"God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him in the midst of loss, not prosperity." --John Piper

Monday, May 30, 2011

A Long Journey (Part 18) A message from God?

One of the struggles that I faced as we divorced was what to do about finalizing everything. Even though we had only been married 3 years, we had bought a home and because her retirement was better than mine, we had put a fair amount of money in her retirement. Altogether, depending on what the house was valued at, we were talking between 20-35K, just for my half. But I also know that she was angry and would not let go of anything easily.

That was when I kept getting this continued message. It was not an audilble one, but non-the-less, it was very clear. The message was "walk away." I struggled with that. How could I walk away with nothing? How could I start all over with nothing but half the credit card debt? I contacted a lawyer, but I pretty much knew my options. Walk away and be done with it, or spend years and probably a good portion of any money I might get fighting. Yet still, it was not an easy decision. But I followed the voice inside me, and I do believe it was what God wanted me to do. Its not that God was saying "get divorced," but I believe he was saying, "If you are going to do this, this is how I want you to do it."

So I did it. And I am thankful that I did. 20K is a small price to pay for 2-3 years of freedom, and that is what I had by not consuming myself with chasing the money. I lived frugally for the next few years, paid off my debts and even managed to save some. I have not seen my second wife since I left that night. I tried to call once because of a bill we needed to discuss, and I got hung up on. Maybe that was a bit of confirmation for me, that I had done hte best thing under the circumstances. Life in a fallen world is not easy.

1 comment:

kc bob said...

I am glad to see you telling your story again. I can relate what you said in the previous post about faith - it is all about our relationship to God in the good and bad times. I can also relate to following that inner voice. When we respond the way that you did we affirm that we are trusting the Lord with our heart and not leaning on our intelligence.