A letter from my heart to yours:

Dear Family and Friends,

As I was writing this chapter, I read back in my journal and found the following letter. I don’t remember who I was thinking about when I wrote it (I never sent it), but it could have been for any one of you. I hope as you read this material that you are doing well,  but just in case you are going through a hard time, I hope you get a blessing from reading it.

“Dear Child,

I’ve been watching and listening. I knew this time would probably come, even though I prayed it wouldn’t. Your early days of being married are but a memory and you’ve come to the place where you may be asking yourself, “WHAT DID I GET INTO?”

One woman said, “When I got married I was looking for the ideal…It turned into an ordeal, and now I want a NEW deal!” Do you feel that same way?

I’ve seen your looks of concern—the hurt in your face. I’ve heard the tension in your voice, and I believe you have come to understand what Mom and I learned a long time ago: IT’S HARD TO STAY MARRIED.

The dreams you had—what your marriage was going to be—have become the nightmare of what it really is and you are wondering:

            “Did I make a mistake? Marry the wrong person? Marry too young?”
            “Is there someone else I would be happier with?”
            “Should I have married at all?”

I’m glad you chose to be married! I know marriage is a risky venture. Most marriages end with divorce, and too many who stay married are walking wounded. Here’s what I hope: I hope you will let the Lord help you be strong enough to stay married through the tough times and discover what your mom and I have found.

I’m praying for you. If there is anything I can do to help, please ask. I love you.”

DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN YOUR LOVE WAS FRESH AND ALIVE?

Do you remember the excitement of first love? In the beginning it was like the crashing of two rivers meeting. You were drawn to each other and experienced a FACE-TO-FACE intimate relationship. You shared every emotion and worked together to solve every problem. Remember sharing all your thoughts, emotions, hopes, and dreams? Remember how you wouldn’t let anything interfere with this intimacy? Too many times we call these the “good old days.”

ALL MARRIAGES STRUGGLE.

If you’ve chosen to read this chapter today, it may be because your marriage has become difficult. Marriage takes hard work and can be very difficult, but when sin enters, our love for God decreases and our love for each other gets crowded out, lost, or forgotten. God designed marriage to be a blessing, but sometimes it looks more like a bombed out building. Instead of being the total commitment of the total person for the total life, it’s just totaled! Marriage, God’s intended blessing, becomes difficult and warped. Every married couple learns that SOMETIMES IT’S HARD TO STAY MARRIED!

In the last three months several of my dear friends have made known in public what they have felt for months, and, in some cases, years. Their marriages, once vibrant and alive, have died. The final blow to three of them is immorality. The other two “just can’t face another day of trying to keep it together.” Everyone who loves them has been worried about them. We’ve all encouraged them, prayed for them, and tried to help. Some have talked when they should have been quiet, and some have been quiet when they should have spoken up. In each of these situations though, there were symptoms—a growing distance between the couple—a growing anger or hurt. A wall of unspoken words and unresolved problems has grown in between man and wife.

WHICH PHASE OF RELATIONSHIP BEST DESCRIBES YOURS? WE ARE     –    FACE TO FACE – SIDE BY SIDE – BACK TO BACK – SEPARATED

WHEN MARRIAGES DIE

Unless you begin to take steps to renew your relationship, your marriage will become BACK-TO-BACK, more like “married singles,” a place where many marriages die.

Sometimes, when a marriage gets sick or dies, everyone feels helpless—just like when someone is physically sick and on life support in a hospital! The patient doesn’t seem to know what to do. His friends sit in the waiting room and can only see him for minutes at a time. It’s the same way with a sick or dying marriage. We see them fighting for their marriage, and like our friend in the hospital, we wait. We wait for the crisis to pass and the “patient” to get better. Sometimes we wait, only to hear from the doctor that our friend died.

WHAT MAKES US WANT TO QUIT?

