More Than You Can Handle

I've been thinking a lot about the saying, "God won't give you more than you can handle." I have a few problems with this, mainly the fact that it isn't true. I'm pretty sure it's not biblical. And who are we to say what God will do?

Someone told me this when we found out we were having twins. At the time, I assumed they meant, "You can handle raising twins, since that's what God is giving you." I think that's what they thought they meant, too. But that wasn't what happened. I didn't get the opportunity to raise twins after all. Does that mean that I wouldn't have been able to handle it? He didn't allow me to keep both babies because "God doesn't give you more than you can handle"?

Or was the person really talking about "handling" the loss of my daughter? Did she say that to me because God wouldn't give me more grief and heartache than I can "handle"? Did God give her some glimpse into the future, unknown even to her? If that's the case, I strongly disagree. He did give me "more than I can handle." Who really can "handle" months of fear, of not knowing what was wrong, of praying and fasting with seemingly no results? Who can "handle" the roller-coaster of emotions from one doctor telling you, "don't buy your twin stuff yet" and the next one saying "she doesn't look as bad now, there is hope"? Who can handle giving birth via surgery to two beautiful baby girls and barely getting to kiss them hello before they are taken up to the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit), having to lie there and get stitched back up and brought to recovery, all the while you are waiting to hear how your babies are, wondering but afraid to find out? And who can handle the moment when your husband returns to your bedside after being paged to go up to the NICU, when he kneels by your bed with tears in his eyes while the doctor tells you the words you never want to hear: "there's nothing we can do"? Nothing about the situation was something I can handle.

I don't know anyone who can "handle" burying their child, who can handle seeing that tiny coffin and imagine the perfect little body being put into the ground instead of being held in their arms.

So I know that God often allows us to go through things that we can't handle. Fortunately, He also gives us the grace to get through those otherwise overwhelming and impossible-to-handle situations. I'm not sure how He got me through my impossible situation. Honestly, looking back, there are a lot of things I don't remember. I was in a fog for many months. But I do know, when I look back, that I couldn't have gotten through it without a supernatural grace.

God sometimes will give you more than you can handle. But there is nothing that He can't handle. Instead of asking the sometimes unanswerable question of "Why," focus on the Almighty "Who," the one who can get you through.