The
consoling quote, “God will never put you in a situation that you cannot
handle" is about as comforting as: “Your pantry will always be stocked with
fresh ambrosia apples and aciago cheese.”
Neither
quote is found in The Bible either. But someone, including me, may have at
least once thought it came straight from God’s word. I even remember telling
folks “The Lord would never put you in a situation you can’t handle” and seeing
the reassurance dawn on them. I don’t think I was doing that much good if I
wasn’t telling the truth.
The
truth? I’ve been in situations I can’t handle. I had a medical doctor take me
into a little room and tell me my daughter had cancer. Think of jetlag so disorienting
it feels like a bad dream. That’s kind of what it felt like. That was a
situation we couldn’t handle. Whether or not God put us there is debatable. I
still struggle a bit with everything that happens being a part of God’s master
plan or not. But what happened after the bottom dropped out of our lives is we
managed to get through it to press on.
Over
the past month or so our family has been able to help out other people who have
been in crisis. Some opportunities were simply sharing blessings that had been
shared with us. Other times it was just doing what we could. Sometimes it was
just praying for others.
It
had been a little scary to see other people in crisis around us. And the reason
it was scary I think was very selfish of me. I wondered if we were next. We’ve
been pretty comfortable lately with no major crisis for awhile. We’re here in
our comfortable home with chickens in the backyard and a steady paycheck for
me. The worst thing for me right now is a broken down pickup truck. Around us,
friends have been living through some tough times and we’ve joined others in
helping them out. But when I prayed for friends I found myself wanting to say
“please, God, help us not to have bad stuff happen to us?”
That
seems awfully selfish. I might as well ask God for a refrigerator full of my
favorite kind of cheese and apples. (Of course I would share it all).
Instead
of hunkering down in fright I really wish I could trust God more. These
“situations I cannot handle” that I’m afraid of shouldn’t be paralyzing me
before they happen. And if and when they happen, well… where will I be? Where
can anyone be when the walls of their life turn to dust?
I
have been in situations I couldn’t handle before. And each time I got through
to see another day. Sometimes it took more than a day to get through. But I
never made it on my own. Because each time I’ve been in overwhelming
circumstances, in over my head, there has been a life line thrown to me.
The
day after Naomi was diagnosed with cancer a little girl and her parents visited
our hospital room. The little girl had just relapsed and showed Naomi her
access line that was standard for pediatric oncology. As the little girl stood on
Naomi’s bed, the her mom reached over and brushed her hair out of her daughter's face and it
came away in her fingers. Prajna started crying and I nearly lost it too. The
little girl’s dad took me aside and told me something.
“It gets better,” he said.
I knew he wasn’t promising that
Naomi would get better. He knew exactly what I was feeling and told me that the
dizzying fear and confusing would subside. I believed him. I felt better right then.
It was the first encouragement I got in that long turbulent chapter of our lives.
And all it had to be was a few words of experience.
Over
the next years we were showered with blessings in all ways. People did what they
could. Those were the life lines that we as His hands and feet throw to each other.
One time all it took was a voice of experience, words I never forgot, to tell me
that even though I was in a situation I couldn’t handle, I wasn’t alone.
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