Thursday, November 15, 2012

How the Drama Starts (Divorce Pt.2)




DISCLAIMER: All marriage relationships are different. Therefore, it is not my intention to generalize any one person's circumstances. My goal here is to explore common issues and concepts that affect many marriages. By looking at biblical characters with similar circumstances I try to draw parallels to our own experience and find principles that we can apply to our own lives. I pray that you are enriched. If you are currently experiencing a divorce or separation I pray for God's richest manifestations of healing and restoration over you and your family. God bless.


Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.” “Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her. The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered. Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.” (Gen. 16:1-10 NIV)

Now I already know what you're thinking, “Abram and Hagar weren't really married! God never blessed that relationship.”  While I understand and sympathize with the rationale, I think that the issue is a bit more complex than we like to make it.  So just indulge me here, and please note that the text actually says that Sarai gave Hagar “to her husband to be his wife” (Gen. 16:3 NIV).  There was no other social construct to describe such a relationship of long-term domestic partnership that included conceiving, bearing, and rearing children.  Albeit misdirected and ill-advised, it was indeed a marital relationship.

I actually agree with you.  This whole thing with Abram and Hagar was never God's plan.  And this thing was doomed to fail from the beginning.  However, let's not overlook the fact that polygamy was the norm in that time and society.  But we also have to consider what it was that they were trying to accomplish.  This was not a simplistic attempt to keep in step with societal norms.  This was a ploy in the mind of his wife (Sarai) to help bring about God's will according by their own means.  And for that reason it was doomed before it even got started.

But let's face it, a lot of marriages start just like Abram and Hagar's did.  We overlooked a glaring flaw or tried to ignore a major red flag.  You knew he had major control issues.  You knew she was self-centered and materialistic.  Yet, you moved in together anyway reasoning that "everybody test drives before they buy."  And after the wedding, red flags turn into real problems.  In other words, what was easy to overlook in the dating stage is not so easy to ignore after the vows because marriage has brought us too close to really hide character flaws and inconsistencies.  Even some of the things that were thought to be cute are suddenly annoying as time goes by, so surely the weak points of character will begin to weigh on the relationship.

Then, there were those parents and mentors who tried to counsel us against getting married.  They said we're too young, we should wait, we should get counseling, we should finish school first, we should get a job and save some money, but we didn't listen to counsel because we knew we were in love and we could make it work.  Boy were we in for a rude awakening?  We had no idea that it would be this hard.  It's amazing how problems don't just go away if you "just drop the issue."  They just fester, spoil, and get worse and worse.

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