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DWF...Seeking
(c) 2004 by Beth Bolthouse, All Rights Reserved.
I am divorced.
I can recall a time not so long ago when that would have been whispered in the back hall of a church, not spoken boldly from the stage.
I am divorced.
I am a divorced white female, no kids.
I am a divorced white female -- seeking.
Now for many of you, perhaps that sounds a bit like the cry of a desperate woman looking for a man in any place she can find him!
But this journey of being single for the past 6 years, has been more about the cry of a desperate woman looking not for a man, but for meaning and love and intimate connection after the upheaval of her life.
And God's grace has been there. His tender touch has been there. And He has brought healing to my seeking heart.
I want to take a few moments this morning to look at God's heart for single, divorced and widowed people from all walks of life. He is not only the God of the family, and the God of the married. He is also the God of the single and divorced and the widowed -- those of us who have broken hearts from never being married, and those of us who have broken hearts from the ending of our marriages in divorce, and those of us who have broken hearts from losing our marriage to death.
We all are seeking -- even married people are seeking.
I must confess that in my 20's I was seeking a husband. I don't know about you, but in my growing up years, getting married and having kids was the primary goal of a girl's life. So every boy I met was a potential mate. A friend would introduce me to "Joe Schmo" and in my mind within the first 5 minutes I had either included him in the list of potential husbands, or completely rejected him as anything remotely possible! And you women know what I'm talking about, don't you?!
But when I finally met "Mr. Right," and got married, to my surprise, marriage did not meet all my needs, and in many ways it caused even further confusion and turmoil inside.
To my surprise my seeking did not end. To my surprise my seeking intensified.
You see, in all my years of looking, searching, hoping, dreaming for someone to love me, I did not realize that there was not one person in the world who could really truly fill my need for love, for the intimate touch deep in my soul, no matter how hard I searched for him.
My marriage ended after 14 years. I cannot pinpoint exactly what ended it. And I no longer blame my husband, nor myself. But what I can tell you is that after 14 years of marriage and 6 years post-divorce, I have been on a journey of seeking.
1. SEEKING TRUE LOVE
The first thing I have been seeking is True Love.
We all need love. God created each one of us in His image -- And He is love. He created us for love -- to be loved, to give love, to enjoy love. We need to know we are lovable, we need to feel loved. We need to feel acceptable and accepted, like we belong somewhere. And when we do, we know we are loved.
We know we are loved when we are in relationship with someone who loves us.
So how does a single or divorced or widowed person know they are loved?
We tend to identify singleness as not lovable, as rejectable; something must be wrong with me; I'm not worthy of being chosen. And there can be a tendency to withdraw, to isolate, to feel like we don't quite fit in with everyone else -- even at church.
There is a story in the Gospel of John, chapter 4, which relates so much to the things I, a divorced woman, and perhaps you, whether you are single, divorced, widowed, OR married, are seeking.
Let me read these verses to you:
Jesus left Judea to return to Galilee. Tired from the long walk, he sat wearily beside Jacob's well about noontime. Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Please give me a drink." He was alone at the time because his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food.
The woman was surprised. She said to Jesus, "You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?" Jesus replied, "If you only knew the gift God has for you and who I am, you would ask me, and I would give you living water."
"But sir, you don't have a rope or a bucket," she said, "and this is a very deep well. Where would you get this living water?"
Jesus replied, "People soon become thirsty again after drinking this water. But the water I give them takes away thirst altogether. It becomes a perpetual spring within them, giving them eternal life."
"Please sir," the woman said, "give me some of that water!"
John 4:1-24
Here was a woman who had been married and divorced 5 times, and was now living with a man. I can only imagine that she too had been on a journey seeking love. True love.
And this day, an ordinary day, at lunch time, when she came to draw water from the well, she came to the end of her journey, she met Jesus -- Yeshua -- the Messiah -- True Love.
This Love did not judge her, yet He did tell the truth. Love has a way of doing that. Love tells the truth without judging. Love was not disgusted by her past, nor was it judging her present. Love was not ashamed of her. Instead Love offered something different -- something holy -- something that would be the answer to what she was seeking. Something that would bring her healing -- Something that would bring her into love with herself, with others, and with God Himself.
In seeking for love we all tend to look everywhere BUT to God. Oh we know He is about love, He created love, He is love. But most of the time we don't really look to Him for real love. We feel loved when others love us, not simply because we are loved by God. We feel lovable when we are wanted by others, and don't connect that we are most loved because we realize we are wanted by God.
