I am a child of divorce. I know for a fact I am not alone in this experience. A humbling thought for this hopeless romantic, to say the very least.
**Disclaimer: This blog is not intended to bash my parents, or any others who have made the decision to divorce. The hope of this blog is to encourage my fellow Marrieds and Singles who will one day be faced with the question, "Should I stay or should I go" - even if only for a moment. My prayer is that this post might reconcile husbands and wives struggling to make it "work", give new hope to others worried they will fall into their parents' mistakes, and open dialogue between parents and their children who have suffered immense heartache. I am not perfect and I will never claim to be, so please read this with an open and gracious heart.
My mom and dad divorced when I was 7 (or 6, I'm foggy on exactly when). Either way, at this point they have been living separate lives for more of my life than they were together, which has given me plenty of time to sort through the effects of their divorce on my life; some good, some bad, some I struggle with today.
For the better part of my life, I lived with the fear of "Will my mom/dad love me if I turn into the other?" Until the last year this was an obscure struggle. Kind of like chigger bites, you scratch and scratch but it takes awhile to realize what's making you itch. I've gone my whole life with people pointing out different features of mine that are "just like your dad" or "just like your mom" and with every familiar feature I felt overwhelmingly defensive. Now, of course, I realize how irrational of a fear that is. I've also learned to accept the fact that we all turn into our parents, the goal is to make it as minimal as possible (just kidding).
While divorce has been very hard on me, I believe that God has allowed what happened to my family to show me the capacity of His redemption. Their story does not have to be my story because my story begins and ends with Him. He is my author, perfecter, redeemer.
From middle school to college, you could say I had a bit of an obsession with love. While some children of divorce run from commitment, I ran full force toward it. From a very young age I felt quite determined to prove the world and it's statistics wrong about my fate. I was going to find an amazing husband and we would have babies and travel and buy houses and never, ever fight and definitely never divorce. Ok the never fighting aspiration was unrealistic but you get where I'm going.
Low and behold, in July after my freshman year of college, I met my wonderful husband. Nine months later we started dating. Due to the aforementioned years of "serious" relationships, by the time we started dating I was finished flippantly dating (at age 19). In May of that year I was falling in love and, thankfully, it was reciprocal. And I wasn't just falling in love with the attention of someone new, I was falling in love with what future I could actually see with this person. He was everything I wasn't; calm, collected, studious, thought-out. He was everything I needed; calm, collected...you get the point. After a year and 3 months of dating, we were engaged. Yes we were young, and we are still, but there is no doubt in my mind that God was drawing us to each other.
Prior to our vows we opted to go through premarital counseling, something I highly recommend for anyone, especially if you've walked through divorce in any capacity. During a session our counselor asked us to decide on what grounds we would ever consider divorce. We both agreed that adultery would be the solitary breaking point.
My biggest fear of marriage has always been adultery and the enemy seems to know this. He often taunts me with hypothetical yet very painful images of my dear one in the arms of another. When these painful visuals appear I can't help but think back to our answer in that premarital session, naively claiming that we would part ways if ever the other strayed. I then think on the life we have built, the times we have been each other's anchor (mainly he being mine, if we're honest), the beautiful baby boy we created together, the security I feel with him although we are hundreds of miles from "home". I think on these things and my answer has changed. I would faithfully be his Hosea if he ever became my Gomer. I would swim a thousand seas to carry him on my back and I know he feels the same way. Our marriage is not and will not be successful because we are great; our marriage is and will be successful because God is great and He is greatly living within us.
"We love because He first loved us" 1 John 4:19.
May 2008
June 2010
December 2013
