Becoming a Divorced Christian Woman was one of the hardest things I had to bear through in my life. On top of everything else, I was becoming a Divorced Christian Mother of two young children.
I felt like a failure. Like I was a defeated vessel that was overused and exhausted. I feared disgrace was soon to be shown upon my face.
When I think back to the night that took place seven years ago, I remember finishing my ex-husband’s answers as he admitted for the first time of an ongoing affair. As he confessed, I finished the words “She’s pregnant.” The sound of rain pounding on the windows made his crying sound muffled. But still, without having to fully hear him I was able to finish his words, “It’s a girl.”
My stomach drenched with sorrow as I said the words “It’s a girl”. We were trying for another child thinking it could be something to fill a void we were both feeling. We shared the same hopes for a baby girl.
With his eyes wide opened, he uttered the words, “How did you know?” The rest of me could not speak anymore. But my mind raced rapidly as I remembered the dream I just had weeks before. The vision of me writing the dream in my prayer journal became an eerie terror to me.
To what I thought was a pleasant dream of me birthing a little girl that was being cradled in my arms as I sang to her, then switched to becoming a fear in my life.
The smell of the rain as he opened the door to our home to walk out after we had just laid our children down for bed left a horrible memory in me for years. Feeling the drift cold air that came through my bedroom window that night as I saw his wedding band on our dresser made my skin crawl for months on.
But the memory of laying out on my bedroom floor crying to the Lord after he left that night is unforgettable.
I still remember the soaking of my tears in the carpet. I debated whether to call my mother, a friend or anyone that would take my side and speak the words of hurt that I could not. But nothing in me could do anything but lay there and cry. “Lord, I receive Your presence and Your healing. Lord, help me to forgive.” Those words were constant from my mouth. So much so that I fell asleep repeating the words in my sleep.
When I woke the next morning, it all felt like I was waking up from a numbing nightmare. To make it worse I was visited with constant taunting thoughts of where it could have all gone wrong.
Although there was destruction in the marriage for years before the pain of adultery, divorce was not what I had [envisioned] as a Christian wife. And even though the marriage was unequally yoked between a saved and an unsaved spouse, the faith that I had of him becoming saved never ceased during the hardest of times.
Even when friends later expressed painful words to me that consisted of them expressing they were not surprised of the actions from a man that was still of the world, it did not dishonor the faith I once had as a Christian wife.
No, my marriage was not saved and yes, it took years to fully forgive all the situations that follow a divorce from an unsaved spouse but I will never say God was not in it.
God was [in] it the moment I would pray for reconciliation and restoration. He was in it the moment I prayed for healing and forgiveness. God moved the moment I wept before Him and requested for protection from all the hurt that was to come. He was in it when I requested Him to remove all in my life that was not of His plan.
We are our own person who receives the calling of the Lord. Who makes the clear decision to take heed to the direction of the Lord.
When God called me the day I was saved, my ex-husband was in the same home as me. As the doors opened for reconciliation and restoration I breathed in the words with hope but the words of denying the presence of God came from him. When I wept over the verse “Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning” from a book that was given to us about marriage, he was next to me.
I am no better because I listened to the calling at the time. It was just a time I came to a realization I needed to follow. I took 24 years to follow so I know it’s not that I was always following and listening. It was just a time I just decided to follow. Simple as that.
Did I want to cry and scream at him to just receive the presence of God, yes, absolutely. But I am not God. I was not his holy spirit. All I was, was his then-wife learning to become an example.
Seven years later I can still say I fought the hardest fight I ever fought with grace and humbleness. I walked away knowing I did what God told me to do during each situation for the following year that came with a trial of divorce with children.
As I developed my relationship with God by reading my Bible daily, staying connected with my community, and learning to discipline my mind of torturous thoughts of shame and disgrace as a Christian Divorced Woman; I was able to open my eyes to see that He answered every prayer that I requested.
I now look at the godly husband that I prayed for years ago and see that God restored. It gives me joy to look at my children that once bared the unbearable as now healthy-minded, active children. I look at [the] relationship I have with the Lord with thankfulness because of everything I learned seven years ago.
