Twenty Years...

When I first started telling people that I was looking to attending seminary, I had a lot of people give me encouragement. They told me how great I would do and how excited they were for me, but one response caught me a little bit off guard. "That's great, now maybe you'll meet a nice girl to marry!" I laughed at the statement and let her know that wasn't the reason I was going to seminary, but she came back with "Well do you want to get married someday?" When I said yes, if I ever met the right person, her response was “See, there you go."

To be truthful, I have thought quite a bit about meeting somebody in school because come on, what better place is there to meet a "Good Christian Girl," then seminary. I would love to meet somebody there, but I'm not going to make the mistakes I have in the past. If I meet somebody great, if I don't, I'm not going to be disappointed.

It took me a long time to come to grips with my divorce. Surprisingly, the pain of the lost relationship wasn't the most difficult thing for me to get over. For the longest time I felt this stigma hanging over me that screamed divorcee. I struggled with going to church because everybody had seen me when I was married, and now I was showing up single. I wrestled with feelings of a call to ministry, because I was skeptical of a church accepting a pastor who was divorced. You sometimes see forms and documents that ask your marriage status, and they list single and divorced both as options. I used to always want to put down single, because I was ashamed of that stigma. I have never regretted the divorce itself, but the consequences of it were hard for me to come to grips with. I'm happy now, and I have never been in a better place in my life. I no longer carry that stigma with me, and I'm not afraid of what other people think of me.

I attended a worship service tonight at a different church then I normally attend. Crossroads is one of the larger churches in the area, and it offers a much more seeker oriented model to worship. I'm not normally a fan of this approach, but I think a lot of mainline denominational churches could learn a little from it. They are currently doing a marriage series as the message entitled "Desperate Households." The message was what I normally expect from a seeker model; a little light on the bible and very heavy on the practical advice. The message was good, but it didn't light a fire under me. What did leave an impression was the end when the pastor asked anybody in attendance who had been married to the same person for 20 years to join him on the stage. This is a large church with a pretty massive stage, and it was full to capacity. I'm not sure they could have fit any more people up there. The pastor prayed for all these people’s marriages, that they would continue to grow and prosper, and then he prayed for everybody else in the congregation. The neat thing for me was to look up at the stage and see four people whom I would call friends. I didn't know most of them even attended Crossroads, but it was a neat legacy presented by everybody on stage. It’s refreshing to be able to look at the positive aspects of marriage and the joy it can bring, instead of the struggles and failures. I think in my life I could have burned on marriage pretty easily, but instead I look at it with great awe and appreciation. It's something to look forward to with hope someday.