An Epiphany: Who Will Wrestle Against Sexual Bondage

 "I will fight for you; you need only to be still.  I know how weary you are, My child. You have been struggling just to keep your head above water, and your strength is running low.  Now is the time for you to stop striving and let Me fight for you." 

Jesus Today, Sarah Young (2012) 

Exodus 14:14  "The Lord will fight for you; you need only be still."

A Christian friend who has gone through many trials recently said, "I used to pray for strength. But God always answered with tests that increased my strength. Now I don’t pray for strength anymore." Amen, brother!

As the wife of a sex addict, I struggled with the alone-ness of being the only one praying for my husband's healing.  I wanted to hand him two aspirin so he would call me in the morning and announce he was healed. It was a burden to think that I should help, but did not know how to wrestle with him. I knew I should be a witness, but had no voice with him. Eventually God made an appearance; it was an epiphany teaching me a lesson I will not forget. 

Epiphany, derived from a Greek word meaning "appearance," is a moment of sudden intuitive understanding or flash of insight. Sometimes it refers to the appearance or manifestation of a god. It can also mean the appearance of someone sent by God. In Genesis, Jacob had an epiphany - he saw God face to face and went away changed.[1] 

As I became weary of fighting the battle, I began to pray that God would send a fellow Christian,  a trained disciple, to confront my husband. I prayed that He would send someone to challenge what my husband was doing to himself and his family. I hoped someone from the Church, a male leader perhaps, would step up and call out the evil.  In Genesis 32, Jacob has just learned that Esau is coming towards him with an army of 400 men.  The text says that Jacob was "in great fear and distress." [3] Then Jacob went to be alone and ended up wrestling with God all night long. In my own place of fear, I asked God to send someone to wrestle with my husband, to leave him with a limp but also healed, transformed, and equipped for kingdom service.[2]  I searched the horizon for a Christian knight to show up on my time table - before it was too late!

Then I attended karate promotion night. In a dojo, the master teacher is called the "Sensei". A "sempei" is a disciple of the master teacher, but one who is ahead of you on the journey of mastering karate. In other words, a "sempei" is a disciple who is also discipling others.  On this night of promotion, Sempei Paul, donned in a white gi uniform and black belt, was asked to wrestle a young brown belt for the purpose of testing him for promotion.  Sempei Paul was to fight the young man in a way that challenged him to the very edge of his skills, to teach him what it felt like to fight for his life, but at the same time protect him from serious harm. To most observers, it appeared that Sempei Paul was very aggressive and intending to pummel the student, but the karate students present understood that the young man was also being protected by the expert, controlled, fighting skills of Sempei Paul. I have never seen this dynamic in a fight, before or since.  It left quite an impression on those of us who witnessed it. 

The next morning I prayed that God would quickly send a "Sempei Paul" into my husband's life - someone to aggressively wrestle with him, take him down, teach my husband that he was fighting for his life and family. I begged God to send someone who could show my husband the damage sin was causing in his life.  I prayed for a "Sempei Paul" who would not hesitate to challenge my husband, but would also show the protection of God's graceful promotion out of bondage.  God was leading me away from thinking that my husband's healing was my responsibility.  I was not to be the "Sempei" wrestling to promote him out of bondage.

The next afternoon God sent me an epiphany. I was standing outside the double glass doors of the downtown high rise building where I work, waiting for my husband to meet me.  Suddenly, standing at my right hand, was Sempei Paul himself, in the flesh, wearing street clothes.  He had come out of the glass doors to stand next to me. With surprise, we recognized and acknowledged each other. Then he crossed the street and was gone. I had never before and have never since seen Sempei Paul downtown.  I blinked and then my husband walked up. 

The message came to me quietly, slowly: "My child, you are not to fight for his soul. You need only be still." I am the Master and I can send a 'Sempei Paul' into his life whenever I deem the time is right. Now is the time for you to stop striving and let Me fight for you. 

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[1] Gen. 32: 30. 
[2] Gen. 32: 4 - 6.
[3] Gen. 32:6-7

Christmas, Divorce, and The God who Caresses Me With Tenderness

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. 

Isaiah 40:1

[I wrote this in January 2015. I decided to post it this year while reflecting again on the holidays.]

