Does God give us crosses that are wider than our shoulders? I’m quite certain that he does, and for good reason.

I have come across spiritual musings and reflections from various sources that share a common opinion given to those who are experiencing burdens and afflictions in life, and it is this – that God won’t or doesn’t load us with crosses to bear that are too big for our shoulders.  As much as this sounds comforting and assuring, it also can become a cliché, or worse, something that prevents us from nurturing the virtue of humility that is so crucial for a soul to attain holiness and sanctification.

If our burdens and trials in life are just right for our shoulders to bear, then we will be able to do everything that we face in life, simply on our own efforts and our own wills.  The narrative of our times seems to support this idea as well – that if we want to do anything, we only need to apply ourselves to the fullest, and our goals will be attained or achieved.  There are so many commencement speeches at the graduation ceremonies of Universities or Colleges that one can view on YouTube, and they often feature a presentation by a person of some celebrity or corporation bigwig, and the common feature of so many of them is this – don’t let anyone tell you that you cannot achieve anything you want.  The hidden message (and sometimes not so hidden) is that we need to make the world all about us.  And when we do, we can overcome any obstacles in our path to success and worldly glory.

While these speeches may set the fresh graduates running off into the world to conquer it, armed with their degrees with printing ink still wet, we need to realise that there could be a downside to all this “we-can-do-anything” narrative.  To be sure, it won’t be a long time before they realise that life doesn’t fit its challenges according to the width of our shoulders.  We only need to look further afield from our workplaces to see that there are other challenges and afflictions, and things that set our world in turmoil to see that there are many difficulties in life that are more than we can bear alone.

With the eyes of faith, we are called to see our challenges and afflictions as things that are placed in our lives not to make life difficult, but so that we can grow.  These include, but are not limited to things like failures, betrayals, serious illnesses and other losses.  But I have also, especially of late, come to see that God doesn’t give us challenges that merely fit our shoulders.  He gives us crosses much bigger than we can bear, but for good reason.  Chiefly, it is so that we will humble ourselves to ask for God’s grace, aid and ultimately mercy.  

I am quite certain that we will be so full of hubris if we were to be able to carry all our burdens and manage our pains merely on our own energies and our strong wills.  It would be akin to presenting St Peter a perfect and unblemished report card of our life on earth at the gates of heaven and having a sense of entitlement to a place in paradise.  Just like forgiveness from God, no one deserves heaven either.  It is truly all grace, and our call in life is to cooperate as fully as we can to God’s offer of grace at each moment in our lives.

St Catherine of Sienna is known to have had a locution, where she encountered the Lord saying to her “I created you without you, but I will not save you without you.”  In that short and pithy sentence lies an unfathomable depth of God’s immense grace and God’s incredible humility.  God truly wants our deepest cooperation, and until we understand just how crucial our self-giving is, we will, all of us, find ourselves holding back from giving our all to God.

So, if you find yourself puzzled as to why your cross in life is much bigger than your shoulders, know that it is so that you can call on God for his divine aid.  Pride comes in many forms, and one of them is the refusal to reveal our weaknesses.