Facebook Divorce Stats: Couples 'Be Wise,' Experts Say

Note: “Ah, it will never happen to me!” That’s usually a sure sign it will. When we think something can never happen to us, that’s the time to beware. Below is an article designed to help us who use Facebook to be on the alert. Know your weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Facebook is a tool, how good or how bad depends on how one uses it.

Facebook Divorce Stats: Couples 'Be Wise,' Experts Say

By Michael Foust

Surveys that show Facebook being cited more and more in divorce cases should make spouses think twice before "friending" someone of the opposite sex, experts say.

A 2010 survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers showed that 81 percent of "the nation's top divorce attorneys" reported an increase in social networking websites being used as evidence in divorce cases. Facebook is the leader, being cited in 66 percent of cases that involve online evidence.

"We're coming across it more and more," clinical psychologist Steven Kimmons of Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill., said in a news release. "One spouse connects online with someone they knew from high school.

The person is emotionally available and they start communicating through Facebook. Within a short amount of time, the sharing of personal stories can lead to a deepened sense of intimacy, which in turn can point the couple in the direction of physical contact."

The Facebook-divorce link has been discussed widely in the social media realm lately thanks to a survey from the United Kingdom supposedly showing Facebook being at least partially blamed for one in five of all divorces. The data is from a U.K. online divorce service that found the word "Facebook" appearing in 989 of the company's 5,000 divorce petitions, all of which were uncontested, The Wall Street Journal reported. The company's managing director called the survey "unscientific."

Whether or not Facebook is a reason for one in five divorces, it is becoming an increasing problem in marriages, Kimmons and other marriage experts say.

Couples should take common sense safeguards on Facebook, said Michael Martin, vice president for academic affairs and professor of New Testament studies at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill Valley, Calif.

"People need to manage the beginning of the relationship," Martin told Baptist Press. "If somebody contacts you from your past and wants to strike up a friendship -- somebody that you dated once or somebody that you knew in high school or college, there's nothing necessarily wrong with entering into that relationship. Just do it along with your spouse. Include your spouse into the conversation. If you're willing to do that openly, then it's likely there's nothing at all wrong with the Facebook relationship. If you are being invited into a conversation that you are uncomfortable including your spouse in, then you should not start the relationship."

There "absolutely" are times when a husband or wife should decline a Facebook friend invitation from someone of the opposite sex, Martin said.

Thomas White, vice president for student services and communications at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, said "unhealthy marriages, unguarded partners and fallen humanity" -- not technology -- are the problem. White, who also is an associate professor of theology, offered four tips for spouses who are on Facebook:

-- Give your spouse the password and the "freedom to check your Facebook at any time."

-- Disable Facebook's chat function. "It provides a way to communicate without any record and can lead to a false sense of safety similar to the woman in Proverbs 7 whose husband was away," White said.

-- Set all Facebook messages to forward to someone else's email address who can serve as an accountability partner. An additional layer of accountability, White said, would be to have the messages forwarded to your spouse's email. White said his messages are forwarded to his work e-mail which his assistants view.

-- Don't accept a past romantic interest's friend request -- or send a request -- until discussing it with your spouse.

"Facebook is not evil, but as with all forms of technology, we have to be wise in how we use them," White said.

Ease of communication has opened the door to all sorts of possibilities -- good and bad -- White and Martin said. Prior to the Internet and Facebook, a person would have had to spend days, weeks or even months to try to find someone they knew years ago.

"An out-of-the-blue phone call would have been a much bolder action," White said.

Now, though, a person can do that in seconds, "simply by just going on Facebook or any other social networking site and doing a search for that person," Martin said.

"It can almost be done on a whim, and that's part of the problem," Martin said. "A thing done on a whim can evolve into a secret relationship that evolves into an emotional attachment that then leads to a divorce. There are some early warning signs that a person should note in order to avoid that kind of thing happening."

Facebook relationships, Martin said, are "real relationships."

"It's not a game. It's not a fantasy. These are real relationships.... People can form powerful, genuinely emotional attachments as a result of an exchange that is initially nothing more than an online exchange," Martin said.

"Because these relationships are real and relationships shape our lives, we need to manage the beginning of a relationship with an eye toward the possible outcomes of that relationship. In other words, you don't toy with a dangerous animal. If there is something that a person would not do in terms of a face-to-face relationship -- an intimate discussion or a private discussion -- they should not do it on Facebook. Otherwise, they are starting down a path which can have extremely negative consequences."

Cohabitation and Divorce -- There is a Correlation

Note: “It is alright for the church to be in the world, but it isn’t right when the world is in the church.” This is a common saying that has validity. Too many Christians are listening to the world when it comes to “cohabitation.” What’s a common excuse? Economics.  It just makes better sense to live together than apart in order to save both time and money. Another common excuse it that you can check out the other person before you say, “I do.” But does cohabitation work? Check out the article below and decide for yourself. Not only is there biblical evidence that shows it does not work, but there is a growing body of scientific data as well. Ask yourself: “Am I contributing to the success of my future marriage by cohabitating?”

Cohabitation and Divorce -- There is a Correlation

Glenn T. Stanton

How many computers or cars do you think Toshiba and Toyota would sell if they didn't let you test them out first? Who in their right mind would make a big commitment of purchase without trying it out first?

But don't we do the same with marriage? We ask young people to make one of the biggest commitments of their lives -- rivaled only by their decision to become parents -- without any prior experience of what marriage is actually like.

More than 60 percent of marriages today are preceded by some form of cohabitation. And 75 percent of current cohabitors enter these relationships with some plans toward marriage, even seeing this live-in relationship as a smart move toward marriage. But does the experience of cohabiting teach couples things that help make them better spouses once they do marry? Does cohabitation contribute to stronger, happier marriages?

Unfortunately, it does not. Not even close!

This is a rare instance where there's a Grand Canyon sized chasm between what many young adults believe and the proven reality of their experience. And it is not the moralizing preachers and traditionalists saying so. A massive body of robust, diverse and conclusive scientific research on this question leaves no doubt about whether cohabiting is helpful to marriage. Graduate and postdoctoral seminars in sociology are held on this topic, and this is what they learn.

Sociologists investigating this question -- working from two leading schools of sociology, the Universities of Chicago and Michigan -- tell us clearly that the "expectation of a positive relationship between cohabitation and marital stability ... has been shattered in recent years by studies conducted in several Western countries, including Canada, Sweden, New Zealand, and the United States."

Their data indicates that people with cohabiting experience who marry have a 50 to 80 percent higher likelihood of divorcing than married couples who never cohabited. A Canadian sociologist explains:

"Contrary to conventional wisdom that living together before marriage will screen out poor matches and therefore improve subsequent marital stability, there is considerable empirical evidence demonstrating that premarital cohabitation is associated with lowered marital stability."

After surveying the data on this question, another leading scholar contends that the only conclusion one could honestly reach was to wholesale "reject the argument" that cohabitation contributes to stronger marriages.

In fact, if a couple wanted to substantially increase their likelihood of divorcing, there are few things they could do to so efficiently guarantee such an outcome than live together before marriage. In fact, this is such a consistent finding in the social science research that scholars have coined a term for it: "the cohabitational effect."

This finding has become a truism partly because the process of cohabiting itself is shown to influence couples to learn to communicate, negotiate and settle differences in ways that are less healthy and honest than do couples who didn't cohabit before marriage. This is probably because without a clearly defined relationship, the cohabiting couple can learn to be more controlling and manipulative with each other. And this leads to relational resentment and mistrust.

And this has nothing to do with social acceptance or rejection of living together. Doctors Claire Kamp-Dush and Paul Amato conducted a unique investigation that tracked two groups of cohabitors who eventually married: one that married between 1964 and 1980 and another that did so between 1981 and 1997. This allowed them to see if there were any changes in the cohabitation effect as cohabitation became more common and more accepted by society.

But they found "there was little evidence that the negative consequences of cohabitation dissipated over time as cohabitation became more prevalent." Even after controlling for various social and economic factors that could account for such a difference, they discovered premarital cohabitors in both groups were significantly more likely to have lower levels of marital happiness, more marital conflict, and higher levels of divorce.

"One of the most clearly defined correlates of cohabitation is an increased risk of marital dissolution," says professor Jay Teachman of Western Washington University. In a more recent examination of cohabitation's impact, he calls cohabitation one of the most "robust predictors of marital dissolution" -- making living together first one of the worst things you can do for your marriage. Teachman also warns that even premarital sex by itself is associated with an increased risk of marital disruption, though at lower rates than living together before marriage.

A 2010 "meta-analysis" looked at 26 peer-reviewed, published studies that followed various couples over time. This analysis found that marrieds who had cohabiting pasts were more likely to face divorce, and that "noncohabitors seem to have more confidence in the future of their relationship, and have less accepting attitudes toward divorce."

