I am a survivor of a 16 year marriage. I filed for divorce. It took me so long because I knew God hates divorce. But like Christine, I did everything I could to make the marriage work. Jesus got me out! What a miraculous event that was.
Now 16 years later I am still healing. The scriptures have once again come alive and I’m ready to share my story. I have hope for a brighter future for myself and my three grown children. The Lord is real and He has given us the Holy Spirit to help us live day by day. If we seek Him first, then doors will open up. We just need to do that first; seek Him.
In this world we live with so many distractions and self help we tend to look elsewhere except God. My encouragement today is: give God your all. Put Him first before any hobby, before your exercise routine, before your coffee and see what God will do. After all Jesus loves us and wants a relationship with us. Take Jesus everywhere with you daily!
Thank you, Gary. I volunteered with a wonderful ministry for 30+ years that has made a major transformation in this area. It used to be one could not be used in certain areas of leadership if they or their spouse were divorced for any reason. One man had been married to the same woman for over 40 years and had personally never been divorced. His wife was married at 18 to a man that abandoned her a year later, and this divorce was used as a reason to disqualify his service. It broke my heart. Today, I am grateful they look beyond the divorce to the reasons as well as the time elapsed and healing that resulted.
Similarly, many men deal with addictions to pornography. While no man should be leading others while practicing this selfish and destructive sin, I have found that a man healed by the Holy Spirit from such addiction is often a great leader to walk alongside a younger man in a current similar struggle. There is greater empathy through the common experience. Making sure it is five years (or so) in the rearview mirror, has seemed to be a reasonable timeframe to ensure healing has taken place.
Yeah, 100% agree. There are times when it's appropriate. One of my best friends is divorced, and that divorce, in part, led him into ministry. He's not shy about the divorce, why it happened (she had an affair and was unrepentant), and he's been pastoring now for ... 20 years or so I think. Amazing pastor, great friend. God forbid anyone get in his way of kingdom work for that.
There is also the same but opposite problem - when churches don’t condemn the divorce, when they push the abused woman to divorce… but then ignore the practical needs of abused women … happy to leave them homeless, hungry, their kids given to the violent abusive man because they can’t afford a lawyer because her violent husband has taken the family home and given every cent they have to his dishonest lawyer to take the kids from her to keep up the abuse. Where is the church in all of this? They’ll offer “prayers” and “kind” words but what is faith without actions?
Worse, while they’ll gently confront the abuser privately, they’ll do ot so gently he doesn’t realise the church leaders are actually condemning both his abuse of his wife and his children but also his abandonment of his marriage, and because the leaders won’t say anything except privately to him, when the abuser in turn tells everyone at church that he is somehow the “victim” and claims the church leaders believe him, when the church leaders stay quiet, not correcting his public lies publicly, the congregation belies the lies and starts bullying the battered abused woman as they assume wrongly, that if she were the real victim that the leaders would intervene.
I’d love desperately to read follow up articles on two things - how churches should not just spiritually and emotionally support abuse victims and victims of abandonment but also support their practical needs (even if just to make sure they can access secular services if such things exist where they live) and second, an article addressing abusers who abandon their wives, both what these men should do if they are Christians who have screwed up and want to do the right thing now, as well as how churches should deal with these men (including not just welcoming them back into ministries in the church while they continue to unrepentantly do this).
I am a survivor of a 16 year marriage. I filed for divorce. It took me so long because I knew God hates divorce. But like Christine, I did everything I could to make the marriage work. Jesus got me out! What a miraculous event that was.
Now 16 years later I am still healing. The scriptures have once again come alive and I’m ready to share my story. I have hope for a brighter future for myself and my three grown children. The Lord is real and He has given us the Holy Spirit to help us live day by day. If we seek Him first, then doors will open up. We just need to do that first; seek Him.
In this world we live with so many distractions and self help we tend to look elsewhere except God. My encouragement today is: give God your all. Put Him first before any hobby, before your exercise routine, before your coffee and see what God will do. After all Jesus loves us and wants a relationship with us. Take Jesus everywhere with you daily!
Such a beautiful testimony coming from such trial! Thank you so much for sharing
Thank you, Gary. I volunteered with a wonderful ministry for 30+ years that has made a major transformation in this area. It used to be one could not be used in certain areas of leadership if they or their spouse were divorced for any reason. One man had been married to the same woman for over 40 years and had personally never been divorced. His wife was married at 18 to a man that abandoned her a year later, and this divorce was used as a reason to disqualify his service. It broke my heart. Today, I am grateful they look beyond the divorce to the reasons as well as the time elapsed and healing that resulted.
Similarly, many men deal with addictions to pornography. While no man should be leading others while practicing this selfish and destructive sin, I have found that a man healed by the Holy Spirit from such addiction is often a great leader to walk alongside a younger man in a current similar struggle. There is greater empathy through the common experience. Making sure it is five years (or so) in the rearview mirror, has seemed to be a reasonable timeframe to ensure healing has taken place.
Yeah, 100% agree. There are times when it's appropriate. One of my best friends is divorced, and that divorce, in part, led him into ministry. He's not shy about the divorce, why it happened (she had an affair and was unrepentant), and he's been pastoring now for ... 20 years or so I think. Amazing pastor, great friend. God forbid anyone get in his way of kingdom work for that.
There is also the same but opposite problem - when churches don’t condemn the divorce, when they push the abused woman to divorce… but then ignore the practical needs of abused women … happy to leave them homeless, hungry, their kids given to the violent abusive man because they can’t afford a lawyer because her violent husband has taken the family home and given every cent they have to his dishonest lawyer to take the kids from her to keep up the abuse. Where is the church in all of this? They’ll offer “prayers” and “kind” words but what is faith without actions?
Worse, while they’ll gently confront the abuser privately, they’ll do ot so gently he doesn’t realise the church leaders are actually condemning both his abuse of his wife and his children but also his abandonment of his marriage, and because the leaders won’t say anything except privately to him, when the abuser in turn tells everyone at church that he is somehow the “victim” and claims the church leaders believe him, when the church leaders stay quiet, not correcting his public lies publicly, the congregation belies the lies and starts bullying the battered abused woman as they assume wrongly, that if she were the real victim that the leaders would intervene.
I’d love desperately to read follow up articles on two things - how churches should not just spiritually and emotionally support abuse victims and victims of abandonment but also support their practical needs (even if just to make sure they can access secular services if such things exist where they live) and second, an article addressing abusers who abandon their wives, both what these men should do if they are Christians who have screwed up and want to do the right thing now, as well as how churches should deal with these men (including not just welcoming them back into ministries in the church while they continue to unrepentantly do this).