Mountains & Valleys

It's been a rough season this past month or so. I can't tell you how many times the expression, "When it rains, it pours," has come to mind and has felt very real to me. I've been hearing a lot of accolades from well-meaning people. One in particular has been on mind quite a bit. "God never gives you more than you can handle." It doesn't seem right. It sounds nice on a sunny day when you're standing on the mountaintop, but when it's flooding and you're constantly falling into the mud and muck in the valley, these words just don't seem very real. In fact, they seem like a big lie. How can God expect you to handle things when your knees have buckled under, you back has finally given out, and you've fallen over backwards? How could the weakness uncovered by my present circumstances be a nod to some mysterious amount strength found inside of me? 

I think I struggle with this expression the most not because God allows hard circumstances that seem unbearable, but rather because I don't do well when I don't do well. I don't want to just make it, I want to excel. But God allows things in my life that only with His help, I can handle, and even then I may not handle them well. In fact, I don't think I'm meant to. I think that there's a lot of good in being broken, weak, and unable to move forward without help. I think that it is necessary in being human and especially necessary in being a human relating to God. The challenges we face, the burdens we bear, and the trials we endure all achieve for us a greater reliance on a Savior. If our knees had never buckled under and the floods had never come, then we would have never known the reaching embrace of our Father God's very loving arms. 

God has given me more than I can handle alone. And some days, it's hard, because some days I carry that burden alone on purpose, doubting His goodness. But God has not ever given me more than I can handle without His help. And on the days I don't go it alone and I welcome the help of my Heavenly Father, He excels, and I make it.