divorce

Golden Anniversaries, Tarnished Divorces, and the Stuff In Between: Is God in All of It?

Caroline Ferdinandsen — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 08:13:22 -0700

Some families function like a slick ad campaign for successful Christian marriages: their histories boast the blessings of longevity and faithfulness. Other families are so speckled with dirt and dysfunction that God is nowhere to be found. But if you’re like me, you might find yourself surrounded by both.

I wish my family could have stuck with one story; it would make my theology so much simpler. If my Christian ancestors were twenty couples deep in 50+ years of happiness, then I could claim God’s promises to be true: that godly people are always blessed with strong, impenetrable marriages. Likewise, if my family boasted nothing but broken, banged-up fairytales, then I could claim without much opposition that the Bible’s mandates were nothing but an idealistic dream.

But here I am this summer with multiple narratives in my head, none of them showing the kind of cause-and-effect I had expected as a child.

I’ll be specific.

In my family of five (two parents, three daughters--one an adopted cousin), we have faced a wide range of marriage scenarios: a quickly-broken “starter marriage,” a 50th wedding anniversary, the tragic death of both husband and wife, a 20-year second marriage, a painful divorce after 17 years, and a 27-year first marriage. Our love for Jesus has been consistent; the blessing/happiness quotient has not. So what’s up with that?

The longer you live, the more marital success seems like a game of chance. Good people sometimes spin out. Faithful Christians sometimes get screwed to the wall. Praying, faithful wives are sometimes blessed with praying, faithful husbands. Sometimes good marriages are perpetually blessed with money; other times not. Sometimes lousy spouses leave and still get undeserved second chances. Where’s the consistent algorithm? Do I teach my daughters to cross their fingers and simply hope for the best? Do I tell my young son that it might not matter what he does, that he might follow all the rules and still find himself with a broken covenant?

But this is human thinking which I’m very good at it. I’m not so good at understanding a sovereign God.

What I really want to know is not simply whether my husband and I will make it to fifty years and beyond, but whether my free will has much say in the matter. If my husband and I have a rock solid marriage, but one of us succumbs to cancer, then we will not reach fifty years of marriage no matter how hard I’ve worked to “do my part.” If my father chooses faithfulness and my mother leaves his bed for another man’s, then no matter how hard he worked for the reward of a blessed marriage, his free will will be thwarted. On the other hand, maybe they will reach a fifty year milestone. How can we know?

To enter into marriage is to assume that two lives will run in parallel lines throughout life. A bride and groom might recognize that a covenant can break, but they feel in their souls that their covenant never will. Why? Because they believe they are in charge of their destiny.

Are they? When I celebrate my parents’ phenomenal fifty year milestone, where does the credit lie? Is it with their hard work and faithfulness alone--or is it from God’s blessing alone (in which case that must mean that all the people who didn’t make it to fifty aren’t God’s favorites)?

The Bible speaks of both man’s hard work and God’s divine control, a paradox that many thinkers and scholars have tried to explain. I am wrestling with these issues anew because this summer has funneled four divergent life events into one small month: 1) a twenty-year anniversary, 2) a sister’s post-divorce engagement, 3) a couple facing a wife’s cancer diagnosis, 4). a fiftieth wedding anniversary

If I were simply going by appearances, I might say that God is celebrating the two anniversaries, merely tolerating the second marriage, and punishing the cancer victim. However, that assumes a rigid connection between appearance and reality. Columnist Andree Seu in her article “Living in the Middle” claims that “the slowness of things in nature--and in the supernatural--makes for strange earthly phenomena.” In other words, current circumstances don’t always reflect the longer truth. You might think things look dandy today, but under the surface, your selfishness is creating decay that might only show up years from now. On the other hand, your cancer, your tragedies, your loneliness is merely a “middle,” as Seu claims, with the beauty of eternal redemption often lying right beyond the horizon.

