Too Much to Bear . . . By Myself

Christians, as a whole, have a lot of great qualities: we create organizations to support orphans, write great worship songs, man food banks and homeless shelters, and support missionaries who go and preach the gospel throughout the world.

Christians, as a whole, also have a few not-so-desirable ones: we tend to be hypocrites (Not trying to offend; haven't you ever been guilty of hypocrisy? I sure have.), we pick out some sins and highlight them while downplaying many others, and we misquote Scripture.

Actually, it's not that we usually misquote it; we generally just take it out of context.

We quote Scripture to others to comfort them, to encourage them, and to teach them, just like Paul tells Timothy to do in the New Testament. That's good. But the problem comes in when we take a verse out of context and then use it in a way that wasn't intended. It's like using the "Ask and you shall receive" passage to promote the Name It and Claim It mentality--if I ask for a luxury car and a 10,000 square foot house, I'll get it! There are a lot of believers out there who do just that. (And believe me, if it actually worked that way, I'd be sitting in a new house with adequate counter space and a plethora of walk-in closets!)

Lately, I've heard the verse, "He will never give you more than you can bear" thrown around left and right. I hear it from friends, from family, from people I hardly know. When they hear about Addison's heart/kidney/brain/genetics scares, they say, "Sarah, you know the Lord will never give you more than you can bear."

They mean it well.

It doesn't come across well.

What it says to me is this: "Sarah, you need to buck up under this incredible pressure because, praise the Lord, this isn't too much to bear."

Well then what on earth, I wonder, is "too much to bear?" Because if this isn't it, I'd hate to see what is. It might resemble something like King Kong meets Armageddon.

I'm not confrontational. I want people to like me. But I promise you that on more than one occasion I've had to bite my lips to keep from saying, "Well, if that's the case, then you take on this tremendous grief, strain, fear, and chaos. You look at your newborn daughter and say the words 'open-heart surgery,' 'geneticist,' and 'brain scan' without feeling overwhelmed and terrified and heart-sick. Because it's not too much to bear, after all. "

I don't. I'm a little too timid to be quite so sassy. But I think it.

And I felt a little guilty for reacting this way, wondering why on earth I couldn't handle what the Lord had given me and why those words bothered me, until I found something beautiful: After much frustration, I looked up the specific verse in the Bible, and I read that this passage is not dealing with grief or stress or sorrow, it's about temptation! The Lord never allows us to be tempted in such a way that we cannot escape. Temptation!

This verse is in no way, shape, or form saying that we'll not be given too much to bear. In fact, nowhere in the Bible is that remotely suggested.

And you know, when I think back on Job and see that he lost all of his children, his home, his financial security, and finally his own health, it seems more than a little obvious that he had more than he could bear. None of us is superhuman; there's only so much we can take.

A woman who loses her husband? That's too much to bear.

A mother whose daughter has devastating health issues and needs a second heart transplant? That's too much to bear.

A woman who finds out, after discovering that four of her five children have muscular dystrophy, that she also has it? That's too much to bear.

A mother who finds out she has cancer when her child is only one? That's too much to bear.

A family who loses one son to a disease, knowing that the same disease will someday take their remaining son? That's too much to bear.

We are only flesh and blood. We can only stand up under so much strain, and sorrow, and defeat.

Even Jesus, knowing the crucifixion that faced Him, said it was too much to bear. He repeatedly asked God for some other way. If Jesus, the Savior of the world and God Himself, found a situation too much to bear, why should I expect to be able to hold up my corner of the world?

If I could handle the devastation that sometimes makes its way into my life, I wouldn't need Jesus. I also wouldn't long for heaven. I've always wanted to go to heaven, of course, but it wasn't really until I was faced with a long struggle with my daughter that I began to see the complete relief of a place free from pain, from sickness, from sorrow. We don't recognize our need for a Savior until we reconize our own inadequacy to deal with life. Jesus doesn't just save me on into heaven; He saves me from my own weakness here on earth. He saves me from the swirling waters of fear and despair. He holds me up when I have no strength left in me.

I'm sure there are a lot of things I've said to someone in a crisis that didn't come across well. I habitually stick my foot into my mouth. But I can say, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I will never again tell another that what they've been given is not too much to bear. Instead, I will gently encourage her that although her load is too much to handle, and that the journey with that load is long, and hard, and lonely, that Jesus will walk it with her, and that He will help her carry that load. And that the invitation to a place with no heavy loads is there, if she wants it.

And on the hard days, I'll remind myself of the very same thing. Sometimes it is too much to bear, but I don't have to bear it alone.

Now that is something worth quoting.