I believe that is why we struggle so much with rejection and low self-esteem and depression and feelings of worthlessness -- because we keep trying to find someone who will love us -- someone who will make us feel loved and lovable. We believe that if we feel love, we are then loved. If someone does something that makes us feel worthwhile and lovable, then we are lovable.
But the truth is, feelings lie.
Rhonda Britten, an author and life coach who has written several books about loving ourselves and loving others suggests that
"We can even reject love if it doesn't feel the way we imagine a true love should. . . we let our feelings rule our relationships because we believe they are the most reliable . . .when things feel good we stay committed, put a lot of effort, and are generous and loving. When things feel bad we withdraw, shrug off our promises, become hostile, or cheat." (Fearless Loving, Rhonda Britten, pg. 67).
Yet the reality is, love is not a feeling; Love is a choice -- an action -- a verb.
God tells us our number one and number two priorities in life are to love Him and love others in community.
Whether I am single, divorced, widowed, or married, I am responsible for loving others, whether or not I am loved in return; I am responsible for loving myself and telling myself the truth about who I am -- who God created me to be -- and who I am because of Jesus, who is True Love. And being in relationship with Jesus changes me from someone who is seeking true love, to someone who has found the real thing, and is free to love others and be in love 24/7 because my love is based on a God who loves me and who I now identify with.
There is so much in His Word, God's love letter to you and to me, that tells us just how much we are loved by Him and because of that we are free to love and be in love, and we know we are lovable whether or not we ever feel loved by another person on the planet.
The True Love loves you! God loves you!
2. SEEKING PURITY
The second thing I have been seeking on this journey is Purity.
The woman in our story cries out to Jesus, "please sir, give me some of that water." And then has to face the reality of her choices. Without judging her Jesus states the facts of her divorces and also of her living with her current boyfriend.
"Go and get your husband," Jesus told her. "I don't have a husband," the woman replied. Jesus said, "You're right! You don't have a husband-- for you have had five husbands, and you aren't even married to the man you're living with now."
It's not easy to hear the truth. And yet seeking purity means facing the truth about myself in light of the holiness of God.
When we know Jesus Christ as our Savior and are in relationship with Him, we are filled with the Holy Spirit, with His living water. And His water is holy, sacred, pure.
Purity is a hard choice in this world. Turn on the television at any time of day or night, and we do not find a lot of purity. Sexual innuendoes are contained in almost every sitcom, and sexually-related themes are woven through almost every drama. We become so used to hearing and seeing impurity that we are numb to it. We are worldly and we don't even realize it.
In our culture there is a norm that almost expects people to sleep together as a way to get to know each other and determine compatibility. It's not unusual at all for couples to live together before marriage.
But here are some facts about sex outside of marriage:
For one thing, sexually transmitted disease is on the increase. If you think you aren't going to be a statistic, look at these numbers, from the National Institute of Health. These are the number of new cases each year of sexually transmitted diseases.
These are from the National Institute of Health:
- 64,000 new cases of HIV/AIDS each year
- 650,000 new cases of Gonorrhea each year
- 3 million new cases of Chlamydia each year
- 5 million new cases of Trichomoniasis each year
- 70,000 new cases of Syphilis each year
- 1 million new cases of Genital Herpes each year
- 5.5 million new cases of the Human Papillomavirus or HPV, each year.
Having sex outside marriage affects you mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. It makes you vulnerable to staying in an unhealthy, even dangerous, relationship because it connects you to another person in ways God never intended for you to experience outside of marriage. In other words, it can "blind" you and become a deceptive type of foundation for your relationship, always keeping you bonded to each other, and virtually paralyzing you from being able to leave him or her.
Men, do you ever wonder why no matter what you do, you can't seem to get over that one girlfriend? Women, do you ever ask yourself how did I end up in a relationship with HIM?
Having sex with a person you are not married to causes a soul tie to be formed between both of you, that makes you one with that person, and keeps you joined with him or her, until you renounce it and break it.
The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:16-17, "Do you not know that if a man joins himself to a prostitute he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say 'The two become one.' (This is a reference to Genesis 2:24 when God created marriage, and set apart sex as something to stay within marriage)."
It is not a mistake that God, who created you and your sexuality and your desires for love and intimacy, also created marriage as the protective place for you to experience the deepest relationship you can have with another human being.