This morning I attended church in  Alabama, not my home state. The church has grown to 34,000 members since its founding in 2001.  The music and technology were so flawless that bands from three different locations lead our singing simultaneously, streamed live on twenty foot screens behind the stage. The pastor’s invocation called on the congregation to "go with gusto after God today, grab for and seek God enthusiastically in worship."  It was a blessing being with my people, God's people, while visiting a "foreign" land.

Sadness continues for me - perhaps it has deepened. The marriage dissolution is not yet final, as we work towards finishing the court paperwork by the end of the month. And there are so many papers to be filed; it is hard to navigate through a complex court procedure in the midst of grieving and upheaval. For example, at some point we had to complete a very long “Child Support Order.”  This meant taking two paragraphs of our own simple language and cramming it into a 15-page court mandated form which included, among other things, a check in the box “neither spouse is pregnant.” Welcome to the post-Christian era.

Christmas and New Year’s was a sad time of many firsts for me and my teens.  We walked in the dark, with no play book for a broken family living in separate households. We struggled with when to engage and when to extract ourselves from dad, when to speak and when to be silent. We also recently lost our home church due to schism, so on Christmas Eve we attended a service in a small Episcopal Chapel in an old neighborhood settled by Scottish immigrants. The homily was sadly lacking [1], so in the late evening hours before Christmas morning I read Pope Francis’ Christmas Eve sermon:

• “The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light. God who looks upon us with eyes of love . . . God who is in love with our smallness . . . . Do I allow myself to be taken up by God? to be embraced by Him? or do I prevent Him drawing close? What is most important is not seeking the Lord, but rather allowing Him to find me and caress me with tenderness.  Do I allow God to love me?   . . . He is a God who made Himself small in order to better encounter us . . . “ [2] 

I don’t know which man of God was more theologically correct - Pope Francis or the Alabama mega-church preacher.  For a bleeding soul still in pain, chasing after God with gusto seems overwhelming, even impossible.  But a God who will find and caress me in my smallness says “comfort ye, comfort ye, my people.” [3]

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[1] See prior post about this Episcopal service: Christmas Eve and Cleaning Toilets (12/25/14)
[2] Pope Francis' Christmas Eve homily, 2014.
[3] Isaiah 40: 1-5 (KJV) (and the text from Handle's Messiah.)

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.

Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins.

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:

And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

You Don't Have To DO Anything

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.  Ephesians 2:8-9

I have learned through marital crisis that theology becomes real in the heart, not the head. I have a degree in theology; I have been steeped in Christian catechism, Christian preaching, and 17 years of integrated Christian education. And yet God touches me with true truth in the most simple terms. Throughout my conversion journey, childlike expressions made God's heart more real to me than Calvin's Institutes ever did.

Can you be converted when you are already a Christian? Can you have two awakenings?  It is a mystery, but that is my story.  After my re-awakening, I read of Blaise Pascal's similar path - a Christian upbringing, then a first and a second more overwhelming conversion experience.[1] Even now I still find there are no words to describe conversion; I can only concur with a modern writer who said, "although grateful, I did not perceive conversion to be a blessing. It was a train wreck."[2]  I too found conversion to be more like a crash landing  - scary, unexpected, leaving one bruised and battered but ecstatic to be alive. It is life changing, but never easy.  It is extraordinarily private, yet somehow outward-facing.[3]

To explain my crash landing conversion, I simply explained to folks that God was taking very good care of me. There were so many blessings, so many people, so many activities set in place in advance to help me dig out of the avalanche of betrayal trauma. God had a plan to carry me through rejection, separation, and divorce from my spouse, my church, my denomination, even my heritage. Post-conversion, nearly everything was broken or breaking. But God strips us bare for His good purposes.

By confessing simply that "God is taking very good care of me" I was describing in elementary school terms what theologians refer to as His "faithfulness" and "providence." Even now, the simple words are more true to my ears.

Yesterday, I walked alone on a cold ocean beach praying, asking for discernment about where the Lord is leading me next, asking Him to show me whether this heart tug I feel to help a church plant is God's call or my own self-centeredness. Honestly, I confuse the two all the time. I was also repenting for being a disappointing daughter who took His care for granted, didn't stay in touch, didn't listen to His words. I repented for tasks I had not done, for failures as a wife, a church member, a peacemaker, a follower, a friend. But then I was given the words very clearly: "You don't have to do anything." For some reason these words kept pushing through my thoughts -  I believe they were from the Holy Spirit. They didn't even make much sense to me at the time.  But for some reason these words brought comfort and I wept.