And as with other studies, the married couples with no cohabiting past are less likely to engage in aggressive and negative interactions, experience more overtly positive interactions, and enjoy more positive communications. These researchers conclude, based on their review of the best studies to date:

"The major practical implication of this review is that psychologists can inform the public, that despite popular belief, cohabitation is generally associated with negative outcomes both in terms of marital quality and marital stability...."

You see, marriage is not a consumer product that you give a try to see how it suits you. Marriage is a leaving of all other relationships to give yourself completely to your beloved. Cohabitation says, "I'm not sure about you. Can I give you test-drive to see what I think?" Melts your hearts doesn't it, ladies? Marriage says, "I want all of you and I want to give all of myself to you!" This is why cohabitation and marriage are such very different kinds of relationships. It is why the social sciences have come to the conclusions they have about living together before marriage being a poor and unhealthy idea.

Four Reasons to Face the New Year without Fear

Note: 2012 is just around the corner. What kind of economy will we be enduring? Sears is getting ready to do a massive lay off. St. Francis is closing and along with it scores of people out of work.  Heath, death and separation issues are always a concern. Will 2012 be our last year or just another one? Will it be better or worse? One thing is certain, we do not have to face it with fear in our hearts. We have the promise of the presence of God. Adrian Rogers who is at home with Jesus, understood this while he was yet still ministering on this side of heaven. Enjoy his article and put aside your fears.

Four Reasons to Face the New Year without Fear

Adrian Rogers

Love Worth Finding

God's Word brings us a comforting promise, along with an insightful command as we face a new year: "Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, I will not fear what man shall do unto me" (Hebrews 13:5-6).

We can live this coming year without fear if we apply these four incredibly wonderful truths to our lives and root them deep into our hearts.

The Contentment of His Provision

Contentment is not getting what you want, but it is wanting what you already have. 1 Timothy 6:6-8 says, "But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us therewith be content." If you know Jesus Christ, you have contentment. If you've got clothes on your back, something to eat, and Jesus Christ in your heart, you're rich!

Do you know why we have fear? Because we think our needs or the needs of someone we love are not going to be met. Or we fear that the things we think are meeting our needs are going to be taken away from us. The deepest need of your heart can only be met in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Companionship of His Presence

I don't know what I'm going to face next year. But there's one thing I know, He will never leave me. Are you a child of God? He will never leave you either. Isn't that wonderful! 

What's another reason we may fear in the coming year? Because we're afraid we're going to have to face something we don't understand, and we're going to have to face it alone.

When God's Word promises that God will never forsake you, it literally means that He will never abandon you. He will not give up on you. We need to practice the presence of the Lord this coming year. When the devil comes and knocks at you heart's door, you can simply say, "Jesus, please go answer the door."

The Confidence of His Promise

We're going to zero in on a little phrase in our verses in Hebrews, "He hath said." A promise is no better than the one who makes it. Who says, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee"? It is the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God. This is the confidence of His promise.

In the coming year, when you say, "God, I just don't have the strength." The omnipotent God will answer, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." When you say, "God, I'm afraid of what is going to happen." The omnipresent God says, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." And when you say, "God, I don't know what to do." The omniscient God will respond, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." He himself hath said it.

The Comfort of His Protection

Hebrews 13:6 promises, "So that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me." Now, put that with verse 5, which says, "He hath said."

Like I said earlier, I don't know what you're going to go through this coming year. But I know you can boldly say,

"The Lord is my helper, so I will not fear what man shall do to me." When you find your contentment, companionship, and confidence in Jesus. Then, you'll find your comfort and courage in Jesus.

A Subject Pastors Are Not Willing To Preach

Just how bad are things with regard to the family? Check this out in an article from cnbc.com -

The typical American household has changed – and not for the better. A new analysis of U.S. Census numbers for the past 50 years show a startling decline in married couples with children – and married couples in general.

The percentage of married households with children has plummeted from 44.3 percent to 20.2 percent since 1960, while the actual number – now 23.6 million – has stayed flat, according to the report “The Amazing Decline of the Iconic Household” released last week.

“The average American household of mom, pop and two kids hasn’t been true for decades,” says Peter Francese, co-founder of American Demographics and author of the analysis. “There is not one more married couple with a child today than there was 50 years ago, and the overall number of households has more than doubled since 1960.”

Francese found that one out of five households are married couples with children, one out of 10 households are single parents, and one out of four households are non-family households (people who live together but are not related by marriage or blood).

“Non-family households have risen an astonishingly high percentage – 390 percent – in the last 50 years and are now a third of all households,” he says.

And here is something that churches have NOT spoken about.  With regards to the family, one of the most silent, not-talked-about passages in the bible is found in Titus 2: 

“Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5to be self-controlled, pure, working at home. . .”(vv. 3-5). 

Notice those last THREE words in verse 5: “Workers at home.” When was the last time you heard a sermon on that? When was the last time you attended a marriage and family conference that emphasized that? What do you think would happen to the pastor or conference speaker who did speak about the need for women with children to stop furthering their careers outside their home and instead be “workers at home?”

The article goes on to point out: “The Amazing Decline of the Iconic Household” report points to more women entering the workforce as a major factor in the drop of married couples with children households.

Notice that! The report says, “a major factor!”

If a pastor preached on this you know what he would also have to emphasize as one of the major reasons why women with children put their home second to their careers? “A lack of self-control!”  Notice that before Paul said for young women to be workers at home, he prefaces it with these words: “to be self-controlled and pure.”  Many moms are driven by their need to become liberated. Landing their own jobs, making their own money, earning their own paycheck, spending their own money, which drives them to lose self-control and out of the realm of purity. Who suffers? Their families do. This is what the report is telling us!

But there’s more. The report goes on: “Also, I think the invention in the early 1960s of the birth control pill gave women total control over their fertility,” adds Francese.

That, coupled with women finding more work opportunities outside the home more, made marriage less of a financial requirement for females. “In every decade over the past five, marriage has become less of an economic necessity for women,” says Francese.

Thus, having the control over when to have children and working outside the home has made marriage less appealing to women.

Maggie Gallagher, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage based in Washington, D.C., says there are a few more reasons for the decrease. “Divorce rates are high, unmarried childbearing rates are going through the roof, and people are having fewer children overall than they did in the fifties and sixties. … Overall we’ve become a less child-centered and family focused culture. We’ve separated sex, love, marriage and children to an extraordinary degree.”

The sharp drop in married couples with children does not simply correspond to a rise in empty-nesters, says Francese. “Over the past 50 years, married households with no kids only grew at less than one-third (104 percent) the rate of all households that were not married couples (350 percent),” he points out.

Why should we care if married couples with or without children have decreased so significantly?

“For the first time in American history, married couples in general have dropped below 50 percent, which means that the whole concept of marriage is in question,” says Francese. “These numbers point to a major avoidance of something that virtually every American used to do – marry.”

Gallagher comments, “Sex, babies and marriage are not just intensely personal matters – they are civilizational ones, too.” When you add children to the mix, the stakes are even higher.

“Children are our future,” says Gallagher. “When a civilization becomes sexually disorganized, it cannot seem to channel the erotic energy of the young into making stable, loving marriages in which to raise children.

“The result is a large increase in social problems, an increasingly large government that steps in to try to solve these problems, more suffering for children, and lower levels of happiness for adults, especially for women. If the trends continue long enough, it calls into question the capacity of the society or civilization to transmit itself into the future.”

“The kids are going to be weaker in all aspects – mental health, IQ, disease, crime, addictions, grade point averages – in families that are not intact, that do not have a biological mother and father married,” he says. “These changes [in household makeup] are impacting many things, such as Social Security and the current fiscal crisis.”

Economically speaking, the lower number of married couples with children translates into a low, sometimes negative, growth in median income.

“The reason for this is simple: Most married couples with children have two earners and the highest median household income of any household type,” says Francese.

Having fewer married couples raising children and more single and non-family units raising children will impact U.S. policy and politics, both Gallagher and Fagan say.

“Social scientists and economists can tell you that we are growing more and more dependent on government because of more non-intact families,” Fagan notes. “We’re growing government instead of growing families.”

Fagan urges Christians to do more to uphold the sanctity of marriage, both publicly and privately.

“There’s an abandonment of pastors and parents in teaching [Christian principles on this subject]. … We need to help each other to repent and reform our thoughts and actions on marriage.”

Never Be Disappointed

I would teach you a way to be never be disappointed

(The following is a letter of John Newton to his 13 year old adopted daughter, who was away at school)

"The LORD does whatever pleases Him—in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths!" Psalm 135:6

My dear Betsy,
How vain are all things here below! "Vanity of vanities!" says the preacher. And you, and I, and your mamma, may say so likewise; for we all counted upon seeing you last Sunday. We listened at the door—and peeped out of the window—but no Betsy came! Now we will venture to expect you next Sunday.
Indeed, it is not amiss that you should now and then meet with a hindrance—that you may learn, if possible—not to count too much on what tomorrow may do for you—and that you may begin to feel the impossibility of being happy, any further than your will is brought into submission to the will of God. In order to learn this—you must have your own will frequently crossed. And things do and will turn out, almost daily in one way or other—contrary to our wishes and expectations.

