What God Has Joined Together

A lot of books have been written about the effects of divorce on children, and there are a lot of different takes on parental divorce from the children of divorce. Some say it was the best thing that could have happened because the parents were miserable together. Others say it was the worst thing that happened to them in childhood. I am in this latter category. Every family is different, every marriage is different and every child is different, so there's not much point in generalizing from a human point of view. However, as a Christian now, for more of my life than not, I feel confident to say that reconciliation, not divorce, is God's preferred outcome. There is no question about that. God's word is very clear about this; it is only our own limitations that offer alternate understandings of the issue of divorce. I am divorced myself, but without children. If I'd have had children, I don't believe I would have divorced, even though I was not a Christian at the time, because I have always been very cognitive of the effect of divorce on me and my life, and would not have wanted to bring that kind of suffering on my own children. The matter is very clear to me in the Bible that the best situation for families is two parents who love each other and love their children, and their personal happiness is not the most important element of their life. I believe that it is only when personal happiness is the most important element of a person's life do they find it impossible to stay together and raise children who have the example of parents who work out their problems without splitting up. In other words, I'm sure that is God's plan. I realize that is a very biased perspective, and I make no apologies for it. To this day, I wish my parents had not gotten divorced. However, now that they are both no longer here, I know that all is forgiven and I suspect they are all friends in eternity (by "all," I mean whichever of the additional wives had repented and decided to follow Christ). I believe that both my parents had repented and accepted God's gift of salvation or else I would not be able to formulate that assumption. No one can ever convince me that divorce does not hurt children. I see kids whose parents are divorced and they're talking about their father's house and their mother's house as though it were the most normal thing in the world, but I cannot believe that parents together (if the children were old enough to have experienced that before the divorce) was not the children's preference. What does it matter, you might ask? It is what it is, you can't change anything, you can't unscramble eggs, our world is broken, full of broken people, and people are going to keep getting divorced because of their self-centeredness. I get that. I just believe it is not God's plan, it is people's, to break up and find someone else. As soon as it's happened once, it usually happens a second time or more. Serial divorces leave several versions of the step-family, and how many of the step-brothers and sisters and half brothers and sisters stay connected when the parents move on? I do not know what the statistics are on that. I only know that the whole situation reeks of superficiality and selfishness. We all applaud couples who stay together 50 years or more together. We all know that is what is best. Personal happiness is not the most important goal of life, even if it seems that many, if not most, people seem to think it is. "Just do whatever makes you happy," some people tell their children. "At least they died doing what they loved," people say of people who tragically die while doing something they love that is dangerous and they risked their life every time they did it. I just believe deep down in your heart what I'm saying makes sense. Obviously, in most cases, there is no turning back now. But if anyone will give this argument a second thought, I believe they will agree with me. If married people can't figure out how to have a successful relationship, what makes them think it's going to be better with a different person, or going it alone? "What God has joined together let no man separate," Jesus said (Matthew 19:6 and Mark 10:9). Pretty straight-forward, but, unfortunately, most people are not straight forward when it comes to God's ways. That's the problem.