In short, I’m realizing that both the timeless sovereignty of God and the earthbound responsibility of his children move beyond what is seen. I can’t determine whether God will provide longevity, wealth, health, or a spouse’s faithfulness, but I can choose worship, service, submission to God, and self-sacrifice. One is not dependent on the other, as I see it. God calls me to do certain things, to BE certain things, no matter what the earth around me is doing. If your marriage partner is pursuing the same thing, then this is great news. But if death, betrayal, or poverty strikes, the long truth of God’s promises are still working inside of you, even if they are shrouded for the moment.

My extended family will never be a Christian ad campaign because no one would buy our brand of marriage. We are banged up, broken in places, glossy in others. Inconsistent. Rough on the edges. Yet marriages aren’t retail products to buy. They are covenants made between imperfect people in a largely hidden narrative whose main character is God himself and not (gasp!) me. As a follower of Christ, I can only trust in the beginning and end, if not always the middle.

One Flesh: Committing For Life

Adam Stadtmiller — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 14:58:23 -0700

Seven years ago, my wife and I were struggling. Things were dark and getting darker. The dance we had created during the first ten years of our relationship was no longer working.

Things were magnified by the fact that we had just begun our life as missionaries in Australia. Ministry was thriving. Everyone was counting on us. That was part of the problem.

That's when my wife hit me with one of the hardest, yet most life giving statements I have ever heard. It is in large part what saved our marriage. Karie said this, “You are my soul mate. You are the man I have committed my life to, I’m just not sure I can live with you.” And with that, Karie began to pack her and Lily our two-year-old for home.

The thirty days I spent closing up shop in Australia were some of the loneliest of my life. They were days filled with focusing on the wounds of Christ, knowing only they could heal us—my tricks and manipulations no longer working.

Karie’s statement helped save our marriage in that she reassured me that she was not going anywhere. She wanted it to work, she had committed her life to making it work. Still, she needed space—she needed room to breath. So did I.

My wife’s willingness to remain single for life is one of the Godliest things I have ever seen a woman commit to. It was a commitment to suffering for the sake of a vow, for the sake of Christ. This type of commitment swims upstream in a culture where commitment and vow are tossed about like chaff for the next opportunity at greater happiness.

For Karie, one flesh meant one flesh forever. Our story tells me that this extreme commitment is one of the foundations of the marriage we have partnered with God in creating. His grace has surely been sufficient.

(Photo used with permission from: Salvatore Vuono)

Lash Me to the Mast

Rick Bundschuh — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 21:29:26 -0700

I just watched another marriage blow into pieces. Kids are involved, and I fear that they are at the age where the shrapnel from the explosion in their world will do the most damage.

There was no good reason for the pin to be pulled but pulled it was and the party wanting out of the marriage made sure to do so in a very strident and bloody fashion.

And I know what happens now: craziness.

The abandoned spouse, now temporarily stunned, sooner or later will feel the full weight of remorse, anger, guilt, mourning, emptiness, imbalance, fear and loneliness. The one who pulled the pin will at first feel euphoria mixed with guilt to be followed later by blame, loathing, anger mostly directed toward others.

Emotions will be raw, the hurt palpable, understood only by those who have experienced them.

Then the sirens will call.

Sometimes they will show themselves, appearing as a soft good smelling woman or a rugged confident man. “How could anyone do that to you? You didn’t deserve to be treated that way” they will sing, “You’re special, you’re lovely, you’re wonderful” they will purr to the heart in pain.

And that’s all it will take, overboard they will dive – to hell with the kids, their horrified friends, the Lord or anything else.

Or the sirens may simply offer the smooth melody of medication or escape. In some cases they just offer a bewitching but sour song of rage or revenge.

But the result is the same, a rough landing on the rocks and reef followed by more misery.

Of course it doesn’t take a divorce to hear the siren’s call. Some hear it when the computer warms up, the digital goddesses inviting a private harmless peek at their delights. Some hear their song when the opportunity to defeat an opponent or get a leg up on someone is presented to them. For some the song comes with chance for power or increasing wealth, status or prestige.

