The Epidemic

It's not H1N1 or Avian Flu.
It's actually much, much more common than either, but doesn't get very much press unless the rich and famous are affected.
But it hurts and it's effects can be damaging and far-reaching.

I'm talking about divorce.

It's hit my family quite a lot in the last year. Out of 4 siblings in my extended family, 3 have divorced or are separated. It's hit my in-laws too.

I don't know what it is, or what's changed. When I was in elementary school, I only remember one girl from my class with divorced parents. It was an unfamiliar concept, distant from our own tiny realms of experience. Now I am hearing story after story of marriages, many lasting 20 or 30 years coming to a final and sudden end.
I can't understand it.
Is it the insidious media with its constant message of "You deserve better", "You're worth it?" He doesn't put the toilet seat down? He's malfunctioning or obsolete, trade him in for something better. She gets cranky sometimes or you feel she's hard on you? Well that cutie down the hall is nothing but smiles, perhaps it's time for a change. Our culture, that raises such successful consumers, apparently raises terrible spouses.
I've been there. I know what bitterness and resentment can grow. You start to feel that you're doing more, that they're not listening to you, not respecting you enough. You remember that time two birthdays ago when you asked for something specific and what you got wasn't even in the same department of the store. This little cesspool builds up in your mind and every slight, every disappointment, gets dumped into it. It stinks up your life and you think that if you dump the person responsible, you dump the pool too.
The problem is that many times, building that little pool is a choice we make. Now before I go any further, I am NOT talking about ignoring abuse in any form, I don't care if he's not hitting you, if he's hurting you and you're starting to think you're not "worth it", that's abuse. Because you're worthy of love and real love isn't supposed to hurt.
One summer day I was sitting around reading, in the same room, but not on the same proverbial page as my spouse. I was reading this book by Rob Bell called 'Sex God'. He's a pastor and has a real gift for getting at the nitty gritty and he started talking about this thing called AGAPE.
No, I'm not talking about the way you stare when your spouse dances to "Vogue", this is a kind of love.
An all-encompassing kind of love, a compassionate love, a merciful love, an unconditional kind of love.
And then, it happened.
The Epiphany.
It was like my relationship up to that point had been a straggle-y tree trying hard to stay upright through harsh winds and then all of a sudden, someone had staked it, propped it up so it could grow, unbent and undamaged by what was going on around it.
I can't say it's all roses, because it isn't. Loving someone even when they disappoint you is a choice you make, because above all else, above the moment, the misdeed or the misunderstanding, you love that person.
Successful, loving marriages make children happy.
Successful, loving marriages make adults happy.
But they also give hope.
Hope that there is a love, all encompassing, passionate, forgiving and merciful out there for everyone.
Hope that good things can survive this twisted way of life we've developed.

I put my arms around a man who has been married for 20 years and sat weeping because his marriage is no more. We prayed with him, prayed and hoped that his wife has the same realization, that she can find the heart of it all, not in the superficial day to day, but in the deep, deep understanding that we all deserve love. Not from the cutie down the hall who smiles because she's never seen us mad or in our underwear, but from the person who has seen us at our worst and still loves us and from the God who is grieved when we lose sight of it, because He loves us more than anyone else could.

So I pray for your marriage tonight and if you have already walked that hard road called divorce, you are not alone, I've been there once myself and I hold you up. I pray your heart heals, your spirit is renewed and that love on this side of life finds you once more, because I'm certain there is love on the other side.

God bless you.