Read an Excerpt

“I want a divorce.”
 
You may have heard it. You may have said it. Either way,
the words speak of failure—and failure is hard to bear, hard to excuse, hard
to accept, and hard to get over.
 
Some people say those words—“I want a divorce”—are more
devastating than learning of a mate’s death. Death
brings marriage to an end; there’s no recourse, no reversal.
But in divorce, you both still live. And you have to live with that!
If the words came from your mate, then more than likely you feel
faulted, rejected, scorned, cast away.
 
Questions flood your mind: What am I going to do? How will
 I survive? Who will take care of me? What about the children?
Whose side will they take? What will people think of me?
What does God think of me?
 
When you try to look ahead to the future, all you
can see are more questions: Am I doomed to be alone forever?
Damaged goods? Will God ever again use me in ministry, or will I
always wear a scarlet D in Christian circles? What will people
in the church think? How will they treat me? And what about our friends?
Whose friends will they be? Will aloneness define my life?
 
We could fill pages with question upon question—some rational, some irrational.
Questions that keep you awake, that won’t go away, that keep you
wondering how you will ever get out of bed and do life in the morning.
 
So how can you get through this? Live with it? First and foremost,
you need to know that if you are a child of God, believe it or not,
you are beloved of God. He says it over and over again in His book, the Bible.
 
And if you’re not His child yet, then the reason you have this book in
your hands is because God wants to lavish His love on you. He wants
 to call you beloved, even though you may feel there is nothing lovable about you.
 
Second, you need to know that divorce does not take God by surprise.
Because God is God, because He is omniscient—all knowing—He knew your divorce
was coming. And although He does not like divorce because of the pain
and damage it brings to our lives, God knows that, because of the hardness
of our hearts, some will choose the path of divorce.
 
However, with God, that’s not the end. God describes Himself in the Bible
as the divine Potter, the One who is able to reshape your life into a vessel of
beauty. He’ll put you back on His potter’s wheel, rewet your clay with the
water of His Word, and shape you into a man, a woman of praise,
renown, and glory if you will become putty in His hands.
 
In Psalm 107:20, God offers to send His Word and heal us, to deliver us
from our destructions if we will listen to what He says, believe Him,
trust Him, obey Him. He is a redeemer, the God of all hope.
 
Having experienced personally the devastating effects of divorce and
an immoral lifestyle, I can assure you that your life is not over.
Damaged, yes, but not ruined if you will take God at His word
and cling to Him.
 
The question is, are you willing to give it a try? I pray so.
 
Over the next six weeks you are going to learn much from God’s Word
and from those in your group who take God at His Word.
God tells us two are better than one (Ecclesiastes 4:9), and though
you’ve lost or are losing your mate, you are sure to find a sister, a
brother to walk through this with you as take God’s hand
and follow His path.