The honest truth is that there is not a one of us who at some point in our journey will not hear that absolutely beautiful voice calling us to our ruin and be helpless to prevent it.

And that is the important thing old Odysseus understood; he did not have the ability within himself to resist their call and he would need help from his shipmates, their ears deaf to the sirens, to lash him to mast for his own safety.

I like that imagery. I like it because I think it is an honest statement about me…and quite frankly you. There are songs so beguiling that without the help of my brothers, will send me into the deep. I need them to lash me to the mast and to ignore my pleading to loosen my binds until the danger has passed. And I know that I will need to do the same for them around some curve in life.

No wonder we are told to “confess our sins to one another.”

Musings on Dating

Jim Farmer — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 14:37:36 -0800

So one thing I’ve shied away from discussing on this blog are my experiences with dating. When I was going through my separation from my wife, I made a conscious effort to not date, or even really allow myself to consider who I would date if the opportunity arose. My heart was on saving my marriage, and dating would just complicate things more. Even when it was clear we weren’t going to reconcile, I refrained from dating. To finalize our divorce, we had to sign paperwork and then wait for 6 months. I used that 6 month period as a transition - praying honestly for a marriage revival miracle, but also preparing my heart for a transition back into the life of a single man back in the dating world.

I’ve got to tell you - it was scary. I was never much of a dater in high school. In fact, my ex-wife was really my first serious relationship. We started dating when I was 21, so by the time my divorce was finalized, it had been 7 years since my last first date. As if that wasn’t scary enough, I was in a totally different dating landscape - gone were the days of mining your classmates and co-workers for dates and hookups. The “grown-up” singles scene is characterized by bar pick-ups, blind dates, online dating, and - the HORROR - church singles mixers events!

Regardless, I jumped back in to the dating pool. Reluctantly at first, sure, but as time has moved forward, I’ve moved forward with more and more confidence. I’ve been on more first dates this past year than I have my entire life (I guess that’s not entirely a ringing endorsement on the success of those first dates!). Over the course of this past year, I’m starting to learn a few things about the dating scene, and I thought I’d share them here.

1. When newly single, you must allow mom to set you up on one obligatory blind date.

If it works out, awesome - bonus points for mom! If it doesn’t, you have a built-in reason to say ‘no’ for any and all future blind date potentials, no questions asked.

2. Picking up girls at church is kind of creepy.

Shouldn’t you focus on worshiping the Creator, not the cute brunette sitting next to you?*

3. Online dating is a great way to get dating experience - especially when you’re a normal, decently attractive male.

Here's the thing though - I know I’m not creepy. I just have to make sure the girls understand I’m not creepy as well. Not necessarily the best way to start off a relationship, but when you think about it - whether your'e meeting girls on line or at the bookstore, your first and primary goal is to not come across as creepy.

4. As a single, you are fully expected to have your male single friends meet your female single friends.

However, when the majority of your male single friends are Christians and your majority of your female single friends aren’t - both sides just get mad at you.

5. Distance matters, at least for me.**

6. I’ll admit it, I look at your profile pictures first - if I like what I see, then I look at your profile.

I’m a guy. Sue me. If we were to meet at a party, I wouldn’t talk to you with my eyes closed until I figured out if I liked your personality or not.

7. Use caution when non-believer friends set you up with their “spiritual” friends.

As we all know, “spiritual” can run the gamut from God-fearing lover of Jesus to tree-hugging lover of the Universe. (If “The Secret” is their favorite book, run - don’t walk - in the opposite direction as fast as you can!)

8. Whoever came up with the rule “half your age + seven” is wrong.

I’m not interested in dating a 22 year old - yet.