It is GOD who desires us to choose purity. He is seeking us to be aware of His living water and to desire it to overflow in our hearts. Why is purity so important to God? Because it represents His holiness.
And Christ died so we could be holy.
Paul goes on to say "But the person who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Run away from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Or don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body." (1 Corinthians 6:17-20)
We are created in God's image. For followers of Jesus Christ that has to include purity.
Jesus was single -- He was God --.He was also a man who faced the same temptations we do, including sexual desires. Yet He stayed holy -- His purity is what give us the strength to stay pure.
When we don't choose purity, we just go back to seeking. And we lose out on True Love.
The Lord Jesus, a single man, walking to Galilee, weary and tired from His journey, stopped and rested and met a divorced woman who was seeking love, who was not living in purity. And yet He chose to remain pure, and to share with her about the true Love, the living, cleansing, pure water of God, the true love that would free her to know love -- And to live pure.
Don't know how you can live a pure life? Ask Him.? Ask Jesus how He did it. And then walk in his single steps.
3. SEEKING INTIMACY
The final thing I discovered I was seeking is Intimacy.
The woman says to Jesus, "Please sir, give me some of that water. . . and I'll never be thirsty again!"
Intimacy is the deepest connection we can have with another person.
Shannon Ethridge in her book Every Woman's Battle describes intimacy as "into me see" (Every Woman's Battle, Shannon Ethridge, pg. 34)
Intimacy sees into another person. It is the emotional connection, the communion, that takes place between two people; being cherished, vulnerable, trusting, open, honest without fear of repercussion, being able to give and receive each other's heart (from Carrie Oliver, AACC workshop 2003); being able to deeply respect, appreciate and value each other because we can see the deepest parts of each other's heart, whether good or bad, and choose to stick.
For the single, divorced, or widowed person, the longing to be deeply seen by another person, and touched at the core of our being, can be the most difficult and painful thing about being alone.
But we don't have to be alone. We have community here at Kainay . . . we just have to take the risk, and start slowly, risking intimacy with safe people, and allowing others into our lives, allowing others to see our true selves, and be willing to see them as they are also. If you don't know who to begin risking intimacy with, I encourage you to begin with any of our staff -- Pastor Glen, Pastor Los, myself. We want you to be your true self around here. Aloneness can be very lonely. One of the things I noticed the most after my husband and I separated was the dark, stark aloneness in the evening. When we were together, regardless of whether things were good or bad, there was that presence of another human being in the home. So when I was alone -- it was excruciatingly, unbearably painful.
And yet . . . Jesus was there.
It's one of His names -- Immanuel -- "God with us" -- it's one of the things He has promised, "I will never leave you alone, I will never abandon you."
It is about the intimate touch of His Holy Spirit in our hearts and in community.
He touches the deepest parts of me, and of you, the core that hurts in our aloneness, the depths of longing for love, the deepest awareness of our need for belonging -- the deepest desire for intimacy.
And He does see into me. And He is not shocked, He is not disgusted, He is not ashamed of you or me. He touches the deepest wounded parts of us, He takes His holy water and forgives the hidden and not-so-hidden ways we have disgraced His purity, and washes us pure. All we have to do is ask Him.
He speaks to the core of our hearts that needs to know we are lovable and valuable and precious even in our singleness, and whispers "I love you," "You belong to Me," "I created You lovable," "I choose you."
What I missed when I was married was the reality that I needed Jesus in this way then also. My husband was not the one to meet all my needs -- no one person can do that.
Only God -- only His true deepest love for me -- For you -- only His people, the community He has given us.
If you let Him, He will fill the needs you have for intimate true love relationship, your best friend, the love of your life. Whether you are married or single, or whether you have lost your spouse through divorce or death. He has put you in a family here.
It is only in consistent, safe, loving relationships, over the long-term that the traumas in our lives are healed.
He fills all the places inside where we were hurt and wounded by the things that were absent and present, and transforms them. Be willing to allow all your relationships to grow from this relationship with the Lord Jesus.
Let His Living Water fill you and overflow through you -- then your seeking will be over -- and you will experience the depths of true love in your life. Submit to the tender touch of the Holy Spirit.
Allow the community of God's family to embrace you, and you will never be the same again.
Persevering Counseling Ministries is a ministry of Kainay Community Church, located at 3387 Heights Ravenna Road, Muskegon, Michigan 49444.