When such disappointments happen—most people fret and fume! They are angry and impatient! But others, who are in the Lord's school, and desirous of being taught by Him—get benefit by these things, and sometimes find more pleasure in yielding to His appointments, though contrary to their own wills—than they would have done, if all had happened just as they had desired!

I wish for you my dear child, to think much of the Lord's governing providence. It extends to the minutest concerns. He rules and manages all things; but in so secret a way, that most people think that He does nothing. When, in reality—He does ALL!

He appointed the time of your coming into the world. And the day and hour of your coming home from school to us—totally depends upon Him likewise! Nor can you safely travel one step of the road—without His protection and care over you! 

It may now seem a small matter to you and I, whether you came home last Sunday—or are to come home next Sunday. But we know not what different consequences may depend upon the day—we know not what hidden danger you might have escaped by staying at school last Sunday. The Lord knows all things! He foresees every possible consequence! Often what we call disappointments, are really mercies from Him to save us from harm!

If I could teach you a lesson, which, as yet, I have but poorly learned myself—I would teach you a way to be never be disappointed. This would be the case—if you could always form a right judgment of this world, and all things in it. 

If you go to a bramble-bush to look for grapes—you must be disappointed; but then you are old enough to know that grapes never grow upon brambles. So, if you expect much pleasure here in this world—you will not find it. But you ought not to say you are disappointed, because the Scripture plainly warned you beforehand, to look for crosses, trials and hindrances, every day. If you expect such things—you will not be disappointed when they happen!

"At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: Naked I came from my mother's womb—and naked I will depart. The Lord gave—and the Lord has taken away! May the name of the Lord be praised!" Job 1:20-21

The Unraveling of a Christian Marriage: Why I'm Not Staying Forever, Part 4 of 4

The Unraveling of a Christian Marriage: Why I'm Not Staying Forever, Part 4 of 4

By Elisabeth Corcoran

Note: When a Christian marriage unravels, many questions rise to the surface. In this four-part series, Elisabeth Corcoran attempts to provide answers from the inside of the unraveling.

As a Christian, why are you not staying forever?
Short answer: God.
Long answer: {Deep breath.}

This is going to be the messiest part to lay out for you. This will be the most intimate part, and the part that has the potential for most misunderstanding. Holy Spirit, give me the words.

It got bad enough that I finally really woke up and got serious help. And when I got that serious help, my eyes were opened to how bad things really were. No relationship should function the way my marriage was functioning. I am not staying forever because we were just beyond broken.

I was dying inside. Every day, a part of me died. With every harsh word, every lie, I couldn’t even breathe fully. You know when you want death more than life, something is dreadfully wrong. I am not staying forever because I need to choose life.

I was living a fake life. I was one person with the world and another at home and with my closest friends. The counselor that I began to see to specifically target my anger issues had asked me to list off the top of my head three characteristics about each person in my immediate family, finishing with me. If I remember correctly, about myself, I said, “Loyal, stubborn, authentic.” She replied, “It’s interesting that you think you’re authentic, because most of your life is a secret.” Busted. Wake-up call. I preached about living an honest life, and then I went off and didn’t live one. I am not staying forever because I must talk and live the truth.

I was not loved. This is a hard one to write down. And one I fear saying the most. Because many of us do not feel loved. And, I hate to say this, but not being loved is not a reason to end a marriage. That sounds harsh, I know, but it’s true. (In fact, none of these reasons on their own hold enough water to end a marriage.) So I need to clarify that it’s not “you don’t bring me flowers anymore” kind of not being loved. I’m not talking about a lack of pursuing. I’m talking about an active unloving attitude toward another person.

There were harsh words and lies. There was manipulation and control. There were ultimatums and consequences. I didn’t have a partner. I am not staying forever because I was not loved as Christ loved the church.

Abuse is not okay. This is another sensitive subject. I was never physically or sexually assaulted by my spouse. But I suffered many forms of emotional abuse documented over fifteen years of our marriage. I thought I just needed to be a better wife. I thought if I were a better wife, I would be treated better. I felt I deserved the treatment I was receiving. I no longer believe those things. I am not staying forever because no child of God should be abused or threatened by another child of God under the guise of love and marriage.

My kids. Yep, this is also on the list of why I stayed. I came to a place of realizing that my daughter has been watching me take abuse and would make choices for her adulthood based on what she saw me do. And my son has been watching me and seeing what’s apparently appropriate for how to treat a woman and would make choices for his adulthood based on what he saw me do. I am not staying forever because I need to break the cycle of dysfunction with my children.

My church leadership released me to legally separate. This one is key. I went to church leadership begging for help as my last resort. We were referred to a new couples’ counselor and a mentor couple. We walked this road with our elder and campus pastor. We were each given a lengthy list of things to do to move toward reconciliation. My plea for a temporary separation was backed up as they felt things were just too volatile for us to remain under one roof while trying to put things back together. But when assessed at the end of about fifteen months, the unanimous decision was that I had done all I had been asked to do and my husband had not. They told me I was released from pursuing reconciliation and that the ball was one hundred percent in my husband’s court to save our marriage. They then released me to legal separation which I pursued. I must say here that had my church leadership not released me to legally separate, I have absolutely no idea where I would be today. If I had to guess though, I believe I’d still be married and miserable and nowhere near on the road to emotional health. I believe I would not have wanted to go against the wishes and guidance of my church leadership because of my high respect for their wisdom and love for God. I am not staying forever because they did release me, so I moved forward.

I know I did all that I was asked to do. Staying this long has its benefits. The main one being that I know that I know that I know that I did every single thing I was ever told to do to attempt to save my marriage, and it wasn’t enough. It takes two. I can hold my head high saying and believing that I spent almost eighteen years trying to turn this thing around. I am not staying forever because I did all I could.

My husband counter-filed with a divorce. This was a surprise, I must say. When one person files a legal petition, the other party must counter-file or submit a response. My husband told me that he interviewed three attorneys and no one would represent him in a legal separation proceeding.

He told me that he didn’t want to keep interviewing attorneys. And he told me that I was indirectly forcing him to divorce me. I hadn’t seen this coming. But in retrospect, I believe it was God’s provision of fully releasing for me without me having to be the one to initiate the divorce. I am not staying forever because my husband is divorcing me.

I felt released. I read somewhere that man can release you from a relationship, but only God can release you from a covenant. Months ago, I felt Jesus say to me in my spirit, “Release is coming. It’s going to get harder before it gets better. But it’s coming. Keep your eyes on me, baby.” And that has all come to pass. It has gotten harder and uglier and messier, more so than I ever imagined. But release is coming and my eyes have stayed on Jesus. I am not staying forever because Jesus released me.

So bottomline, I am not staying forever because of God.

I am so very aware that my words could possibly be the catalyst for someone to get help, which I find huge satisfaction in. But I’m cognizant that someone else might read these words, attempt to apply them to their situation, and think I’ve just given them permission to leave their marriage.

So as I wrap up these thoughts, I cannot stress these things enough:

I believe in God.
I believe God created marriage as a covenant to last for the lifetime of the couple.
I believe God created marriage as a breathtaking picture of how Christ loves his church.
I believe God allows marriages to end when certain sins are committed.
I believe the Church is in place to protect and guide individuals and families in dark, confusing situations.
I believe God would have wanted my marriage to be healthy and remain intact.
I believe all marriages can be saved.
I believe God gives us free will.

I believe God is bringing about a different kind of miracle in my family – one of healing and resurrection and joy on the other side and reaching out to others with the comfort we have received.

I believe no one should walk away from their marriage without first getting as much help as they possibly can and trying their absolute hardest to keep it together.

But I believe, when it all comes down, only you and God can know what you need to do.

May God bless you and keep you as you walk out your relationships in his light and with his love.

End of Part 4 of 4

The Unraveling of a Christian Marriage: How I Stayed, Part 3 of 4

The Unraveling of a Christian Marriage: How I Stayed, Part 3 of 4
By Elisabeth Corcoran

Note: When a Christian marriage unravels, many questions rise to the surface. In this four-part series, Elisabeth Corcoran attempts to provide answers from the inside of the unraveling.

As a Christian, how did you stay so long?

The short answer: God.
The long answer: A hundred different ways.

I will be writing this to the women I have met over the years who have told me that they are in a hard marriage and don’t know if they can keep going one more day. And trust me, I have met way too many women in that situation who are followers of Jesus married to followers of Jesus. Being a Christian does not exempt you from marital problems; in fact, the downside is, we tend to keep it to ourselves and suffer in silence much longer than the rest of the world.

Prayer. I have counted on prayer to get me through. I have begged God to work in my life and marriage more than I’ve prayed for anything else. I have sobbed my way through prayers on my bathroom floor. To be honest, though, I have also prayed more than I’d like to admit that God would release me. I wanted out of my marriage for as long as I can remember, and I was honest with God about it. But I also prayed for my spouse… on my knees... begging God to heal. I stayed through a steady stream of conversations and pleas and whispers to God.

