Cassie Woods Dunlap, Editor
It’s funny, you know, inside of our churches we have certain sins we are taught to avoid more fervently than others. The ones that are BIGGER. DIRTIER than regular sins. Those sins also have JUDGMENT attached whereas some silly thing like gossip is considered a prayer request or praise report. Divorce is one of those things. This list is much longer, but that’s my BIGGER. DIRTIER sin.
Four years ago, I had been divorced from a pastor for close to three years. I hadn’t attended church just as long as that. I’ll get to why in a bit. Previously, I’d lived in other parts of Texas, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Georgia as well as working at a summer camp during my college years that allowed me to work with international students. Needless to say, my Facebook Friends list spans the world.
After I changed from my married name back to my maiden name on Facebook (which I waited a year after the divorce to do), I began to receive messages. I’m sure they accompanied a fair amount of Facebook snooping, although I’m not privy to that, but I know what I would’ve done before sending a message like that. I received many of the following questions: Don’t you believe that God has the power to heal marriages? Did you lose your faith? Did you even pray? A few months before my divorce, I even had a friend stand in my driveway and tell me I either loved God or I didn’t. Why would I choose to NOT love The LORD? In my mind I kept thinking why is this how my faith is defined? Why is marriage the litmus test of knowing The LORD?
In truth,I believed all the these lies. Why wouldn’t I? These were the very people that made my heart fear corporate worship. It was messages like this which I had been preached to me:
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/uqrGMFbQvgsoZc4u
You see, I was part of a church, and the wife of a pastor, who looked broken women in the eyes and told them they were unbelievers when they filed for divorce. Essentially, I was told that I would be abandoning my faith and hated by God because I chose file for divorce and end to my first marriage (which I was told that was God’s best for me). My ex-husband had told me that I was an apostate who is one who lives in open rebellion against God.
Prior to living in Texas I was a stay at home mom in Georgia. The situation that saw us leaving Georgia is a post for another day. Once we returned to Texas, I returned to work. I was a teacher and still kept my teacher check going into our joint account for bills. I’m also a debate coach. From time to time I would make a couple of hundred dollars here and there judging or consulting with different debate programs, so I opened an account that I planned on using to pay for the divorce or to use in case the boys and I needed to go to a hotel. Until, one day my now ex-husband found a deposit slip.
My ex told me he wouldn’t allow me to get divorced. Going far as to tell me that if I were to follow through with this divorce nonsense, that our beautiful, precious boys would be raised by an unbeliever. “You have two healthy boys who you are willing to throw to the wolves to be raised in a divorced home. That is the objective truth. It’s family life, buffet style. You’re not going to let your kids inconvenience you and do what you want to do.” That wasn’t the truth of why I was leaving, and yet that’s what he told me and anyone who would listen. Family life buffet style? My boys as an inconvenience? Choosing to become a single mom with no child support while being told I was lost and thus condemned to hell is the opposite of what I wanted to do.
I was told over and over again, “Why, in the name of God, can you not just make it work.” But, what did it look like: I had no access to the passwords on the bank accounts. If I would know my place and simply learn to listen to him and do as he said, life wouldn’t be so hard. “That’s why, for the love of God, I just don’t get it. You’re making life so much harder than it has to be.” God’s love for me was inherently connected to my performance as a wife.
I DID NOT walk down the aisle with premeditated thoughts of divorce. “Cassie, it makes me think something is totally broken inside of you. It was always broken. Maybe not always, but it got broken.” He even recognized that I was shattered. The difference between him and me was: He wanted me to accept my defeated state, camp out and live there for eternity. To wear my calling as his wife as the means of grace and access to salvation. I repeatedly heard: things such as: “Marriage is good for your sanctification (which it is, but not in this context), “A little violence is common in relationships.” These phrases were typically accompanied by laughter. While I knew these wee, beautiful, precious sons of three and five warranted protection and all the good things that planet earth and our Heavenly Father could provide. This home, this marriage would never provide those things.
And yet despite being told that I was hated by God because I had abandoned my marriage (and consequently my faith), when asked that litany of questions regarding where I stood with Jesus from people I knew near and far my answers were always the same: Yes, I’m divorced. Yes, I love Jesus, but mostly He LOVES me, more. My faith was never lost. True faith doesn’t disappear because we sin. I think that’s why Jesus died, because we couldn’t save ourselves, no matter how much the Pharisees tried or other contemporaries try.. Which is why I avoided church for so long. If the people inside its walls held to the same theology as this man with Bible college and seminary degrees, there was no hope of finding a safe place to land. I believed I was guilty of the BIGGER. DIRTIER sins that couldn’t be disguised as a prayer request and there was SO MUCH JUDGEMENT.
