The ideal of the church is to be a place of mutual support and love. Some days the church succeeds and some days the church fails in living up to its ideal.
We can all tell sad stories of days when the church failed, but let me tell you of a day in 1989 when the church came through for me – first the background and then the support.
I married my college sweet heart in 1982 and divorced her in 1989. I saw divorce as failure and evidence of my own inadequacy. I postponed it for years, but finally decided that I could live with failure easier than I could continue in that marriage.
My main ministry in the 1980s was marriage therapy. Maybe I focused on marriage therapy because my own marriage was troubled. I helped many couples resolve conflicts and establish healthy intimacy. I just couldn’t make my marriage work.
I was a Southern Baptist in those days and Baptists did not approve of divorce and rarely tolerated divorced ministers. I feared that I would have to leave the ministry and sell insurance. I don’t know which was worst – the prospect of leaving the ministry or the prospect of selling insurance.
I feared my church would reject me. The pastoral counseling center where I worked feared clients would not want to work with me.
At work, I tried to stop doing marriage therapy, at least for a while, and referred all couples to other counselors. However, one day a new client asked if he and his wife could work with me because I was divorced. He said, “You know how bad this hurts. I think you can help us more than someone who has never been there.”
At church, one Sunday, weeks after my divorce, an older woman leaned over the back of her pew to me as we were waiting for morning worship to begin and asked where my wife was. She said, “We haven’t seen your wife in a while. Is she alright?” I said, “Mrs. Smith. We got a divorce. She isn’t coming here anymore.”
I thought Mrs. Smith would frown with disapproval, murmur that she was sorry, turn around, and ignore me until the service started. Instead, she patted my knee and said, “That’s alright. These things happen. I know your mother doesn’t live here. If you need anyone to talk to, you let me know. You might even find it easier to talk with me than with your own mother.” Then she patted my knee again and turned to the front as the worship service began.
The church is full of mutual support and love. Sometimes you just have to know where to find it.
www.mtmgeorgia.org published a version of this post previously.
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