9. There is never a good time to break up with a girl.

If you procrastinate, you only increase the chances that a family tragedy will strike, making the break-up that much more necessary, yet that much more awkward. Moral of the story: if you know it's not going to work out - end it. Quickly. Just rip off the band-aid. Trust me on this.

So, readers, what are some things you’ve learned from your dating life?

* I am guilty of this.

** Unless we totally connect, and you’re the new love of my life. In which case, it doesn’t matter.

The Demise of Marriage

Phil Towne — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 21:46:30 -0700

I have lately heard several stories that have just made me hurt. One of them was a story of a married couple getting a divorce. The story was one of a long time married couple with several children. The husband filed for divorce and ran off with his new lover. Not long ago, I heard another such story.

Not that divorce is uncommon, but when I hear of dear friends getting separated or divorced, it just hurts. Sometime perhaps I will explore the theological and Biblical dimensions of divorce, but for now, I would just like to say that in my mind, the biggest reason that the Bible says that God hates divorce is that it hurts people. I have not heard of a divorce yet that doesn't leave people battered and torn. Whether we feel that there is Biblical precedence or not for divorce, that to me is not the issue at hand.

The issue often stems from pride and selfishness. When one person in the marriage gets prideful and selfish, the marriage is bound to fall apart (or at least be really unhappy).

So, I have discovered a solution. Check this website.

Life is Short, Have an Affair.

What more bold statement can you make? It is probably the solution to all of your problems in fact.

Ummmm. Do I need to say more?

As an interesting piece of information, one of the FAQs on this site is, "Does Ashley Madison encourage infidelity?"

Their answer, "No, Ashley Madison does not encourage anyone to stray. In fact, if you are having difficulty with your relationship, you should seek counseling.

However, if you still feel that you will seek a person other than your partner to fill your unmet needs, then we truly believe that our service is the best place to start.

At Ashley Madison, you can communicate with other like-minded adults who may be more sympathetic to your circumstances. You never compromise your safety, privacy or security and will never have to reveal your identity unless you choose to.

Perhaps they should have just simply stated. "Yes, we condone it, and in fact intend to profit from your infidelity." Can there really be anything much more sickening?

Now, in case you have not read into the sarcasm and appall that I am feeling, please know that I do not condone this in any way. I am simply frustrated and nearly speachless to hear of such an agency, especially in light of the divorces that I see all around.

So, now that I have lifted your spirits, I ask you to pray for those around you who are struggling in their marriages. Get involved in a caring way. See if there is anything you can do. You are not untimately responsible for whether it survives or not, but I know that more than once I have looked back later and thought, "I should have said something when..."

Phil

Cracked Fairytales, Divorce, and the Holy Bible

Caroline Ferdinandsen — Fri, 14 May 2010 10:02:30 -0700

Even that hideous ogre in Shrek finds love. With no instruction manual except for a donkey-as-therapist and the twists of fate, the guy still manages to create his own fairytale.

Some Christians aren’t so lucky.

Like many children’s picture books, our American marriage myths are often more about pretty illustrations than straight talk. Christian marriages take the folklore even further, promising mythical wedding-night pay-offs in exchange for chastity, or automatic monogamy that comes free with pastor’s signature on the marriage license. But the tales of love often betray us, leaving authentic followers of Christ with a cynicism they weren’t expecting.

The real question is not whether marriages are in trouble (they are). The more important question is whether the Bible’s principles are trustworthy enough to still hold up under the cynical weight of all those broken, banged-up, and unfixable fairytales. The best answer is not the easy one that we learned at Junior High Camp (God said it, I believe it, that settles it), but the answer that still holds true when the prince has left the story.

Many years ago, I believed I found my soul mate, that trendy-sounding label for all things romantic and unexplainable. This young man, this storm-of-a-love, was by no means a miniature of my conservative, common sense father. He was deeply imaginative but theologically shallow—my postmodern prince who changed all my rules about love and marriage. He discovered that loving me demanded a quick conversion to Christianity. So he complied.

