An Open Letter to Unhappy Christian Wives

Dear Unhappy,

I want to express my sorrow about your marriage grief. Grappling with complicated relationship issues can be so overwhelming. Please enlist people to earnestly pray for you.

I believe in the Body of Christ concept that we are all One Body. When one person in the Body suffers, the whole Body suffers. Because of this fellow believers need to rally around hurting members and lead them to the Healer, who has all the answers. I pray these words will reveal what God wants for you and for your family.

I understand that in response to your sorrow, the D word has entered your life. The question of divorce is heart wrenching but surprisingly uncomplicated, from a Christian perspective. This is due to the very narrow allowances in scripture for divorce. God tells us for our own good, and for the good of the Body of Believers, that we mustn't get divorced except in cases of adultery, or when an unbelieving spouse abandons a believing spouse. See http://carm.org/what-does-bible-teach-about-divorce for the relevant scriptural references and for questions regarding remarriage.

If neither of these--adultery or abandonment--apply to your marriage, you cannot get divorced without disobeying God, though if you are being abused and are unsafe in your home, leave the premises as soon as possible. Physical distance from the abuser is extremely important.

If you choose to disobey God and pursue a non-biblical divorce, you must weigh the consequences for you, your children, and your husband. God will surely forgive you if you sincerely seek his forgiveness at some future time, but you must be truly sorry for having left your marriage union, and as part of heartfelt repentance, you must seek reconciliation with your spouse, if he has not yet remarried. At the very least, you must seek your former spouse's forgiveness.

Also, scripture does not allow for you to remarry. If you try to seek a relationship with a sincere, growing Christian man, he will want to know the circumstances surrounding your divorce. If it wasn't biblical, only a marginal Christian man would be interested in pursuing the relationship. A mature Christian man would not seek to defy God.

Secondly, you will complicate the developing faith of your children (and your husband's faith, if he has any), as they watch you defy God and try to make your own way in the world. When we disobey God we are stepping outside of His protection--essentially saying we know more than the God of the Universe does. We can handle our problems better than He can. 

That all sounds overwhelming, doesn't it? No one increases their personal peace through non-biblical divorce. Many people will be spiritually hurt by the divorce and possibly for generations, it will spiritually stain your family. Children of divorced parents are more likely to get divorced themselves, and second marriages are far less successful than first marriages (80% divorce rate, compared with 50% for first marriages), especially in the cases of non-biblical divorces from the first spouse.

What would be better than divorce? Making Jesus your Lord. This means he runs all aspects of your life, and you live for him and serve him, out of an overwhelming gratitude and love for Him and what he has done for you. If you have lost touch with that radical love for Jesus Christ, pray that God will renew the fire in your heart. 

When you live with a non-believer or with a person who doesn't pursue a relationship with God, it can easily drag you down spiritually. You need to be very diligent to keep the fire in your heart alive, by reading your Bible and praying regularly. Every time we open our Bible or pray to God, it renews a relationship. It nurtures and protects a beautiful bond. When we neglect that time with God, Satan gains a foothold in our lives.

Divorce is Satan's most successful tactic. Over time, it can destroy a society. Satan breeds discontent in the hearts of believers and the discontent leads to sin. If the believer doesn't put a halt to the discontent and embrace thankfulness instead, Satan wins. 

When you accepted Jesus as your Savior, you became his. He paid the ransom for us--he brought us--and if we never receive another blessing at all, we have enough. God is enough. Eternity is enough. When we deceive ourselves into thinking otherwise, great pain is in store for us. 

Every wife has a laundry list of things she doesn't like about her husband. Every husband has the same. Many of the items can be heartrendingly difficult to endure, without Jesus as Lord. But as in all hardship, we must remember that the Christian life has never been about us or about our happiness. It is about serving Him and bringing Him glory. By enduring hardship in a god-honoring way, we bring glory to Him. In fact, how we endure hardship defines us as Christians. 

