Relationships are so very difficult. I suspect you know why. It is my observation that most humans are not very “real”. I also observe that when we are young we have this tendency to look for the fairy tail relationship that will ‘make us happy’.
Have you watched people who are very quiet, you do not know what they are thinking, others always talk so “nice” & “polite”. Don’t be fooled by this, watch their actions especially under stress and difficulties and differences of opinions. How do they act then?
We can think that we are doing God’s bidding and get hooked right into a bad relationship for ignoring the walk in difficult times.
Life most certainly is difficult. I hate the pain with a passion that wants nothing but to escape it. Those of you going through this brutal loss of relationship are in such a vulnerable state. If we married thinking we were following God’s plan, there is no promise that this love will be of fairy tale kind. It wasn’t for me. Within a very short period of time all was lost.
The hellish pain set in. Oh the tears and prayers I cried, but restoration was not to be. I was suddenly a failure at this most important relationship! I found myself being used so he could steal from a store a sizable charge and I knew then I had to protect myself and get out of this relationship! Was this OK with God? My father didn’t think so. He found a moment to hit me with this from the church’s point of view. “You are taking a step towards Hell.” Well I felt like I was stopping the hell I was living in, the yoo-yoo world of he loves me… he loves me not!
I relay this information to you because as far as I know there was no such thing as DivorceCare. I love this program and facilitate it because those who get this support are BLESSED beyond what they will never know… and that is the loneliness I felt not being loved by the church nor by the world because I did want to be in the Army of God.
As I set about to re-order my life, it took me quite a while to figure things out! Agin, DivorceCare will point it all out, if you want to heal faster and find your purpose and get on track with Purpose. It is a life time till the end thing to do, whether you marry again or maybe not. But your need to be needed and to do , but for a right reason, is to be found in relationship with Jesus, following Him!
I warn you here and now. Understand and learn from the pain of divorce. This kind of pain will hit you time and again when in the Army of the Lord.
Now you might ask, Why? Because the Enemy of our Souls that have been turned over to Jesus Christ who paid our freedom price with the sacrifice of his blood, (like as in the days before His life sacrificed, birds, calves and sheep blood spilled paid the price of peoples sin to allow them to go the Heaven to be with God.) does not want Jesus to have those souls forever in Heaven! Now ain’t that a shame that selfish thing!
The selfish cruel being will do everything in his power to hurt you, to hurt me, to make us suffer, all in hope of making us turn our backs on God, in some kind of disappointment, some kind of anger at God… I have loved several animals and don’t you know my favorite is taken sick and the first to go from me… or killed in fire, and Yes I am angry with God.. why could He not give me the miracle I ask for….why could He not heal my beloved pet?
So you must read the story of Job, either in the Bible or in a child’s story book. Job hung on the God even though his crappy friends said he must have sinned, and even though he became so uncomfortably sick that he sat in dirt scrapping itchy boils on his skin seeking relief from the itching and pain… Everyone of his kids cattle & homes lost, and then even the wife says, why don’t you curse God and just die!
So I warn you that is how bad it can get when you have chosen to follow the purposes of God for your life.
If you are seeking the face of God, via Jesus Christ with your actions, words, behavior, and your looks are pleasing to Him… Then NO ONE ELSE’S OPINION MATTERS! Do not be afraid of man, but of God who can stop your heart from beating! ( Proverbs 29: 25) ( Matt 10: 28 ) If your ear is pierced for Jesus, (Exodus 21: 6) then you were made for such a ‘time as this’, and God has a plan for you that should point to Himself in an honorable, loving, truthful way. As an aside to your Souls spiritual growth, learn what real Love is. What does it really look like? How does it really act? It was never about sex as the world would have you to believe, or as horney buys would have you believe when you were young and so you gave it to him in exchange for affection and now… you realize you probably never would have married each other if you had it to do over with a thinking mind again. Can you imagine saying to a buy then, What do you love about me? Why would you want to marry me? What kind of mature answers now would you expect? This is hard, because we all want to be loved or liked, not shunned because we won’t submit to a bullies ways. , or sleep around to be approved of. As Christians we are always going up stream against the Flow of “natural man” i.e. the Fleshly man.
I know you may be deep & drowning in the pains of divorce, I also know that God uses the devil’s works to bring us up short in front of Him, with an Opportunity to change our course in our short life’s stint here in human history, to give us a chance to be a walking talking testimony, of and for Him, to share His Love for all of us! So as you consider re-purposing your life, I just wanted to prepare you.
