When Answers Don’t come
What’s the hardest thing about a divorce? It’s a death without a funeral. You grieve the past, present, and future simultaneously, but no one is sending flowers. Instead, they are trying to decide the percentage of harm you caused. You would probably like to take a beat and grieve privately, but even in the mildest divorce you are thrust into legal demands, property division, and you’re frantically looking for safe people. Everyone that you speak to is making a silent assessment on your character. Soon, people will learn about every bad thing you’ve ever done. That was especially hard for me to accept when I would have done anything to save my marriage. How is it fair for strangers to know these details of my life? But maybe the hardest part for me was that I had unending questions without answers.
I remember my first call with my lawyer. Me, my dad, and my mom sat in the living room with him on speaker and my sister watched the kids. I wanted to ask someone if it was ok for me to even get a lawyer. I had such strong convictions that divorce was wrong because of my Christian faith. But who could I ask? I needed to lawyer up like… yesterday. No one in my family has been through a divorce. It felt “icky” but should it be avoided? I didn’t have time to answer any of my questions while the line was already ringing.
I was still in Indiana, but we were able to find a Texas lawyer that specialized in cases like mine. He had a non assuming southern drawl but still came across as the top dog. I told him some background events that let up to this moment- things I can’t share here. He asked me to take the phone off speaker to talk to him privately. I walked into my moms bathroom and paced back and forth on the tile floor as he asked me questions. “You doing drugs with that boy?” “Can you pass a drug test?” “Go take a 10 panel UA today and send it to me.”
My life went from suburban house wife to an episode of law & order in the blink of an eye. We don’t have the exact same divorce story and hopefully you didn’t have to learn the difference between a nail test, hair test, and a UA. Hopefully your child’s first haircut wasn’t at a 24 hour drug testing facility. BUT we do face some common threads of pain, injustice, and fear.
As the days and weeks went on, I found comfort in two things: spending time with God and spending time with my friends and family. The atmosphere was usually heavy and I’ve come to realize that people willing to enter this grief with you are actually superheroes. My mom called me one day to tell me a verse she had read in her Bible and it ended up becoming a core theme for the next three years.
“Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage, As they pass through the Valley of Baka, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. The go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.” Psalm 84:6-7
We got in the habit of noticing my “springs” in my literal and figurative desert. People, unexpected kindness, Gods providence, this one little bird that sat on my fence every morning, good food, laughter, Vespers, peace in the storm. God was moving me through the valley and while I had pain, I also had joy.
One day though, I remember the pain of the divorce and cruelty from the other side was just too much. There was an actual physical sharpness to it and it was hard to breathe. I did all my remedies- read my bible, put on worship music, reached out to my support group for prayer, ate something healthy, worked out, and still no relief came. I walked the lap around the pond behind my apartment. Normally one of these things or the combination of them could lift the intense heaviness. I just couldn’t shake it. I sat down defeated on the bench and watched, what I assumed, were normal people with happy lives pass me by. I prayed again for relief, but nothing came.
The night came and ultimately, I went to bed with the heaviness still there. Not the encouraging story you were hoping for, right? I was disappointed God didn’t show up for me. He didn’t have to make me “happy”, just some relief would have been great. An ounce lighter. Is that too much to ask?
Joy always comes in the morning and it’s not like I thought about that day much more after that. I had new problems, deadlines, hearings, etc. I had new victories too. God was certainly with me and became so real to me in this season. But something really cool happened a few weeks ago. (So over a year after this heavy day.) We were able to move home to Indiana and I was going to sleep in my new, comfy bed, finally feeling safe after so long. I closed my eyes to go to bed and I had what you would call a vision (sorry if that makes it weird). I saw myself sitting on that bench back in Texas. I sat there a lot, but I was instantly transported to this particular day I just described. But this time, I wasn’t sitting alone. Jesus was sitting next to me.
I felt like God was saying to me, “Just so we’re clear on this, I never actually left you.” Anyone reading this has likely had a day like this where you feel no relief. You might not get answers right away. You might be living a life with someone else’s problems you didn’t ask for. It might be a long time before you get answers or the more painful possibility- you don’t get your answers at all. But you can be certain God gives the answers you actually need, and He gives them to you when the timing isn’t just good- but perfect. Trust that your Father sees you, loves you, longs to heal your broken heart, and He has not left you-even when answers don’t come.
