Not even divorce.

As I was driving to Church of The Highlands this Sunday morning I made the comment to my wife Jackie that “I still don’t have a topic for The Seed of Hope this week. I wonder what God is gonna lay on my heart, and when He’s gonna do it?”

Pastor Steve Blair’s message was titled More than Just Surviving, and it focused on the mental states of many of us as we enter this Holiday Season. It has been documented that more suicides and attempted suicides occur during the month of December than in any other month. It’s so ironic and even more tragic that during a period of preparing for the celebration of Jesus’ birth, many of us are preparing to end our own lives.

At one point during his message, Pastor Steve was talking about our relationships with God, with others, and with ourselves. It was during his emphasis on working out relational problems in marriages, and our need to save our marriages, even the worst ones, at all costs, that God gave me the topic for today’s post…

Divorce

My initial was response to God was, “You are kidding, right? This pastor is pouring his heart out in the need for us to save our marriages, and You’re telling me to write about divorce? Really?”

Yes, really.

To be honest with you, I’ve wanted to write about divorce for a long time, but I haven’t, because the subject is very controversial. Many people, (including pastors and members of the congregation) believe that divorce is simply not an option, regardless of the circumstances.

…better or worse, for rich and for poorer, in sickness and in health….

Yeah, I know those wedding vows. I recited them when I got married in 1974. I recited them again some fifteen years later when I got married for the second time.

You see, I am a casualty of a marriage that didn’t work. I am a victim of divorce.

Right or Wrong

So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate. Matthew 19:6 NIV 

I’m not here today to tell you that divorce is right or wrong, or if it is justifiable, or if it’s okay in the eyes of God. According to Biblical principles, divorce is not right. But then, neither is stealing, or envy, or taking the Lord’s Name in vain, or any of the remaining Commandments that God gave us.

I am saying that, just as those Commandments are broken every day, divorce happens.

And because of experience, I know that divorce marks the death of a dream. Divorce is painful. Divorce touches not only the man and wife, but their children, and their families, and their friends. Divorce leaves painful scars that, in the hearts and minds of many, never go away. Divorce is ugly. Divorce, in and of itself, is quite simply, not a good thing.

Yet divorce happens. Every day.

Again, my message today isn’t about the right or wrong of divorce. I’ll let you come to your own conclusions on that one. In fact, you’re probably already standing on one side of the fence or the other, and that’s fine with me.

I believe that my message is for those of us who have already been through the trials and tribulations of divorce, and in part, for those of you who may want to condemn “us”…

There’s another relationship that is quite often a casualty of divorce, and that’s the one between us and God. The worst part is that at a time when we need Him the most, we turn away from Him in shame. That was certainly the case with me….

In my mind, it didn’t matter that the love had been gone for years, or that my sons were being raised in a terrible environment, or that our home was a battleground, or that there was verbal and physical abuse, or that my way of coping was in turning, not to God, but to cocaine. In the eyes of the judicial system, ours was a classic case of “irreconcilable differences.” In the eyes of the church, it was divorce. I was so consumed by guilt that I quit going to church for a while.

I eventually returned to church, but that guilt would linger in the back of my mind for years, even after Jackie and I had gotten married. It was an obstacle in my relationship with God, and that barrier that I put up between us was of my doing, not His. Because of my beliefs, I had a hard time believing that God could ever truly forgive me for getting a divorce. Oh, I believed that He’d forgive a liar or a thief. I even believed that God would forgive a murderer, if he was filled with regret and sorrow for his actions. But for some reason, He’d have a hard time with forgiving me for a divorce.

The Truth

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither life nor death, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:37-39

It has only been within the past year, and many years after my divorce, that I’ve come to realize yet another truth…

By His crucifixion Jesus paid the price for the sin of Adam and Eve, for all the sins of man before He lived here on earth, for all the sins of man committed since His death, and for all the sins of man that have yet to be committed. All of ‘em.

As with all offenses, if you’ll stand before God with sorrow in your heart and ask for His forgiveness, you will receive it.   

You see, there is nothing that we can do that will separate us from God’s love. Nothing. Not theft. Not cursing. Not adultery. Not murder. Not even divorce.

Amen and Amen.

There’s something else that I want to add before I close today, and it’s for those of us who question the validity or sanctity of second marriages.

Jackie and I will celebrate our Twenty-Second Anniversary in April, and I’m sitting here reflecting on what God has done in our lives, on what He has done in me, and how He has positioned us to serve others in our church, in our business, and in our home. As I do so, I can’t help but think that our marriage was made in heaven, that it’s full of His blessings, and that it was part of His plan for us.

Amen.