30 More Days of Grace

“If God closes a door” and Other Cliches that should be Retired: I grew up on Christian cliches. They were plastered on posters in my Sunday School rooms, tossed around freely at church camp, and generally spouted every time the church doors were open. “God will never give you more than you can handle.” “If he leads you to it, he’ll lead you through it.” “When God closes a door, he opens a window.” “Let go and let God.” “God helps those who helps themselves.” “If it’s God’s will…” “Jesus, take the wheel.” Okay, that last one might be a country song and not a Christian cliche, but it fits, right?! I’d love to take apart each one of these cliches, and maybe someday I’ll do a series on them, but today, today I just want to think about one of them. The first one. The biggest offender. “God will never give you more than you can handle.” False. Not true. Bold-faced lie. “God will never give you more than you can handle,” but... I’m not entirely sure where this cliche originat...

Mean Girls Kate was four the first time she asked me why girls are mean. We were in the car on the way home from her babysitter’s house.  We had just gone around the corner by the house that’s always for sale and never finished.  Like everyday, she was recounting the events of her day when she paused for a second before breaking the silence by asking me, “Mom, why are girls mean?” Crickets. More crickets. Defaulting to a complete parenting cliche, I responded with the “we’re all mean sometimes” terrible cop-out of an answer.  I’m sure our conversation continued, but I can’t remember what we even talked about because my mind was reeling with the fact that, at four years old, Kate had already observed girls being mean and had already started to question why it has to be this way.   I could and can relate. I’ve never been good with girls.   I didn’t have close girlfriends in elementary school. My interests were never “girly,” ...