8. Divorce: The Ultimate Humiliation
8
Divorce
The Ultimate Humiliation
Among the many letters I received after Jim’s death came one from a college classmate of his, telling me how her husband (a missionary) had walked into the kitchen one day with the grocery bags, banged them down on the counter, said, “I’m leaving you,” turned on his heel, and walked out the door. She wanted me to be aware that there are much worse ways of losing a husband than death. I have never had any doubt about that.
Divorce is a terrible thing. I should think divorced people would hate it almost as much as God does. But it is happening all the time, smashing families and individual lives to bits, and creating chaos in church and society. Since I have not walked that road, I asked permission to use the following letter from another who has. It came on a card on which were printed the words of Psalm 68:6 (NASB): “God makes a home for the lonely.”
I was reading the Psalms one night when I really saw that verse for the first time. I was still making the adjustment to coming home to an empty apartment at night and I was more scared than I wanted to admit. . . . There were no notes waiting when I opened the door, no signs of life, and worst of all, no one expecting me. The reality was beginning to sink in: despite friends and family who cared about me, I was essentially alone for the first time in my life.
So I was surprised—even shocked—to see my situation right there in print. God makes a home for the lonely. How? It seemed to me to be a rather bold statement. Yet I knew from experience that God does not make empty promises.
When we think of being lonely, we usually mean that there are no people around; no one with us, no one to talk to. Or else we find that the people around us are “not on our wavelength”—they don’t understand us, and that can be worse than no company at all. So loneliness in my experience is not relieved by just anyone’s company. It needs to be someone special—someone who understands me, someone who can listen and be there when I need them. It was this last part that forced me to confront the depth of my own loneliness. Of all my friends, no one person could be with me all the time. And even if they could, none of them had the power to do anything about my situation. It was ultimately my problem.
Yet here was the Bible saying that God could do something about my loneliness. As a matter of fact, if you look at the rest of the psalm, it says that God can “do something” about a lot of things. Nothing is too hard for Him. The psalmist goes on to elaborate from history exactly what that means: God is always on the side of His people in their battle for survival; from the massive exodus from Egypt to the individual plight of widows and orphans. He cares about justice. He is full of mercy. The giant scope of His power in world affairs does not cause Him to overlook our individual concerns. And He has come to earth to prove it. Because of that he can sympathize with our weakness. He understands our feelings because, being human, He has experienced loneliness too.
Here’s a Person who not only understands me but who fascinates me—a Person whom I have become thrilled to know. Christ calls me out of my natural self-centeredness by listening to my cries and then showing me the bigger picture. The better I come to know Him, the more I become interested in what He is interested in—the more I live and breathe for His Kingdom to come, for things to be done on earth as they are in heaven.
As the time of year approaches when we begin talking about going home for the holidays, these things become even more real to me. Where is my home ultimately? My home is where Christ is. My apartment has become a home because I share it with Him. As I have worked to make it a comfortable place to be, I have discovered new ways of expressing the gift of hospitality that He has nurtured in me through the years. God has made a home for me in order for me to share that home with others.
“God makes a home for the lonely” can also be translated “God sets the lonely in families.” Through the last year I have come to know the reality of a much bigger family than my own natural family, dear as they are to me. My larger family are those who also know Christ in an intimate way. They are the ones who have listened to my cries and at the same time encouraged me to consider issues larger than myself. They are the ones whom God has used not only to relieve my loneliness, but to deepen my love for the kingdom. As I find my place of service within the community of God’s people, there is little time left to feel lonely!
My joy is becoming less dependent upon my own immediate circumstances and more attached to what He is doing. As limited as my understanding is now, I know that He is a God who never loses, a God who has taken the ultimate humiliation and defeat and turned it inside out. Somehow my ruined plans fit into His larger plans. And so in the moments when I am forced to face my own loneliness, I find that I am not really alone at all!
It is good to hear things said by more than one witness. I am so glad Bonnie’s letter came at just the right time to be included here. She and I have been reading the same Book, have found its truth transforming. God is in the business of “turning things inside out.”
This illustrates just what I want to say about the gift of loneliness. Bonnie’s has become not only a gift for her (look at the spiritual gains), but, like all God’s gifts, a gift for the rest of us—the people who share her hospitality, for example, and the people whom she is now able to console, including you and me.
She testifies that she no longer has much time to brood about it, a present-day corroboration of Paul’s words to the Roman Christians:
We can be full of joy here and now even in our trials and troubles. These very things will give us patient endurance; this in turn will develop a mature character, and a character of this sort produces a steady hope, a hope that will never disappoint us.
Romans 5:3–5 Phillips
If God had eliminated the problem He would have eliminated the particular kind of blessing which it bears. If Bonnie had not taken her troubles in the right spirit, she would have missed that blessing. By acceptance she was laying her will alongside His, willing to cooperate, willing to put herself in the yoke with Him. It sounds to me as though she is actually finding that his yoke, so burdensome if borne all alone, is light. She has found that acceptance brings peace.