This said, The Christian walk can be hellish. But I think it is better to take the short course in this life than the forever one, in the next.
DivorceCare on the SunPorch 
Well, Gang? What about it? Credit? Blame? Lets talk about it.
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Ahhh-haa!
Very interesting question.
I love conversations of this nature. I have questioned too and that is how you find answers.
God is the author of “love”. 1st Corinthians 13:4 describes Love is……. I will leave it to you to look it up.
Apparently in God’s Heaven world, his angels had some degree of ‘choice’ and a group with a leader decided to ‘rebel’ against God’s authority.
Satan wanted to be the Top dog! God threw him out of heaven with all of his teammates and sent them to earth’s world.
When God created man in His image for more relationships, He, it is understood, determined that to be “loved by His creations”, truly loved that is, it would be best not to make robots of the created beings but give the beings the option to “chose”. If his created beings chose to love him, it was really sacrificial unconditional Love, not robotically programmed “love”. God wanted that… the best kind of love to be had. I believe that the angels are some kind of programmed, although that line of belief doesn’t exactly explain then how satan desired and sought to over throw God perhaps. Read Isaiah chapter 14 verse 12.
All this said, We the “creations” are with ‘choice’. Albeit only two choices. We are influenced and propelled forward under one of two energies… either “Love’s” energy, or the energy of the polar opposite of Love which is ‘Selfishness’, hatred, conditional relationship, disharmony, discord, restlessness, jealousy, strife, fighting, envy, disobedience, malice, 1st Peter chapter 2 verse 1… and seeRomans 1:29 greed, depravity, murder deceit, malice….. see Galations 5:19 drunkeness, sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, witchcraft,…….
Now that said. You have suffered the pain of someones behavior that is clearly NOT ‘ruled and rooted and grown out of “love”. Your pain is at the cost of someone sinning and hurting you.
God will NOT control or manipulate that person to turn them from hurting you. He has given that person “free-will or ‘choice'” to serve out their term of life as we know it, for whatever time God allows that person to exist on this planet. God hurts to see you hurt. But He will not interfere with anyone’s choice. So, when we pray for the prodigal spouse, (read about the prodigal son) the pray makes ‘waves’ in the unseen spiritual world…i.e. God can part the waves of evil enough to give your spouse perhaps the ‘sight’ to see that she is evil-influenced and on her way to the graduation of that choice. If she chooses not to change, or see… or desire a different outcome, nothing will change. Our prayers DO have power through Jesus Christ, God, the Holy Spirit… in the life events, spiritual sights, and mental ear hearing of spiritual things of that person’s life. What they Chose, only that person, your wife, has the power over. Not God, not You, Not me, no one can change her Will. She has choice. She has whether knowingly or unknowingly chosen the paths she has taken.
Are you able to follow this?
God Is not to blame for the Bad things that happen. He has allowed Good and Evil to have activity on this earth.
Only Good and loving acts are of God… However, He does at times destroy Evil doing! There are times in the History, like Noah and the Ark, where so many People were so full of Evil doings.. That God Destroyed everything in hope of giving Good and Loving activities precedence. However, He felt terrible about it afterwards and promised mankind He would never do it again. God allows things to ‘wake’ our Souls/Spirits to higher calling, to chisel at the parts of us that need to be shaped into a better character… especially if we have “chosen” to be in His army.
I thought I heard you say that this situation has affected your “faith”. That would lead me to believe you had some. If that is the case, then God is allowing pain in your life because it is going to build your character. It is going to shape you.
In twelve step programs they have a saying. “NO PAIN, NO GAIN”
This is true in every case. Your dentist hurts your mouth when he works on re-shaping a cavity spot.
I read a lot. I read of a girl about to enter College. She was with her mom in a terrible car crash. She was so broken and injured that the physicians asked the parents to call a DNR on her. (Do not resuscitate) The Mom refused. The girl after being healed and going through tremendous pain, changed her choice for college and became a surgeon instead of what she had chosen in the first place. I am sure she was a good physician for having experienced pain and the care that was given her. Not only that she was exposed to a ‘field’ that she never knew before.
I understand your questions, I was there too one time. But life and lots and lots of pain have taught me a lot of things I never would have know.
God never promised anyway a Rose Garden after the “Fall” of man.. into choosing what they did in the garden of EDEN.
oK.. I AM DONE!
I promise I will not hound you with this subject.
Just wanted to answer the question.