The Holy Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit could have done the work in me that has been done so far. I have so, so far to go, but he burned raging out of me. I still yell, I’m sad to say. I still have anger issues. But the Holy Spirit worked in me to help me hold my tongue more than I have given myself credit for. I stayed through having the Spirit of God living in me, keeping me there when I didn’t want to be there.

Friends. My friendship circle has ebbed and flowed over the past fifteen years, but one thing that every woman in my life who I trusted and confided in had in common was their fierce love for me and my family. I have never once had a friend tell me I should leave my husband. They have listened, they have prayed more than I’ll ever know, they have supported, they have written notes, they have stood by me, they have pointed me back to Jesus, and they have kept me doing everything I could do to stay put. I stayed by having women around me who loved God and honored marriage helping me stay.

Counseling. I am a fan of counseling. I must be to have tried nine of them. I love digging in and trying to figure out why I feel a certain way or why someone acts the way they do. Counseling has helped me both individually and helped our marriage in some seasons. There is something to be said about an objective third party looking at a situation and being able to tell both individuals what needs to be tweaked to move forward. I stayed by knowing when to get outside help and not letting my pride stop me from getting it.

Couples’ groups. Getting plugged into small groups with other couples helped us over the years, though I must say, you only get out of it what you put in. We were in couples’ groups where the other couples had no idea how bad things were between us, which at times made it all feel kind of pointless. But at least we showed up and were hearing things that we could work on. I stayed by trying to get us involved in community.

Books. I’m a reader, and I think it’s safe to say that if a book has been written about marriage in the past fifteen years, I have not only read it, but taken notes on it. I once had a friend borrow a book, read it, and upon returning it say, “You are the only person I know who reads a book, highlights things, and then I can see you making the changes in your life that you read about.” It’s one thing to read a book. It’s another thing to try to put what you’re learning into practice. I stayed by reading as much as I could about Christian marriage and relationships, and then trying to do what I read.

Journaling. I’ve been keeping journals since high school. I have over twenty years of journals in my hopechest that chronicle the rise and fall of my marriage. Sometimes I journaled prayers, sometimes to track what God was doing in my life. Sometimes I’d write out an argument with my husband to try to figure out what went wrong and what I could do to fix it. And sometimes all I wrote, over and over again, was, “Jesus, please help meI can’t do this anymore…” And he would. And I’d have the strength to make it through another day. I stayed by getting my feelings out in written form which helped me stay somewhat sane through the years.

Twelve-step recovery group. I began attending a recovery group about three years ago that changed my way of relating in deep and practical ways. I learned to “live and let live”. I learned to get off my spouse’s back. I learned to keep my mouth shut, at least more than I used to. I learned to focus on what I could change in my own life. I learned to detach and let natural consequences play out. I learned how to make amends to someone. I learned that it was okay to admit that my life, or parts of it at least, were completely out of control and I needed help. I stayed because I learned how to live my life differently which in turn helped me be married differently.

Just plain staying. I remember reading something Beth Moore wrote on her blog in honor of one of her wedding anniversaries. She made a list of reasons she and her husband had made it so long and one of the reasons that stood out to me was simply, “We kept going to bed and waking up and staying another day until we realized it had been however-many years…” I stayed by not leaving. I stayed by staying one more day and then realizing another year had gone by.

Reminding myself that marriage is not forever, just another fifty years, and I could do anything for fifty years. I told myself this all the time. I can do this for fifty more years. It’s only fifty more years. That was my standard pep talk on really bad marriage days. I stayed by reminding myself that life is short in compared to eternity. I stayed by reminding myself that the staying-married crown would be the most treasured crown I would have to lay at Christ’s feet.

Mantras. After particularly painful arguments where hurtful things had been said, I would say to myself, over and over again, “You are precious and honored in his sight. Jesus loves you even though your husband doesn’t.” I spent a lot of time replacing lies with truth. I stayed because I knew that I was loved even when I didn’t feel loved.

I believed I had to. I’ve touched on this already, but I believed I could not leave without disobeying God. My marriage was bad, but it wasn’t biblical-grounds-for-divorce-according-to-popular-opinion bad. Our marriage fell into a grey area, and no one knew what to do with it. No one, and I mean no one, in my life ever told me to leave or told me that they thought I could leave (until recently). They felt sorry for me. They prayed for me. I stayed by believing that I had to stay.

It wasn’t time for me to go. I could have left, really, at any point. There was no gun to my head. And though I practically felt that leaving was not an option, I am a human being with free will. I could have walked away. But I never felt that I should. I had not, in years past, felt I had exhausted every avenue of potential healing or change. I did not feel released. I stayed by believing I was supposed to continue staying.

Only God knows the rest. I stayed through means that I didn’t have on my own. This has been the largest, longest, most difficult part of my life ever. It has broken me down, torn me to pieces, left me wishing for death to escape the perpetual pain. That I stayed married for all those years is a mystery to me, really. I know I just listed manifold reasons and ways, but I stayed not out of my own strength, but out of God’s.

So bottomline, I stayed because of God.

End of Part 3 of 4

The Unraveling of a Christian Marriage: Why I Stayed, Part 2 of 4

The Unraveling of a Christian Marriage: Why I Stayed, Part 2 of 4

By Elisabeth Corcoran

Note: When a Christian marriage unravels, many questions rise to the surface. In this four-part series, Elisabeth Corcoran attempts to provide answers from inside of the unraveling.

As a Christian, why did you stay so long?

The short answer: God.

The long answer: Well, there are many, many reasons.

First, Part I stirred up some controversy, so I want to reiterate that though I love God and treasure scripture, I am not claiming that what I am about to say is God’s holy word for everyone’s situation. If your marriage is experiencing a hard season, please find much wise counsel to walk you through.

So, why did I stay?

When I was a little girl, my parents divorced. I could probably stop writing right here. I was bound and determined to not repeat the cycle of divorce in my family, even if it killed me. I stayed because my childhood promise to myself was to remain married to one man for my entire life, no questions asked, no matter what.

I don’t believe life is about being happy. I believe life is about enjoying God and living a life that reflects Christ. I believe there is a deep joy that holds me up. But I do not believe that God guarantees a life of happiness, and I certainly don’t believe we deserve it. If someone bases their marriage on their happiness level, I would suspect that no marriage could stay standing. I stayed because I believe life isn’t about happiness, it’s about holiness.

I thought God would answer my prayers. I prayed a lot. I prayed for God to change my spouse. I prayed for God to change me. I prayed for God to rearrange my expectations. I prayed for God to make me more selfless. And I hoped that God would answer my prayers and heal us. Now, the natural conclusion would be to look at our circumstances, see an unhealed marriage, and therefore determine that God did not answer my pleas for help. But this is where you must take a longer, broader view and realize that God’s ways are higher than our ways. He heard me. He rescued me. But he allows free will. I stayed because I was waiting on God to perform a certain kind of miracle, but as it turns out, he is performing a different kind instead.

I was in a church. Community holds you together and holds you in place and keeps you from doing all sorts of things you might otherwise do if left to your own devices. My spouse and I began attending our current church two weeks after we got married, and we never looked anywhere else. We grew up there, basically. We had our children there. We served there. I worked there. We were known there. And when you let roots grow deep and people see inside your life and heart and you know you’re going to see those same people another one or two times that week, it’s really difficult to slide into a sin or completely walk away from what you know to be true without a bunch of people taking you to task. I knew that if I up and walked away, I’d have many people in my face – because they loved me – and if I stayed away, I’d probably lose my support system. I stayed because my church body takes care of its own and we try to protect each other from hurting ourselves.

I have two children. I believe to my core that it’s my job to show my kids how to live as adults. I have failed miserably in this respect. But I wanted them to see that what I said I believed – that marriage is for a lifetime – matched what I actually lived out, by actually staying married for a lifetime. Children of divorce have a higher marriage failure potential. I didn’t want to do that to my children, set them up for failure before they even married. I stayed because I didn’t want my children to be raised in a broken home.

I didn’t think things were that bad. Don’t get me wrong. I thought my marriage was bad. I knew deep down that there was no way God wanted this kind of marriage for my spouse, for me or for my children, and yet I didn’t think it was that bad. I liken it to the frog in a pot of water that has no idea it’s slowly being boiled to death because the temperature is going up in such small increments. I would journal things on a regular basis that seemed not quite right and I would occasionally toss them out in my circle of friends and they would sometimes gasp, but I still just thought we weren’t a good match. I’m no fool, I assure you, but I stayed because I honestly didn’t realize there was actual abuse taking place.

I’m tenacious. I ran for vice president of my class when I was a freshman, sophomore and junior in high school. I lost each year but kept going back for more. When my first manuscript was rejected fifty-one times, I didn’t give up. I’m grateful, because it finally found a publishing home with my fifty-second try, and that turned out to be one of my life’s best surprises. In other words, when the odds are stacked against me, I tend to fight harder for the thing that I think I’m supposed to have. I stayed because an intact marriage was something I was certain I was supposed to have.

