If the Bible tells us that married people are one flesh, how do you divorce and remain whole?
When I was younger, I remember going to school with kids who had
“uncles”. I can’t recall how old I was when I finally found out what
it meant for a woman to make her children regard her gentleman callers as
“uncle”, but as I consider all of the divorcees that I know, I have to question
if either way is truly better.
I can remember thinking about how weird and gross it
seemed to call your mom’s boyfriend uncle, but what about marriage makes that
any better? Women who marry and divorce ... somewhat frequently, create a
stream of men for their children to call dad or stepdad that is just as
temporary as a boyfriend. They’re both equally disturbing.
Two friends have weighed heavily on my mind as of
late. The first has an elementary aged daughter and is on her 3rd marriage.
The second has a teenaged daughter, 2 ex-husbands and a baby
daddy. The current condition of the teenager makes me terrified for
the young daughter of the other friend.
When we think about past relationships we often talk
about the luggage that we take into our new relationships and how it influences
our interactions with other adults,
but when are we going to consider the way that it impacts our children? Here is an otherwise healthy young lady who
has never seen anything other than volatile relationships and, as such, is
beginning to act out in her own relationships – mainly the non-romantic
ones. By watching her mother be
devalued, she has learned to devalue others.
For the most part, I’ve refrained from dating for the
majority of my daughter’s life. Now, at ten years old, she is well-adjusted. She understands healthy relationships and how to recognize them. However, she has
also gotten used to it being just the two of us. So much so that I
have been asked by a potential suitor how she might receive the prospect of
having to share me.
My friend’s teenaged daughter is struggling with
behavioral, social and mental health issues, having no firm example of what a
healthy relationship looks like. She has learned to be mistreated,
mishandled, and to accept the scraps of half-hearted appreciation and ignorance
of worth. Conversely, the daughter of my thrice married friend will
likely bear the weight of entitlement and a level of self-centeredness that
will result in an utter lack of compromise.
She has been taught that people, like wedding rings, can be removed to
fit your whimsy.
She hasn’t witnessed the beauty of self-reflection, redirection and dedication to the
elements necessary to making relationships work. These days, people
treat spouses like boyfriends/girlfriends – someone that you can walk away from
the moment it looks like the honeymoon has ended; the moment the slightest bit
of unhappiness surfaces and things are no longer new enough to carry your
infatuation. We celebrate 5 years as though it were 50, with no
regard for the way that our grandparents and great grandparents made it work
for so long. Instead of addressing the issues in their relationship
- the roles that both they and
their spouse played; they file for divorce and move on to the next one.
I am not saying that there is anything wrong with
divorce, but Matthew 19:6 (KJV) reads that two married people become “one
flesh. What therefore God hath joined together,
let no man tear asunder”. The question therefore
becomes how many times will you enter into a marriage that God never put
together, before you start to question what’s driving you into the arms of men
who you never intended to be your forever? So, you travel from one relationship to the next, one husband to another, carrying the baggage of your brokenness until you collapse beneath its weight.
You are spiritually tearing yourself apart without regard for how you can be restored to wholeness.
Follow Me as I Follow God
@RevealingRuth
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