The words of a great song say, “Daddy, please find a reason to stay with my mommy. Daddy, we both love you. Please don’t leave….but if you can’t find a reason, Daddy, I really wouldn’t’ mind, if you’d let that reason be me” (Steve and Annie Chapman). I think most unfaithful or divorced folks tried with all their strength to make their marriages work. It wasn’t that they couldn’t find a reason to stay, but that, when human love ran out, they came to a place where they just couldn’t try anymore. Most I know didn’t run away; they limped or crawled away just to survive. They had nothing more to give. What was offered wasn’t enough. There was nothing left to keep them together. So, what makes us want to quit?

When sin entered the world, it entered all of our lives. It seeps into our relationships. Weariness, unresolved conflicts, unanswered questions and unfinished conversations replace passion and hope. Our dreams are crowded out by responsibilities and the immediate. Our “shared dreams” move in and out of focus and often die. This is one of those crisis points in our lives when we have to make critical decisions. In this case, what we choose will either take our marriage through the difficult times or doom it to divorce.

“WHAT SHOULD I DO?”

I attended a “Pastors and Wives Conference” where the speakers were a husband and wife who had separated, been restored, and were now serving the Lord together again. The pastor said, “I thank you for asking us to come speak to you, but I am not qualified. Let me introduce you to someone who is.” With that he introduced his wife who had trusted the Lord and been used by God to help restore her husband. I remember her words,

One of you may be saying, “But, Bill, I can see what that woman did and how it worked out for her…but what should I do?”

  • Should I separate? Stay married, but live apart?
  • Should I get a legal separation?
  • Should I go see a lawyer and checkout my legal options?
  • If I don’t get a divorce, and continue to see him, will I just be enabling him to  “have his cake and eat it too?”
  • Should I stay in the house? Should I move to where my family lives?

What should I do?

SO YOU THINK YOU ARE READY TO QUIT?

As I write this today I want to ask you two different questions:

  • ”What does God want?” (Not: “What do I feel like doing?”)
  • ”What should you do?” (Not: “What do I want to do?”)

If you think you are facing a divorce, whether you are the person who wants out, or the one who is being abandoned, I’m sure you are feeling the conflict of indecision. Maybe you know what you FEEL like doing, or you know what your family or best friends FEEL you should do. Maybe you’re “making a list and checking it twice” to figure out how to explain or justify your decision, but what does God want you to do? Make no mistake, God hates divorce! (Malachi 2:16) No matter who is at fault, no matter who stays or goes, God hates divorce!

Consider the consequences.

As with broken bodies, broken hearts hurt. No matter who chooses to quit the marriage or whether you feel divorce is your only way out, don’t be fooled. Consider the consequences; they’re real and lasting.

  • Divorce hurts. It’s never an escape from pain and it always hurts everyone.
  • Divorce cuts every heart and mind with wounds that only God can heal.
  • Divorce will affect you spiritually. You will struggle. It will make you feel, “Somehow I let God down,” or “God let me down.” It will affect your prayer life, your worship, your Bible reading, you confidence in your own faith, your freedom to confidently tell people of the God who answers prayer. One woman confided, “Even after being married for 27 years to a wonderful man and father, I still feel pain for my children who were not raised with their biological father.”
  • Divorce bankrupts people financially, emotionally, and physically.
  • Divorce always changes your friendships. “Our friends” become “his friends” or “her friends”…or drift away from both of you! Even “your friends” may become distant, unable to relate to your pain, loneliness, and anger. They may withdraw from you because they don’t know what to say or do.
  • Divorce, for any reason, will change you. No matter how forgiven or forgiving you are, it will leave you hardened, less trusting, more self-protecting, and self-centered.
  • Divorce always leaves holes in the hearts of those divorced, their friends, and their church, but mostly it harms children for a lifetime.

WORKING THROUGH THE TRIALS OF MARRIAGE.

Years ago I heard someone preach a sermon about Jesus’ first miracle. It’s been called “When the wine runs out.” In John 4 Jesus is visiting a wedding, and there are more guests than refreshment. Jesus’ mother, Mary, told the wedding coordinator to go to Jesus and “whatsoever He tells you to do, do it.” What a story: the filling of pots with water, Jesus turning them to pots of wine, and the wedding host declaring, “This is the best wine!” Jesus turned a trial into a triumph!

When your wine, or your love, runs out, it may be that you have been giving away your human love, and “it’s just run out.” Maybe you need the Lord to turn your “water into wine”—your human love into godly, unconditional love. It is limitless.

