Something that has been weighing on my mind a lot lately is: does God really never give us more than we can handle?
This is something that is often said to people in horrible situations. Usually it is tossed about when there is a severe illness or big loss. People say it to try to give comfort to the person going through struggle. I don't know that it ever really helps. Is it even true? I tell you what.... if I am going through something horrendous and you tell me that I should have comfort because God will never give me more than I can handle, I will freakin cut you. I will unfriend you on Facebook, I will draw mustaches on every picture I can find of you. Just know, never say that shit to me.
I believe that people are regularly given more than they can handle. I don't know why it happens, but I believe that to be true. I believe that really NONE of us can handle certain things like a severe illness or injury in our children or the death of a loved one. However, as people, we get up and breathe each breath and try to live and get through the day. That is different than being able to handle it.
We are given far more sorrow in our lives then we are able to handle, but we are also given more joy. Do you remember that overwhelming joy when you looked at your child and realized they were your family for the first time? It may have happened at the moment at birth or adoption or maybe just a random Tuesday that you were staring at that tiny person and realized they were YOUR PERSON. My heart burst with more joy then it could possibly contain each of the 4 times that I accepted the new child into my family, my tribe. I couldn't handle all of that joy. Too much love. Too much joy. Too much everything.
Of course, the ying to the yang here is that sometimes we are given far more sorrow then we can actually handle. That is ok. Lean on your friends and loved ones. You need to get up and breathe in and out all day long, and that may be all you can actually handle for the day. That does not mean you are failing in any way. It simply means that God does, very regularly, give people more than what they can actually handle.
I don't pretend to understand why bad things happen to good people. All I know is that if you are one of my people and going through a horrible time, I will love you completely and totally. I will try to help in what ways that I can. I also will have no judgment if you need some space to completely fall apart. I don't believe for an instant that God won't give you more than you can handle, but I do believe that you have friends and family who love you and will try their damnedest to hold you up during the worst of the worst.
