For My Married Friends...

I've thought alot about how society or even insurance companies views divorced women. Did you know that insurance companies deem that divorced women are high risk drivers and that if they find out one is divorced, then their premium goes up? Is that unfair...when you don't even want the divorce...all of a sudden, you are put in a bracket of high-risk drivers who act crazy???

And...I've thought alot about how the Christian church perceives divorced people. I have even thought about how I perceived divorced people when I was married, and sitting side by side in church with my husband. My thoughts...."Well, that's too bad about that couple. There must have been some really bad stuff going on with them for them to have gone all the way to the divorce court.... We really can't use them in our church anymore...they may influence others of like issues....so, we'll just pretend to accept them...but they just can't hold any leadership positions...what would others think?...I don't know what to say to her...so I'll just leave her alone...she probably doesn't want to talk about it anyway...I just feel awkward talking to her...what do I have in common with her...I certainly would never divorce my husband!

Granted, there are those in Christian churches that reach out to the divorced, but many of THOSE people have been through a divorce in one way or another. I remember going to Divorce Care at my church while I was still separted from my husband. I was coaxed into going to the class, but I really didn't want to..because I was still married. I met a woman there that had been through a divorce, and she was helping with the class. She was all smiles, and very helpful, and sensitive to others, and I thought to myself, "She looks OK...she certainly has come out smiling like a rose, yet there is something about her that doesn't seem quite right...she is divorced, and God hates divorce...I wonder if He hates divorcees?"

And then, my friends who were married, and who knew my husband, wanted to avoid the issue at all costs...were they afraid of what they might hear? Were they cautious as to how they said things, so that I wouldn't fall apart in front of them? I'm sure that crossed their mind. And then, for some reason, I could almost touch the boundary that had been made between me and my married friends, that boundary between the divorced and the married. It was as if I had some kind of disease, and that it would be contagious if they even associated with me...so it is out of ignorance that my friends avoid me, and cling to their own spouses. That hurts.

Any one out there willing to listen to a divorcee let them in on a secret? We are still the same people. We hold our feelings in a little more to ourselves right now, but we still want to belong to a group, or to close friends. It pains me to see whole families enjoying Christmas Eve together, and to know that I will have to spend Christmas Eve by myself. Why doesn't any one pick up on that? I know.. it's family time...they believe that everyone will be with their own families..especially at Christmas. Ok, enough of the guilt trip. Sorry about that...but we still have that basic instinct to love and to be loved...it's just that our spouses chose to give up on loving us...but we don't feel sorry for ourselves...just...lonely.

And what about the thought..."Oh! Thank God, that will never happen to us!" Yes, I had that same thought many times. So many times, I took my marriage for granted. "He'll never leave me for another woman! I can't divorce him...we work in the church..what would people think?" But yet, in that back of your mind, the thought occurs to you, "Would my spouse really cheat on me? Would our marriage end up like theirs, with all the gossip going on, splitting them more so?"

Let me tell you that no marriage, even a pastor's marriage is immuned to the possibility of infidelity. In fact, it can happen very quickly in a pastoral marriage. Let's look at this scenario. Pastor John has a very charasmatic personality. Everyone just loves him, and he can be a very compassionate person and holds a very passive personality. Something his wife said or did has caused his ego to wane just a little bit, and another woman gives a rather flattering comment or compliment to the pastor, and he is like glue to her evey word. She continues with the flattery when all of the sudden, he finds himself calling her to get another charge out of her, and A relationship begins over a phone conversation that was really supposed to be just one innocent question. Both of them find themselves trying to back out of the relationship, but the harder they try, the more that they want to spend time with each other, and thus, the affair begins and the spouse takes the back burner. It happens all the time in just that type of scenario. No, no marriage is immuned to an affair.

So how DO married couples relate to divorced people? Take them in as a friend. Choose to learn from them, to pray with them, to listen to them, and to grow in your own faith because of their faith. Do you realize that some of the most faithful and spiritual people I know are divorced people who are praying for the restoration of their marriages AND are praying that their spouses would turn away from their cold hearts. Why do married people shun away from divorced people? Divorced people need companionship. They need understanding, and they need to be heard, and most of all they need to be a teacher to those who are married, for it is by their story that you CAN make your own marriage stronger.

So, when you hear about that pastor who has turned and walked away from his family, don't shun the wife, but engage her in talking out her feelings...if you are a woman. Discuss the possibilities with your own spouse that you need to guard against, so that an affair doesn't happen, and be aware that many affairs take place with other married partners...there seems to be an epidemic of sorts that married men and women vascillate towards other married partners, just because of the mystery of it and the flattery. It just feels good to be noticed by another person besides your spouse...but STOP! FLEE FROM THOSE THOUGHTS! Find out just what a divorce looks like with lawyers and children and family and financially and the list could go on and on, relentlessly. Is it worth the marriage? Do you have that commitment to your partner that you need till death do you part?

As the scriptures tell us in Galatians, we need to encourage one another...no matter who they are, always lifting up one another in prayer. How many times do you lift up a fallen marriage in prayer meeting? Is it so hush-hush that you don't think it is appropriate to pray for that couple, and that things would work out for that couple? Many times, our prayer meetings turn into gossip sessions, but reality is that we need the church praying for hurting marriages, and encouraging those spouses not to leave their spouses, but sadly, many married Christians don't believe that it is their place to take a stand and mentor a couple facing a split, because of the shroud of thoughts mentioned above. Engage the divorced person into your church...it may influence another couple to stay together - even you!