As my family continues to be in the midst of falling apart I have found myself often in a place of struggling to trust the Lord. Struggling to trust in His goodness. Struggling to trust that He actually cares and responds to the prayers and petitions of His children. Struggling to believe that should the marriage of my parents end in divorce that my God would still be good. That He would still love me and care for me and be faithful to me as much as He has been in the past.
Marriage is meant to be a covenant that 2 people make before the Lord. A covenant that is binding and a covenant that should not be broken lightly. Why is it then that it seems as though God doesn't fight harder for that covenant? Why is it then that so many marriages have crumbled down around me? I am left standing amidst the ruins asking "Where is God now? Why doesn't He care for His children? Why doesn't He fight harder on their behalf for this covenant that was made before Him?" I have wondered for the last 6 or so months what a divorce between my parents would do for my faith. A few months ago when there was talk of it I became angry. I knew that if it should happen that my faith would be rocked-that my faith, already on the brink of collapse, would crumble and I would walk away. I would throw up my hands in despair and in anger at the God who would let something as sacred as marriage fall down broken before Him. In those moments I wanted to give up. Give up on hope, give up on trusting that the Lord and Father I had followed for so long was good and that He cared about the pain that His children were going through. I began to shut down and withdraw into myself. I closed down my heart and my mind because I felt like I couldn't take anymore. I couldn't care anymore. I couldn't hope anymore. It was too hard and it hurt too much. And I felt like my prayers, my cries, my pleas were falling on deaf ears.
Thankfully, I do have a God who is good. I do have a God who hurts when His people hurt. A God who longs just as much as I do for the covenant made before Him to not be broken. I often wonder why a God, who knows the depths of our souls and of our depravity, would choose to give His children free-will. Why He would choose to give His Beloved choices that will make them hurt. I wondered why I ached and prayed and longed so much for a marriage to be healed that was headed nowhere but towards and end. Couldn't I just accept it and move on? Move on toward the healing. Move on toward picking up the pieces of a broken family. But God hasn't let me. He hasn't given me a peace that this is what it is supposed to be. He hasn't given me relief from crying out day and night for my family to be made whole. For my family to taste His sweetness. For my parents to experience a marriage like the Lord created marriage for.
I don't know what is going to happen but I have learned that no matter what the end looks like, I DO have a God who loves me. I DO have a God who is crying because of the pain that I see on the faces of my parents. I DO have a God who wants to be good to His children, a God who loves and adores His children, a God who longs for us to crawl up into His lap to cry, to petition, to pray, to listen. I will fight to have hope in an end that doesn't include the words divorce and broken family. I will fight to believe in a God who can do immeasuarbly more than anything we could ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). An end that includes tasting the Lord's sweetness that much more because of the junk and pain and suffering that had to be waded through to get there. Because I have a God through whom nothing is impossible and all things are possible (Mark 10:27). A God who delights in showing up in ways we would never dream or expect.
"I will declare that Your love stands firm forever, that You established Your faithfulness in heaven itself."
Psalm 89:2