English speakers often ask each other, "How are you doing?" or "How's it going?" Spanish speakers say instead, "how are you being?" It seems to me that "being" is more in sync with the Christian life than doing or even going. (Although Jonah did have to go at some point.)

I really don't have to do anything to be accepted by God. This deep realization sets me free - free to go where called - not because of my religious "to do" list, but because God accepts me, which paradoxically sets me free to serve as I am gifted, with whatever talents and resources I have, wherever He leads. Today I am finally free to say, "okay God, it's not rational, but I will go where you call me to go." Who knows if I will be of much help, or if I will accomplish anything tangible? Who knows if I will be busy for the Lord or idle for the Lord if I go?  But now I am convicted: I don't have to DO anything to gain God's acceptance, just follow and listen and walk.

Later I realized the fullness of these words gifted to me on the beach.  Martin Luther, a budding lawyer and later a monk, found Paul saying the same thing in Romans 1 and Ephesians 2: it is only by grace that we are saved, not by doing anything.[4]  For Luther also, the weight of the world was lifted when God made clear to him that he didn't have to DO anything.  Just BE a child of the King.  And then Luther went. Some might say he accomplished a few things along the way.
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[1] B. Pascal, The Pensees (The Memorial parchment) 
[2] Rosario Champagne Butterfield, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (2015). p. 25
[3] M. Scott Peck, a famous psychiatrist,  has an equally humorous description of  religious conversion, written before he became a Christian: "We are accustomed to imagining the experience of conversion or sudden call to grace as an "Oh, joy!" phenomenon.  In my experience, more often than not it is, at least partially, an "Oh Shit" phenomenon." The Road Less Traveled, 1978, Walker & Co., p. 417. 
[4] See, e.g., Martin Luther, "Freedom of A Christian" on the concept of grace. (1520)

Part 2: A Theology of Evil Springs Easily From Sexual Betrayal

Know also that wisdom is sweet to your soul; if you find it, there is a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off. Prov. 24:14.

Theology is reasoning or discussion about God.[1] Some study theology from a hilltop - a safe distance overlooking the battlefield. I have been studying God and his ways and words standing in the middle of a raging battle. This brings a certain degree of clarity unavailable in the comfortable high places. 

But in the middle of a war it is often hard to tell who has integrity, who is lying, what is good and what is evil.  In the journey of marital betrayal, we are called regularly to the praxis of humbly discerning what is evil.  Somewhere along this journey I concluded that I may not have had a proper concept of "evil."   I wondered if "evil" was not a "thing" to be chosen, but was more often a lack of something,  the absence of something.  I concluded that  evil is the space where God is not.

I have since learned that Augustine concluded something similar long ago.  

In a marriage with abuse or betrayal or pornography addiction, at some point the wife realizes that something is missing - there is a great and overwhelming absence of something that should be there. Some say it is empathy that is missing; some say it is intimacy that is missing. Some call it "projective identification" or the absence of dealing effectively with one's own emotions and forcing them onto your spouse in compensation. In Twelve Step programs, we are taught in the abstract that a sex addict is "not present" but we rarely grasp what this means or how to fix it. Emotional engagement with our husbands feels like plugging into a light socket with no juice behind the wall. 

Friends also experienced my husband as not engaged, dismissive.  One said he was almost overwhelmed by a sense of something missing when around my husband; it came over him like a wave but he didn't know what it was.  He voiced, "I understand almost what you've been missing all these years."  Another friend explained her view that the inability to bring forth empathy is a disease of something missing that effects everything else, much like a diabetic cannot produce insulin.

Emotional abuse does not necessarily involve tirades or tossing things; it is more often the "acceptable" sin of withdrawal and withholding and hiding.  An abusive spouse is withholding himself from the one person to whom he has pledged to give of himself fully. An unfaithful spouse must distance from the one to whom he made vows in order to satisfy his desires with another. There is also the absence of kind words, the lack of optimism, the void in encouragements.  These sound petty when described in isolation to anyone outside the family system.  At one point, to be able to explain what my home felt like, I started counting the times my husband said a compliment or word of encouragement.  I would go months without a single encouraging word.  In one year, I waited from New Years until Easter to hear a compliment in my own home - and that came from a guest who liked my blackberry crisp. At another point, I asked my husband if he would go one week without subtly putting me down in someway; he was not sure he could, and he did not make it one day.

