Life After Divorce | The New Me Mom

Romans 2:1

“Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgement on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge are doing the very same things.”

I filed for divorce 2 years to the day… Its not what I wanted. Its not what I ever envisioned for my life. It was the hardest choice I’ve ever had to make. I grew up knowing there was a stigma on people that were divorced. I was raised in a southern Baptist church and what was drilled in my brain was that “if you divorce, you will go to hell”. I knew there was a lot of bad in my marriage. But I stayed. Day in and day out I prayed for him, prayed for us. I believed that if I prayed hard enough it would turn out in our favor. I have journal after journal filled with me crying out “God, please I pray for my husband. I pray for my marriage…”

How much can one really handle? The stress and emotions that all go into such a life change are insurmountable. I have had to lean on Jesus 100% to get me thru and I continue to do so. I’m a much better person having gone thru all of this for the last 2 years. My faith has been tested but grown stronger and maybe I just needed to open my eyes and see that this is what God has been doing all along. I know he wants better for me. I want better for me. However, I do still feel a sense of being judged. Today in church we talked about judgement and not to judge others. “Use the fire within us to not judge others and use it to better ourselves.” Like a divorce, these are mere snippets out of our whole lives where we can be judged and shamed but people don’t really look at who we our as a whole. I know I’m a good person and I hate the now stigma attached to me that I’m divorced and people will judge me without even knowing the whole story just because of that one word.

Let me just say this. After looking high and low in the Bible for permission, from God, to divorce, I found this passage:

1 Corinthians 7:15

But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother or the sister is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace.

Peace. Something I’m looking forward to. But this is what God wants for us. He didn’t want us to live in misery. Jesus didn’t die a horrific death so we could live in shame and have guilt from others judgement.

Psalm 18:16-19

He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place, he rescued me because he delighted in me.

I will not be judged by others because it isn’t their place. I won’t judge others because it isn’t my place. There is only one who we need validation from and we will get that on our own judgement day. ♥️