She sits on the floor of the sitting room, slumped up against the couch and staring up at the ceiling, her face betraying a deep lethargy. A bible sits, splayed open, next to her thigh—turned to Psalm 23. In her journal, she had just written the word ‘divorce’—a heavy word. A word dripping with meaning—and none of it good. Divorce is what her father’s wealthy family did when they didn’t like their spouse anymore—it showed a lack of commitment. Selfishness. It’s what Hollywood celebrities did when they just didn’t really feel like being married anymore…
‘I don’t want to be like that,’ she thinks, as if this action would automatically put her in the same category as those listed above—who are, of course, all degenerates.
‘There is no good reason to divorce,’ some pastors tout from the pulpit.
‘Women initiate divorces more than men,’ some complain—as part of this larger idea that women are nothing but a bunch of controlling ‘Jezebels’.
Yet, when this is your only choice to move forward—what do you do? What do you do when going back would endanger not even just your own life, but those of your children?
Remembering the bigger principles
I fear that sometimes our larger, guiding principles disappear into a mess of details. As if God is a type of micromanager. He actually allowed human beings to manage the earth with a lot of freedom. It was humans who set up societies. A human being ‘named all the animals’ and humans ‘ruled over the earth’. Institutions like slavery and things like currency were all man-made creations.
But the larger principles of justice, peace, goodness, integrity, etc. sometimes demand that we do things beyond or even opposite of the written ‘rules’—‘no divorce’ may be written in a few lines of the Bible, but is it a hard and fast rule, or is that under the umbrella of larger guiding principles, such as faithfulness, loyalty, and commitment? I have to say that that loyalty is not a blind one—it’s not a ‘no matter what you do, I’ll stay’—because it was partially loyalty to my children that made me leave my own marriage. It was also the larger guiding principle of living at peace with others, as much as lies within my power, that caused me to leave. My ex-husband and I can coexist peacefully—from a distance. And this is better for my kids, and for both of us.
Living free of the shame
Are we living for something or are we living to avoid something? Shame is a state of avoidance—we don’t want people to see certain part of us, so we hide. Are we avoiding being associated with a certain group of people we hate? Or are we attempting to courageously live out our values, following the larger guiding principles of goodness, peace and love? This is not necessarily an invitation to go put on the party hats, invite a bunch of people over and indulge in a cake that says ‘I’m not with stupid anymore’ (unless parties are your thing…) You can still acknowledge that divorce itself isn’t good while simultaneously reminding yourself that you did it for good reason. And be kind and compassionate to yourself—much like the shepherd would to his sheep in the aforementioned psalm.
