“The Lord helps he who helps himself-or she who helps herself.”

My grandma and mom always tell me this proverb when I (or my siblings or cousins or anyone, for that matter) complain about things not going in my favor. This particular version was collected from my grandmother, a devout Roman Catholic of Irish-American descent. It means that even though you should trust in God, you can’t rely on Him for everything and are better off trying to solve your own problems instead of just praying about them.

I found a variation of this listed in Sean Gaffney and Seamus Cashmans’ “Proverbs and Sayings of Ireland” (The Wolfhound Press, Dublin, Ireland 1974) on page 50 as: “God helps him that helps himself.”