Tuesday, January 31, 2017

God hates divorce

Someone told me that many years ago when I was getting a divorce.

"You know. God HATES divorce."

Because that was helpful, right? I mean, my husband left me when I was pregnant with twins and I was twenty-two and alone and scared and really, really sick and had bad preeclampsia and almost died, but the right thing to do was rub salt in my wounds. Clearly.

I didn't really respond, "Me too, bitch." But I felt like it. Oh, how I felt like it.

I was thinking about this earlier today. A few people I know are currently going through divorces. It's on my mind. The state of Christianity in America is on my mind too. It has been a lot lately.

And what I can't get off my mind?

God hates for us to suffer even more than he hates divorce.

I mean, really. I'm no Bible scholar (clearly) but I know this. God doesn't want you to be miserable. If you're sitting at home crying every night while your husband runs around with another woman, God isn't happy about that (and he's super pissed at your husband, that much I'm sure of). If you are married to someone who is verbally, emotionally, or physically abusive of you, God doesn't like that. He doesn't want you there. He doesn't want you to suffer in his name.

But the Bible says!

I know. I know what the Bible says. I have read every inch of the Bible, cover to cover, more than once. I tried really, really hard to stick with my ex-husband specifically because of what the Bible says.

You can't stick with someone who doesn't want to stick with you.

You can say, "But I don't believe in divorce!" Honey, divorce is not the Tooth Fairy. It exists. It sucks. But it happens.

Then life goes on.

I look at my life now and I ask myself, "How could God hate this?"

Really, how could God who is all about love be against my happiness? How could God be against me being married to someone who loves me deeply, who is committed to me, who makes me laugh every day of my life, who is a great father to Jonathan and Megan? How could that possibly not be God's greatest plan?

What if...just what if...you were not following God's plan by marrying that person in the first place?

What if the plan was for you to have a beautiful child with that person? What if that was their place in your life?



We just don't know. It's okay that we don't know.


I'm a person of prayer (POP. I just trademarked that, nobody use it). I pray about all things, all the time. People may think I'm silly. Sometimes I think I'm silly. Like, why does God care about my petty-ass little problems when the whole world is on fire? (Note: God does not condone my use of the words "petty-ass", but I'M WORKING ON IT OKAY?)


I read once that prayer is not a monologue, but a dialogue. This is what I believe. God answers my prayers all the time. I don't hear voices, but my heart moves. It doesn't matter what the world is saying, screaming, shouting. I'm going to listen to God.

That's not acceptable to some of you, I know. So instead, how about this?

Every time I get a text from my husband with a picture of the sunset that says, "This is almost as beautiful as you", I will think about what God thinks about divorce. Every time I come home from Zumba and Jason is standing in the kitchen finishing up the meal he prepared for us, I will think about what God says about divorce in the Bible. I didn't think about what God says about divorce the moment that my husband put his arms around me and we both cried together as we watched our son and our daughter graduate from high school, but I promise when they graduate from college and we do the exact same thing, I'll try to remember.

Actually, nah.

Instead, I'll think about how much love I have in my life today. I'll think about how thankful I am that I'm out of a marriage with someone who didn't love me, who didn't want to grow old with me, and who didn't have any respect for our marriage. I'll think about how, even on my worst day, this is exactly where I'm supposed to be.

God does not want you to be miserable.


Read that.




Read it again.






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