Here are a couple of books I've read on the topic of Divorce and The Step-Family. They've helped me immensely, though I'm a huge advocate of taking what you like and leaving the rest. I don't necessarily agree with all of it, but all of it helped change my perspective on many things. I will add links to Amazon so that you can read a bit of each with more thorough descriptions and reviews.
The first is titled The Smart Step-Family, by Ron L. Deal.
Deal, a family life minister and licensed MFT, looks at every aspect of step-families in the context of a relationship with a forgiving God. It's practical in that he covers many issues faced by step-families everywhere, including the "sea of opposition" facing them, roles in the family, ex-spouses, co-parenting and letters from step-families who "are making it". It was encouraging and convicting.
The other book, Divorce Poison, by Dr. Richard A. Warshak, gives advice on how to recognize and respond to alienation in its many forms, from bad-mouthing to brain-washing, in order to salvage the parent-child relationship. This book offers tools on how to stop reacting and start making a positive change in the relentless cycle of poisoning. Again, this book was very encouraging as well as convicting.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
The "D" word...
Divorce
I know why God hates it.
It hurts just to write it.
It's so much more than custody and property and minor's counsel. Though I have to admit, it was quite cathartic to write those courtroom scenes and that miniature minor's counsel into my novel, All the Wrong Places. The truth is that at the end of the day, none of it matters. The war wages on no matter who is made to pay attorney's fees, no matter who gets the better schedule, because horribly torn and broken people are grasping at anything that might promise an ease to the pain. Children are used as leverage, reality becomes relative and insanity ensues. Casey is fleeing from her dark and destructive marriage, but she can't escape it entirely. I know too well. Sin has its price.
Have you ever seen that paper and glue demonstration? You glue two pieces of paper together and give them an hour or so to set. Did you cringe when they were pulled apart, piece by piece, never to be whole or recognizable again? I did. But I had already been torn to pieces by divorce by the time I saw that demonstration in a marriage conference. Yes, a marriage conference. I had already taken a vow once before, repeating blah, blah, blah, blah, you may now kiss the...figuring I'd give it a go. I mean, it seemed like the logical choice. I must have blacked out during every mention of God or worse or poorer or sickness, and definitely the "till death do us" part. I had bigger worries on my mind. Like the baby I would be bringing into the world in short order and the life I might assemble in desperation to offer it. It seemed like the right thing to do. "And the two will become one..."
For a while anyway. Two years tops. That life I had assembled was falling apart. The lies I had glued it together with were too glaring to ignore anymore. Things got lonely, ugly, scary...things got downright life-threatening. The foundation of sand upon which I had built that marriage was sinking. Lies, infidelity, drugs, alcohol, violence. It seemed every evil found its way into the cracks of the empty promises I had made that day at the altar. It was over before it began. Doomed. My paper was torn into shreds. That baby would be torn too, again and again.
There I sat, years later, in a marriage conference, engaged to the most amazing man I know, feeling like the biggest liar and the biggest failure. When they said God hates divorce, I heard, God hates you.
But I told that lie to shut up, yes out loud, because I knew from experience that wasn't true. When I had finally handed that failed marriage over to God, desperate and dying, He had taken my pieces and had begun putting me together again. As I grew more comfortable on my knees and began giving him more and more of my devastated life, He would fill void after void with peace and love. Sounds happy, happy, joy, joyish doesn't it? Well, that process took years and it wasn't a pleasant thing to behold. I grieved over every sinful and selfish choice I had made. I grieved over the carelessness with which I had approached marriage. I grieved over the damage it continued to wreak on my daughter. I would have to make amends for that damage with patience and love even when I wanted to point the finger and attack with wild rage. In time, a long time, I began to feel His healing, and to my amazement He blessed me with another chance.
I was terrified.
With patience and skill you can glue together those pieces of shredded paper. It's exhausting. But if you hold that reassembled paper up to the light you can still see its scars. The light shines through because in the places it was torn, the paper is thin and weak. Those scars still glow and ache today. The fear of failure throbs when life happens and I lose my faith.
God gave me another chance and quite a challenge. But he gave me a partner who knows my pain, who shows compassion and picks me up every time I stumble. We have what is called a "blended family". Sounds p.c. doesn't it? Pretty Cool? Well imagine a bunch of scared and broken people having to trust each other after the hell they've lived through, blaming each other for the life they can't have anymore and the life they do. Imagine all of the years of hard work they put into building that trust with a solid foundation of God, walls of tolerance and love, a roof of reliability and security. It's fragile. Now imagine all of that being undermined by people who don't want it to stand. People whose wounds are torn open again and again every time they see it grow stronger. People who don't know any better than to start fires and throw bombs. People who don't know God. That's the reality of many blended families. That's the reality of ours.
