They meant it to comfort you.
But it felt like dismissal.
A neat little phrase to tuck your grief away.
An attempt to spiritualize survival.
But here's the truth: Resilience isn't proof that the burden was fair.
And capacity doesn’t equal consent.
When Comfort Becomes Complicity
We live in a world that constantly asks too much,
of Black bodies, disabled bodies, immigrant bodies, queer bodies, single mothers, caregivers, survivors.
So when the weight is heavy and someone shrugs and says, “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle,”
what they really mean is:
“I don’t know how to hold your pain, so I’ll pretend it’s holy.”
Three Truths to Reclaim Your Power
1. Endurance ≠ Divine Endorsement
Example:
A Black woman raising three kids alone, navigating systemic racism, underfunded schools, and microaggressions at work, hears this phrase at church. Her strength is praised, but her suffering is ignored.
Reframe:
Being able to survive doesn’t mean you were meant to suffer.
Endurance is a testimony of you, not the system that required it.
Reflection Prompt:
What parts of your life have you spiritualized as “strength” when they were actually unmet needs?
2. Even Jesus Asked Why
Example:
On the cross, Jesus cries out: “My God, why have you forsaken me?”
Even he, divine and human, asked the question that trauma etches into our bones: Why?
Reframe:
Questioning isn’t weakness. It’s holy.
It means you are still reaching for meaning, even when you can’t find it.
Reflection Prompt:
What sacred questions have I silenced to appear “strong” or “faithful”?
3. Spiritual Bypassing is Not Support
Example:
A friend loses a parent and someone says, “They’re in a better place.”
The grief is real, but the response avoids the depth.
Reframe:
You can hold both faith and fury. Both belief and breakdown.
Liberation requires room for all of it.
Reflection Prompt:
Where am I using faith language to avoid feeling or witnessing pain?
Faith, Pain, and Permission to Break
“God won’t give you more than you can handle” are often used to spiritualize overwork, neglect, and systemic oppression.Let’s reframe divine love as permission to fall apart without shame.
“Sometimes the miracle isn’t that you endured, it’s that you finally collapsed. That you stopped pretending. That you let yourself be held.”
🛑 This is where we pause the scroll…
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