DEALING WITH DIVORCE

"It's impossible to overstate the damage done by divorce. More than just about any of the other losses a person can experience, it permeates through every part of your life. It changes your identity from being part of a couple to being a single person. If you have kids, divorce turns their world upside down. Your friends take sides or get weird. You undergo massive lifestyle and geographical changes. The financial implications can be devastating. Divorce means you have to learn the rules of life all over again. Gone is the safety of knowing you belong to someone who will care about you and always be there. You no longer have the blessing of a soul mate with whom you can walk through the joys and tears of life, each feeling what the other feels. Divorce rips away your hopes and dreams of building and growing in love and intimacy. The deepest parts of your soul, where reside the most precious, fragile and vulnerable parts of your heart, are shattered and torn apart. Divorce breaks your heart. No wonder God thunders that he hates divorce (Malachi 2:16)."I hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel... It breaks the hearts of those He loves." From God Will Make A Way, What To Do When You Don't Know What To Do by Dr. Henry Cloud, Dr. John Townsend

"If you are not recovering from your divorce as quickly as you would like, it may simply be an indication that you loved deeply. You likely experienced your marriage as God experienced it. You were deeply committed; you cast your lot in life with a partner and gave unreservedly, you gave up individual conveniences and freedoms for the greater good of the covenant, and you literally gave your life for something larger than the two of you individually. Is it any wonder that it sometimes takes a long time to move on? The only way you would be able to "get over it and put it behind you" quickly would be if there had not been that much there in the first place. The depth that you have loved another is the depth to which that person can hurt you. It is as simple as that."FromGod Will Make A Way, What To Do When You Don't Know What To Do by Dr. Henry Cloud, Dr. John Townsend

"A divorce is by definition, a loss. In fact, one of the Hebrew words for divorce speaks of "cutting or severing a bond." Something has been lost. The loss is real, genuine and deep and it must be grieved. Grief is accepting the reality of what is. It is internalizing the reality of the severing of the marriage bond on both the intellectual and emotional levels of the heart...When you allow yourself to embrace the sadness and shed the tears for what you have truly lost through divorce, then you can move on to a new phase of life when grief tells you its time. It is important to note that those who have not fully grieved the losses of their divorce are in jeopardy of either never getting over it or repeating it. What does it mean to embrace grief in divorce? It means many things, including:

• Allowing painful feelings to come and go, without prohibiting them

• Reaching out to others to comfort and support you through this, rather than going it alone

• Putting an end to the protests and arguments in your head about how it shouldn't have happened, or whose fault it was or was not.

Grief doesn't allow us to be right, strong, and in control. Grief basically says, "You loved and you lost". It hurts. Yet God is on the other side, waiting, with his safe people, to catch hold and restore us. From God Will Make A Way, What To Do When You Don't Know What To Do by Dr. Henry Cloud, Dr. John Townsend