What??? Are you serious???
Yes. I'm not happy, I haven't been in a long time. I want a divorce.
Maybe I should have seen it coming. We were two years into our walk with the Lord, and I hadn't seen the red flags. Bob and I were baptized together shortly after my born-again experience. He saw a change in me so he came to the prayer meetings Eli and Van hosted in their home once a week. He had talks with Eli, and he came to believe in Jesus. It was February two years ago, and I had had a strong impression that I should get baptized. In fact it was so strong that I told Elie I had to get it done as soon as possible.
Where do you get baptized in the wintertime? All I knew is that was the order I was given so we began to think about ways to get it done. Elie said maybe we could rent the local indoor swimming pool for an evening. We thought and thought, pondered and scratched our brains. Until one day ...
A woman came to my door. She was selling something and I invited her in. Come to find out, she was a believer. Oh WOW I thought. How exciting to meet another believer. I told her about my conversion and Bob's conversion and about the prayer meeting we attended. Then I told her about the Lord's order that we get baptized, and how we just couldn't figure out how to go about it. "Oh," she said, "our church has a baptismal tank. I'll ask the pastor. In fact, we're having a meeting tonight and I'll ask him and get back to you."
I was in awe. The Lord gives you an order to do something that seems impossible, then he makes the way for you to do it. I was finding my life in Christ very exciting. And sure enough, a day or so later she called to tell me her pastor would be willing to baptize us on the condition that we meet with him first so he could determine if we knew what we were doing, and if our conversion was real. So we met with him. Actually five of us met with him, right in Elie's livingroom. Bob and myself, Bob's brother who had joined the group, and two other regular-attenders who hadn't yet been baptized. The
pastor questioned us individually and was satisfied that we truly had surrendered our lives to Christ and were ready to be baptized.
February 25 of that year was one of the most glorious days of my life. In fact, the woman who brought me to this pastor attended the baptisms, and she said that when I came up out of the water I was actually glowing. And I believe it, because I actually felt lit up from the inside out.
For the next two years Bob continued to attend the prayer meetings, and began working with Elie on a local tv station they were setting up. Bob became very frustrated with a couple of the guys working with them. They were new in the Lord, and immature. And he bristled at the way they acted.
Not long after, Bob stopped coming to the meetings. He told me he was very busy on his job and couldn't get home in time. I suggested we could change the night we meet, but he just said no.
This went on for a long time, and I had no idea. Looking back, I realize how naive I was. There were all kinds of "red flags," but I refused to see them. I started having troubling dreams, but I ignored them. I had been praying for Bob for a long time, but there was no answer.
Finally one day he came home and told me he was being transferred back to the Boston suburb. In fact, he said, he had his choice of three senior positions available to him.
Well ...I was not ready to move. The very thought of going back to the big city made me nauseous. So I began to pray fervently. "Lord," I cried, "I'm just not ready for this."
All three of those doors closed on him. We were staying here.
For awhile.
Life went on as it was for a couple more years. And then he told me he was being transferred back there and this time it wasn't going to fall through. Did I want to come?
"What do you mean, 'do I want to come?"
"I want a divorce."
And that sent me reeling. I began to see why he would not come to prayer meetings. He wanted a divorce.
I asked him why he would do something that opposed the Word of God. He said to me, "Look, I know what I want out of life and if God won't get it for me, I'll do it myself."
Horrified, I asked, "You have no fear to make such a statement?"
"No," he said. "I refuse to submit to anyone, even God. I know what I want he hasn't opened it up for me, so I'm going to get it myself."
Needless to say, my knees almost buckled as I staggered in shock.
But then ...
One day he came home and told me that maybe he would be willing "to work things out." If you come to Boston with me, I'll do what I can to make the marriage work."
"Ok," I said, "but I ask one thing of you first. Please don't take me away from my home. my family, my church, my prayer group, my friends, and bring me to the city if you're not sure you want to make this marriage work."
"I am sure," he said.
Little did I know ...he didn't want to leave the abode, because I'd get the house. Women can be so stupid. I never saw it coming.
We left all, and moved to the suburbs. For awhile he played the game. We'd go out into the garden hand-in-hand and walk through the rows of vegetables we'd planted. We'd sit out in the back yard at the picnic table with the kids, eating popcorn. We played a lot of games of Scrabble. Things seemed back to normal.
Until New Year's day.
"Come down to the family room alone. I want us to talk."
So we made sure the kids were busy, and we went down and closed the door.
"It's not working. I want the divorce."
Blindsided. He had taken me here to make sure he wasn't leaving the domicile so that I'd not get the house. I still didn't "get it," though. I wouldn't realize this till much later.
I cried my heart out that night. He went up to bed and I stayed down in the family room all night. I didn't sleep at all. I fell on my knees broken before the Lord. The Lord had given me SUCH encouragement for months, which I had interpreted as his assurance that this was going to work. That's not what he meant at all. But not knowing that, I begged and pleaded and cried all night long.
After a couple hours, I got up and opened my Bible at random, something I never do. I've heard of people that do that, but it seems too much like fortune-telling to me, and I just would never do that. But as I took the Bible, it opened of itself. To this verse:
"But the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord;
he is their strength in the time of trouble.
And the Lord shall help them and deliver them;
he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them,
Because they trust in him."
Psalm 37:39-40
I read that, then closed the Bible back up and went and prayed some more. I think I'd cried every tear of a lifetime of tears that night.
Another couple hours later I went and picked up the Bible again. And of itself, it opened again to that very same place. There was no paper, nothing in the Bible that would cause it to open in that place. Then the third time the same thing happened, I knew it was the Lord, so I sat down and took a close look at what he was saying.
"He shall deliver them from the wicked..."
"Aha," I said! The Lord is going to come against Satan and not let him destroy this family. Satan and his workers are "the wicked," aren't they? So I fully expected that that's exactly what was going to happen.
But of course, it wasn't.
And it wasn't Satan that the Lord was referring to.
