It must have been a hint from the Lord.   Recently I received not one, but two emails about divorce.

In this crazy day and age, divorce is so prevalent.  It is so easy to hire a lawyer and go your separate ways…that makes everything better, right?  Does it really make all the anger go away?  All the pain?  All the insecurity?  We live in such a me centered society, all that we ever think about is ourself, so why not be happier if we weren’t married to a problem anymore?

See, I come from a completely different mindset.  My parents currently have been married over 46 years.   They have had their share of ups and downs.  My dad’s unemployment could have done it in just that!  But they have never sought a divorce over anything.  My DH and I… when I married him and signed on the dotted line on our marriage license, it wasn’t a contract to me… it was a covenant.  I made a covenant to my husband and to God.  Love, honor, cherish…in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, until death do us part.    A life long promise to be faithful to him.  My kids, I guess because they see it in their friends, ask us if we’d ever divorce, and we both tell them that it is never an option for us.

The first email that came in was from Dr. Gary Chapman, from the 5 Love Languages.  Click here to see the full article, but the gist of it was someone asking why should you go through the hard work of fixing a broken and unsatisfying marriage.   I think to a lot of people who consider divorce, they think it is an easy fix, but it really isn’t.   If you are miserable now, and your divorce your spouse, won’t you take the miserableness into your next marriage?  What about if you have kids?  You’ll be yoked to your ex-spouse for a long time with kids.  And what about how the kids handle the divorce?  “Oh, they’ll be fine.”, but will they really be fine?  My kids don’t ever have to worry about us divorcing, but they are worried we would divorce…..  we underestimate the stress and pressure that us getting divorced cause on our children.   Divorce just isn’t an easy way to solve the problem.

The second email I got was from a devotional from Biblegateway.com called “Considering Divorce”  It used passages from Isaiah 40: 26-31.  Here’s the devotional and what it says….

“Does your marriage seem hopeless? Perhaps you’ve tried and tried, yet nothing has changed. You’ve pleaded with God to fix the problems, but he doesn’t seem to be listening. So you’ve decided to solve it on your own. You feel you have no choice but to get out of the marriage. Don’t give up! God is bigger than your problems. In very few cases does God condone divorce. In the majority of struggling marriages, God will make a way if you will wait for him. You may feel as if he doesn’t see your struggle, but he does. He will give you strength to fight for your marriage.”

I bolded the middle section on purpose.  It applies to everything in our lives.  Reminds me of the first Veggie Tales video I ever saw….the video “Where is God when I am scared”, there was one of those catchy songs that sticks in your head…. “God is bigger than the boogie man.  He’s bigger than Godzilla or the monsters on TV… oh, God is bigger than the boogie man and he’s watching out for you and me.”   This is so true.  Why do we put God in a box and expect that he can’t help us…. or ever further down that road that he doesn’t want to help us or won’t help us.   That’s just crazy!!

So if you are hitting a really hard patch in your marriage, it isn’t the end of the road.   Pray about it and wait on the Lord.  He is listening, and he is going to help you.   Remember that his timing is not our timing.  Be patient.   Our strength will rise as we wait on the Lord.