[2] And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” [3] He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” [4] They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” [5] And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. [6] But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ [7] ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, [8] and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. [9] What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
[10] And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. [11] And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, [12] and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
(Mark 10:1-12 ESV)
1. hard words to read in these times
2. if people read these words, how can they say divorce is fine?
I have to tell you something. I'm married.
Do I always love being married?.... to be honest...No. But I think that's a normal thing. Still.. sometimes....
BUT am I committed to this marriage? YES!
I love my man. He's part of who I am now.
So when God tells me that two shall become one... I understand now what that means. My fellow is as much a part of me as I am of him.
This must be what makes divorce so very hard.
I'm heard people comment on "but they were so much in love, and now see the venom they spew at each other". I"m guessing the venom they spew is they KNOW the love they have for each other, but they've allowed hatred of a part of themselves to creep in....and that self-hatred can be ever so deadly.
Being married requires making choices.
Choices about doing things together or separate.
Choices about forgiving each other the little annoyances that creep up (for me it's clothes all over the floor, for him it's the spacing out regularly that I do). We could get mad about these quirks or say "eh, let's just work around it".
We all have choices to make in how to make our marriages work.
But one thing God is quite clear about.
He put us together.
We should not be pulling ourselves apart.
We have to trust that God knows what he is doing.
NOW am I saying that we always have to LIVE together?
Like seriously if one spouse is committed to regularly sinning against another... do we HAVE to stay with them? I would not counsel one spouse to stay with their spouse who was regularly beating him/her up or such like. That's not a good thing.
But most divorce don't happen over such things. They happen because "I just don't love ____ anymore".
LOVE IS A CHOICE!
It's how we act toward each other.
It's making decisions that for now we put that other person first.
Like when I clean the house when it's not high on my priority list...but it makes my hubby feel loved to be in an uncluttered place at least once a week. :)
Like when my hubby helps out in the garden .. .when it's way down on his list of priorities but he realizes that when I ask for help ..I need it and so he helps ungrudgingly.
Acts of love. Choices we make.
It's not always easy, but we can make it easier with the choices we make.
Let us not be hard of heart.
Let us remember this.
GOD himself put us together.
Let's not be bold as to tear it apart.