I know that people are watching my life. There are people in my life – family and friends – who don’t believe in or follow Jesus. I know they are watching to see how I handle life’s ups and downs. I have readers and audience members who want to believe that what I write and say match how I live my life. I believe in marriage. I believe God wants marriages to stay together. I stayed because I didn’t want to let people down, I didn’t want to turn people off from God, and I wanted to be the kind of person who does what she says.

I promised God I would stay. I told myself innumerable times over the years that the only reason I was staying was because I told God I would. I made a promise, a vow. I entered into a covenant. I don’t take that lightly. I want to be the kind of person that people count on, that God can count on. I stayed because God is my authority, the One I will answer to, and the thought of disappointing him broke my heart on a regular basis. (It still does.)

Only God knows the rest. I suppose I could keep going. I suppose there is a reason that I stayed versus left for every day that I was married. I’d pick my daughter up out of her crib and know that I wasn’t going anywhere that day. Or I’d sit with a friend in a hard marriage and know that my staying helped her to stay. Or I’d hold the hand of a stranger after a speaking engagement and pray that she would have the strength to stay and do the hard, right thing.

Or I’d watch my son be taught how to throw a baseball by his dad and realize that he wouldn’t have this memory if I hadn’t stayed. I stayed for a thousand reasons that I know of and a thousand reasons I can’t even see.

But bottomline, I stayed because of God.

End of Part 2 of 4

The Unraveling of a Christian Marriage: 3 Common Questions, Part 1 of 4

The Unraveling of a Christian Marriage: 3 Common Questions, Part 1 of 4

By Elisabeth Corcoran

Note: When a Christian marriage unravels, many questions rise to the surface. In this four-part series, Elisabeth Corcoran attempts to provide answers from the inside of the unraveling.

“It is impossible for me to shake you from my mind. Everywhere I turn, everything I see, everything I hear reminds me of you. Who am I fooling? I love you. I need you.”

Cut to…
”Irreconcilable differences have caused the irretrievable breakdown of their marriage. Past attempts at reconciliation have failed, and future attempts at reconciliation would be impracticable and not in the best interests of the family.”
A lot can happen in twenty years between a man and a woman.

My situation has left many scratching their heads, and from what I can tell, a few tongues wagging as well. And I don’t blame them. Because I love Jesus with my whole heart and I am allowing my marriage to end. And I am here to say that both can coincide within the same person.

I’ve held my marriage problems so close to the chest for so long – too long perhaps -- except for my inner circle and the random counselor. But I’m now at a fresh place of stripping off the layers for more of the world to see, I feel ready to answer questions that have been asked of me, and I’m willing to do so for a more public forum.

Oswald Chambers said, “There is no such thing as a private life, or a place to hide in this world, for a man or woman who is intimately aware of and shares in the sufferings of Jesus Christ. God divides the private life of his saints and makes it a highway for the world on one hand and for himself on the other.” So since my life is apparently not my own as a follower of Christ, I am finding that the entire point of my struggles is to share with others how I made it through with the help of Jesus.

One woman wanted to know why I stayed in my hard marriage so long, because she doesn’t understand why God wouldn’t want me to be happy, and why I didn’t just do what was “right for me” a long time ago.

One woman wanted to know how I stayed in my hard marriage for so long, because she’s in one too, and sometimes feels like she can barely make it another day, let alone the rest of her lifetime.

And one woman wanted to know why I’m not staying in my marriage forever no matter what, because she believes there are a select few biblical reasons for divorce and she thinks my circumstances don’t fit the profile.

I have a feeling that there aren’t only three women who might like to ask these questions of any woman who calls herself a Christ-follower and is at the same time ending her marriage. I know I would. For every Christian divorce I’ve known about in the past fifteen years, I would’ve given anything to corner the wife for an hour and hear her story.

How did they get from point A to point B?, does she feel she’s doing the right thing? Can she still look God in the eye? All of that and more.

These are fair questions. And they deserve thoughtful, authentic, in-depth answers. In this four-part series, I will put forth my most honest attempts at answering them.
Please keep in mind before I begin that I can only speak for myself and not for anyone else. And though I love God and treasure Scripture as my personal truth source, I am not claiming that what I am about to say is God’s holy word for everyone’s situation. Only God can deem that for you, and my hope is that he does.

Before I jump in with answering those three questions though, I’m going to give some background on my marriage so you can see where I’m coming from.

My husband and I are both followers of Christ and have been since we were teenagers. Our courtship was rocky, filled with a lot of arguments, tears and long-distance phone calls. I had no less than a half-dozen dear friends suggest gently that he and I weren’t good together, but I was scared and needy and stubborn.

I loved my husband but love was not the reason I married him. I married my husband because I was afraid that God would not provide me with the life that I longed for – a husband, home and children – if I didn’t marry the man in front of me at that time. I didn’t think anyone else would ever love me. I also was under the impression, growing up as a child of divorce, that two other truths were foundational. One, arguing is part of any relationship, and lots of it; and two, it is normal to have to beg for the affection of a man. And our relationship fit the bill. So I moved forward into marriage, even after giving myself the once-over in the mirror, wedding gown and all, and telling myself I could still walk away.

But I stubbornly walked that aisle on October 15, 1993, in front of family and friends and told God and my husband that no matter what, I would stay married to him for the rest of our lives. Unfortunately, I had absolutely no idea what would fall under the heading of “no matter what”.

We had one good year, maybe. I was happy. I felt secure. Our fighting had practically evaporated. I even remember telling people that the problem must’ve been the distance, because now that we were married, we almost never argued. But that couldn’t last forever, and it didn’t. Our honeymoon phase lasted about nine months. Then arguing ensued. And I was a yeller. I would go into rages that would leave me lying on our bed until I would sob myself to sleep. I felt controlled. I felt trapped.

I say this only to illustrate the depth of my pain, not to garner pity, but I began praying that God would kill me because I knew I could never leave my marriage. I knew I could not get a divorce. In my mind, it wasn’t that I was choosing not to, I literally felt it was not an option of mine. I prayed for my death. Daily.

Around the five-year mark, I began meeting with two women from church to go through a book on marriage. It was during this time with them that I shared not only the depth of my marriage pain and the frequency of our arguments, but the knowledge that alcohol was becoming the third party in our relationship. I thought they would be able to help me. I thought this was my answer. But as it turns out, people – through no fault of their own – do not always know how to handle this kind of thing. So I was given, repeatedly, a list of things to do to be a better wife. Pray more. Serve more. Have sex more. Cook more. Praise more. Respect more. Keep my mouth shut more. I felt patted on the head and sent back into the room after being told to try harder and keep taking on the chin whatever was being dished out, because I probably deserved it.

Maybe if I did all these things I’d become the kind of wife he wanted and needed and he’d stop drinking. That was my hope. Be the good wife, and he’ll choose me eventually. And if he doesn’t, it’s because I’m not a good enough wife. I felt that deep down for years.

More years passed of the same. Our two children grew. We were in and out of counseling (nine counselors all together). We were in and out of couples’ groups. I read practically every book on marriage ever written. I tried to do all the things I was told to do. But the arguing continued. The drinking would stop and start. The lies would sustain me for awhile. I would cry myself to sleep more nights than I can remember. And I died a little more each day.

This cannot possibly be what God had in mind for a Christian marriage, I would write in my journal time and again.

I filled in the gaping holes of my emotional life by pouring myself out into raising my children, writing books, starting a speaking ministry, and beginning the women’s ministry at my church, which I would go on to lead for ten years feeling like a hypocrite all the while. My life was full. I looked the part of the fulfilled (read: busy) Christian woman, wife, mother and servant, except for my dirty little secret… that my marriage was disintegrating. I was desperately sad and lonely almost all the time, and nothing I did to fix it was working.

Add to that, I felt trapped by my faith. I would beg God to help me and heal us, and it would feel like he wasn’t. And yet, in my heart I felt that to walk away from my marriage would be to disobey him, to fail him, to be in sin.

A fairly standard belief in Christian circles is that there are only two biblical reasons for divorce: if your spouse is unfaithful and if your spouse is not a believer and he abandons you.

My situation did not fit those criteria. I was stuck. So I resigned myself to make the best of the next fifty years. I would stay married for the rest of my life, and I would simply try to fill up my life the best I could and serve others and change the world and raise my kids and write some books and having a good marriage is overrated anyway.

In January of 2010, I took the bull by the horns, finally tired of my own pity party, and visited a new counselor with the express purpose of working on my anger. I don’t want my children to think of me as an angry woman, I told her. I explained my life circumstances, told her they wouldn’t be changing, so I needed her to teach me to not be angry all the time.

But that next month something changed in me through two pivotal conversations.

The first was with that counselor who introduced me to the Power & Control Wheel, and I quickly discovered that our relationship had been largely tainted by many forms of emotional abuse. This was brand new information for me. I felt like a fool, and yet I felt free all at the same time, watching pieces fall together in a way that finally made sense to me.

