What is Love: More than you can handle take 2

One of my older blog posts talks about how God never gives us more than we can handle. But a couple of months ago, a friend challenged that perspective and I'm feeling the need to relate that story now.

The friend I'm speaking of is a chaplain. He and I were working together and he sort of took me under his wing and became a mentor of sorts.

Just like any good mentor, he would tell me exactly what I needed to hear exactly when I needed to hear it. And boy was it infuriating. He didn't pull his punches with me, he got straight to the point, no matter how much it hurt me to hear it, and I hated and loved him for that.

When we were first getting acquainted, I told him about what happened to Brett and he said something that really ruffled my feathers. At the time, I thought I would just ignore him and move on, but God showed me that what my mentor had said was the truth

I told him that Brett couldn't have handled his body being so ravaged, having to constantly go to doctors, and not being able to provide for his family and that's why God took him from us.

I went on to say that God thought I could handle losing Brett because he never gives us more than we can handle.

My friend sat for a minute before telling me that "God never gives us more than we can handle" is actually not in the Bible.

I was dumbstruck by this comment because I had used this phrase for many years and knew beyond a doubt that it was biblical. I found my voice and started to argue my point but he stopped me before I began.

He said that it was actually a misinterpretation of a Bible verse and that the verse actually meant that God would not give you more than you can handle with His help.

I was so angry by what he said, I couldn't process the meaning behind it. I proudly thought, I've read the Bible at least five times all the way through, I think I would know what's in there and what's not!

I stewed in my frustration until I left work that night when I started to lay it all out before God. I told God everything and ended by saying what an arrogant jerk my mentor was.

Then all of a sudden, a verse popped into my head, 1 Corinthians 10:13. When I got home, I looked out up and it said, "The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure," (NASB).

I read the verse a few times, still feeling nettled and unwilling to admit that I was the one being an arrogant jerk.

But God started showing me how true it is that He always gives us more than we can handle alone. But He never gives us more than we can handle with His help.

My own experience with grief was proof of that. After the first wave of grief had passed, I started to give my grief over to God and it wasn't long before my tears over Brett became smiles over the good times we'd had.

But it wasn't long before I stopped handing it over and started pushing it down. I did anything and everything to distract me from the pain of my loss and it just grew and festered like a poisoned wound until it took over every part of me.

I became severely depressed. I cut myself off from the world and laid in bed all day and night, absorbed in my own misery. And for the first time in my life, I began to question if God was real.

This went on for at least a year and I went down some dark paths in that time. I, like Jesus himself, felt the despair of my God having abandoned me in the time I needed Him the most.

And just as I was on the brink of ruin, my life in complete shambles, I was given this job with this brutally honest mentor.

I finally felt hopeful again, that maybe God really was there and on my side. But then this aggravating man challenged something I had believed all of my life and I felt so very aggravated because I knew he was right.

After showing me the verse in question, God showed me that although I had despaired and felt as though He had left me in my darkest of moments, He had been there all along. But just like I shut everyone and everything out, I had completely closed myself off to Him.

It was only when I opened myself back up to Him that He could finally start to bring healing to my soul.

Shutting myself off to God, i.e. handling it on my own, caused heartache, pain, despair, and death (at least to my belief system). But since I learned this lesson and began handing everything over to God, i.e. letting God handle it for me, I have received so much joy, blessings, and hope as well as a reason to smile again.

So it's not true that God never gives us more than we can handle. He never gives us more than we can handle with His help. If we turn to Him in our darkest of hours, He will help us to see the sunshine once again.