God Always Leaves More Than He Takes Away

I found myself crying out to God asking for him to do something because I could no longer live like this. We weren’t even communicating anymore and he started not coming home.  The girls were crying asking where their daddy was and all I could say was I don’t know, he will be home soon.

The girls were at my parents house because I was going out of town for a church service. As  I was sitting at the table I heard, “I want a divorce”.  I didn’t think my heart could break anymore but it felt like it was shattered into a million pieces. I begged him to stay but his mind was already made up.

Lord, this is not what I asked for.  I was looking for You to work a miracle. I wanted You to fix our marriage. This wasn’t the change that I was expecting. I was always told to pray about it, and give it to the Lord, and He will fix it. But I later realized that He can’t fix what you aren’t willing to confront and it takes two to make a marriage work.

The struggle was real. There were many days and nights I cried.  I still went to work trying to hold myself together while my world was falling apart. Many nights I would cry myself to sleep.  The saying, “When it rains it pours” was evident in my life.

I am going through a divorce. Our families are torn apart. People chose sides.  Our pastor had died and the only church I have known all of my life went into foreclosure. There was death after death, after death and then to beat it all I was told after almost seven years of being on my job that they were going to have to lay me off due to a recession.

Here I am a single mother with three small girls.  What was I going to do?  How in the world was I going to do this? I finally said yes, to God’s will.  I told the Lord if this is the way I have to go then I need for him to keep us and provide for me and my girls so that I don’t have to go back to my parents.

One thing that I knew for sure is that God was real in my life and the same God that brought me through before was going to bring me through again. I had to totally trust Him regardless of the odds that were stacked against me. The good thing about storms is that they come to pass and not to stay. I knew I had three little people depending on me and in the midst of my darkness, I kept seeing this light at the end of the tunnel bidding me to keep pressing forward.

God always leaves more than He takes away

Fast forward to the other side of through. I have been divorced for 14 years now and the Lord blessed us with our first home. My oldest daughter graduated college with a Bachelor of Arts degree and is making headway in acting and singing. My middle daughter has just entered her third year in college and is breaking school records in the discus. My youngest who is the brainiac, started school as a junior and just made the President's list with a 4.0 GPA. The Lord blessed us to build our first home and I am getting ready to start to start truly living my life and will soon publish my first book.

I didn’t realize until now that I  grieved my marriage and the loss of our family on and off for almost 14 years. DIVORCE is like a death and if you haven’t experienced it you have no idea how it feels.  You mourn the very thing that was.  You don’t go into marriage thinking of being divorced, you think it is forever.

That thing almost took me out of here but I survived.  It wasn’t until the beginning of this year that I could truly feel that my grieving was coming to an end, the storm was passing and my heart was starting to completely heal. So I made the first step, changing my last name back to my maiden name.  For the first time in a long time, I finally felt free.

Question for Reflection:

1. Can you recall the times when God has protected you?

2. What keeps you from not giving up hope?