favorite shows. I don't watch day time soaps. But I love Grey's. So I think I am becoming my mom!

Not only for the sex, and hospital story lines. That is fun too! But also there is a lot of life parallels and one of my second favorite things is reading the writer's blog. I can usually figure out most of the metaphor in the show, but enjoy "seeing" it from their point of view. This week's episode was a good one...and I needed to share some of the blog thoughts from one of the shows' writers.
Straight from the blog and all too close to some raw feelings this week, after learning of some tragic deaths that should never have happened to people I don't even know. They write this story line - parallelled by the interns taking their exams to see if they move on or not.

" It can make for compelling television drama, but it’s not entirely unlike real life, where terrible things happen to us, to our friends, and to the world around us without warning or explanation. And we’re human beings, most of us, so when terrible things happen, we want to know the reasons why. We want the suffering to mean something. And when the meaning isn’t immediately evident, we assign meaning as a way of comprehending, if not controlling, what seem like random acts of terribleness. When bad things happen, we make sense of them by calling them tests. Tests we either pass or fail before moving on to the next level of experience, but ones we hopefully learn from either way."

At times, life does seem like one test after another. Do we pass or fail?? Here is my answer.
And again straight from the writers blog.

"George is a highly moral person doing his utmost to be the best doctor -- the best friend -- the best husband (ed. **you can insert "best" whatever you happen to be right now...wife, mom, employee etc. ** ) he can be. But people, no matter how well intentioned, make mistakes. If life is a series of tests, there is no perfect score. You do the best you can and try to learn from your mistakes, because before you know it, life has another test in store. And another. And then one after that. Not unlike episodes of series television. "

How we deal with these tests really shows our character, and ultimately our values and beliefs. Maybe that is how we can chose to rationalize it. Like honeing metal, which does not gain it greatest strength until it has been heated and cooled over and over again, put through the fire so to speak, (Or "put to the test") God knows we can not be at our greatest strength without being tested. As cliche as it sounds.

And I can honestly say that sometimes we can't help but feel that some tests are just too severe.
That is where faith comes in. The only answer I can find. And I am grateful it is offered.