When God Gives You More Than You Can Handle

Alright, today's subject is... a little touchy. Mostly because when we are going through an especially difficult time, people love to throw faith-based statements at us to give us some kind of comfort. The trouble is, sometimes they aren't true statements. And sometimes they leave us feeling hopeless; because when things are really, really difficult, it can be hard to understand why it's happening to you.

Right now I want to tackle one of the biggest phrases people throw around; "God never gives you more than you can handle." A phrase that I've never in my life found to be true.

This is one phrase I've never figured out. How it could possibly give somebody comfort? If they are feeling hurt, vulnerable and weak, why would you tell them, "Well obviously you can handle it, toughen up. God knows what He's doing." You might as well stab them in the heart and tell them to get over it. Sometimes in life, we are given way more than we feel we can take. Burden upon burden. Heartbreak after heartbreak. Challenge beyond challenge. And while you say "God never gives you more than you can handle," you're wrong.

He doesn't necessarily give these burdens to us, (I don't personally believe that He is responsible for the bad things in our life.) But bad things do happen in our lives. Things that we can't control, things that will break our hearts. That's kind of the point. When you are lower than low, when you have no more strength to fight and no more faith to hope- He's there. He's there to help you, he's there to take some of the pain, to give your heart encouragement and comfort. He's there to show us, that being human means we can't do everything on our own. We need Him.

A year ago, I was struggling daily with the feeling of hopelessness and worthlessness due to my infertility. For a very long time I wavered between blaming Him or not believing in Him. How could such a wonderful God let such bad things happen to good people? (I cringe just typing that now!) I was very lucky (or maybe it wasn't luck at all, but God) to have some really great friends come into my life and talk about their love for God. They talked about how they rely on Him whenever things got to be too much for their fragile human hearts to handle. They talked about how their God is a God of hope and happiness. And they softened my heart enough to seek Him out for myself because I was tired of living everyday in a state of repressed sadness.

When we learn to accept that we have weaknesses and that we can't take it all, do it all, handle it all; we open our hearts and souls to God. That's what he wants for us. He wants us to believe in Him, trust in Him and love Him. When everything is going wrong and we don't know what to do- He is there for us- all we have to do is look. He never wants to see hurt in our hearts or pain in our lives. He only wants to take all of that from us and help us to rejoice in Him.

This is one of the biggest life-changing lessons I've learned in the last year. I've learned that if I truly look to him for comfort, He does heal our hurt. Not completely, not forever. But He gives us enough strength to get through and rejoice in His presence. He gives us hope and purpose. I'm still trying to find my purpose if it's not to be a mother one day, but I know that I will find it. And on days when I'm feeling extra crumby, (I've had a lot of those the last week or so,) I remind myself to look towards Him for comfort. Because there is no greater love than that of our God.

I hope this message finds you well today, and that if you are dealing with any kind of hurt in your life right now, that you find this as a reminder that it's okay to ask Him to help. He wants to help us. There is nothing more precious to Him than us.

xoxo, Laura