- Feb 5, 2002
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“God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.”
At least that is what many Christians say in the face of trial or loss. But is it actually helpful? And is it true? I believe it is rather unhelpful, and only partially true.
I’ve written before on the importance of learning to sit with sadness – something we tend to avoid! It’s hard enough when it’s our own sorrow. We’d rather plunge into busyness or fixing or numbing rather than face our grief. But it’s especially hard when we are in the presence of other people’s pain. That’s when the advice or clichés come out!
First, we’ll try to fix it – if there seems to be a way of fixing. We’ll be “generous” and offer to help; we’ll make suggestions for books or podcasts; or we’ll compare this person’s pain with our own or that of a friend – anything to help make the pain go away, because we don’t like to feel it, and we definitely don’t like to feel powerless.
In some cases (tragedies or definitive losses), there is nothing we can do. When fixing doesn’t work, we start grabbing for clichés. Surely one of them will be the magic wand that will make this feeling of powerlessness go away! Surely one of them will help this person feel better so that I can feel better.
Are these clichés helpful? No, I would say not. They often have the effect of “blaming the victim” or shaming others for feeling the way they feel. Rather than compassion (“suffering with”), clichés are a way of stepping back from the pain of others and leaving them to suffer alone.
I suppose there is a time and a place for distracting or diverting from pain. Perhaps we are in a survival situation and lack the time, resources, or energy to engage head on. If mere survival is the best we can hope for at the moment, then we can indeed turn to our arsenal of distractions and find ways to minimize the pain.
Even when we are ready to face heartache, we are still human, meaning we are limited. We can’t face it all the time. It can be appropriate to take a break from our grieving, laugh together at a joke or a movie, plunge into a hobby or game, and so forth. A cliché could be helpful as permission to take a short break from the pain.
Continued below.
spiritualdirection.com
At least that is what many Christians say in the face of trial or loss. But is it actually helpful? And is it true? I believe it is rather unhelpful, and only partially true.
I’ve written before on the importance of learning to sit with sadness – something we tend to avoid! It’s hard enough when it’s our own sorrow. We’d rather plunge into busyness or fixing or numbing rather than face our grief. But it’s especially hard when we are in the presence of other people’s pain. That’s when the advice or clichés come out!
First, we’ll try to fix it – if there seems to be a way of fixing. We’ll be “generous” and offer to help; we’ll make suggestions for books or podcasts; or we’ll compare this person’s pain with our own or that of a friend – anything to help make the pain go away, because we don’t like to feel it, and we definitely don’t like to feel powerless.
In some cases (tragedies or definitive losses), there is nothing we can do. When fixing doesn’t work, we start grabbing for clichés. Surely one of them will be the magic wand that will make this feeling of powerlessness go away! Surely one of them will help this person feel better so that I can feel better.
Are these clichés helpful? No, I would say not. They often have the effect of “blaming the victim” or shaming others for feeling the way they feel. Rather than compassion (“suffering with”), clichés are a way of stepping back from the pain of others and leaving them to suffer alone.
I suppose there is a time and a place for distracting or diverting from pain. Perhaps we are in a survival situation and lack the time, resources, or energy to engage head on. If mere survival is the best we can hope for at the moment, then we can indeed turn to our arsenal of distractions and find ways to minimize the pain.
Even when we are ready to face heartache, we are still human, meaning we are limited. We can’t face it all the time. It can be appropriate to take a break from our grieving, laugh together at a joke or a movie, plunge into a hobby or game, and so forth. A cliché could be helpful as permission to take a short break from the pain.
Continued below.
More Than We Can Handle? - SpiritualDirection.com
SPIRITUALDIRECTION- explores Catholic spiritual direction advice and how a deeper relationship with the spiritual aspect of being human being based on the wisdom's of the Bible, Church and the saints and angels.
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