The second conversation was made up of one sentence that sealed my heart’s door firmly shut, even if I didn’t notice the depth of its impact at the time. I had felt it was time to tell our pre-teen children about their father’s drinking. One, I felt they needed to know it was genetic and they should stay away from alcohol; two, they were at the age that Alateen would be available to them if they wanted to try it; and three, they needed the tools to know they could choose not to get into a car with their father if he had been drinking. When I told my husband it was time, he said that if I told the kids about his drinking, going against his wishes, he threatened me. Though he was not threatening me physically, he broke me that day. He broke us.

If I have given the impression for even one moment that my husband was one hundred percent at fault for the brokenness we endured, I apologize. I was a broken little girl who more than likely had no business getting married in the first place and I hurt him in myriad ways every day of our marriage. I was not empathetic, I was not a support. I did not call out his dreams. I sat on the sidelines and cried and whined and criticized, more than I want to admit. Our marriage broke because we were both broken, bottomline.

End of Part 1 of 4

Sleeping Together and Christ's Global Cause

Note: Here is a great article on a subject lots of people are asking. Although the answer is simple, the way the answer is given is what makes this article worth the time invested to read it.

Sleeping Together and Christ's Global Cause
Ray Pritchard
Keep Believing Ministries

I received an email from a man who asked a very particular question. He is a Christian, divorced, and in his forties. He met a Christian woman who seems to be an answer to prayer. Over time they have fallen in love and hope to get married eventually. But they can't marry right now because of financial reasons. Meanwhile they have started having sex together. He used the term "being intimate" to describe it.

"We have been intimate and are feeling guilty that we DON’T feel convicted by the Holy Spirit that it has been wrong."
He goes on to say they waited to have sex until they knew they were in love. Here is his question put another way:

“Why do we not feel convicted by the Holy Spirit but do feel convicted by people? People make us feel guilty but at the same time, the Lord has blessed us and used us in some truly amazing ways."

He wants to know if there is a different standard for premarital sex for those who are divorced. After all, they aren’t virgins anymore. They’ve both been married before so their sex is not “premarital” in the literal sense of never having had sex before. They don’t want to lose the intimacy they have enjoyed.

So why would God forbid sex before marriage when you’ve
been married in the past, had sex, and have children? And why don’t they feel guilty?

The email says (and I do not doubt) that they have struggled with this issue. He says they are not just young adults looking for a free pass to have sex. For the first time they both feel they have found a partner that they love and enjoy in every way.
So why shouldn’t two adult Christians who happen to be divorced and have fallen in love—why shouldn’t they sleep together?

There are many ways to answer that question. My own answer begins in a way that may surprise you, but I hope you will read through all the way to the end.

My Answer to This Question

Dear Friend,

Thanks for your note. I appreciate your forthrightness in writing so openly. Many people would not be as honest as you are. I thought a great deal about the question you raised and decided that I would answer you the same way I would answer an old friend. I want to shoot straight with you and say exactly what I would say if we were old and dear friends and had gone to high school together. Please know that I am not upset with you nor do I have a frown on my face. You have asked a good question that deserves an honest answer.

If we were lifetime friends, I would say something like this:
1) It doesn’t really matter whether or not you and your lady friend (for lack of a better term) sleep together. In the great cosmic scheme of things, it just doesn’t matter. Compared with the economic crisis, Russia’s invasion of Georgia, a national election coming up, and soldiers fighting and dying in Iraq, on one level, it just doesn’t matter whether or not two people sleep together. It’s not a big deal. The world goes on spinning whether you guys sleep together or whether you don’t. Odd place for me to begin, but it is undoubtedly true.

2) The world certainly expects that if you love each other, you will sleep together. People assume that in some discreet way, having fallen in love, two people in their forties will have sex.

3) And even in the Christian world, there is a great deal of winking at this point. I am not naive about this. I understand that Christian singles sometimes date and then have sex. I don’t approve of this nor do I think it is wise, but I cannot deny the reality. Not that every Christian couple in your situation sleeps together, but it does happen.

4) And that leads to the point about your friends making you feel guilty. How do they even know? Do the two of you talk about it? This isn’t a spectator sport.

5) I’m not surprised that the two of you enjoy being intimate. “Being intimate” makes fornication sound romantic. Words mean something. “Being intimate” seems a lot more acceptable than “fornication."

6) There is a great deal of biblical support for regarding sex as a gracious gift from God, meant for procreation and as part of what it means to become “one flesh." God designed sex for our enjoyment—but only within marriage (Genesis 2:24-25; Hebrews 13:4). Fire in the fireplace is a good thing. Outside the fireplace, that same fire will burn down the house. It’s not wrong to have sex and it’s certainly not wrong to enjoy it. And of course, if you have sex with someone you care about, you’ll enjoy it and feel good about it. That’s how God wired up the situation.

7) But your feelings don’t matter in this case. They just don’t matter because they will always lead you back to the bedroom.

8) I gather that your real issue is, “Why don’t we feel convicted by the Holy Spirit?” But I think you do or else why would you write me? And why would you take the time to justify yourself? You don’t write and say, “I am convicted that I spent too much time cheering for the US team to win the women’s water polo gold medal.” No, the very fact that you write is more or less the answer to your question.

9) Here’s something you may not have thought about. You say the Holy Spirit hasn’t convicted you but maybe he has. God often speaks to us through the witness of the church. And it sounds as if the church—the great Christian church—has spoken through your friends who have made you feel guilty. God often uses others to speak to us when we can’t clearly hear his voice any other way.

10) If you are truly in love, then get married and make it legal. Those are basically the rules we all have to follow. Not just the Bible rules, but the common rules of the Christian faith. To be sure, lots of people break the rules but they remain in force.

11) Don’t say, “Hey, I’ve got money issues so I can’t get married now but I still want to have sex.” It doesn’t work that way. You can’t rewrite the rulebook to satisfy your own desires.

No Time to Mess Around
But there is a deeper issue at work here. When I read your note, I was reminded of a book I read 25 years ago. It was a story about how many Jews in Romania were saved from the Holocaust by some Romanian friends who spirited them out of the country at great personal risk. Here is the part I recall most vividly. The heroine of the book was a beautiful young woman, well placed in the country, a friend of powerful people, who took up the cause of the Jews as her own. Time and again she risked everything to save them. Somewhere along the way she met and fell in love with a gallant young man who joined her in her mission. They were nearly caught and captured again and again. It was clear that they were falling in love with each other. And on some level, you kept thinking they would sleep together. But they never did. Not once. And the reason given was something like this. “Our work in saving the Jews is so important that our own desires must never interfere.” And it never did. They never slept together. Not even one time. The cause they served captured all their attention, and they knew that they had no time to have sex. And that’s why they didn’t. It wasn’t biblical at all—their reasoning, I mean. Yet it was immensely biblical.

I thought of that book for the first time in many years when I read your note. I think the meaning is, “As long as you and your friend have time to think about sleeping together, you aren’t serving the right cause.” I dare to venture that Christ and his Kingdom simply have not captured your heart. When Christ’s global cause and serving others in his name becomes your priority, you won’t have time or energy to think about sleeping together. Or you may think about it, but the higher calling will overrule your desires.

There is a huge truth for you to consider. I can say, “Don’t sleep together,” and you either will or you won’t. I don’t have the power to compel obedience. You and your lady friend have some important decisions to make. As I said, I have spoken to you this way as if we were lifetime friends because among friends you can be blunt. When I said, it doesn’t matter, I meant it. Who’s going to know if you sleep with her tonight? Not me. I don’t know and don’t want to know. The world rolls on, assumes that two people in love will sleep together, and the church sometimes looks the other way and too often shrugs its shoulders. I simply say, find a higher cause and give your energies to that cause so unreservedly that you will prize that cause above your own earthly desires.

Symptoms vs. Root Issues
We need to distinguish between causes and symptoms. Sleeping together is a symptom. It’s not the root issue. The deeper issue is committing yourself unreservedly to Christ’s great global cause to bring Good News to everyone, everywhere. Last week one of the presidential candidates said that America’s great failing is that we have lost the concept of giving ourselves to a cause greater than our own self-interest. He’s right. And in the church somehow we have lost sight of the incredible adventure of serving Christ with nothing held back—to be so consumed in the Lord and his holy cause that lesser things fall away.

It comes down to this. Do I believe that the rules of life were made for my ultimate benefit? If so, then I’ll find a way to live by those rules and wait until I get married to have to have sex. And no one—not the teenagers who fool around on a date nor the divorced guy and gal who feel very attracted to each other and enjoy “being intimate”—will successfully say no unless they have a higher reason to do so. My advice is, find that higher reason in Christ and his great global cause. Give yourself with unrestrained passion to helping others in Jesus’ name.

I do not doubt that you and your lady friend truly love each other. If that is true, my counsel is, Don’t wait!

Don’t wait to serve the Lord.
Don’t wait to give all that you have for a cause greater than yourself.
Don’t wait to follow Christ wherever he leads.

