Remarriage is a blessing

[heartnsoul]

Hello fellow brothers and sisters in Christ,

Lately, there has been a lot of negative discussion about whether remarriage is a sin or not. I would like this thread to be one of powerful testimonies of God's grace and mercy of which God has blessed many of us who have divorced and remarried.

Personally speaking, remarriage has been a blessing for me. I have been divorced and remarried. My first husband was a manic depressive who threatened to kill himself and me because he was unemployed. I divorced him shortly afterwards. Since then, I have been remarried to a man of twelve years now. God has shown me nothing but mercy, love and compassion. He has blessed me in every area of my life (marriage, finances, business success, wealth, beauty, happiness, spiritually, sexually). There are numerous of other blessings that would be too long to list in this thread.

Have I felt God's wrath, judgment and punishment? No. Have I learned a lot about marriage and God? Definitely! When I was a younger Christian (in my mid-twenties), I was of the belief that God was a God of punishment and laws. However, as my faith in God grew stronger and as I spiritually matured, I (now at 41 years old) realize and understand God's heart to be full of compassion, forgiveness and love. I want to encourage all of those who have remarried and are struggling. If you draw closer to God, God will bless you and never leave you. With God, all things are possible.

I praise God everyday and will be forever grateful for His love for me.

For all you happy-remarried folks out there, please share your testimonies so that we can encourage those who need encouragement and uplift their spirits. What an awesome God we have!! God bless you all.

 

[Yitzchak]

My ex and I met in church when I was 16 years old. She was the only woman I had ever dated and we were married for 15 years and had several children together. She fell away from God and had an affair and left me. I went through 17 months of a season of prayer and fasting asking God for reconciliation , after she moved in with her boyfriend to live. Finally God gave me the release to go ahead and file for divorce. I never regreted waiting those extra 17 months because I have never had second thoughts as to whether or not I really put 100% into saving my marriage and have never felt any regrets since I knew 100% that God had released me. I think that helped to speed my healing process.

It was as if there was this grapevine in the church that we had gone to because as soon as my ex and I seperated, women came out of the woodwork from church. Most of them were single mothers looking for a Dad for their chidlren. I had a crash course in the Christian dating world since I had never dated anyone but my ex in my entire life. The Lord protected me though. One woman who was convinced that we should get marryed decided to go on a ten day fast about it and at the end of the ten days broke up with me and told me that The Lord had spoken to her and told her I wasn't the one for her. My wife that I am with now fasted for seven days and the Lord told her I was the man that she had been praying for for years. The one that the Lord had chosen for her as a husband. On my end of things, The Lord made it 100% clear for me that had found the wife that I had been praying for.

The last two years of our marriage have been the best two years of my life. I have grown more in the Lord than all of the other years combined. I don't want to infer anything bad about my ex because I know that God will bring her back to him eventually and have an awesome restoration for her. But the contrast is huge in the spiritual area of our marriage because my ex was running from God. I thought that the 15 years with my ex was just the way that marriage was. That things were supposed to be this tug of war and this difficult struggle.

Now I have a mutual Christian marriage where we both are running hard after God. The biggest thing for me is just how easy it is now. Many times I will pray about something and be waiting for an oppurtunity to talk to my wife about what is on my heart and before I can speak up, she tells me that God told her the same thing. There is such a unity of spirit and hearts between us that the Lord has blessed. We pray blessing over each other and get words from The Lord to encourage each other with. Sometimes I feel like I am running to keep up with my wife spiritually and sometimes she feels that way about me. Jesus is the head of our home.

We have seen doors open and tremendous blessings. We have hope for the future that we are building together. The Lord has confirmed to me numerous times that this marriage is a blessing from Him.

 

[BubbaGumpShrimp]

The Lord has confirmed to me numerous times that this marriage is a blessing from Him.

Fantastic story Yitzchak

My story is much too long and involved to tell at this point.
My wife and I have talked about actually possibly writing a book to tell our story.
That way other people can be encouraged and know that even if theyve been cheated on and deserted before, not to give up hope that God may have someone just around the corner for them.

My heart goes out to those who feel they must be damned to celebacy because of the sins of a spouse put away and long gone.

 

[BeJoyful]

Thanks for your encouragement on this subject.

I was divorced after 10 years of marriage to an abusive husband, and then remained single for 13 years. I became a born again Christian in 1997, and really struggled with this issue. My ex-husband was remarried, but I dated a Christain man who was very concerned about the "sin" of remarriage and in the end we broke up because he couldn't deal with these feelings.

I finally remarried a year and a half ago. At no time have I felt that God is angry with me, or that He wants people to be alone and lonely the rest of their lives due to mistakes that one or both people may have made along the way. I look at it this way, divorcie is sin, but God forgives. He forgave many in the bible for far worse sinds - I'm sure he can forgive you and me and allow us to have happiness in our lives again.

 

[heartnsoul]

Wow! Thank you all for such heart-warming testimonies! Keep them coming!