In exploring the question of where is evil, Augustine answered: "Evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name 'evil.'"[2]  Augustine observed that evil always injures people and relationships, and such injury is a deprivation of good. If there were no deprivation, there would be no injury. Since all things were made by God with goodness, evil must be the privation of basic goodness: "All which is corrupted is deprived of good." [3]

Good has substantial being; evil does not. Some have written that evil is like a moral hole, a nothingness that results when goodness is removed. Augustine observed that evil could not be chosen because there is no evil thing to choose. We humans can only turn away from the good. "For when the will abandons what is above itself, and turns to what is lower, it becomes evil--not because that is evil to which it turns, but because the turning itself is wicked." [4]   Evil then is not something created, but spoiled goodness made possible by the free moral choice of rational creatures. Evil is not something present, but something missing. [5] 

In other words, evil is the space where God is not, or more accurately, evil is the space where God's goodness is not, and God is all good all the time. The author of "Not The Way It's Supposed To Be" writes, "Good is original, independent, and constructive; evil is derivative, dependent, and destructive.  To be successful, evil needs what it hijacks from goodness." [6]

I have written that my ex-husband sat on the other end of the sofa and told me he has a girlfriend.   When the words "I am seeing someone" cross the decades long covenant space that is those few feet on the sofa, I am amazed at the overwhelming pain.  Why should I feel this way? I have not lost anything, and he no longer has legal obligations of fidelity. In the words that traveled the space, there was an absence of caring that should be present when delivering difficult words of betrayal to anyone, especially one to whom you once pledged marital faithfulness.  Whether his lifestyle choice is evil is not for me to consider - that is now between him and God - but the space on the sofa between he and I where he decides to tell me for no apparent reason that he has a girlfriend is a space where God's goodness has been hijacked.  
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[1] Augustine, City of God, Book VIII.i.  
[2] Augustine, The City of God, XI, CHAP. 9.
[3] Augustine, Confessions, VII: [XII] 18.
[4] Augustine, City of God, XII, CHAP. 6.
[5] Greg Koukl, Stand To Reason, Dec. 20, 2012.
[6] Cornelius Plantinga, Not The Way Its Supposed To Be.

Part 1: The Evil Trinity of Sexual Betrayal: What Not To Say To Your Friends

...a wayward [husband] is a narrow well.  
Like a bandit [he] lies in wait, and multiplies the unfaithful among men.
Prov. 23:27-28.

This post concerns a question, one that women around the world ask their friends: why does it hurt  like hell when my ex-husband is with another woman?  Perhaps it is because we are experiencing the betrayal/abandonment cycle all over again. or perhaps we are experiencing evil in real time. 

When my ex-husband helps fix something in my house or takes the children to church we experience that as honorable. In a real sense, he is "honoring" the vows he took when our children were baptized, despite his past mistakes. Hopefully, when I decide to help him in some way, he experiences that as honorable despite my past imperfections.  My ex-husband has every legal right to date and the world will not condemn that.  There is a judicial piece of paper that makes it legal.  But a piece of paper does not heal the heart, nor does it neatly sever on one day what God has joined together for decades. When our ex-husbands date other women, it may not be unexpected, but we experience that as a evil - a continuation of the breach of his marriage and baptism vows. 

He and I sat in the living room and he told me he was "seeing someone." He wanted me to hear before he told our teenagers.  In response to this news, I felt burning hot and nauseated.  I gasped for air. I cried the deep, alto cry of loss. Some well-meaning friends theorized that the pain was intense because I was losing the love of my life (no - he doesn't qualify for that title) or because this wasn't in my script (not true - I knew it would happen but I didn't know it would FEEL like this.) Another said this is only natural for a sex-addict (true, but he has disclosed other indiscretions before.)  Popular culture often portrays the experience of a cheating spouse as somewhat bad,  moderately hurtful, or a stupid mistake. Media portrays dating someone as soon as you are separated as silly, or needy, or even healthy.  Let's call it out: these are all lies. 

Our Sunday sermon discussed the "evil trinity" - the world, the flesh, and the devil. Calling evil “okay” as the world does is not the answer. The world has trivialized the great ripping apart of a one-flesh marriage. God hates it when a man is unfaithful to the wife of his youth. Malachi 2:12-16.[1]  And the flesh of my ex-husband seeking to meet his desires despite his marriage and baptism vows will have the effect that evil always has - to hurt people and damage relationships. The legs of the flesh walk in the opposite direction of repentance.