But let’s get to the point. My journey toward understanding love and marriage found its abrupt detour in the form of abandonment and divorce. Three short years and a secret double-life later, the Wonderland of my marriage was over. I had fallen victim to what sociologists tragically call a "starter marriage." I crawled into a deep depression and felt betrayed—not only by this man (I could actually handle that)—but also by the entire American “love matrix” that had duped me.

There is nothing quite like devastation to re-position our thinking. But it doesn’t happen quickly. There is a balanced way I’ve come to reflect on the understanding of divorce and the concreteness of God’s word on the subject. It has taken years.

I believe my journey was not unique. At the beginning of such tragedy, our reaction travels in wide arcs of emotion. Whether it’s our own divorce or even our parents’, we swing between moments of great relief and great sorrow—especially since most divorces don’t simply sneak up on us. The long shadow of divorce starts to show itself for many hours before it blends into complete darkness. So when the light finally goes out, we are almost grateful for the crisis. Instead of having to keep painfully squinting in the dim light, now it’s pitch black, and we know we have to at least go get a flashlight. Finally.

But after that, the hard work begins.

One of my unexpected challenges grew out of pride. How do I articulate to strangers why this had happened, so that no one would think me wayward, shallow, a flake? In my former Christianity, divorced folks were not able to persevere like the more stalwart Christians. I didn’t think them less worthy of salvation, but they were the losers, for sure. Less holy. People who wanted to parachute out of the burning airplane rather than “hang in there.” Divorced folk just hadn’t waited long enough for God to perform a miracle at the right weekend marriage conference. They must have been gone that Sunday when the back table was selling Romance Box: Ideas for Keeping Your Marriage Alive. Now I was one of them, and I hated it. I wanted to pull everyone to the side and whisper, “Can I tell you that I really do believe in marriage? I didn’t want this!”

In the old paradigm, I had subconsciously been taught that there was a thin line separating the good Christians from the bad. Certain things kicked you onto the other team: poker, not reading your Bible daily, keeping your hands down during worship. Oh yeah, and divorce.

I also struggled with the concept of “destiny”—the secular term that masquerades as “God’s will” in any romantic textbook. I had been taught parallel—but rather separate—ideas that God was both completely sovereign and I was completely free. The first scenario meant that God had somehow ordained first the marriage and then the divorce. Ordained this? The same divorce that God clearly hates in the Bible? This made no sense to me. Equally confusing was the idea that if I had everything to do with the success and failure of this marriage, then God had either failed to rescue me or I was at best a horrible judge of character or even worse, a wife incapable of keeping a man happy. What a predicament.

So, if our experiences over time bring clarity and light to God’s plans for us, then my clarity came in the form of a new relationship. Another dilemma, indeed. If divorce seemed confusing, then remarriage even more so. Did God orchestrate my divorce from Man A just to help me meet the much better Man B? This interpretation was worrisome. That had the absurdity of buying a new car you don’t really like just so God can crash it and then provide you with the model you really wanted in the first place.

Did God just mercifully single me out and say, “I really like Caroline, so I’ll create a biblical loophole for adultery, help her keep her dignity intact, and then give her what she really had hoped for.” No, I didn’t like these angles. They made God seem random and circumstantial. I wanted a God like the one I saw in the Bible: unchanging, purposeful, a God with a water-tight set of principles.

The real question became “Had I been letting the circumstances drive the eternal principles or the other way around”? Ah, now I was on to something.

After many years of grappling with such questions, I am not content to let my experience drive the principles. That approach simply invites me to ride the Tilt-a-Whirl where my questions pull the center wheel in different directions. First, you sort of like the spinning feeling; then you vomit. No, the principles of God’s word are direct and clear. After studying the principles of marriage in chapters like Ephesians 5, I Corinthians 7, and Matthew 5, and Genesis 2, these were my answers.

