If you are reading my gardening blog for the first time… this is a series on how I became a homemaker and began working on a better garden and retreat at home.
My story continues with what I did during the two months as I waited for Danny to call me. I had completed my BSN degree in 2002. Until that time I had been working as a staff nurse, with an AD degree. Worldly ambitions had placed me in pursuit of an office job in management. My hearts ambitions had always been… to be home with my children and raise a strong family.
As I said before, those two months were the most supernaturally peaceful time I have ever had during my entire life. There had never been before, or has been since, a time like this for me. I had a very stable nursing job in Labor and Delivery and was respected for my capabilities as charge nurse and floor nurse. Work seemed easier, since I didn’t have to go home and deal with conflict.
Although I could run a very busy Labor and Delivery floor, assist in surgery, and prevent deaths, by dealing with emergencies quickly, I could not keep my marriage from dying.
And I didn’t want to. I was tired. I could not stand the hurt and pain of married life any more, and just wanted to be free. So I spent the next two months searching the Bible for just one verse that would give me an out. JUST ONE.
God had been there with me through all those years of nursing, handling nursing emergencies, raising our children, and I loved Him greatly and wanted to please Him. I would not take an out unless it was clear from His Word that there was one.
Even greater peace came to me as I searched for verses. I read the Psalms about deliverance, being sustained, what to do when distressed, and what God’s mercy and truth looked like. (See Psalms 54, 55, 56,57) I read Proverbs searching for wisdom. And I looked up any passage I could find about divorce.
Divorce starts in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 24 and gives an out for a man who has an unfaithful wife. He was to write her a bill of divorcement. Malachi 2:14-16 is another good scripture in the Old Testament pertaining to divorce.
Jesus taught about divorce in Matthew 19:3-12, Mark 10:2-12, and Luke 16:18. The only legal grounds for divorce was if your spouse committed adultery, which had not occurred in our marriage unless you consider Matthew 5:28.
You would be committing adultery if you divorced and remarried, but what if you didn’t remarry??
The Bible classes I am attending right now, just covered divorce last Monday night. John Yates teaches the material and notes that for a non-adulterous partner…”You are to forgive and to seek restoration, especially for a single act of unfaithfulness. Not to do so is legal, but is hardness of heart. You are permitted but never encouraged to divorce.”
John Yates also wrote, “God actually shuts the door on divorce much earlier as He declares in Malachi 2: 13-16 that He not only hates divorce, but that those who divorce their mates are in danger of being cut off from God receiving their worship or prayers. Divorce without remarriage does not solve the problem of divorce.” (pp. 285-286 Faith Bible Institute Vol. II) (John Yates says that if you have already divorced and re-married, then you are to seek God’s forgiveness and stay in the marriage you are in. It would not make it right to try to go back to your first marriage as you would be committing adultery all over again.)
During this time of separation, after just a few weeks, I had well-meaning co-workers trying to set me up with someone new. I later found out Danny’s co-workers were doing the same thing.
As a side note to the story, I would just like to say, if someone is having a hard time in their marriage, you are not being a friend, unless you encourage them to work it out, you are actually leading them to be disobedient to God and will set them on a course for God’s judgement.
So stay out of other people’s marriages!!! Matthew 19:6
(This does not apply to those in physically dangerous situations, of course.)
I hate Amish, Christian (and I use that term loosely), fiction, because most of it is written like a trashy paperback novel. But during this time I discovered an Amish fiction series by Carrie Bender, called Miriam’s Journal. It gives what I think is a truer picture of what Amish life looks like, and it gave me peace to read about how those sweet families worked on their farms, loving and supporting each other, while trying to stay in God’s will for their lives. I kept coming on a phrase in the books about giving up your self-will and wondered… What does that mean? How do you give up your “self-will”?
My indescribable, supernatural, peace continued, and then… Danny called… as he had promised… to make our first date. Our first conversation, after two months, was very strained, awkward, and stilted, but the arrangements for our first date were made. Danny explained how to get into his gated apartment complex. I was to meet him at his apartment and we would go out to eat.
All week I worried, and prayed, and stewed, about our situation. The peace had been such a wonderful time in my life. I didn’t want it to end. I also didn’t want to endure the emotional turmoil that any of our conversations provoked.
FEAR engulfed me.
We were going out on Friday night. On Thursday, I called and broke our date. (Stay tuned.)
“Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.” Psalms 56:1
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