A while back, he confided in me that his marriage was going through a bit of a storm and it was taking a toll on him. He didn't want to say it directly but I deduced that his wife wasn't too comfortable with his line of work. He was the pastor of a small branch of a worldwide 'winning' ministry headquartered in Nigeria. His wife resented him for that. It made no sense since he was a pastor before getting married to her.
Despite every intervention and counselling sessions, the wife walked out of the marriage and filed for a divorce. Pleas from different quarters fell on deaf ears. She stood her ground and the court granted her wishes. Hard hitting as that was on him, the church sacked him two weeks later because in their opinion, a divorcee should not pastor a church.
Hearing his tortured voice over the phone gave me a picture of a very broken man. A man the ground underneath had suddenly shifted. A man flailing widely trying to grasp and make meaning of his sudden misfortune. I listened as intently as I possibly could. Words do little to soothe the broken hearted. My silence was all he needed and I granted him that. Comfort would come later but the pain needed to be felt first. A heart in love and suddenly in loss is mostly inconsolable.
You can do everything right and still fail in marriage. Not because of something you did or didn't do but the emotions that govern the heart are fickle. Suddenly, the warm smile that welcomes you, becomes a scowl. Your voice they always looked forward to hearing, becomes an irritation. Your presence would rather be avoided. But maybe I'm being too dramatic.
I have come to realise that it is quite easy to fall in love and even easier to fall out of it. I mean..it is right there! What possible good can come out of falling? Humpty Dumpty surely had a thing or two to say about that.
To fall in love is to choose blindness. You aren't seeing the red flags (initially sha, if you aren't a hopeless romantic). It is mystifying how the same people, who walked down the altar, took vows, had people gathered in celebration, are now parties in divorce. What went wrong?
There is a whole body of documented knowledge on the reasons for divorce. But very little knowledge exists where no reason for divorce exists. Couples actually can grow apart. That's why there is a thing called 'no fault divorce'.
Again, I say this. You can do everything right, your partner can do same but you find yourselves growing apart. This is the fate of most marriages UNTIL the couples involved realise that love in marriage is a commandment more than it is a choice for the man and submission is a commandment more than it is an option for the woman.
I may be a bit of an ass yeah, but I have an irrevocable belief that marriage is a divine institution. You don't walk down that altar, take an oath before God and later take actions that violate that oath. So long as there is no threat to life, abandonment without cause, infidelity of any sort, why should couples even consider divorce if not for pride and ego?
Love doesn't keep a marriage. Conscientious DAILY decisions to CHOOSE your spouse does.
This is deeply sad. Sometimes life shows that even doing everything right doesn’t guarantee the outcome we expect
ReplyDeleteI keep saying this.. there's no two marriages that's the same
ReplyDeleteDo what works for you
People feel you will know everything during courtship..anybody can change and at this point it's better everyone finds their way than getting Violent
Hmmmm🤔 that's why all these lavish marriage ceremonies this time don't move me anymore beacause the way you will hear divorce from them will just be unbelievable
ReplyDeleteIn all,may God help those who wants to help themselves Amen
That's all
I doubt if the woman walked away because he was a pastor. There is something he is not telling you. That he is a pastor doesn't make him a saint.
ReplyDeleteUntil you heard the woman's side of story
May God help our children to get it right in marriage.
ReplyDeleteMarriage is a decision. Love nad commitment is also a decision.
ReplyDeleteHello Doggedity,
ReplyDeleteAgain, I must applaud the finesse that today's writing carries. Such soft assured elegance - the kind that only comes from someone who genuinely understands what they want to write about.
To the subject proper, you were so thoughtful to have sat with a friend's pain long enough to let the silence do the work. That instinct - to listen before consoling is bae.
Where it got interesting was your sweeping conclusions about marriage, divorce, love, and wifely submission - this transition was so smooth you may not have noticed it yourself. Please, I am not criticising you - it's deeply human nature. Pain in proximity often unlocks our most deeply held convictions. We reach for certainty when loss is standing in the room.
Even though it doesn't matter, there are three sides to a story like this: your friend's side, his wife's side, and the true side. And that was worth pausing on. Perhaps a better insight into the crux of the disagreement that became irreconcilable would have helped a little. By logic, there's a definite reason for everything. Even if we don’t understand it ourselves. You don't just wake up one morning and be resentful of a spouse's vocation just like that.
Marriage is rarely one person's failure or success. Or one person's fault or merit. The truth usually lives somewhere in the middle - unglamorous, complicated, and resistant to clean conclusions.
Even if your faith is sincere, your care towards your friend was evident. But conviction, however deeply held, isn't the same as the full picture. Sometimes the wisest thing an observer can do is resist the urge to conclude or take sides - and simply stay with the question a little longer.
As always, I appreciate your write-up. Can't wait to read next weekend's piece. God bless your pen and the blog.
The ministry of being a pastor's wife is not exactly by choice for most people and the halo and spotlight of a pastor's office many times can blind the occupant of that office from seeing the toll it takes on his closest support, those closest to him.
ReplyDeleteIf Aaron or Hur should grow weary, Moses's arms will drop and this will spell doom for Israel. Yet, Aaron and Hur cannot be fed by the Israelites in the distance and Moses will get the glory for victory but the fall is blamed on Aaron and Hur.
Moses needs to be the kind of person Aaron and Hur want to hold up. For all his flaws, at least, Moses was humble and that helps a lot in ministry.
There's a reason why PKs have a certain reputation. It comes from being neglected by the stars of the show while a burden of great expectations are placed on you despite limited personal nourishment. What people have not focused on are PWs who bear the toll of both the PKs and the Ps all their lives with no real retirement. The devil can plant resentment for free in these situations.
It may even be worse when serving in organisations where people are used and dumped for the real sons of the owners of the investment. The way generals were spit out in old age in many of the big Pentecostal denominations recently will make a responsible mother wonder why the breadwinner is working for someone else in a rigged game. Any woman not seeing the handwriting on the wall with the way people were spat out based on documents from decades ago, not adjusted for inflation and told to go and win elsewhere may be seen by in-laws to not to love their husbands. Paul didn't have a family but he made sure he wasn't beholden to any congregation when he served them. His financial independence even helped other churches because he was able to raise funds for others since he made no demands for himself.
May God bless his church. Anyone claiming to be called needs to constantly clarify if it's full time or if he needs to start tent making. It's not the wife's job to provide for her Christian household. Asides from financial provision, the home is a pastor's first ministry. Spiritually and otherwise, he ought to be leading. People praying for their churches to grow may not even have the roots deep enough to carry it.
Poverty scares Me more than being unmarried. I envy no one
ReplyDelete