Principle One: Once I had entered into the sacred covenant of marriage, it became God’s will for me to stay in that covenant. Two, marriage finds its best example in the love-and-respect model. Three, each partner has certain rights and certain requirements borne out of love.

Yet I know there are endless circumstances that might alter these principles: What about physical abuse? Sexual emptiness? Loss of love? Mental illness? I suppose God could have addressed every one of them in a scripture for America’s verse-a-day flip calendars.

But He didn’t. And since He didn’t, I have only the principles to cling to. The irony of progressive thinking is this: We assume that because God didn’t address all of the permutations of modern society in the Bible, then the only other choice is to distrust the Bible as having the “right answer.” Modern life is too broad and complicated to be stuffed into a 66-book manual! Therefore, let’s bust out of this joint!

We can’t have it both ways. If we’re saying that the only way to trust Scripture as having absolute truth is if it is explicit in its instructions for every situation, then we know we have doomed absolute truth. Isn’t that secretly our goal? As long as I can’t find a scripture verse for it, then I’m off the hook. You don’t think that the Old Testament chaps wondered about it, too?

Tabernacle Contractor: Gee, do you think we can add a green silk panel to the outer sanctuary?

High Priest: I dunno. God didn’t tell us.

Tabernacle Contractor: Crap. He must be a fraud.

Here is the hardest conclusion I have had to accept about absolute truth. It strips it all down to the barest fact about my fallen condition. My exterior goal is frequently different from my interior one. If I’m honest with myself, my interior goal is to find a comfortable way to reconcile my personal desires with a fixed biblical truth. Please, God, show me the scripture that tells me I can leave this marriage. My exterior goal, however, is to seem as though I’m searching for a right answer. The older I get, the more it’s a pretty sure bet that if I had to choose between me and God, I’m the one to distrust.

This seems precisely why God sent the Holy Spirit—a part of the Trinity notoriously suspect to us overtime thinkers. The real question of marriage started to become clear: Has my thinking been transformed yet? Is my relationship with God so intimate that I can actually feel the bending of my will in line with his? Do I question because I want to find my loophole, or do I question because I want to know the character of my creator? This is what I desperately wanted. To not just get a logical and satisfactory answer to my personal dilemma, but to know—deep in my soul—that His principles about marriage are true and good because he loved me. Not sometimes true, but unequivocally so.

And so, as it relates to marriage, here it is in its simplest terms: Whether I am divorced, re-married, happily single, reluctantly single, celibate, promiscuous, or married-and-miserable, God hates divorce, has provided for us a love-and-respect model, and ordained marriage to be a sacred covenant. All because He loves us. Why is that so hard?

These days, I’ve pretty much forgotten the fresh taste of panic or grief that used to mark my days and nights. I have both a rock solid marriage and lots of questions, which tend to surface on rainy days when the house is quiet or when I get a call from a desperate friend who can’t figure out why love went south. But on most days I allow the the Holy Spirit, a gentle yet unwavering guardian, to slip in silently and keep watch. I'm finding it's better than fairytales.

Overcoming Family

Jim Farmer — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:05:48 -0800

I love my family. I have two loving, supportive parents who have been married for over 40 years. I have two older siblings, two older sibling-in-laws, a beautiful niece, and four rambunctious nephews (five, when you include my step-nephew). We’re blessed enough to live within 20 minutes of each other - and even though we don’t see each other nearly as much as we should (given our proximity!), our family gatherings are fun, rowdy, stressful, and entertaining. (This is where I should mention that my niece is 9, two of my nephews are 8, and the other two are 5ish. That’s a LOT of kid energy!).

Growing up, our family dynamic was slightly different than most - I’m the youngest kid by nearly 9 years. My experience of growing up was a hybrid of being the “baby” in the family, while also feeling like the only child - since my older siblings were grown up and in college by the time I was entering 4th grade. The glue holding us together though, were my folks. Married young, my parents had a couple decades of marriage under the belt when I came on to the scene. Though they certainly had their ups and downs, they stuck things out (and still do!) and I’ve witnessed their marriage grow and flourish because of it.