 

[Yitzchak]

Thanks for your encouragement on this subject.

I was divorced after 10 years of marriage to an abusive husband, and then remained single for 13 years. I became a born again Christian in 1997, and really struggled with this issue. My ex-husband was remarried, but I dated a Christain man who was very concerned about the "sin" of remarriage and in the end we broke up because he couldn't deal with these feelings.

I finally remarried a year and a half ago. At no time have I felt that God is angry with me, or that He wants people to be alone and lonely the rest of their lives due to mistakes that one or both people may have made along the way. I look at it this way, divorcie is sin, but God forgives. He forgave many in the bible for far worse sinds - I'm sure he can forgive you and me and allow us to have happiness in our lives again.

One thing that The Lord used to help me was the passages about the sabbath that jesus talked about. The pharisees criticised Jesus for healing and doing things on the sabbath. Jesus answered them three ways.

First he said " the sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath ". This taught me that even God's rules are not more important than people.

The second thing he said was "it is lawful to heal and do good on the sabbath "...even the pharisees helped an animal that was in distress on the sabbath. This re-enforced the same lesson that sometimes there is an exception to a rule so that we can help people. An ambulance speeding and breaking the speed limit laws is a good example of this in our modern day. the ambulance is exempt from the usual rules because of human need.

The third way that Jesus answered is the one that God espeacially used to help me. He answered the pharisees " The law of God said they must circumcise on the 8th day, but what about when the 8th day fell on the sabbath...they went ahead and circumcised and broke the sabbath " The lesson I got from this is that sometimes we choose the lessor of two evils.


In my opinion, this principle applies to divorce and remarriage. The rules/laws of God still stand and those who violate them are not wise. But there are exceptions for certain situations.
[bible]genesis 2:18[/bible]

Do we follow the verse that it is not good for man to be alone and the one where it says it is better to marry than fall into sin over lust because I'm alone when it comes to remarriage?

[bible]1 corinthians 7:9[/bible]

Or do we feel we need to remain single and seek reconciliation?


I don't agree with the interpretations that say we cannot divorce or remarry. But even in the case of strict interpretation of those passages, there is still the fact remaining that human need is more important than rules. Need for safety in an abusive situation which results in divorce. Need for companionship which results in remarriage.

Sometimes we have sinned and in that case , we seek forgiveness and move on with our life as best we can. But sometimes there was no sin, just a bad situation where people tryed the best they could to get their basic needs met.

 

[Yitzchak]

By the way, I pray for my ex that she will find peace and forgiveness from the Lord. That she will find an awesome man to marry because I know she is deeply wounded by life and I desire to see her healed and happy.

 

[Svt4Him]

My father remarried, and he's doing awesome. Seeing how he was blessed was what started me on my study to understand how God can bless someone if He's cursed them, and I now believe that it was God's will for him to remarry. Both he and his wife are doing great.

 

[3girls2dogs]

I met my second husband when I was at pretty much the most unhappy and lowest point in my life. Since I have met him and loved him and married him, my life and the life of my oldest daughter who is not his natural child have been undeniably blessed.

I had given up on life in general, and meeting Sean gave me hope. It gave me faith again. Since then, I have quit smoking, quit drinking, quit everything, have gone back to church, rededicated myself to the Lord, and Sean flat out saved my teenage daughter's life by loving her with no conditions when she desperately needed it and could get nothing from her natural father but his drug addicted lunacy and neediness.

I don't care what anyone tries to tell me, there is no way you can ever convince me that this marriage came from anyone but God himself. I was not saved until after I met Sean, but I would NEVER have gotten there had I not met him. NEVER. I have 2 children with my husband. My 3 daughters are the greatest gift from God I could ever have. My life, to me, is a living and breathing example that God forgives and blesses even when you turn your back on him. I use it as such when I give my testimony to people who think there is no hope in their future. It has helped them and brought them to Church as well. So, no, you can't convince me that my marriage is anything other than a direct blessing and miracle from God.

 

[charligirl]

I am my husband's second wife and I know from what he has shared and what his family tell me that he is truely like a new person. When we first got married he kept saying he had no idea marriage could be like 'this', I would run him a bath with a glass of wine and candles after a long day at work and he would be blown away,,, such a small thing. He was divorced 10 years before he met me and got saved, he was pretty miserable then but now he thanks God every day for giving him a second chance at life.

 

[LegacyOfLove]

I was married for 10 years to my ex-husband. Although in our case, there was adultery (many times over on his part) - still people in our church were disapproving of our divorce. He had also been abusive.

I initially took in what other christians were saying and wondered if God really understood or not. I had to find my peace - not for anyone else's sake, but for my own. I remarried not long after and just celebrated my 4th wedding anniversary. It's taken time, but I now know in my heart that not only did God understand my choices, He continued loving me and blessed me with my new husband and a fresh lease on love & life.

I thank God for my husband and for giving me the ability to love and grow again!