When we set our minds on the things of the Spirit (keep our eyes fixated on God), whether we are happy or not on a daily basis becomes irrelevant, as it did for the Apostle Paul when he was in prison.

Romans 8:5-8 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 

For more on what the bible says about hardship and sacrifices, see this http://www.openbible.info/topics/sacrifices_and_hardship

I urge you to start a thankfulness list for your life in general, not just for your marriage. Satan hates thankfulness but God loves it. We are told many places in scripture to live with a thankful heart...even when circumstances are less than ideal.

1 Thessolonians 5:18  give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

You will find that a heart of thankfulness will increase your marriage happiness many fold. You will concentrate not on what's wrong with your spouse, but on all that's right. Eventually, if you commit to having a grateful heart, all the reasons you wanted to seek a divorce will pass away in importance. 

Rest assured that if you make Jesus your Lord and develop a grateful heart, He will diligently work behind the scenes, creating beauty from ashes. Your own heart, devoted to the Lord, will win your husband over. Nagging makes most people dig their heals in deeper rather than change, because as human beings, we seek unconditional love. It's only when we feel unconditionally loved that we give our best to others. 

Give your husband the gift of unconditional love, for it is the same gift your Father gave you. Jesus loved us sacrificially and this is the same love he requires from us, for our fellow man. 

The Bible tells men to love their wives, but it tells women to respect their husbands. Men need to feel respected, more than loved. I think it's accurate to say that respect is love, from their perspective. It is part of the way God created them. When we nag or complain, we are not showing respect and it hurts a man at his core. 

So, giving a man a list and asking him to change is the worst thing we can do. Also, it is arrogant, since we are all sinners and we all need to change. We will never be all that a spouse wants. We can't be. And no spouse can meet all of our needs, which is why we need personal relationships with God, the ultimate and perfect Lover of our souls. Our marriage relationship can't define us. Our relationship with God defines us. 

Change starts in our own hearts and with our own humility, especially in the context of marriage. If we set our gaze on God and on His purposes, the overwhelming peace emanating from us will be contagious, and all in our midst, including our spouse, will want what we have. The Bible tells us we win over a wayward husband by the reverence of our lives. And what is complaining and putting conditions on our love and devotion? Is it reverent?

I'm not saying you shouldn't lovingly pursue conversations about marriage issues, but they should never be associated with the D word (divorce). Throwing the D word around is akin to bullying one's spouse. To be fully engaged and committed, each spouse needs assurance that the other spouse is in the marriage for life. This level of commitment is essential for the health of any marriage. 

All issues should be committed to prayer before being discussed with the spouse. The prayer will reveal, over time, how to approach the spouse about the issue, and it will prepare the spouse's heart to receive feedback about the issue. Let prayer guide your marriage entirely. For prayer is your communication with the Holy Spirit (and to a lesser extent, your time reading the Bible is too). Reading the Bible reveals God's heart to you, and praying helps make God's heart personal to you and your needs. You will know God's perfect and pleasing will, through your prayer time and your reading time.

Again, I express my sorrow about what you are going through. I pray these words will point you to the Healer. To your first Love. May God richly bless you, your family, and your legacy.

My Own Thankfulness List:

- a beautiful time with Christian friends

- a marriage molded by grace

- a dinner invitation given to a neighbor

- the radical nature of Christ's love 

- that change always starts with us

- a hernia surgery scheduled for next week and no money required up front

- a son practicing piano

- dancing daughters

- the Chronicles of Narnia series

- dinner time with my family

- the meat, milk, eggs, bread prices at Aldi's

- the power of the Word 

- 4 days of caring for babies at VBS this week

- my children's contagious excitement about VBS

- Miss Beth's first time at VBS 

To read about the outcome of this letter for the person I wrote it to, click: Unhappy Christian Wives, Part 2

Another helpful post: 3 Christian Marriage Essentials