Seeing your mate through God’s eyes – 

Chances are when you first fell in love you looked at your loved one like they are PROSPECTS – God and you can change them or live with their weaknesses. You noticed the weaknesses of your mate, and you loved them anyway. Maybe you saw these weaknesses as areas of vulnerability, and you saw an opportunity to protect him. He made you feel needed. Maybe you’ve come to see these weaknesses more as inconveniences, and you’ve grown resentful. Maybe your mate had courage enough to believe he might be able to overcome those lifelong flaws because of your love and acceptance.

Have you started looking at them as SUSPECTS. You look for them to hurt you. Maybe now, because of your growing resentment, you point out these flaws to him at every opportunity, and he has lost the courage to even try to change.

Have you forgotten? Your mate is a priceless treasure (to God, if not to you). He has an overwhelming value because Jesus Christ died for him! If you, seeing his problems, were to place a price tag on them, equal to the price that you’d pay for them, would you label them “DAMAGED GOODS, HALF OFF”? Or do you see them through God’s eyes and see them as “PRICELESS!” (Romans 5:8; John 3:16) How have you been treating your mate? As a priceless treasure, one for whom Christ died? As one who belongs to the Lord? You say, “Well, you don’t know how stupid he’s been! You don’t know how he has let me down! You don’t know what he said to me! You don’t know how he has hurt me!”

And I say, “I thought you loved him…not just enjoyed or used him for what he made you feel or what he did for you.” I say, “It sounds like your human love is gone and you need to go to Jesus.” What will you find? Real everlasting love. God is the real source of love. God is love (1 John 3:1).

Giving Them God’s love.

How do I get it? When we become Christians, the Lord gives us the Holy Spirit who begins to produce the likeness of Jesus in our lives (Galatians 5:22). It’s God’s love TO us and then God’s love THROUGH us. Please stop and think; maybe you have the wrong definition of love.

I remember a speaker asking me to give the quality of my love a test. He said, “Take 1 Corinthians 13:4 and place your name in the place of ‘love.’ This will test the quality of love you are giving others.”

1 CORINTHIANS 13:4-8 “Love (Bill) is patient; Love (Bill) is kind. Love (Bill) does not envy; Love (Bill) does not boast. Love (Bill) is not proud. Love (Bill) is not rude; Love (Bill) is not self-seeking. Love (Bill) is not easily angered. Love (Bill) keeps no record of wrongs. Love (Bill) does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Love (Bill) always protects; Love (Bill) always trusts. Love (Bill) always hopes; Love (Bill) always perseveres. Love (Bill) never fails.”

At the speaker’s encouragement I gave myself the test and was brought under tremendous conviction. I had been giving away a second-rate love, and I needed to go to the source of love and ask Him to love my wife and children through me!

SOMETIMES REAL LOVE JUST GETS CROWDED OUT! 

In Revelation 2:2-5, Jesus identifies how hard the people were working and how they were committed to truth. But they were crowding out love. In verse four he says, “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! 5) Look how far you have fallen from your first love! Turn back to me again and work as you did at first. If you don’t, I will come and remove your lamp stand from its place among the churches.”

Have you become so busy doing good things you have quit doing the most important thing? Have you gotten too busy, too distracted, to love the Lord and each other? God has a prescription for lost love. His method for restoring our relationship with Him will also help restore our relationship with our mate. Perhaps this is a project you need to work through.

GOD’S PRESCRIPTION FOR RESTORING LOST LOVE:

1. REMEMBER.

WHAT YOUR LOVE WAS AT FIRST. 
Remember…

  • What first attracted you to him/her. Where you were. What you saw and smelled?
  • The first time you touched hands…and kissed?
  • The way you felt when you first knew you loved them?
  • The first intimate touch? The first time you shared sexually?
  • A time when you hurt, and they comforted you.
  • A time when you enjoyed the intimacy, when nothing separated you.

THE LONG TERM DREAMS THAT FOCUSED YOUR MINDS.
Remember…

  • When you first planned to marry. Who you told first.
  • What your first home together was like.
  • What your happiest memories were there.
  • How you felt when you first heard you were going to have a child.
  • The dreams you had for your vocation.
  • Your greatest accomplishments together.

