Originally published on Facebook Aug 14 2013.
I confess that I was reminded of my hatred for this particular homily by an article read earlier today that listed the top ten worst things to say to the parent of a disabled child. I do not have that life circumstance but have had it used on me, when I was suffering under one intolerable problem or another.
“God never gives us more than we can handle.”
This is used by people who mean to comfort us, by putting our problems, however severe, in a little box.
As the article I read today noted, it’s a more polite way to say a very impolite thing: “Stop whining.”
But it’s a lie.
Of COURSE God — or if you prefer, random circumstance — gives us more than we can handle.
People go bankrupt. People have mental and emotional breakdowns. People throw screaming fits. People get ulcers. The most brutal stress descends on those who are most ill-equipped to handle it. Lives are destroyed. People have tension-induced strokes. They sink into drug dependencies, or kill themselves.
“God never gives us more than we can handle.”
What self-serving claptrap!
Okay. So imagine you’re a Japanese guy minding his own business on some coastal city, and you hear a tremendous rumbling and look up and there’s a wall of water racing toward you carrying with it a debris field made of shattered houses, floating automobiles, sewage and corpses.
Don’t worry! God trusts in you to handle it!
Imagine you’re a guy who takes a shortcut through the park one night which happens to be the same night some woman is raped and beaten to the point of coma and the cops happen to miss that this completely fits the pattern of some serial rapes you were out of town for and you are demonized in the press and sent to prison and ten years pass and everybody you know thinks you’re guilty and only you know you’re not and by the way you have gotten yourself on the wrong side of the prison’s most brutal gang.
Don’t worry! God trusts in you to handle it!
Imagine you have been told you have a rare genetic ailment that will, in the next fourteen months, completely ravage your nervous system and leave you paralyzed and unable to speak for what will otherwise be a very long life, and you’re only twenty but forced to give up all your dreams and just as you manage to come to terms with that your insurance company defaults and you have to give up your chance to stay at home and instead have to move into a facility that promises state of the art care but that, you realize after you have been there less than a week, is a snake pit with attendants who take a sadistic pleasure in tormenting the helpless when their bosses aren’t looking.
Don’t worry! God trusts in you to handle it!
“God never gives us more than we can handle?”
Of all the aphorisms spouted by the well-meaning, this may be the most idiotic and contemptuous of real-world illustration.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
August 14th, 2015 at 10:17 am
I love this feature FB has, reminding me of things got posted on this date in prior years; allows me to rescue them.
Comment By: Andi Malala Shechter
August 14th, 2015 at 11:18 am
It is, indeed, one of the worst pieces of BS anyone can say. Another form of that is “When god closes a door, he opens a window”. This aphorism got a friend of mine to say “or you simply take a sledgehammer and knock a hole through the wall.”
Comment By: Hillary Pearlman-Bliss
August 14th, 2015 at 11:18 am
I hated it when people tried to hand me that crap. The God-window. No, dumbass. I stopped dancing because I hyperextended my left ACL and have tendinitis STILL, so I drew MORE. Didn’t start drawing because of any windows or doors.
Comment By: David Vineyard
August 14th, 2015 at 11:18 am
I loathe that stupid homily. Not only did he give me more than I could handle he damn near killed me and took away everything and everyone I cared for.
I have a new life, but no thanks to him.
He doesn’t open a window either. The light at the end of the tunnel is on on coming train sometimes.
Comment By: Lauren Bichelle Flemwad
August 14th, 2015 at 11:18 am
Another annoying one: “Be thankful you don’t have ________.” If I hear, “At least you don’t have kids, you should be thankful!” one more time when someone references my divorce, I am going to fucking scream.
Yes, jerk off, I am WELL aware how much harder it would be with kids and am thankful I’m not putting my spawn through something so traumatic, but just. fucking. STOP. Life is hard enough without that holier than thou ‘my problems are worse than yours’ bullshit.
Comment By: Hillary Pearlman-Bliss
August 14th, 2015 at 12:18 pm
OMG THANK YOU^^^^
Comment By: Michael Harper
August 14th, 2015 at 2:18 pm
It’s one reason I don’t believe in God. It’s evil to torture your children like this. I’d rather believe in dumb horseshit luck.
Comment By: Carol Gibson
August 14th, 2015 at 6:18 pm
I want to slap the living shit out of people who say this. It dismissive and it is obliviously untrue otherwise no one would ever commit suicide.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
August 14th, 2015 at 10:21 pm
I got a nice fuck-you comment on the blog, which I didn’t allow to post.