The devil gets involved too. He subtly leads the sinner away from Jesus by encouraging him to rationalize that after separation dating is fine, or by whispering to the wife that she is worthless and worthy of being abandoned.  If we care about the sinner, we care that he is allowing the world, the flesh and the devil to draw him further away from healthy relationships and further away from the possibility of salvation from his bondage. My ex-husband has been imprisoned in darkness for so long that he is blind to the effect his unfaithfulness has on others. 

I believe my ex-husband telling me of his decision to pursue and date someone a few short months after separation was something I experienced as evil.  It was another tidal wave of betrayal just like disclosures of unfaithfulness during our marriage. Maybe other wives will have a less nauseating reaction to this recurring news, but I suspect that our family will experience every woman in his life as another betrayal of his vows. 

Many Christians believe the Bible teaches that no one should re-marry after divorce, or that only separation  - and never divorce -  is proper for Christians. Some Christians believe the Bible teaches it is only proper to re-marry if you were divorced because of your spouse’s unfaithfulness, but no other grounds for divorce allow you to remarry.  I believe there is more nuance to God's law and God's love for us on these issues. But still, the reason many believe this is God’s best intent for our well-being is that marriage creates fused flesh, and when it is torn apart there is still the deep “spouse-shaped-scars" that last until heaven. This is why hearing of an ex-spouse dating or getting remarried is so painful and may feel like betrayal all over again. It hurts like hell because it is a little bit of hell; it a further separating from God and alliance with the world, the flesh and the devil. 

Do not let your heart envy sinners, but always be zealous for the fear of the Lord. There is surely a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off. 

Proverbs 23:17-18.

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[1] See Blog Post of March 23, 2015, titled, "Part 2: God Hates Divorce: Fighting The Battle of Who Could Care Less."

Sexual Betrayal and Christian Communion

And [Jesus] said to them, "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer."  

Mark 9:29 
'"And he took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.'”
Luke 22:19

Why do I cry during communion?  I sense that healing will eventually require an answer to this question.  I learned not long along that my husband cheated on me for our entire marriage with regular pornography and prostitutes. At some point I realized that during this journey of healing I desperately needed communion, and needed it often. I am now past the years of trauma awaiting diagnosis, past the radical surgery of divorce. I am awakening from the anesthesia and the numbness that resulted from facing the truth. Perhaps my need for communion is as simple as the fact that valleys make us acutely aware that we are sinners in need of Jesus Christ's healing grace. Communion is also a reminder that when we battle the evil working against us, we are fighting as children of the King and we are humbled to be assigned this task. [1]

 
The night I awoke from a nightmare and prayed, begging God to toss the demons out of my husband, out of our household, out of our marriage, out of the marriage bed [2] I had no idea how wrenching and yet how necessary would be God's great tossing. He answered by driving my husband out of the home and marriage - not at all what I had imagined or hoped for. 

A husband bringing home the diseases of prostitutes or throwing something in my direction is very small suffering compared to what Jesus suffered for me.  Yet it is deeply comforting to be reminded in communion that the Savior who loves and accepts me also suffered abuse and physical brokenness. This fact alone should excise my sniveling, self-pitying heart tendency to wonder if anyone understands what it is like to be betrayed, despised and rejected by a man. [3]  The words of communion remind me that Jesus has been there, done that, and redeemed the heck out of it.

But even more than this amazing gift of His body broken for me, I now find communion overwhelming; often I can hardly swallow. Why is this?

I have written in previous posts that when one spouse is engaged in such a persistent pattern of evil, this opens the marriage and home to the demonic in no small measure.[2]  Like Count Dracula, evil enters when welcomed into the house by one, but affects everyone in the household.  But let me be even more graphic than the authors I cited: sexual unfaithfulness opens the wife's body to evil. The wife of a sex addict takes the "dis-ease" into herself. Newlyweds join together in many areas of life - finances, households, parenting. But in the marital act, we wives take our husbands into ourselves. The "in-ness" and oneness of intercourse is tangible, symbolizing the "in-ness" of the Holy Trinity and of Christ in us, Christ through us, Christ over us.