I share this because my family background was a near opposite experience of my ex-wife’s. To protect her privacy, I won’t go into the specifics - but I will say that her parent’s marriage was not as successful as mine. You may be wondering why this is even worth bringing up - after all, the country’s divorce rate hovers at the 50% mark, and I am part of that statistic. There are a lot of couples that have to overcome difficult family baggage to be successful. Family dynamics often play a role in present day relationships. Even strong marriages are made of two imperfect people and there are imperfections, hang-ups, and reactions the rest of the family pick up on as a result. Even the Cosby kids had their fair share of relationship issues!

The point is, everyone has their share of family baggage - myself included. But, I can’t help but wonder - when your folks are divorced, is it easier to see divorce as a way out in your own marriage? When your folks have a long marriage, is it easier to see yourself overcoming present-day conflict for the promise of a stronger marriage? When things got difficult in our marriage, my ex-wife and I certainly disagreed in this area. She couldn’t see any way out for us. I was ready to work through our challenges and could envision how much stronger our relationship would be as a result.

But, that’s just my experience. Like it says on my profile page, I’m a relationship non-expert. So, I want to hear from you. I’m not really interested in the statistics - I’m interested in the story. What has your experience been with this? Has the success (or failure) of your parents marriage impacted your marriage?

'That Isn't Right'

bo.white — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:24:57 -0800

I miss my grandfather. One night, in 1994, he went to sleep and never woke up. Instead, I woke up the next morning, received a phone call and cried. I miss him for a variety of reasons and I am sad for many reasons as well. My wife never met him and I hate that. My children never met him and I hate that too. I think that my family may understand me more if my grandfather were still around. Why? Because in his own simple way, he made sense of the world in which we lived. And sometimes common sense is in short supply. And for me, he made sense out of chaos, not because of his simplicity, but because he understood chaos better than most.

Now, he came from a generation that isn’t known for conversation and emotional dialogue. Tom Brokaw called it the ‘Greatest Generation.’ He fought in Asia and was wounded in battle. He worked on the Chicago Northwestern Railroad for over 40 years (a photo of that engine hangs above my son’s bed) was married for fifty years and fathered four children. He had a Marine tattoo that simply looked cool. He was tough, but in a way that was unassuming. He once drove himself to the hospital because he had, what he called, a ‘stomach ache that wouldn’t go away.’ The doctor diagnosed it as a ‘coke can size’ hernia in his stomach. An urgent surgery was performed and a few hours later, he drove himself home.

I remember painting someone’s house one day and while I was hanging on the ladder, a large brown snake curled around the bottom of the ladder. Being petrified of snakes, I climbed all the way up the ladder, onto the roof of the house, and into the kitchen via the most round about of ways. I called my grandfather and explained to him that I had a problem. I waited by the street and about twenty minutes later he arrived. I pointed to the ladder and he saw the large brown snake still curled around the ladder. Going to the trunk of his car, he pulled out a small shovel that he used to keep the garden he planted in back of our house. Without saying a word, my grandfather walked directly to the ladder, kicked the snake loose from the rungs, and then beat it into a pulp. I stood there in awe. When he came back to where I was standing, my grandfather simply said, ‘I think you’re good to go.’

I am reminded, at times, that my experience with him was not the same as my mother. You see, before he became my grandfather, he was an alcoholic. He was not happy to be around. But, that’s not the man I knew. In fact, the man I know, not long after I was born, simply quit drinking one day—cold turkey. He decided enough was enough and never touched the stuff the rest of his life (or the entirety of my life). He used to bring me donuts every Friday morning (one white long john and one chocolate cake donut). Even when I went to college, when I would come home for breaks, for at least one day on break, we would go to breakfast.

