I love stories.  I especially love the kind that just grab you and hold you in the emotion of the experience, so that you really relate to how it would feel to be the main character in the story.  I'm discovering that the stories of real people are interesting too.  Sometimes they are funny, and heart-warming.  Sometimes they are tragic, or frustrating.  What really interests me is how no two stories are alike.  I recently read a story about a divorce.  It wasn't a fun story to read, it was tragic, but it helped me to understand a side of divorce that I don't know.  Sometimes I feel like I know all about divorce just because I've been through it, but the truth is, I don't.

My story is quite different.  My husband and I married when we were both young.  He was right out of high school, and I was . . . well, a little bit older.  (OK, I was a sophmore in college dating a senior in high school!)  Our marriage was a good one.  I considered him my best friend, and he was very protective of me.  I felt safe with him watching out for me.  We chased our dreams--his of being a police officer and mine of being a wife and mommy--and we had a lot of fun together.  What I didn't realize was that he was carrying a lot of painful things inside him that I wasn't able to see.  As my work at home as a wife and mommy became more demanding, I made the mistake of giving less time to attend to him, and as his work began to involve more violence and wickedness, he tried to protect me by sharing less.  He quit communicating all of his frustrations, fears, and concerns with me.  Eventually, as family life and his job became more stressful and out of our control, these things consumed him.  Finally, he found someone to talk to--a co-worker who listened and had problems of her own.  He began to feel protective of her.

One thing led to another and as far as I know, a relationship started that ended our marriage. He just came home from work one day and said he didn't think he wanted to be married anymore, and moved out.  Once he had separated from me, it was easier to slip the rest of the way away and decide he didn't love me, and then that he should divorce me.

As with the woman who was left after years of abuse, my life was shattered.  It was not from the constant fear for my life or safety, it was from the sudden loss of my best friend and protector.  It was from being without the headship that I had come to feel safe under.  I began to second-guess everything that he had told me or I had believed, and so much of my identity and self-image was centered on who and what he had told me I was.  I felt as if I had lost myself.  It was like living through a death, only the corpse was up walking around, looking like the man I loved, but not acting like him.  For years, I would keep trying to reach that man, only to find he no longer existed.  My desire to believe that he might still be there was so great, that I would open myself up and make myself vulnerable only to be taken advantage of or or hurt again.  It took me a long time to realize that I could not trust this man to be the man I had grown to love so many years before.

It was never my desire to be divorced.  I intended from the time I married to stay married and work through all the problems.  Even after my husband left us, I determined to let God work out of it whatever He willed.  I made it clear to my husband that I would leave the door open for him to come home, and prayed for that end.  Even after the divorce was final, I waited to see what God would do, knowing that He could restore the relationship.  I have seen God bless that intent in many ways.

Divorce has been hard for me and for my children.  I believe it usually brings more difficulty for those involved than staying together and working through the difficulties would, not just for the spouse who is left against her will, but for the spouse who leaves, or for spouses who agree to an "amicable divorce."  I believe that God in His grace can take even bad choices and bless those who made them, but I believe that He hates divorce, and that breaking His will to pursue ones own brings certain consequences even when He softens the consequences by His grace.  Even after all these years, I still feel "headless" sometimes, and struggle to make decisions that would normally be made by a man God wired to better be able to make them.  I still feel a great deal of lonliness, and it just doesn't go away.  I miss having someone to share both the victories and the trials of life--I miss being "a team."

I believe that God is completely in control of all of these circumstances.  He did not tempt or cause my husband and I to sin against one another, or more importantly against Him.  He does not delight in my discomfort or misery.  But He worked our sinful choices and hard circumstances into His plan long before we were even conceived.  Joni Eareckson Tada says, "Pain and death, when they entered the world by the fall of humans, wasn't what God cherished for man; but when Adam chose suffering over the joys of union with God, the Lord turned suffering into a way man could know God better."  This is exactly what I experienced in my divorce.  I have come to know God in a way I never would have even thought possible.

God never desired for me to be divorced.  Scripture is clear that divorce does not please God.  But I enjoy God in a completely different way now.  I am much more apt to cry out for His help when life gets hard, and much more likely to smile at Him and say thanks when I see Him meet a need or answer a prayer.  I am much more "real" with Him.  I yell at Him when I'm mad (and apologize and feel foolish and sinful after), I cry on His lap when I'm sad, and I hold His hand when I'm lonely.  None of this completely fills that fleshly longing for someone as human as me to share those things with, and I believe that's the way God means it to be.  Perhaps He will fill that desire in time.  But I have come to realize that He has filled a very real void in my heart that I expected my husband to fill, but which was never intended for a human filling, because it was a void only God was ever meant to fill.

Being divorced has prepared me to better understand others' needs, to trust God because there is way more work than I can do alone, and to understand the extreme devastation of sin so that I desire to have it completely removed from my life.  I tell people often that I would have never signed up for this course of "Knowing God-101."  But I would never go back to the naive, weak-faithed woman that I was, even if it meant having back what I lost. 

It is my desire in sharing this story, and in providing you the link to the story that encouraged my writing it, that you taste a bit of the pain of divorce.  Underneath a scar on my belly left from a C-section, there is some pain that never really goes away.  Divorce is like that, except that the healing takes much longer, and the nagging pain that remains can be much worse.  If you have never been divorced, it is my hope that as the Lord brings those into your lives that have experienced it, you will be a little more tender to their plight.  Even if they were a part of the cause of the divorce, they are hurting and carrying scars.  Ministering to them will bring you honor, for God's Word constantly admonishes us to minister to those helpless to help themselves.  If you have any questions about this, I'd encourage you to listen to Doug Phillips' recording called a "Defending the Fatherless."

If you have been through divorce, I hope you will find some encouragement in my words.  Though it is a painful lesson, if you turn to God to guide you and look for the things He wants to teach you through this, you will not be disappointed in Him.  I wish you grace and peace, and that your story will glorify Him in ways you've yet to imagine.