I’m No Angel

God never gives you more than you can handle.

If I’ve heard that phrase once, I’ve heard it a thousand times. As if God created me with some extraordinary amount of patience, hope, perseverance, and strength.

Sometimes people think that parents of children with special needs or terminal illnesses were hand selected by God because they were particularly worthy and able of enduring the hardship in such circumstances. That we’re somehow more perfect, more faithful, or more “Christian.”

That is so far from the truth.

I am so incredibly flawed that it would probably shock most of you. I’m selfish. I’m prideful. I complain. I whine. I yell at my kids (shocking, I know).

I would love to be one of those moms written about in blogs shared to over a million readers, moms who have given up hurrying… or yelling… or let’s throw it all in, given up all heartache.

But that’s not so easy in our world.

Sometimes I daydream that I could go to Hawaii on a whim and leave all these responsibilities and cares behind (at least for awhile!). Does that shock you?

God never gives you more than you can handle.

Frankly, I think that line is really just a bunch of bull. That’s just me being honest here.

This life is more than I can handle.

The truth is that often God gives us way more than we could ever possibly handle on our own. Enough that we feel buried six feet under in a pit so deep that we can’t see the sun shining over the top.  And all the while, the dirt is crumbling down the walls every time you try to climb out or sometimes, even if you don’t.

The risk of being buried alive creates an anxiety, a tightness in your chest that threatens to overwhelm you and even steal your ability to breathe before the pit itself overtakes you.

That sure feels like more than I can handle.

I can describe it so well because I’ve been there. Have you? The pit is a dark place in which few have sat with me because you can’t invite them. They have to have arrived in that pit of their own accord and only then, can you choose to sit together. And to possibly help each other out.

But it is still more than one alone or two together can handle. God does give you more than you can handle.

That’s how you realize how much you need Him.

If my life wasn’t overwhelmingly more than I could possibly handle, physically, emotionally, logistically, every single day, would I go to him every morning for His strength, wisdom, comfort, and peace?

I’d like to think so. But He knows so much better than me, because He’s made it my reality that I realize every single day how much I need Him.

And for that, I have to be thankful.

He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
Isaiah 40:29

My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word.
Psalm 119:28

What in your life has caused you to realize how much you need God every single day?