When my parents divorced, I remember sitting in his living room and saying that it hurt and I didn’t like it. At first he said nothing. He simply sat in his recliner with his feet up and his crossword puzzle book on his lap (that recliner now sits in my own room and serves as my own reading chair). Wondering if he heard me, I reiterated how my parents’ divorce seemed to make so little sense to me. This time he said something that has stuck with me and is something I will never forget. He said, ‘that isn’t right’. A brief phrase, a simple phrase, but a well timed phrase.

I think of the increasing gap between the rich and the poor and how we have the ability to cure malaria, but we won’t fund it. I think about how politics drive so much of our public health initiatives and how some Christian groups are known more for what they’re against instead of what they stand for. I think of how women are not given the same pay for the same job or how many still don’t have access to education in so many countries. And I simply say, ‘that isn’t right’. Today, I miss my grandfather because he is no longer here and like so many things we can link back to the Fall of Genesis 3 - that too isn’t right.

-bo

The Thick of Pain

Jim Farmer — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:16:46 -0700

In church a few weeks ago, my pastor talked about what happens when a person dies within a Jewish community. The friends and family of those left behind travel to the grieving’s house and simply sit with them. They don’t make pat comments, they don’t swoop in and try to fix everything, and they don’t come in armed with an array of distractions. They respect their grief and just sit in silence.

Earlier today, I was watching the movie “Sunshine Cleaning” - a story about two sisters that form a bio-hazard clean up business, cleaning up the messes often left behind when people die. In one poignant scene, they arrive at a house and find the frazzled widow waiting to give them the house keys. Amy Adams’ character senses the grief of this old stranger and offers to simply sit with her. She reaches over and clasps the old woman’s hand - just as I imagine occurs in those grieving Jewish homes.

Both stories reminded me of my own journey through pain. The night my wife said she wanted to leave, I needed space to think and process. For reasons at the time I was not sure of, I called a friend of mine I hadn’t spoken too in months, and had never really had deep conversation with before. But, I knew he was a believer and I knew I needed a friend that could pray for me. We went out for coffee (the elixir of any grieving situation, I’m sure) and for hours simply sat. At times, I needed to babble - to voice my frustration, voice my anger, voice my confusion, voice my fears. Other times, I needed to just weep. If I wanted to converse, I could. If I wanted silence, there was silence. Through it all, he just sat with me. And his presence truly showed me His presence.

It is difficult for us to slow down in today's culture. Nowhere is this most needed than in those moments where life causes us to grieve. Grieving is an inevitable part of life - whether it's a death, terminal illness, or divorce. In the process of grieving, God simply wants to sit and grieve with us.

And He may look uncannily like your best friend.

How To Survive My* Divorce

Jim Farmer — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:04:04 -0700

Step 1: Trust God.

Immediately, I fell on my knees, sought Him, and went back to church. My sense of failure sent me there -- love, forgiveness, and restoration kept me there.

Step 2: Find community.

Family support was key, as was friend support. Stepping into community with fierce protectors, of me and my marriage, kept me strong. And fighting.

Step 3: Remain hopeful.

I remained hopeful, first for our reconciliation. Then, for my own restoration.

Step 4: Be honest.

There was a period of time early on where I couldn’t share what was going on at home. But hiding that anguish never felt healthy. I needed to discuss how I felt to get to a new level of honesty about me, about us.

Step 5: Don’t date.

New relationships exploited temptation to “compare”. Besides, how healthy and fair would it have been to my new girlfriend?

Step 6: Seek wise council.

I don’t know everything. And, neither do my friends. Divorce is emotional for everyone. Friends and family wanted to protect me, keep me safe. That served it’s purpose in restoration, but I also needed the calm voice of folks emotionally detached from the situation.

Step 7: Be sad, angry, joyful, happy, confused.

Often in the span of 5 minutes. Don’t worry, it’s normal.

*Certainly, I’d never wish my divorce on anyone. And I suspect every divorce circumstance is different. Your mileage may vary.