Comment By: Travis Creason
August 14th, 2015 at 10:21 pm
As a former Baptist, and now an existentialist, I don’t see any reason to be rude.
Comment By: Travis Creason
August 14th, 2015 at 10:21 pm
I guess I just like smoking and dancing.
Comment By: Gill Avila
August 15th, 2015 at 2:21 am
I’d believe in a god who took a week off every year to live like a real person.
Comment By: Jonathon Side
August 15th, 2015 at 4:17 am
I get the intent may be trying to encourage (“You’re strong enough to cope!”)…. but sometimes, people really aren’t. If nothing else, look at the suicide rates.
And then there’s something I saw pointed out a while ago, another awful saying, “God must have been watching over me!”
Yeah, but he sure took a huge shit on the other people in the disaster….
Comment By: Zach Maple
August 15th, 2015 at 6:53 am
The phrase is misquoted (see 1 Corinthians 10 v.13 in the Bible) and actually talks about being tempted more than we can handle. For a better answer than I can provide see http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/yes-god-will-give-you-more-you-can-handle
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
August 17th, 2015 at 6:45 am
If the phrase is misquoted, it is misquoted widely, because I am not quoting the Bible. I am quoting the frequently-spoken, useless advice.
Comment By: Richard Von Busack
August 15th, 2015 at 8:21 am
“If God lived on earth, the people would break his windows.”–old Jewish proverb. I don’t think God gives us more than we can handle. Then again, I don’t think that God exists, so I don’t think he gives us anything.
Comment By: Colleen Sudekum
August 15th, 2015 at 8:21 am
Why we want assisted suicide – sometimes the heart continues, but the brain, lungs, liver and everything else is destroyed.
Comment By: Cyn Mason
August 15th, 2015 at 11:20 am
The difference between a sweet agnostic “I don’t presume to know it all” and an angry atheist is a willingness to yell “Bullsh*t”. Color me atheist.
Comment By: Susan Cochran
August 15th, 2015 at 11:52 am
Thank you for this. I once wrote a song which expressed a similar sentiment, that what I had on my plate was definitely more than I could handle. The fact that I didn’t want my son to suffer the loss of his mother was one of the only things that kept me from suicide for the LONG first 7 years of Matthew’s life, until I got properly diagnosed and medicated, finally. Just because I lived through that hell doesn’t mean that it wasn’t more than I could “handle”. I do often feel absolutely furious at God, when I think I believe in his/her/its existence, which is a back and forth thing. There are times I do feel blessed and watched out for, but I have always felt angry and depressed and sad about all of the suffering in the world, and it’s hard to reconcile that with an omniscient/omnipresent/omnibenevolent deity.
Comment By: Glenn Hauman
August 15th, 2015 at 12:52 pm
Another annoying one: “Be thankful you don’t have ________.”
A guy gets a call from his doctor. “I’m afraid I have some bad news. You have cancer.”
“Oh no!”
“I’m very sorry. There’s more. You’re developing symptoms of Alzheimer’s.”
“Oh my God… well, at least I don’t have cancer.”
Comment By: Russ Handelman
August 17th, 2015 at 11:22 am
I’ve seen people like this referred to as “Job’s comforters.” In the Book of Job, they are his friends and relatives who come to him as he suffers but only talk about how great God is, and trying to get him to agree that it’s somehow part of God’s greater good purpose for him and for the world.
In his book WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE, Rabbi Harold Kushner writes about encountering far too many people like this when he’s visiting the bereaved, who spend more time defending God than in offering genuine and meaningful consolation.
Comment By: Christa Sinclair
August 23rd, 2015 at 10:32 am
Yes, THIS. Over the 3 years that my husband was becoming immobilized by Parkinson’s, well-meaning idiots CONSTANTLY threw that at me. My son and I took care of him at home for all but the last 3 months, while I worked 11 hour shifts and our son was full time in college. Once he was in hospice it was easier, as we visited every day, but didn’t have to spend every moment organizing care.
A month after he died, my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer, dying 4 weeks later. I finally began to spit at people that I didn’t think much of a god that insisted on testing to destruction. It was slightly better than assaulting them. I wouldn’t wish that experience on my worst enemy, although it was tempting when coworkers whined about how much time I took off work.