A Problem or an Opportunity

Sometimes a God ordained opportunity comes as a really well disguised problem. (paraphrased from In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, by Mark Batterson.) I wrote this down sometime ago and don't know the page number, but then in my journal wrote how divorce can be just this, a problem with a God opportunity attached. You may feel you are in a pit of despair, but maybe out of that despair will rise a greater opportunity in God that you never knew possible before. When we have problems in our lives, God does not expect us to sit back and lie down, he expects us to use it, to grow and learn, and guess what, that can be exactly what happens after divorce. I take great comfort in this verse: "God sometimes uses sorrow in our lives to help us turn away from sin and seek eternal life." 2 Corinthians 7:10 (TLB) My own experience tells me this is true. My sorrow has led me to now seek him out.

I was headed down a Godless road in my first marriage. I married someone without the same vision of God in his life as I had in mine, and his vision won out in the end. I did not stick to the path and I was led down a very rocky road for a long time, which at any time I could have stopped, but did not. I stopped believing in God and well, sort of shook my fist at him and said you can't possibly be there or this would not be my life. When things got really bad in the end, and our almost 23 year marriage ended in divorce there was a part of me that was horrified, and a part relieved. I never knew where I stood with my first husband and spent much of those years with knots in my stomach, always on edge, and unsure of myself. I soon realized I wanted to find God again and began to slowly rebuild the relationship I had once had with God, this time into a real and deeper relationship based on more than church attendance, but based on study and devotion to living a spiritual God filled life. And this is now my journey, and will never end. Out of my sorrow has grown a devotion to God and a desire to share with others how you can find your way out of the pit of despair and into the light.

So I ask you to consider this: What will you learn from your experience? Will you be a better person or a bitter person? In your journal, consider which you want to be and how you plan to accomplish the better! Bitter or better? Choose happiness!