When your heart is captured by a higher calling, you won’t have to write and ask me, "Should we be sleeping together?" You just won’t do it.

Nothing Better to Do
There is much more that could be said about setting proper boundaries, building hedges, finding accountability, and so on. I am putting all that aside to stress the central issue of your heart. I leave you with one final thought.
We sin because we don’t have anything better to do.
Ponder that for a while. This applies not just to sexual sin but to gluttony, pride, sloth, envy, bitterness, and every other evil inclination. We sin because we are bored and can’t think of anything better to do. As long as we are bored, we will justify anything we can think of simply to keep us occupied. Remember that David sinned with Bathsheba precisely because he had nothing better to do. He stayed home when it was the time of year when kings go out to war (2 Samuel 11:1). We focus on the adultery, but that was the result of his own boredom. He didn’t have anything better to do that night, he took a walk, he saw Bathsheba, and the rest is history.

We sin because we don’t have anything better to do.

Right now you don’t have anything better to do so of course the two of you sleep together. But how can you do that when the world is dying, millions are suffering, and people everywhere need the Lord? Why do you lie in bed with your lady friend when the King has called for you?

Many years ago we used to sing the old campfire song, "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus." One verse in particular comes to mind:

The world behind me, the cross before me.
The world behind me, the cross before me.
The world behind me, the cross before me.
No turning back, no turning back.

If the cross is before you and the world behind you, there will be no turning back. When your heart is consumed with the pleasure of knowing Christ supremely, sleeping together won’t seem so appealing. Until that happens, until the eyes of your heart are opened, nothing I say can make much difference.

I started off by saying that it doesn’t matter. And I stand by that—in the sense that the world isn’t waiting to find out whether or not you are sleeping with a woman before you are married. The world thinks you are—and doesn’t worry about it. But on a deeper level, it matters greatly because what you do or don’t do sets a course for your own life. We don’t have two different standards—one for our teenagers and one for our divorced adults who fall in love with each other. It’s one standard across the board. What you do impacts your walk with God, your relationship with each other, the standard you set for your own children, and your testimony to other believers who may struggle in this area.

Finally, it matters to the world because the world is waiting and watching to see if what we believe makes any difference in the way we live. If we live like the world, how will the world ever see the true life-changing power of Jesus Christ?

I am not suggesting that you shouldn’t date your lady friend or that you shouldn’t someday get married. But for the moment, that is not the issue. The greater matter is the state of your own heart and your commitment to Christ’s cause in the world. Ask God for a new vision, new eyes, a new heart and new desires. Ask the Lord to replace the boredom of your heart with an unquenchable passion for him.

I have actually quoted any Scripture verses because it’s not about this verse or that verse. But if you want one, here it is. "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (Matthew 6:33). I urge you to join the great band of Kingdom-seekers who for the sake of Christ have committed themselves to his global cause. Do that and in his time, everything else will be yours.

I have spoken to you as a friend to a friend. I hope these thoughts are helpful.

The "One Anothers" in the Bible

The Gospels
1. “…Be at peace with each other” (Mark 9:50)
2. “…Wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14)
3. “…Love one another…” (John 13:34-35; John 15:12, 17)

Paul’s Letters
Romans, I Corinthians, II Corinthians
4. “Love one another”(Romans 13:8)
5. “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love…” (Romans 12:10)
6. “Honor one another above yourselves” (Romans 12:10)
7. “Live in harmony with one another…” (Romans 12:16)
8. “…Stop passing judgment on one another” (Romans 14:13)
9. “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you…” (Romans 15:7)
10. “…instruct one another” (Romans 15:4)
11. “Greet one another with a holy kiss…” (Romans 16:16; I Corinthians 16:20, II Corinthians
13:12; I Thessalonians 5:26)
12. “…When you come together to eat, wait for each other” (I Corinthians 11:33)
13. “…Have equal concern for each other” (I Corinthians 12:25)
14. “…Serve one another in love” (II Corinthians 13:12)

Galatians, Ephesians
15. “Carry each other’s burdens…” (Galatians 6:2)
16. “If you keep on biting and devouring each other…you will be destroyed by each other” (Galatians 5:15)
17. “Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other” (Galatians 5:26)
18. “…Be patient, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2)
19. “Be kind and compassionate to one another…” (Ephesians 4:32)
20. “…forgiving each other…” (Ephesians 4:32)
21. “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” (Ephesians 5:19)
22. “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21)

Philippians, Colossians
23. “…in humility consider others better than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3)
24. “Do not lie to each other…” (Colossians 3:9)
25. “Bear with each other…” (Colossians 3:13)
26. “…Forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another” (Colossians 3:13)
27. “Teach…[one another]” (Colossians 3:16)
28. “…admonish one another” (Colossians 3:16)

I Thessalonians, Hebrews
29. “…make your love increase and overflow for each other” (I Thessalonians 3:12)
30. “Encourage one another” (I Thessalonians 4:18, 5:11; Hebrews 10:25)
31. “…Build each other up…” (I Thessalonians 5:11)
32. “Encourage one another daily…” (Hebrews 3:13)
33. “Spur one another on toward love and good deeds” (Hebrews 10:24)

Other Letters
James, I Peter, I John, II John
34. “…Do not slander one another” (James 4:11)
35. “Don’t grumble against each other” (James 5:9)
36. “Confess your sins to each other…” (James 5:16)
37. “…Pray for each other” (James 5:16)
38. “…Love one another deeply, from the heart” (I Peter 1:22, 4:8)
39. “…Live in harmony with one another…” (I Peter 3:8)
40. “Greet one another with a kiss of love” (I Peter 5:14)
41. “Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling” (I Peter 4:9)
42. “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others…” (I Peter 4:10)
43. “…Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another…” (I Peter 5:15)
44. “Love one another” (I John 3:11, 23, 4:7,11,12; II John 5)

The Twelfth Man

Here is an inspiring devotional to pass along to you. Enjoy!

The Twelfth Man
This devotional was written by Kelly McFadden

Then he said to the disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. As the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” —Matthew 9:37-38

Students do not sit at Texas A&M football games. The A&M athletic department is built on the traditions of the 12th Man. During a football game in 1922 the underdog Aggies were playing the nation’s number one ranked team. Player after player left the field unable to return and the Aggies had limited reserves. From the stands came a former football player. E. King Gill suited up and stood on the sidelines ready to play for the team during the remainder of the game. At the end of the game he was the only man standing. The courage and heart displayed by this fan has encouraged others to follow his lead. At each game fans stand symbolically ready to go into the game. Students are more than just spectators; they are the twelfth man, ready to go in if the team should need them.

Perhaps you see acclaimed authors, speakers, the pastoral staff and ministry leaders of your church as the players on the “Christianity Team”. Where do you see yourself? Are you sitting on the sideline or are you in the game? You are a part of the team. Stand up and be ready.

Jesus saw the huge crowds that were following Him and His disciples, so he told them to pray that workers would be ready. Many are ready to give their lives to Christ, but they need someone to show them how. Jesus tells us to pray for workers. The workers are few. We are all ministers to those God has put in our lives. You are part of the team. You are a worker. Be ready for God to use you!

GOING DEEPER:
1. Who are people in your life that need a Christian to walk alongside them? How can you be the friend who introduces them to Christ?

2. Pray that God would present opportunities for you share the good news of Christ!

FURTHER READING:
Ezekiel 34:5-6; Matthew 28:19-20; 1 Peter 2:9

The Secret Young Women Keep

Note: The following article is quite informative on the types of eating disorders that are common among both young and older women who have a fear of being fat and labeled thus. You may have struggled with this or know someone who is. Read this article and become better educated to pray, assist, support and be the blessing God has planned for you to become. Enjoy!

The Secret Young Women Keep
by Dr. Jill Hubbard with Ginny McCabe

Angie tried every diet that exists. Then she began binging and throwing up. Soon she was on a weight-loss rollercoaster that caused her health problems and didn’t keep her weight down for very long. Food controlled Angie. The solution to her problem with food had always been nearby; she’d just chosen to overlook it.

The Secret
Angie’s Story

My weight problem started when I was about eight years old. A thin girl around my age told me to my face that I was fat, and I remember how badly she hurt my feelings.

Most of my family is overweight. Dealing with my weight problem was an ongoing struggle throughout my childhood and teen years. Even when I wasn’t hungry I ate, but at the same time I was extremely eager to lose the weight. I’ve always been an emotional binge eater with an obsession for food. I was binging so much that both my mind and body didn’t know what was going on. Food became my comfort. I ate when I was happy and when I was sad. Sometimes I ate so much that my stomach would ache in agony. At times I had to unbutton my pants, make my way to a couch, or lie down. Needless to say, two hours later I would be right back at it.

I was really depressed over my indulgence with food, which was often. I forced myself to go on a diet. I took the latest diet pills and made false promises to myself and to everyone else that I would stay on that particular diet and lose the weight for good. But after a few days, I always clung to the food and would get into the same vicious cycle. It was as if I were in an abusive relationship with food. I loved it, but I hated how it made me feel. Food controlled me, and I allowed it to do so. I overate all of the time, and this cycle went on for years.

