They had been together for twenty years. The first ten had been relatively happy but after the loss of their child, their marriage started to crumble. They went for counseling and things improved but only for a while. They tried unsuccessfully to have other children. They thought of adopting but decided not to. The wait period was too long.
They thought of going for more counseling but felt too embarrassed to do so. At church they acted like there was nothing wrong with their marriage. When people looked at them, they saw a couple who were still going strong in spite of their loss. They didn’t see the pain that was beneath the surface as Sarah watched other mothers holding their children or as husbands put their arms around their wives, their faces reflecting the love in their hearts. All they saw was the artificial smile on her face when she and Bill walked through the front door of the church and were greeted by the elders at the entrance to the sanctuary. No one knew the turmoil that had become a daily part of her life.
How much longer could she continue with this charade? She wanted a real marriage not an artificial one. She was tired of keeping up appearances. Either they were going to make this marriage work again or they were going to call it quits. The latter terrified her. She couldn’t imagine being on her own again after being with Bill for twenty years. The idea of starting all over again at the age of forty-nine was daunting. She thought of what the people in church was say if she and Bill were to split up. Neither of them had committed adultery so, why end their marriage? Why not get counseling? Why not try to work things out? In their eyes, she and Bill had no grounds for divorce. And what if they decided that they wanted to end their marriage and then, later on down the road, one of them decided that they wanted to get married again?
The words of Jesus came flooding through her mind, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery” (Mark 10:11, 12). She didn’t want to be labelled an adulteress should she decide that she wanted to find happiness with someone else.
Should she do as her mother did? Her parents’ marriage was not a happy one yet they stayed together. There had never been any divorce in the family and they didn’t want to break that tradition. She had watched how miserable they both were, the love between them fade until it was gone. All the while, they pretended that things were fine between them when they were around friends, other family members and in church. Only she and her brother knew that it was all a charade, that their marriage was artificial. She didn’t want that for herself. She didn’t want to pretend like her parents did. She saw what years of pretending had done to them. It wasn’t until after her father’s death, that her mother started to live again. The spark was back in her eyes. She never remarried but she lived the rest of her life in content.
Sarah had vowed that she would never go through what her parents did and yet, here she was, twenty years later facing a tough choice about her marriage. What should she do? Divorce Bill and be happy or stay with him and be miserable? Getting up from the bed, she knelt down beside it, her head bowed and her hands tightly clasped. “Lord, please tell me what to do. I love Bill but we are no longer happy together. I don’t want us to continue to live like this. I know you hate divorce and I never imagined that our marriage would end like this but I know that you want us to be happy even if it means that we can’t be happy with each other. Please help me to make the best choice. Please…”
The tears started to fall so she reached over to grab a handful of tissues from the box and something fell on the carpet. She picked it up. It was last week’s church bulletin. She had left it on the bedside table, meaning to read it when she had the time. She turned it over and her eyes fell on an announcement. It read:
Courageous Hearts
The pace and pressures of life place enormous strains on a marriage. Couples often find themselves merely coexisting. They share the same house and split the bills, but that’s about it. Courageous Hearts helps couples rebuild vital connections in their marriage through clear communication and healthy ways of resolving conflicts.
Our Courageous Hearts Retreat is designed to restore communication and rekindle affection encouraging you to have a healthy Christian marriage.
Listed below the announcement were the dates of the retreat and a phone number. She got up from the floor and left the room, holding the bulletin, her mind racing. That evening after dinner, Bill sat next to her on the sofa. “Morris gave me this” he said, handing her a small card. Morris was their next door neighbor and an elder in their church. She took it and glanced down at it, her eyes widening. It was the same announcement that was in the bulletin. She looked up at him and asked, “Do you think we should go?”
He nodded. “I am willing to give our marriage another try, if you are.”
“I am.” It was worth another try. She felt that this was what God wanted and she trusted Him to know what was best for Bill and her. She had heard of marriages almost on the brink of divorce being restored because of one of these retreats. Perhaps, the same miracle could happen for Bill and her. After all, with God anything was possible…
Notes to Women 