For those of you that know me or for those you that have read my About Me page, you’ve discovered I’ve been divorced and was a single mom for a season. My ex-husband is not well liked by those closest to me. If you’ve been through divorce, (I’m sorry if you’ve gone through it; it was one of the most heart wrenching things I’ve ever experienced), you know those around you have a tendency to choose sides, pick up their torches and pitchforks to defend the person they’re aligning with when battle lines are drawn. Over the years since my divorce and even while I was still married to my first husband, friends and family would ask, “Why did you marry him in the first place?”
I used to answer, “because I was young and stupid.” Realizing this is not a very positive response, I then changed it to “young and naive.” It still wasn’t the best response, but it was what came to mind at the time.
A new answer started to roll around in my head as I was out running last week. Somewhere after the first mile, I was struck by the idea of Beauty and the Beast. While it is a great story, with some amazing songs that get stuck in your head thanks to the creative people at Disney, it creates an illusion in girls that we can domesticate the beast of a friend, boyfriend or husband on our own.
This is my best answer as to why I decided to date and marry my ex-husband. I thought I could tame the beast inside him. I naively thought I could be the answer to all his hurt and pain from his past. Essentially, I gave myself the job of the Holy Spirit. I thought I could be the light in his darkness, the ointment to his wounds and fix him if I prayed hard enough on his behalf.
See, he wasn’t a Christian. To be perfectly candid, when we started dating, Christ was not the center of my life. He was barely a blip on my spiritual radar. When I was drawn back to God after a few years of marriage, my ex husband, did not like the change in me, to put it mildly. My home became the front lines of a spiritual battle ground and all the while, I thought I could love the Holy Spirit into him. Instead, I saw a person who grew to hate everything I now stood for in life. I realized it took more courage to walk away to protect my kids, then it did to stay with him.
For years, I felt as if I failed at my marriage. The picture perfect life I had in my mind had gone up in flames and the only thing left were ashes, which is exactly what God can work with.
Isaiah 61: 1-3 states, “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.” (NIV)
The real beauty in life comes from God and God replaces the ashes we make of our lives with His beauty. However, I would be remiss in only classifying my ex husband as a beast. See, I realized as I was nearing the end of my run, we all have a beast living inside of us. It could be on full display for everyone to witness or it could be held deep inside of us that we can’t let out because people would be appalled at what our secrets hold.
This is the true job of the Holy Spirit; to wash us clean of all the past, present and future sins in our life as long as we say we’re sorry to God with a truly repentant heart. God is the only one that can take the beast inside, sign an eviction notice, and make us into the beauty He created us to be. Would you turn your beast over to God and see the beauty He replaces it with?