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Hi guys. Wow DeEtta, good answer!! I am constantly forced to look at these questions. I, in short, think that God does not “cause” these things to happen nor do I think all evil comes from decisions that man makes (other than the decisions made in the Garden). I do not think it is possible to tell the intentions of God in our lives….was my husband leaving God’s way of removing me from a bad situation? Was it an evil choice of my husband’s? Clearly, we were both out of the will of God on some points…but aren’t we all? I also don’t think it is our place to judge. Because: “He who is without sin, cast the first stone”. I think we tend to analyze too much and place blame too much. Yes, it is important to be able to discern good from bad…but we should never ever get into a place where we are saying “I would never do that”.
That being said…My husband left suddenly (or so I thought) 4 years ago. Throughout that time, I have been in some of the darkest places in my life. I was even hospitalized for a short time. I held on to Romans 8:28 ” And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who and have been called according to his purpose” (NIV). Most of the time, I was asking “O.k. God…where is the “good !? I have tried to make right, Godly decisions and have seen the ungodly prosper…when do I start seeing good happening?!” Don’t get me wrong, I have seen God’s faithfulness through this whole thing. Especially in friends who have helped along the way (special thanks for Divorce Care!) and am probably still here because of them. I am so thankful!
Soon after the X left, I started attending college. I knew that I needed some kind of job skills to be able to survive. I will graduate soon with a BS in Psychology and hoped to go on to get a Master’s so that I could councel people. Recently, I decided that pursuing a master’s would not be possible. I said, “Lord! What are you doing? I want to help people and know I can, but to do that professionally, I need a degree!” So, I figured that I would help people who I met in life…not professionally. I even tried to start a support group with no success….until I told my couselor about it…She gave my proposal to her boss and he loved the idea. He said that I would have to go to training to be a Certified Peer Specialist and then I could run a support group at his facility! This will open so many doors for me!! I will be able to use all of my experience helping people and there is hope of full time employment in the future! I guess He did have a plan for me!!
So, to answer your question, “Credit or blame?”, I think that this isn’t the important thing. What is important to focus on is to keep seeking His will, making the best decisions you can and above all…Don’t Give Up!! If you give up, you won’t have a chance to see Him work and fulfill His promisses! If I hadn’t gone through all of that, I would not have been able to help people nearly as much as I can now. It’s all Him and only He knows the future and past. 🙂
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CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU ON THE PEER SUPPORT GROUP ADVENTURE! YOU WILL LOVE IT! HOPE TO HEAR PROGRESS REPORTS!
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I don’t believe God hurts us or puts us in hurtful situations. Have I always believed this and never struggled with this same question? No. When my Mom died of cancer 14 years ago I questioned God at every level. We are all human and he made us with free will to make decisions about our lives. Has it been our decisions, someone elses decisions, life circumstances, illnesses etc that have brought us to where we are?? There are so many forces working in our lives, good and bad. I choose to believe that God wants nothing but good for us and he will use all of our life circumstances to shape us and mold us into the person we are meant to be. I still believe that God brought my husband and I together and we were soulmates. I still believe we were meant to be together forever. But I cannot control my husband’s decisions about his life. He has chosen sin. Neither I nor God has made that decision for him. My husband is the one that has decided that our marriage and I are not a high priority in his life and worth saving. Evil and Satan are still active forces on our human lives.
I don’t believe that God made my husband choose to bury his feelings, emotions, anger, and everything else throughout his life and our marriage. God did not tell him to sin against me. God did not tell him to cheat and lie to me. I don’t believe that God felt I “needed this hurt in my life”. But I have to live with my husband’s decisions and God is helping me to work through the hurt and the anger. I can honestly say that I have begun to see the good that is coming out of my life and this road that I am traveling. It is not the road that I chose for myself, but my strength, my Faith, my self confidence are all growing. When I made the decision to leave and put it into God’s hands…. a lot of good things started to happen and “fall perfectly” into place (so to speak). Is my life easy? No. Am I still hurting and recovering, yes. And will be for a long time. I am making new friends and truly allowing myself to be “me”. I am not pretending or trying to fit into situations to “make my husband” happy. I am realizing that I had changed who I was, what I wanted from life and hidden my Faith to try to save my marriage and make my husband happy. But nothing I could have done would “make him happy”. He does not know true happiness or love. He is searching for something he himself doesn’t even know will make him happy.
Don’t give up. Stay strong. God will bring you through it.
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I believe God has a path for each one of us – Good and Bad. I feel the Bad is to make us stronger and better in the end and to draw us closer to him.
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