Our God is a God of restoration and of reconciliation. All we have to do is receive it. A spouse is not getting in the way of our victory. Neither is our circumstances getting in the way of our victory. Not even Satan is getting in the way of our victory. The only thing getting in the way of our victory is us. We have to personally all make a conscious decision with our will by faith, which is the Word of God, who we will serve. Contrary to popular belief, people do not fall out of love, they fall out of respect.

In my own story, because of our attitudes toward each other, there was nothing there to respect. We had manipulated each other out of our roles as man and woman. This left nothing about each other that we could like let alone respect. I will not go into specifics because we all have our own specifics. I will leave it up to you to fill in the blanks. A very wise brother/pastor once shared an analogy with me while at counseling about love and a twenty-dollar bill.

This brother removed a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet and laid it out on the table in front of me. It was in plain sight. He then started placing papers on top of that twenty-dollar bill, one piece at a time, naming each piece of paper; anger, jealousy, resentment, neglect, disrespect, argumentative, bitterness, hate, manipulation, and etc. After he had placed and named many pieces of paper on top of the twenty, he asked me if I could still see the twenty-dollar bill. To this question I had to say no because the papers had totally covered it up.

After he had covered up the bill he asked me, “Is the twenty-dollar bill still there then on the table?” Since I did not see him remove the twenty from the table, I had to assume that it was still there. “Yes, it is still there,” I guessed. He assured me that the bill was, proved the fact by lifting the edge of the papers, revealing the twenty-dollar bill.

What he shared next I felt to be very profound. He said, “Just for a moment, imagine that this twenty-dollar bill represents the love that a husband and wife have for each other.” He continued, “Suppose further that this stack of papers depicts the differences, the arguments, and all the garbage that you have gone through in your married life.” He said, “No matter how tall the stack of papers is, the twenty-dollar bill is still there. Conversely, no matter how much garbage you have, the love is still there. The trick is to keep your love visible while talking through the garbage.” This was a very wise brother.

How many of us evict God from our relationships or marriages and then wonder why the break-up or divorce? We had evicted Jesus from our hearts and marriage because of all the bitterness, hate, jealousy, anger, manipulation, and garbage that we had in our spirits for each other. Christ allowed our self-destruction to make room in our hearts for Him. He knew that the purpose of our illness (divorce) was not death, but was for the glory of God. I, the Son of God, will receive glory from this situation.

v41 Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
v42 And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.
v43 And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth [John 11:41-43 KJV].

Like Lazarus, Jesus Christ stood at the tomb of our divorce and He cried out with a loud voice,

“JIM! EDNA!”
“COME FORTH!”

There is no question as to who got us to gravitate back together — again. It was our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and we give Him all the glory. We give Him our undying love and gratitude for caring enough about us to reach down into the pit and to pull us both up by the nap of our necks and put us back on the road to recovery.

Our grave clothes might be pretty stinky yet, but maybe, over time, the three us can unwrap ourselves from this bondage. Like that twenty-dollar bill, our love is still there and with the Lord’s help we can remove all the papers that cover us, one piece at a time. (Prayers are welcome.)