For June 15th:

“No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down: He will never let you be pushed past your limit: He will always be there to help you come through it.”

1 Corinthians 10:11-25 (The Message)

            I have been told “God never sends us more than we can handle”, (Mother Teresa). This quote was repeated to me a lot--“God won’t give you a mountain you can’t climb”--I think in hopes to be promising for me. But despite their good intentions, these quotes just left me frustrated and feeling alienated from people. Do they know something I don’t? Even more so, the quotes left me feeling alienated from God.

            I was a 29 year old widow, with an 8 month old son and 2 daughters ages 2 and 4, and a landscaping business to run without the man who created it. Up to now I had just “kept the books” for the business. I had a mortgage, overdrawn checking account, and a headache I couldn’t shake from my nights spent crying in my bathroom. “Mountains” I could not climb.

            I remember one night sitting in the back of a pick-up truck looking up at the sky as the snow fell in my face screaming to God to help me. In the off season from planting, our company had commercial contracts to keep ice and snow off the parking lots. Less than a month after Jacks’ funeral the snow began to fall faster than I had ever seen. On the one hand it meant money coming in, on the other it meant I had to get 6 trucks loaded with 50 lb bags of chemicals, organize manpower, map out routes, keep track of expenses, and drive a truck myself in a snow storm. All I could think about was taking that truck into the first tree I passed. But instead of acting out my emotions and prayed to God for help. “God, I can’t do this without you. I need the strength of ten men.”

God did give me strength. I worked in the snow and in the mud. I planted trees. I found strength that I did not have before that prayer. I think it was God given grace. It was that place in my life where God allowed me to choose surrender or escape. The idea is not a mountain you can’t climb. The wisdom is that there is not a mountain you can’t climb ALONE!

Meg Maddox