It was pathetic. I was embarrassed, and I felt horrible about myself. I knew exactly how I would feel if I ate too much, but I did it anyway. I knew what it would do to my thighs, butt, waist, and hips—but I continued to overeat.

At one point, I read that Albert Einstein supposedly said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” I began to wonder if I were a crazy person with an eating problem. It was so out of control that I knew I had to make a lifestyle change—so I did.

It was extremely hard, but with some help I started to get my life under control. I started drinking plenty of water and exercising every day. Sometimes that exercise might be simply parking farther away from the school entrance so that I had a longer walk, but it counted.

And I began writing about my struggles and all of the other things in my life, which has helped me in getting my weight problem under control and in putting everything into perspective. When I saw my feelings written down on paper, it helped me realize what was really going on in my life. Writing has become my therapy, along with reading a lot of self-help books, and keeping the fridge and cabinets stocked with healthy food. I’ve always enjoyed snacking a lot, but now I make sure I eat healthy snacks including fruits, nuts, vegetables, yogurt, and low-cal and low-fat snacks.

I’m maintaining a healthy weight. I feel better physically and mentally. It wasn’t an easy fix, because there is not an easy fix. And I don’t think of this as a diet; I think of it as the way I should have always been eating. Do I ever sometimes eat something really calorie-laden? Rarely, but I do. Then I go right back to eating properly. I tell my story because many other young women allow food to control their lives. If food is controlling your life, I encourage you to make a change. Make a change and make your life better.

Unlocking the Secret
Eating disorders are very serious. Anorexia and bulimia primarily affect people starting in their teens and twenties, but studies report both disorders in children as young as six and in individuals as old as seventy-six. In my practice as a psychologist, I have met with girls who have started their eating disorder at age nine and have worked with women who still struggle with binging and purging going into their sixties.
An Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders, Inc. (ANRED) report shows that more than half of teenage girls are on, or think they should be on, diets. Without treatment, up to 20 percent of people with serious eating disorders die. With treatment, that number falls to 2–3 percent.

I remember being amazed at hearing my daughter and her friends picking apart their bodies while only in the first grade. Self image, body image, and the need to be perfect or the fear of our imperfection starts very young. It starts in our disordered thinking, just as it did for Eve when the serpent tempted her that she could be perfect like God. We all are like Eve.

In my work with girls and women of all ages who struggle with all forms of eating disorders, I am hopeful, as eating disorders don’t have to be life long. Sadly, not all end well, and my heart is grieved for those I have known or heard about who have died from these disorders. No one can abuse her body for long and expect to not suffer adverse consequences.

Eating disorders have often been called the “good girl” disorder, because they often affect respectable girls who are pleasing and cooperative, who are not acting out with defiant behavior. Instead they are really acting-in against themselves, and for all of their outward pleasantries, they are inwardly self-loathing and filled with emotion.
Girls often get into eating disorder behaviors out of curiosity, or when fears about themselves or growing up are triggered. They see how others have gotten thin or hear about purging tactics. Initial triggers might be about their bodies, looks, perfection, fear of not being good enough, being teased by peers, or a life that generally feels out of control.

Stacy writes about teasing between girls who already are self-conscience about their bodies and appearance.Girls are definitely in an awkward stage when they’re teenagers, and now body image is key. Trying to look good, girls may be experimenting with makeup and don’t fully understand how to apply it. They may put on the wrong shade (which makes them look orange) or too much (which makes it look really thick). As a result, they get teased or called names.

Teenagers are always growing and will lose and gain weight at different times and rates. Some girls tend to have bigger breasts—and the guys give more attention to those girls. Then other girls will be mean and make up rumors about the girls with larger breasts being “sluts,” because they don’t get the same attention as the bigger-breasted girls. All girls are awkward about their bodies at this age. And girls will make mean stuff up about other girls to make themselves feel better. All of us girls do all we can to avoid being the target of such ridicule, even if it means hurting ourselves.

Those who struggle with anorexia sometimes want to keep their bodies looking like little girls’ bodies, so they create rigidity in their lives to maintain control. Restrictive eating and behavior gives them a feeling of mastery or success. Or they think that if they can survive on little and have few needs, they can reach a life of perfect self-control. If they achieve this, they believe they can keep bad things from happening to them.

Anorexia tends to be hard to keep secret over time. Some girls who start with anorexia flip into bulimia, using a combination of binging, restricting, fasting, and purging behaviors. Bulimia also can destroy a female’s body with the inconsistent and extreme binge-purge cycle. I’ve heard girls and women say things like, “I used to have to stick my finger or my toothbrush down my throat, but now as soon as I lean over the toilet it just comes up,” or “Food is always there like a best friend. I eat even in the middle of the night. But then I feel sick and hate myself for eating and have to get it out. The vomiting makes me dizzy and it’s painful, but I know I have to do it to get relief. Afterward, I am wrung out, and I hate myself even more.”

A person’s struggle with eating has little to do with food. It is, however, about a hunger, a longing, an emptiness. Some refer to it as “love hunger” that gets all mixed up with feelings about growing up, feeling little, separating from parents (especially Mom), and control or lack of control with family or in life.

How a young woman feels about herself affects her core feelings of purpose, image, and worth. Genesis 1:27 talks about being created in God’s image, and that means you are perfect in his eyes. He created you uniquely and with a purpose. But in this present-day world, we will not realize that perfection. Someday we will have perfect bodies but not now, and our task is to learn to accept and love ourselves in our imperfection.

In 1 Corinthians 6:12–13, the Bible says, “‘I am allowed to do all things,’ but not all things are good for me to do. ‘I am allowed to do all things,’ but I will not let anything make me its slave. ‘Food is for the stomach, and the stomach for food,’ but God will destroy them both.” I like the food analogy used here. It goes on to talk about sexual sin, but the emphasis is in using your body, the body God gave you for his glory. “You should know that your body is a temple for the Holy Spirit who is in you. You have received the Holy Spirit from God. So you do not belong to yourselves, because you were bought by God for a price. So honor God with your bodies” (1 Corinthians 6: 19 – 20).

If your secret is with food, ask God to show you what is real and ask for help before you get too far down the road. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Seek God. Tell someone you trust. And seek professional help.
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There are three main types of eating disorders studied by the experts and listed in the DSM – IV—TR (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition/training edition):

Anorexia nervosa
A refusal to maintain minimally normal body weight for your age and height. Intense fear of becoming fat regardless of size. Denial of seriousness of low body weight and distortion of body shape and weight influencing a negative evaluation of self. Amenorrhea can occur, which is the loss of three consecutive menstrual cycles.

Bulimia nervosa
Characterized by repeated episodes of binge eating, followed by self-induced vomiting, misuse of laxatives or diuretics or other medications, fasting, or excessive exercise. Feeling out of control while eating in this diet-binge-purge cycle that occurs at least twice a week for a three-month period. Distortion of body shape and weight influencing a negative evaluation of self.

Compulsive overeating.
Now referred to as binge eating disorder it is characterized by larger-than-normal amounts eaten in short periods of time (within a 2-hour time frame), followed by physical discomfort and emotional distress, but no purging.

Factors
No one factor causes an eating disorder. Following is a list of factors that are sometimes attributed to each disorder.

Anorexia
• Fear of growing up
• High family expectations
• Inability to separate from the family
• Parental dieting
• Family discord
• Need to please or be liked
• Temperament—often described as the “perfect child”
• Perfectionism
• Need to control
• Teasing about weight and body shape
• Need for attention
• Lack of self-esteem

Bulimia
• Difficulty regulating mood
• Availability and indulgence of food
• Sexual abuse
• More impulsive—sometimes with shoplifting, substance
• Role of the media
• Family dysfunction abuse, etc.
• Obesity and reaction to the larger body size
• Emphasis on thinness as the ideal for beauty
*used by permission from the Anorexia nervosa and related eating Disorders, Inc. (AnreD), www.anred.com. For more information, contact AnreD or the national Association of Anorexia nervosa and Associated Disorders, www.anad.org.
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Is an eating disorder your secret? Let’s do some work in this area right now. Take a few minutes to answer the following questions, either here or in your private notebook.

Answer the following questions.
(Circle yes or no.)
1. I eat too much and continue to eat until I feel sick. Yes/No
2. I skip meals. Yes/No
3. I skip meals because I think I’m too fat. Yes/No
4. I exercise all the time. Yes/No
5. I’m obsessed with being thin. Yes/No
6. I’m terrified of gaining weight. Yes/No
7. I often feel out of control and can’t stop eating. Yes/No
8. I throw up after I eat. Yes/No
9. I try to diet but always fail. Yes/No

Use these questions as a simple guide but not the final word. If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you may or may not have an eating disorder. If you answered “yes” to two or more of these questions and spend a high percentage of time worrying about these things, an eating disorder is more likely. Either way, take the time to talk over your weight and body concerns with a trusted adult.