Not why but how
“My husband and I will never get a divorce. We talked about it before we married and both of us agreed to never threaten the d-word.” She tore lifted a roll from the bread basket between us and tore off a bite.
Months earlier I had trained her as a new employee. A job I loved, and frankly, had been my saving grace during the darkest season of my life. My co-workers knew my world was falling apart, but the new employees that rotated through the training department hadn’t the slightest idea.
Until the bank updated my last name, to my maiden name, in the employee directory.
Now that the bank had been acquired, I’d been assigned the task of educating frontline employees on the new software. The hard part, however, was that I’d be facing all of them with my secret exposed.
I gave her the benefit of the doubt, having arrogantly spoken similar sentiments myself in pure ignorance. I had never asked for a divorce. Dreamed of enduring one. And I sure as heck hadn’t entered into marriage agreeing it would ever be the slightest possibility.
And yet, there I was. Across the booth, heartbroken, and still wondering why other people’s marriages remained seemingly bulletproof while mine had crumbled into irreparable pieces.
Hardly a year later her name surfaced in my inbox. “How in the world did you make it through your divorce?”
Twelve years in, the messages still haven’t stopped. And to this very day, the answer hasn’t changed.
God.
The immovable. The unchangeable.
Listen, I don’t know why the chips fall the way they do. Why bad things happen to good people and why good things happen to bad people. I haven’t the slightest clue on why some relationships are reconciled and others are fought for and still lost. I’ll never fully understand why some people are willing to do the work and others simply walk away.
But I do know that God is faithful. I also know that God’s plans are unshakable. And I can testify that anything, and I mean anything, placed in His hands can be used for good.
I know that He can turn mourning into dancing.
Nightmares into miracles.
Tragedies into testimonies.
And that He delights in making broken vessels whole.
You may be in a hard place right now. Looking for an answer. Looking for a reason. Looking for a solution. I don’t know why you’re going through it, but I do know how you can make it through.
God.