In contrast, sexual unfaithfulness is an act of betrayal, dirtying, and disdain. When we hear details of it in any context we want to vomit, or at least take a very long shower. In communion, I experience the jarring contrast between sexual betrayal and Christ's sacrifice.

During communion I weep silently as I swallow the bread and wine. Perhaps taking Jesus' body into myself in communion is the only act of sacrifice, cleansing, and acceptance sufficient to counter the evil acts of betrayal, dirtying, and disdain that comprise sexual unfaithfulness.  Perhaps communion is a symbol of the only thing on earth powerful enough to cleanse me from the inside out.  

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[1] Tim Keller, The Reason For God (unknown page.)
[2] See Blog Post May 15, 2014 " Part 8: Sex Addiction Opens Marriage to the Demonic", citing,  L. Hall, An Affair of the Mind, p. 117, 121, and also citing, Dr. Ron Miller, “Personality Traits of the Carnal Mind” p. 53.
[3] Isaiah 53:3 "He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem."

Sexual Betrayal and Charleston, South Carolina-Style Forgiveness

Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence. I Peter 3:15 (RSV)

On Friday I heard the news about the tragic and vicious shooting of nine members of Immanuel African AME church in Charleston, South Carolina. A white visitor to the Wednesday night bible study open fired on black members, killing nine and traumatizing many more. I had been in the Carolinas Wednesday and Thursday for a short business trip - I had never been in that region before.  I was awakened at the end of the night by a fleet of emergency vehicles leaving from Charlotte traveling to Shelby. These must have been the emergency vehicles leaving to surround and arrest the shooter. Back home and far away on Friday, while running errands, I listened to news reports about the terrible event. Three times the news replayed the in-court statement of a woman saying she forgave the shooter for killing her mother two days earlier.  

I imagine that forgiveness is not what she felt at the time. But she started the process of forgiveness within herself by saying the words out loud and in public.  Other church members made similar statements. They gave a clear account for the hope that was in them, and yet they were gentle and reverent.  They were prepared, so that on this most tragic and mournful Friday, even in the most stressful and public of situations, with hundreds of cameras in their faces recording every sob, hiccup and tear of grief, they could give an account for the hope that was in them.  The media was dumbstruck, not knowing how to describe the strength and presence of these Christians.  Reporters understatedly called these statements "gracious."  It was in fact a shining display of the church members' own swallowing of the grace of God, the hope within that existed only by the grace of salvation - their deep-daily-lived awareness of their own sinfulness and the great King's forgiveness of their own unpayable debt.(1)  

Readers of this blog know that my ex-husband betrayed me with many years of sexual unfaithfulness, and pummeled me with disdainful looks and words until I was cowering and afraid. As a Christ-follower, I know that forgiveness is not optional.  But such forgiveness has been elusive and difficult for me. (2)

As I listened to the news, these women witnessed to me directly and powerfully. I couldn't help but tear up each time I heard their public statements of forgiveness.  From far across the country, the Holy Spirit was nudging me: if she can say that, then who am I to carry around this sticky residue of non-forgiveness? It is like tar or SuperGlue stuck to my skin that doesn't wash off in the shower - it needs something stronger than my good intentions or my political correctness - it needs the turpentinian cleansing grace of God. The testimony of these women made me realize: I had deceived myself into thinking I was doing fairly well at forgiveness - coughing out  mere droplets of gracious civility un-infused by God's grace.  After the third time hearing the daughter's testimony, I could say out loud, “I forgive you [ex-husband].” And since then,  I have been able to pray for him - only just a little. I am so thankful these AME Christ-followers were ready and able to give an account for their hope! 

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(1) Matt. 18: 23-35. The NIV footnotes explain the value of the respective debts.  In this explanation, the great King forgives his servant a debt worth 200,000 years of salary; the servant does not forgive another a mere 20 days worth of wages. 
(2) The forgiven servant in Matthew 18 is imprisoned and tortured. The final verse of the story is harsh: “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Part 4: Verbal Abuse is a Man's Suit of Dishonor

¹⁸ They cursed others as easily as they put on clothes. Cursing was as natural to them as getting a drink of water or putting olive oil on their bodies.¹⁹ May their curses cover them like coats. May their curses be wrapped around them like a belt forever. 22 I am poor and needy. My heart is wounded deep down inside me. 28 They may curse me. But may you bless me.  May those who attack me be put to shame. But may I be filled with joy. ²⁹ May those who bring charges against me be clothed with dishonor. May they be wrapped in shame as if it were a coat.³⁰ With my mouth I will continually praise the Lord. I will praise him when all his people gather for worship. 
Psalm 109 (NIRV)