Those who asked, those who questioned where I stood with Jesus, did so without knowing the weight of what they were asking. They asked from a place of love, a place of being concerned with my soul. What I wanted to hear, however, was someone to tell me I was okay. The way I felt was okay, normal even given my circumstances. I know they all meant well. One doesn’t know what they don’t know.
Ultimately, I had to lean on what I always knew to be true. The gospel is about what Christ has done for us. It’s never been about how many verses we’ve memorized or church meetings we’ve attended or which of the BIGGER. DIRTIER sins we avoided. The gospel is Jesus living, dying and rising again for us. I HATED that I was divorced. So much so that our years ago, I included: I don’t think I’ll ever get married again.
I wanted so desperately for someone to come alongside me and say: Jesus loved me, regardless. I was living in crisis mode and could only focus on the right now. The what if’s? The what lies ahead? Those would have to come at another time. Eventually, I did have those people. While I avoided church, God brought the church to me. From New Years Eve parties, my faucets being covered before freezes, praying inside the staff restrooms at work. Jesus was there inside the souls of saints surrounding me. My boys were so loved, so protected and safe with those in our life during that time.
And yet, I struggled so much with that choice. I have journals where I wrote over and over again: it would have been easier, so much easier to stay. I prayed so much leading up to my divorce it felt like breathing. I prayed. Oh, I prayed. I prayed for protection, but I also prayed that The LORD would heal this marriage, if leaving wasn’t what I should do, it would be HARD to leave.
One of the biggest things I had to figure out was where the boys and I would live. Prior to filing for divorce, we shared a rent house in a gated community. I couldn’t stay in the rent house on my income alone. I had to find another place to live. But, I wanted to stay in the gated community because there’s a guard at the gate 24/7.
Every once in a while, I would play nertz with a group of teachers. We only met monthly, and I wasn’t even a regular attendee. On one of the game nights, I met a real estate agent in the area. I asked, off the cuff, if she had any small houses with shag carpet and floor to ceiling wall paper. I laughed as I asked because I didn’t expect an actual answer. Instead, she pulled out her phone and said she had one house she was going to list the next day, but if I wanted it, she wouldn’t list it. When I tell you it was THE PERFECT house for a teacher, a single-mom in a gated community, it was PERFECT, all 1300 square feet of it. Closing costs and downpayment were going to be about $4900. Which was good, I had it down almost to the penny with $5000 in savings.
In my ignorance, or inexperience, probably a combination of the two, when I looked at the house, it had a fridge and a washer and dryer. As closing on the house neared, I learned those appliances weren’t being sold with the house. In the divorce, I got the dryer. I needed to find a fridge and a washing machine. I went to Home Depot to look at prices. I could get both appliances I needed for about $1200. I had no idea how I was going to buy this house and be able to live in it without a fridge or washing machine. There it was I thought. The sign. The road block I’d been praying for. Should I reconcile, should I invite my soon-to-be-ex husband back into our lives? I kinda left that on the shelf for a couple of days. Praying that God would provide a fridge sounded so dumb. But, that’s where I was in those days. That’s what living in crisis mode looks like: only worrying about what you can do for the day. There’s no time to worry about tomorrow.
And yet, out of nowhere, and certainly not anywhere from the depths of my imagination on how to obtain appliances, my real-estate agent called me again. She had great news. The final numbers for closing were calculated, and they ended up being $1200 less than the original number. I cried.
If I was looking for a story of faith to share with someone, the story of how God provided a house and a fridge is at the top of my list. And Yet, that wasn’t where my story ended.
When I told my dad, I was going to file for divorce, he told me he already knew. He just knew without us having to talk about the awful fights. My dad knew, when he walked me down the aisle that one day he would also walk with me into a courtroom and support me while I got divorced from the same man. He didn’t say anything because he knew me. He knew if he did, I wouldn’t want to come to him. He wanted to have a relationship with his daughter. He did the right thing. When the time came, he was there for me and his grandsons.
And Yet, my story didn’t end with never getting married again. A few months after I wrote that testimony, I connected with a former classmate on Facebook although we have no memories of the other from high school. We met for dinner. Meeting Matt for dinner that night changed my life and the life of my boys forever. When I said that, I never wanted to marry again. What I meant was I never wanted THAT. That wasn’t a marriage. What Matt and I have is a marriage. We love each other more than we love ourselves. My boys aren’t just my boys, but his sons. I didn’t know it was possible to love another person as much as I love Matt and am loved by him.
With Matt, the boys and I are home. With Matt, we exist in a home with still waters and we TRY really hard to lay fear down. We are back in church. And yet, we do not know what tomorrow holds, but we do know who holds the future. The four of us will go through it together.
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