Correct. When I was a deacon in a Charismatic church having been a Christian for 10 years, I thought I was getting along pretty well. I thought my marriage was good and sound, having married the church secretary whose faith was genuine and strong.
When God told me later, when I was doing through the storm and stress years, that all I had going for me was that Jesus died for me on the cross, He said that was all I ever needed, even though I thought I was progressing pretty well on the pilgrimage path and had amassed some pretty good brownie points through my obedience and dedication to Him and the church. What He told me was that all that was nothing to Him and He had to bring me down to the point where I had to realise that I was just a poor sinner and nothing at all, and that Jesus Himself was all in all. It was quite a horrendous way of teaching me that lesson - by taking away everything I had and was through my marriage breakup.
My first wife suffered depression, and it changed her whole perspective, and she lost faith that there was any meaningful future for her in our marriage. I have learned a lot about depression, and it is a horrible thing to experience. My daughter experienced it to the point of planning suicide. Her whole personality changed when she was in the middle of it. I know it can be demonic, but often it is a mental illness that changes a person's whole thinking while in the throes of it. With a severe depression it can take years to come right out of it, and it takes careful therapy in many cases. This is what happened to my first wife.
If I'd have known that at the time, I might have been more gracious and prayerful about things instead of judgmental toward her. But I didn't have the knowledge and experience at the time, and my church taught that depression was spiritual and demonic. But I thought that problems in our marriage were the cause of the depression, when in fact, it was the depression that brought the problems.
Depression can hit any person, and it can be developmental through certain life stages, or situational, causing extreme stress. It can often hit people in their 30s when they realise that they are no longer as young as they used to be. Also we were having a lot of stress in our church because my wife was disagreeing with some of the questionable teaching going on there and she was getting judgmental telephone calls while I was at work. Also, I think there was post-natal depression there as well that was not recognised or treated.
So, my divorce was not as straightforward as some might think, and if it can happen to us, being two really committed believers who had a very effective ministry to the young people of our church when things were going well, then it can happen to any committed Christian married couple. This is why we should always watch and pray.
So when a marriage gets into difficulty, the last thing people need is judgmental church people, who have less grace than the sofa I am sitting on, to attack them with Scripture quotes to make them feel more stressed and condemned than they already are.
