One of the areas of people’s hearts that divorce and the destruction of a family reeks is the ability to believe that love is forever. God tells us His love is unending, that it covers all things. The problem is that people who are choosing to end marriages have substituted loving feelings for the actions of love. God helps us know boundaries of relationships. He teaches us that we should not be offended with others, that anger between a husband and wife (or anyone) should be resolved before that day is over. That we are to only look at each other and put each other first. However God also teaches us about grace, forgiveness, restoration, and how to come back to him repenting of our sins for forgiveness and a clean heart. He made sure that we understood that forgiveness is not a one time event, but to be given over and over again if asked for. God showed us He didn’t expect perfection…..he gave us a way to erase mistakes!
My children pay a price because love wasn’t forever in the commitment their natural father and I made at the altar. The details aren’t important, but its safe to say you can give me 100% of half of the blame at least for our marriage ending. Even when someone else acts out or is the public “bad guy” the truth is usually much different behind closed doors. You see, we all watch divorce behaviors because it is often public sin. Affairs, anger, money betrayals…..the stuff of highly rated television shows….but the truly sad part is that the shows only glorify the power of the leaving, the pain ends usually in that episode. However divorce is something that bring a legacy of pain and heart scars for much longer that it takes to complete the paperwork. Children have to deal with knowledge that even their parents cannot be counted on to be there for them….that love does in fact end….that things change when the going gets rough and that ultimately they can’t trust us, despite our desire to provide for their safety, comfort, and security….their hearts are scarred no matter how carefully divorce is handled and it has long lasting effects. I often want to have a couple do a trading of children for two weeks at a time, so they can learn how hard it is to truly end a marriage….take 1/2 their money away, all of their weekends, add hearts the are hurting and missing their parents…..family that doesn’t understand…friends that suddenly disappear to avoid the strife….the stigma of your name not matching your child’s….the difficulty of later having a marriage to a spouse your child resents even if they love him, as mine do, they wonder why their dad couldn’t be that man…or I couldn’t love their dad that way….there is always a root to be unrooted, bitterness, anger, unforgiveness….after a divorce…and you know forever you broke a covenant with God even if there were Biblically recognized reasons to end the marriage. Being “right” and divorced is not the sweet song of victory…its a hollow, empty, failure and it hurts, even if it temporarily seems to make life better. The waves of discontent, quitting, anger, giving up….will affect you and your children for a long time. You will see them question whether or not they caused it, even if you repetitively say and show them they did not, Satan plays with the thought of being “unloveable” after all, your spouse left too!
God is a God of restoration. Even when families break up, move away, and dissolve, forgiveness is the only path to peace again. God tells us to live in the present. Yes, it would be oh so popular in today’s society to hold onto the past….glorify my righteousness in being angry over it…but the truth is, that only hurts my heart as well as my children. Remember they are genetically 50% the man who I was divorced from….and they know it….and they love him. It has not been an easy road, but we have actively chosen to put the children as the focus, not our failed relationship.
Unconditional love means loving people as they are, not as you’d wish them to be. God’s love is that way…..he accepts us where and how we are….He doesn’t remind us of our mess ups, our complete failures, his disappointment in us…no. He accepts us where we are and loves us until we are ready to honor Him with our obedience and praise.
When our divorce happened, it was ugly, and it wasn’t easy. The truth is, that my children are still their father’s and their father is still their dad. Yes, boundaries changed, I changed, and he has changed….he’s now happily married, working successfully in an important job, and involved as much as he can be in the children’s lives. They need to know their parents love them….even when it is not possible for their parents to both live with them. Les and I have had to allow them to learn to trust again, to love a step father too…and now a step mom with their natural dad….we’ve not tried to imply that either new step has replaced anyone, yet we have both actively chosen to tell and show our children that loving the spouse that lives with their other parent is not only natural, we’d hope that for them….there is plenty of love for all. Children need all of us as much as we can allow them to have us all. My daughter asked me the other day if I still love her natural father….and I think my husband said it best….”Of course we do daughter, without your dad we wouldn’t have you!”
Love never fails……even if marriages end….when forgiveness happens and strife is ended….even two such as us (my exhusband and I) can choose to work in love raising these children of ours together. It takes a commitment to doing hard things, it takes putting the past behind us, but it is so worth the effort. It is a different walk than I expected but then isn’t every day in life that way?
God is God and He is good!