After writing three posts on the meaning of "clothing" representing identity in the Bible, I came across these amazing verses in Psalm 109. With these words, the Holy Spirit gives us permission to cry out. The Spirit also gives us permission to confess the reality that the sins of others can be awful and may cause us severe pain and suffering.(1) The truth is that we need not make excuses for the sins of others against us - God does not require this. Instead, God blesses wives who do not stand in the way that sinners take. (2)

Verbal and emotional abuse within marriage is private: "it only happens when no one else is around" and it mostly happens in ways that are hidden from others.(3) It causes great shame in the wife, but she sounds petty when she tries to describe this ongoing assault of words, distancing and control. The de-valuing words and actions (cursing really) come so naturally to our husbands' daily lives; it is like drinking coffee or shaving to them and we become accustomed to it as well. Yet we are deeply wounded and we want God to bring His justice to the situation. If we are honest with God, at times we desire that the tables be turned and that the world see our husbands surrounded by the dishonor they deserve.  

What a prayer the Psalmist gives to wives in this situation! We have permission to wail - for a time.  If you are despairing today, try praying this updated version of these same verses from Psalm 109:

"Oh dear Father, my husband puts on slippery words of degradation and emotional coldness just as he puts on his suit in the morning. Objectifying me and dismissing my ideas is as natural to him as brushing his teeth or combing his hair. May these criticisms and put-downs that he constantly tosses at me cover him like a coat for all to see.  May the aura of disdain he shows towards me be a belt tight around his waist that never comes off, even when he naps. My heart and soul are so deeply wounded, I feel it always in my belly. My husband (and maybe his friends) may look down on me and call me "unreasonable" or worse, but I praise you Lord that you bless me and protect me. I ask that my husband of many years be seen by all as covered in dishonor.  Wrap his shame and selfishness around him like a long overcoat for all to view.  I will continue to speak highly of your care for me Lord, and I will continue to go to church and worship you, Lord God, wherever your true people gather."  

   

If this is where you are in the healing process, I praise and thank God that you have the courage to be honest with Him and with yourself. I thank God that the ancient Psalmist gave us a model of crying out to God about modern sins done against us.  I pray that God's mercy be new for you every morning.: 

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(1)} us.http://authenticgraceforlife.blogspot.com/2015/03/enduring-our-present-suffering.html\
(2) Psalm 1.
(3) Patricia Evans, The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to Recognize It and How to Respond (May 1992), New edition, Jan. 2010.

Part 3: Sex Addiction and the Garment of Violence

"For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord,
the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. 

So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless."

Malachi 2:16. (ESV)

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With the background from the previous two posts about clothing, identity and God's view of divorce, let's look at the final words of Malachi 2: the man who divorces "covers his garment with violence."   A man who is unfaithful and breaks covenant with the wife of his youth has put on an outer garment. And the Lord is clear, this is not the garment of power from the Holy Spirit, this is not the garment of praise, and this is not the cloak of righteousness. The man who causes divorce by his unfaithfulness has taken on a new identity - he may have his under-garments of religion or his belief that "I'm a decent guy most of the time," but he now wears an outer garment of violence -  his hard outer layer is nearly incapable of penetration or compassion. The imagery is striking in its harshness.

But doesn't this Biblical truth fit perfectly with what we know about marital unfaithfulness, whether from sex addiction or from a "temporary lapse"? Such a husband has stepped away from God. He is not living a life of repentance.  He is not a promise keeper. Such a husband must necessarily control and manipulate his wife verbally, emotionally, and sometimes physically to rationalize his devaluing and objectifying of his covenant partner.  He is demeaning his wife in bed as he attempts to act out his porn fantasies.  His disdain, even if it has not risen to the level of physical violence, has done great violence to his wife's soul.  A year after my husband's worst disclosures of sexual acting out, my soul and spirit still feel as though I have been assaulted with a mace; I try to staunch the bleeding, but there are so many wounds that I get distracted bandaging one while another opens. Many within the church, myself included, have not been sympathetic and have vastly underestimated the damage this type of "violence" does to a women's soul.[1]

This violence is now my husband's identity. He has put on this garment slowly but surely.  I grieve for his new identity. And I resent his battering of my soul; I still feel weak and shaky on those days when I attempt to face the trauma and forgive the violence of his past words. He shrugs it off, believing he has been polite and civil, and indeed he has been on many occasions. But an evil person can be polite and civil, and civility does not soothe the soul crushed by withdrawal, shame, or contemptuous words. 

