Moving on to a new month

God will never give you more than you can handle.

I hear it all the time. It's one of those things that people say when they don't know what else to say. It sounds encouraging, inspirational and deep.

Thankfully, it just isn't true. I don't know about you, but God has given me much more than I can handle. If what he brought my way was based on my abilities, I wouldn't have much (good or bad). Thankfully, God has never given me more than HE can handle!

The month of January is a very good example of this.

I mentioned before that our family had been sick for a LONG time. It's over now but I'm not exaggerating when I say that it lasted 31 days! We have never experienced anything like it...coughs, the stomach flu, bad colds, sinus infections, ear infections in all 3 kids, eye infections, high fevers & sweet little Graham had RSV. It just never ended! My accounting minded hubby counted up all the doctor visit and medication co-pays and discovered that we spent over $600. That is one expensive virus!

With Michael out of town or working long hours for most of the month, I was at home caring for 3 sick little kids while not feeling well myself. We were "stuck inside" as Levi likes to say and weren't able to do much. I realized how pathetic it was when I went to pick up Levi from preschool one day and felt like a whole new woman just because I got out of the house for 30 minutes. I was told that the weather was pretty bad over the month, but I never really cared because it didn't affect me - we didn't leave the house! The month is not one I would like to repeat.

Now, I'm not writing this because I need to vent or because I want anyone to feel sorry for us. I do realize that our life is very easy compared to many others and our "hardships" are pathetic compared to what others are experiencing. But I don't want to miss what we learned over the month. Am I thankful for those sick days? No, I'm definitely not there, but I am thankful that God was so good to us and for all he taught us.

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12:8-10

Weak we definitely were and God used those days to show His strength. He cared for us and loved on us like never before. Putting almost everything else aside, I found myself actually enjoying the time inside with my kids. We read a lot of books, played many games and watched movie after movie. Levi and Ben actually learned to get along and even seemed to start enjoying each other. Levi has always shown some jealousy toward Ben, but we started to hear him begging us to wake up Ben from a nap so they could play.

The boys (and us!) learned a lot about prayer. For example, Levi had a bad cough and was praying every night for God to take away his cough, and out of habit, he just kept praying for that same thing even a while after the cough was gone. Until one night...

"Jesus, please take my cough away." He paused, looked at me very excitedly and said, "Mommy, I don't have a cough anymore!". I just smiled and told him that God had answered his prayers. Without any prompting, he then changed his prayer to, "Jesus, thank you for taking Levi's cough away." He has continued to say this every night and probably will for many months!

I long for my boys to see the Lord taking care of us during times like this and for Him to be glorified as we are made weak. I pray that their strength will be from the joy found in their Lord. So, when life comes at my family with huge things (as I know it will and it hurts my heart to even think about), we will know the Lord will be there too. He has brought us through these little things despite our inadequacies, and we can have faith that His joy will continue to be our strength, despite our circumstances.

January is over, and we're moving on to a new month! We're praying for a quieter month with much less frequent trips to the doctor and fewer prescriptions. And the next time someone kindly tells me that God won't give me more than I can handle, I'll just smile, say thanks and then thank God for loving me much more than that!