It sucks! Sometimes.
But I remember the rock on which I stand and it helps me to hold on tighter instead of letting go and running as far away as possible.
I didn't give God a chance to heal my first marriage, but He's promised to bless this one because I've given it to Him. Give Him yours.
God hates divorce, not the divorced.
I know why God hates it.
It hurts just to write it.
It's so much more than custody and property and minor's counsel. Though I have to admit, it was quite cathartic to write those courtroom scenes and that miniature minor's counsel into my novel, All the Wrong Places. The truth is that at the end of the day, none of it matters. The war wages on no matter who is made to pay attorney's fees, no matter who gets the better schedule, because horribly torn and broken people are grasping at anything that might promise an ease to the pain. Children are used as leverage, reality becomes relative and insanity ensues. Casey is fleeing from her dark and destructive marriage, but she can't escape it entirely. I know too well. Sin has its price.
Have you ever seen that paper and glue demonstration? You glue two pieces of paper together and give them an hour or so to set. Did you cringe when they were pulled apart, piece by piece, never to be whole or recognizable again? I did. But I had already been torn to pieces by divorce by the time I saw that demonstration in a marriage conference. Yes, a marriage conference. I had already taken a vow once before, repeating blah, blah, blah, blah, you may now kiss the...figuring I'd give it a go. I mean, it seemed like the logical choice. I must have blacked out during every mention of God or worse or poorer or sickness, and definitely the "till death do us" part. I had bigger worries on my mind. Like the baby I would be bringing into the world in short order and the life I might assemble in desperation to offer it. It seemed like the right thing to do. "And the two will become one..."
For a while anyway. Two years tops. That life I had assembled was falling apart. The lies I had glued it together with were too glaring to ignore anymore. Things got lonely, ugly, scary...things got downright life-threatening. The foundation of sand upon which I had built that marriage was sinking. Lies, infidelity, drugs, alcohol, violence. It seemed every evil found its way into the cracks of the empty promises I had made that day at the altar. It was over before it began. Doomed. My paper was torn into shreds. That baby would be torn too, again and again.
There I sat, years later, in a marriage conference, engaged to the most amazing man I know, feeling like the biggest liar and the biggest failure. When they said God hates divorce, I heard, God hates you.
But I told that lie to shut up, yes out loud, because I knew from experience that wasn't true. When I had finally handed that failed marriage over to God, desperate and dying, He had taken my pieces and had begun putting me together again. As I grew more comfortable on my knees and began giving him more and more of my devastated life, He would fill void after void with peace and love. Sounds happy, happy, joy, joyish doesn't it? Well, that process took years and it wasn't a pleasant thing to behold. I grieved over every sinful and selfish choice I had made. I grieved over the carelessness with which I had approached marriage. I grieved over the damage it continued to wreak on my daughter. I would have to make amends for that damage with patience and love even when I wanted to point the finger and attack with wild rage. In time, a long time, I began to feel His healing, and to my amazement He blessed me with another chance.
I was terrified.
With patience and skill you can glue together those pieces of shredded paper. It's exhausting. But if you hold that reassembled paper up to the light you can still see its scars. The light shines through because in the places it was torn, the paper is thin and weak. Those scars still glow and ache today. The fear of failure throbs when life happens and I lose my faith.
God gave me another chance and quite a challenge. But he gave me a partner who knows my pain, who shows compassion and picks me up every time I stumble. We have what is called a "blended family". Sounds p.c. doesn't it? Pretty Cool? Well imagine a bunch of scared and broken people having to trust each other after the hell they've lived through, blaming each other for the life they can't have anymore and the life they do. Imagine all of the years of hard work they put into building that trust with a solid foundation of God, walls of tolerance and love, a roof of reliability and security. It's fragile. Now imagine all of that being undermined by people who don't want it to stand. People whose wounds are torn open again and again every time they see it grow stronger. People who don't know any better than to start fires and throw bombs. People who don't know God. That's the reality of many blended families. That's the reality of ours.
It sucks! Sometimes.
But I remember the rock on which I stand and it helps me to hold on tighter instead of letting go and running as far away as possible.
I didn't give God a chance to heal my first marriage, but He's promised to bless this one because I've given it to Him. Give Him yours.
God hates divorce, not the divorced.
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