THE PROMISES YOU COMMITTED YOURSELVES TO.
Remember…

  • “I take you to be my wedded wife/husband. To have and to hold from this day forward; for better for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God’s Holy Word.”
  • Other promises you made to each other.

2. REPENT.

  • Repent means: “To have a change of mind that brings about a change in behavior” or “To be sorry enough about your behavior to ask God to help you change.”

3. REDO.

  • Notice the Scripture doesn’t say “RE-FEEL” it says REDO.

Do the things you did at first. Feelings come and go. Feeling love comes and goes; choosing to receive love from God so I can give love to my mate is a matter of daily choice.

4. OR ELSE.

  • There is always a consequence to our choosing to sin. When we fail to love the Lord, when we fail to love each other, the LAMP STAND goes out of our faith, our life, and our relationships. It begins to die.

5. IT’S YOUR CHOICE!

  • You can choose to exhaust yourself by trying to “save your marriage,” and no matter what you do your mate may not cooperate, or you can choose to trust the Lord to live in your life and help you to make right choices that lead to peace of mind even though there may be war in your relationship. What will you choose…daily? A path of destruction or a new life?

PRACTICAL PROJECTS WE CAN TRY:

  1.         Have you committed yourself to being faithful to God?
  2.         Have you committed yourself to allowing the Lord to work in and through you?
  3.         Have you reviewed the promises you made to God and to your mate when you married?
  4.         Are you (and I hope your mate) being teammates to build a healthy marriage?
  5.         Are you weeding through your lives, schedule, distractions to focus on what will help you keep from crowding out your relationship with God, your mate, and your children?
  6.         Are you believing the lie that “quality time” is as good as quantity time? Are you
    believing time spent in the same room (i.e., watching TV) is as good as time spent listening to each other’s heart?
  7.         Are you allowing the Lord to bring healing in your past so you will be a healthy tool for Him to use in loving your mate? Some of the things that prevent us from investing emotionally in each other are insecurities (past hurts, current behavior—by either spouse, or a belief about who we are and what gives us value), stress (financial, problems with the kids, grief, health, etc.), and unmet expectations (when our mate keeps letting us down, when we don’t measure up to our own expectations, or when life just isn’t going as planned). This is an area where you could really get into a lot of the real life dirt in our marriages: extreme debt, gambling addictions, pornography, perfectionism, laziness, alcoholism, molestation of one of the children, physical abuse, deception, dealing with the death of a child, etc.
    8.         Do you understand that you and your marriage are NEVER a finished product and that EVERY person and couple needs to be getting help from someone whose life experience will help you take the next step to maturity?
  8.         Do you understand that remembering your first love, or learning what God intended your love to be, is only the first step in falling in love again and finding healing for your relationship?
  9.       All marriages, families, friendships, and church relationships are created and sustained by difficult choices.
  10.       Are you letting God change and mold your thinking by hiding His word in your heart?

PRACTICAL HELP FROM GOD’S WORD:

From my journal December 11, 1971.
It has been a hard week. I had decided to divorce my wife, leave my children, and leave the ministry. I had no more energy or hope to run on. A friend of mine asked me as a favor to attend a program on the family and so as a last resort I attended. I don’t remember the subject of the message that night but the Lord spoke into my life and gave me hope. God was not finished with me yet! If God wasn’t finished with me yet, maybe he wasn’t finished with my wife. If he wasn’t finished with Bobbi or me, maybe he wasn’t finished with our marriage or our family. I decided to ask God to forgive me and give me the Love promised in Galatians 5:22.

Writing today:

I’m so grateful that the Lord and my family showed me true love and were patient with me while true love grew in my heart. When I was first married, I gave a love that frankly wasn’t worth giving away. I’m praying that before I’m called to heaven, when all of me and all my old worn out love is gone, you will see me giving my sweet Bobbi and those in my world only royal love.

I’m praying for you. The Lord wants to fill your life with His love so you can have His love to give to everyone in your world. Thank you for reading this tough chapter.

Bill