Holding ON
A friend of mine recently told me, “I’ve never wanted or needed to curse as much as I have this year!!”, speaking about her struggling marriage.
I remembered seeing a t-shirt in the middle of our season of marriage turmoil that said, “I whisper WTF to myself at least 20 times a day” and wishing it would not be offensive to wear it because otherwise I 100% would.
As we have mentored people through marriage it always fascinates me when people actually make the decision to stay married in a culture that talks about divorce like they’re asking someone to pass the salt. And I’m not just talking about the “world”. We’ve seen this attitude almost just as prevalent in the church as well.
Why do people choose to stay married when their marriage is struggling? If you are in the middle of a tumultuous relationship and contemplating divorce or separation, what’s keeping you from making that final decision?
I will be honest. During some of our worst moments thoughts of separation came to my mind. At times they were vivid and detailed and in some of those moments divorce was the final outcome (better than going to jail for impaling your husband, right)???
So what (really) stopped me?
Obviously (or so one would hope) my core Judeo-Christian beliefs gave me GREAT pause. I love the Word. I believe the Bible is God’s WORD. I don’t believe it means something different than what it says. It is my rock. It is my firm foundation. It is my plumbline. I’ve settled any doubts about that a long time ago (and in case you’re wondering, yes, there is a way to settle that). I already knew the many things God said about divorce. Just imagining it made me feel condemned and despairing (combined with the relief I felt as my only perceived way out of the pain).
Not to mention by the grace of God even when I was wrapped up in my own turmoil, He would give me breakthrough revelation of how even separation alone would affect my kids. Most people don’t have a firm grasp on the full reality of how a physically split home affects children. It is a trauma. No amount of counseling can heal that wound, even if eventually they learn ways to cope with it and manage the pain of it (they sometimes don’t). This is not a condemnation of those who have chosen separation or divorce. It’s just a reality that goes along with it (outside of supernatural intervention…which is always possible with God).
A wise counselor gave me an interesting insight. He said, “divorce happens long before the papers are signed”. I knew exactly what he meant the minute he said it. Physical separation or divorce papers are a formal expression of leaving each other. No one wakes up one morning in the middle of a healthy and thriving marriage and says, “I think I’ll sign divorce papers today!” One of the definitions of divorce is, “A separation between things that were once connected or associated.” Formal separation or divorce happens after months and sometimes years of being divorced emotionally, mentally and spiritually in the same home.
It was a relief to me to know that my thoughts of physical separation were not born out of a rebellious defiance of God’s ways (that are always good), but a mental attempt to have integrity and honesty in how we were already living in many ways. I had done everything I knew to do. I was showing up in every way that God gave me the grace to show up. I was doing all the work that God gave me in this area.
So why didn’t I follow through? One word: HOPE (well, maybe 2 words: hope and children). Not the Hallmark Channel kind of hope. Not the wishful thinking kind of hope. The hope that is anchored in the person of Jesus Christ. The hope that is rooted and grounded in His eternal and unshakeable Word. With every thought that rose up, I asked God what He thought about it. I listened to His gentle and kind and fierce and firm voice. He repeatedly drew my attention back to what He would keep telling me over and over through His word that I read “under the influence” of the Holy Spirit (in my opinion the best influence to be under)!
The most profound revelation I got about this was one night when I was sitting in my room feeling devastated by an interaction Todd and I had just had. Despite continuously returning to hope, here I was again feeling hopeless and like I must have not heard God correctly all those other times. Were there really even all those other times? Did He ever really say He would restore our marriage? How could I be so presumptuous to think I knew what God’s will was anyway? I’m not a fortune teller. As I sat crying I opened my Bible, more out of habit than anything else. I began to read what I opened to:
…”in my distress I cried out to you, the delivering God,
and from your temple-throne you heard my troubled cry,
and my sobs went right into your heart.[g]
The earth itself shivered and shook.
It reeled and rocked before him.
As the mountains trembled, they melted away,
for his anger was kindled on my behalf!”-Psalm 18:6-7 TPT
As I was reading this, we had an actual earthquake! I then turned to another chapter and read,
“The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.”-Psalm 29:8 ESV
Out of curiosity, like most people, I went to look up what the quake registered and where the epicenter was. It was a 4 something, but something else struck me; the epicenter read, “Sunol Wilderness”. Once again, God was confirming (this time in a MOST OBVIOUS way), that it was indeed His voice telling me our marriage had restoration in its future. My only job at this point was to believe Him, no matter what came against us or what was staring me in the face.
But when something totally opposite of what I’m believing for is visiting me, how do I know I’m not in denial? Denial is refusing to recognize or acknowledge a dangerous situation. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen (Heb. 11:1). Trust me, I was recognizing the danger of ongoing long term turmoil. I couldn’t really get away from that reality. But if God’s word is the truth, then I’m holding truth above facts. Gravity is a fact, but the law of lift supersedes the law of gravity in an airplane. In much the same way, God’s word supersedes any fact in the natural realm.
This is not at all an easy thing to do. I am very dependent on God’s grace and power to do this. But it always bears fruit, even when the fruit is different than what I had hoped it would be. But there is always fruit. Does this mean I don’t have boundaries where needed? It does not mean that. But more often than not, separation or divorce is the go to boundary when there are other options (this does not necessarily include abuse). Any other option, however, is going to be hard to see when there is no hope.
If you are struggling to believe anything good is in your future where your marriage is concerned, I invite you to consider that hope is a choice. It’s not a feeling. And it’s anchored in a truth that is more real that what you are experiencing in your day to day suffering. Anchor your hope in the person of Jesus Christ and His Word to you about your marriage and your life. Let God be your stronghold and become a prisoner of hope instead of misery.
“Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.”-Zech. 9:12 NLT