If your husband is faithless and breaks his marriage covenant, then he is wearing an overcoat of violence in God's eyes. Contrast this with the loving image in Galatians 3:28 where God sees his adopted sons and daughters wearing cloaks of righteousness.(2)  God knows that the natural result of unfaithfulness to Himself and to a spouse is violence of some sort - rising self-loathing, disdain towards a wife, slowly escalating emotional and verbal abuse, sometimes transforming imperceptibly into physical violence. It is God's great love for us that causes him to warn men: "so guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless."

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(1) See, e.g. Patrick J. Carnes, Ph.D, The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships, (1977) Chapter 1 "What Trauma Does To People."
(2) "This is because all of you who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. You have put him on as if he were your clothes." Ga. 3:28 (NIVRV). 

Part 2: God Hates Divorce: Fighting The Battle of Who Could Care Less

"It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are His.... So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. "I hate divorce," says the Lord God of Israel..." 

Malachi 2:13-16(a)

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Do you think this would be a good verse to read at a Christian wedding?  It might cause the witnesses to cringe,  but it would be the honest word of God about marriage.

This rich Bible verse is directed towards men.  But I think women can also gain insight from God's perspective in Malachi.  First, do you see that the Lord holds himself up as the witness between you and your husband?  For a covenant marriage, Jesus is the witness to your vows, the real "best man" at your wedding, and the high priest who joined you together in matrimony.  As you face divorce, you may feel as though you have failed. For me, walking through divorce has been not only a time of great pain but also a time of repentance and communion.  Without repentance, satan uses my shame and fear of failure to attack and keep me from leaning into Jesus, the witness and high priest over my wedding.

Second, by this verse in Malachi, I am assured that God commanded my husband not to break his covenant vows. But by his decisions and sexual acting out, my husband has indeed broken those vows.  Your husband may have "broken faith" with you in other ways. Not all theologians would agree with me, but I believe unfaithfulness through pornography and abuse in all its forms is also "breaking faith" with your spouse. By this breaking of faith, the husband is "divorcing" his wife;  after he does, if a wife initiates or participates in legal proceedings, that does not make her the "divorcing" spouse. God hates divorce  - which Malachi defines as the breaking of faith by a husband; God does not hate a wife who uses the legal process to protect herself from further harm.  

G. Livingston, M.D., a modern secular psychologist, writes that, "Any relationship is under the control of the person who cares the least."(1) Livingstone and Malachi are on the same page - marriage is a covenant that one spouse can break unilaterally.  Many people mistakenly believe that it takes two to destroy a marriage.  But modern counselors know this is often not true. Again, Livingston writes, "As marriages enter the long slide toward alienation, is it seldom a symmetrical process....While it takes two people to create a relationship, it takes only one to end it." Ben Folds, a modern rock poet and several times divorced himself, is even more succinct when he sings of a couple "fighting the battle of who could care less." (2)

Third, do you see how God views covenant marriage? God says a husband and wife are one and they are His "in flesh and spirit." This explains the extreme pain of divorce.  Like childbirth, others cannot understand the level of pain unless they have lived through a similar event. You have been one in flesh and spirit with your husband, so divorce will hurt like hell; it will be a tearing of your flesh and a ripping of your spirit, like an animal tearing at the flesh of its prey.

Finally, God accepts your righteous anger - God himself hates divorce.  He hates that your husband has decided to break faith with you, leaving separated lives as the only option. God hates that your husband has made clear by his actions that he doesn't want to be married to you. My teenager reminds me: when people ask, "WWJD - what would Jesus do?" it helps to remember that getting angry, cracking a whip, driving people like cattle, and turning over tables of money is a viable option.(3)

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(1) G. Livingston, M.D., Too Soon Old; Too Late Smart.
(2) "Battle of Who Could Care Less", Ben Folds Five, 1997 Album, Whatever and Ever Amen,
(3)  Matthew 21: 12-13.