Rocks Cry Out, Again

I heard a talk show host comment on his program today: “If you are a senior, one of the greatest things you can do, is to ‘share your wisdom.’

Years ago, I was the Counseling Director on the staff of a local church. I had a ministerial license from the Bible School I had attended, and I did only spiritual counseling, not psychological or therapeutic. Over a period of several years, I witnessed much abuse in marriages. However, the most grievous abuse that I observed was that which was at the hand of well-meaning people, all in the name of “what God wants.”

This is not an area where I have any personal “ax to grind.” I was married once and widowed. Years ago.

The issue that prompted this writing is that once again, I am observing and being asked to pray regarding the divorce proceedings of a couple going to court…once again…today. It is a situation where a lovely and faithful wife of around 20 years is being legally threatened and browbeaten by a husband who has verbally, psychologically and somewhat physically abused her for their whole married life. He is pompous and pious outwardly, and has drug her to several church counselors who admonished HER to be a submissive wife, and in essence, told her she had no legitimate right, in God’s eyes, to separate from him. They have four teenage children, two of which are severely handicapped. He remains in the family home; she and the children were the ones who eventually found another place to live. The children are afraid of being with him. Now he is trying to get her declared an unfit mother, and is placing demands that would rob her of many things that are rightfully hers, including custodial care. Hopefully the court will have wisdom and make right decisions. But the most heartbreaking fact to me, is that she has been counseled to remain in this destructive situation for many years, and felt that God would not approve of her doing otherwise.

These are my thoughts, which I wrote in an email to a mutual friend this morning who had asked me to be in prayer.

“I almost couldn’t go to sleep last night thinking about several messed up marriages with husbands that are destroying the lives of their families. As Christian women, we have been so misguided, all in the name of “what God wants.” It has destroyed not only the well-being of the wife, but it has produced children who have scars that last a lifetime. I believe that THIS is exactly what God meant when he spoke through the prophet Malachi, and said “I hate divorce”. Because he told WHY He hated divorce. Here it is:

“Because the LORD was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. "For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless."

In the New Testament we learn further that a man is to love his wife as Christ loves the church, and as his own body. And that he DOES NO HARM TO HIS OWN BODY. Christ loved the church with the type of sacrificial love that laid down his own life. He did not selfishly seek his OWN RIGHTS. He said, “Not my will, but yours be done” to his Father, whose will was that he “die for the church”. He loved the world, but He DIED for the church. His Body. His Bride. This is to be a picture of the husband and wife relationship. He is not to seek his own benefits, his own way, his own rights. He is to lay down his life for HER. Anything other than that is not Godly. The husband is commanded to do NO HARM to the wife.

In the Malachi scripture, there is a lot of meaning in the word “FAITHLESS”. It does not simply mean that he commits adultery. That is far too simplistic. That is always the result of a true faithlessness in more personal areas of the heart. The sexual involvement is a result, not a cause. Faithfulness is in how you treat your wife. It is in how you love her. It is in how you HONOR her.

Any man, or pastor, or church…who commands a woman to be “Christian” and submit and pray for a husband who has already been dishonorable, unloving, unfaithful, and has broken the covenant of laying down his life for his wife…is not only WRONG, but does not correctly understand what Christianity, marriage and the heart of God are all about.

God is not legalistic. WE ARE.”

I so often think of how Jesus went out of his way…into almost dangerous territory (Palestinian territory now)…to go into a heathen land, among religiously “half-breed” people, to meet a woman whom he knew would be in a certain place at a certain time, (because she was SOCIALLY UNACCEPTABLE ) and in doing so, He became socially unacceptable (Jews didn’t deal with heathen women…or even men with women at all, as he did in this circumstance)…and she had been through only God knows what in her life. No woman is married five times unless she has been through a lot of rejection and personal hell…and Jesus did not even mention her marriages, except to reveal to her that he was a true prophet. Otherwise, he didn’t throw them up in her face. He went there for two primary reasons. He knew the true hunger of her heart and went out of his way to meet it. And the result was that she became the first evangelist in the history of Christianity. (John 4, N.T.)

The point of this is that the church, so many times, has not portrayed the heart of God in what we have done to people in destructive marriages.

And that... is what God really hates.

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Note 1: All uses of the word “church” make no reference to any individual denomination or local congregation. This is the Greek “Ecclesia”; or the general body of Christian believers within the Church.

Note 2: I am very aware of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 19, and Paul’s. That is another subject for another essay. I can write more on that later if anyone wants me to.

Note: 3: This is not written without awareness of the “shoe often being on the other foot” with the wife being the problem, not the husband. But that is not the issue at hand in this instance.

Letter to a Friend

I would not be so presumptuous as to speak spiritual platitudes to you at a time like this. You are going through a terrible season. The kind of season that puts things into perspective. Like we fuss and fume about the small irritations of life that happen day by day, and then we or someone in the family gets a threatening diagnosis, and suddenly we realize what the "small things" really are. We learn what it really means to "not sweat the small stuff". Because we can't deal with everything. And I guess, that is all I can say. Don't try to deal with everything. Don't take on the future when it isn't here yet. (That IS a spiritual principle, isn't it…Matt. 6:34) God is giving you enough strength for the very day...the moment…you are in as it comes. Not for the future. Try to live in the day at hand.

I was going through something a while back and I found that if I seized the moment and focused on it, and said to myself, "Today, I am alive!" And became still enough to open my eyes and heart and "see" that moment in time, that it brought me a space of peace. It had to be repeated over and over. But borrowing tomorrow's pain and grief ahead of time, just makes us suffer twice. You can only handle "now".

It is horrible to see others in such need and grief all around you. The three worst things we go through over and over in life are loss, insecurity and change. Change that leaves us having to take new unknown directions. All of these produce fear. And fear is our enemy.

Just try to live life in "now" bites and draw your strength from God. Don't take on ANYTHING unnecessary regarding Christmas, housekeeping, etc. Don't sweat the small things.

Your family needs your strength just now. Don't waste it on the unnecessary. When you feel yourself sinking, choose to switch your mind to some small thing you can be thankful for and speak it out.

And guard your mind with all diligence. It is not what we have to do that robs us of our strength and peace; it is what we "think" about what we have to do.

Most of all, don't allow yourself to sink too far down into sadness and depression. I was doing that once and I felt the Lord say to me, "Marcia, climb or die." And I knew it was not a threat, but a warning…to not let myself sink too deeply.

There is a strong hand reaching down to you. Hang on. I will be hanging on with you in prayer.