Rebuilding a Life After Divorce

Written by Cameron Conant

This article is courtesy of Christian Single.

I’m not wild about packing up and moving across the country. Aside from transporting stuff from point A to point B, there’s finding a church, making friends, and settling into a new life. But last summer, I moved from Michigan to Nashville, Tenn. I had moved before – once from Michigan to California and, two years later, back again. But this move was different.

Far from a physical change of address, Nashville was an emotional change of address. It was only a year after I’d arrived home to find my wife gone. Not gone to the grocery store or to a friend’s house but gone forever – as in half the furniture gone with a typed note.

The death of my marriage hit home when I read it. Written with a detached efficiency, the page listed which bills had been paid, where the keys were, and other details that seemed incredibly unimportant. There was no contact information, no mention of remorse, and nothing about our almost 10-year relationship. It did say that Sara* was filing for divorce.

A Time to Rebuild
To make matters worse, Sara had left all our wedding pictures as well as every card and letter I’d ever written her. We were married almost four years, but despite our problems – and there were many, from in-law issues to sexual frustrations – I was completely unprepared for the pain that awaited me that day. I felt as if I had been hit in the stomach. With a baseball bat.

Sara was done with counseling. We’d been through that, and she felt more would be a waste of time. She had no interest in staying married or in even talking to me. So I spent the next 12 months reestablishing friendships. I prayed. I questioned. I cried out to God. I even wrote a book about my divorce. I did all of this while living in the apartment Sara and I once shared.

But as Ecclesiastes says, there’s a time to tear down and a time to rebuild, so when a publisher offered me a job in Nashville, I moved. It was my time to tear down, my time to rebuild. Sara still lived in the same Michigan town, but at 28 years old, with no children and no hope for a reunion, there was little reason to stay. It also seemed symbolic of a deeper move – a move that was as much emotional and spiritual as it was physical.

I could have left with no warning – and quite possibly, with Sara never knowing or caring I was gone – but I didn’t. I needed to make things right, which is why I found Sara’s number and called her.

“Sara?” I began when she answered. “It’s Cam. You probably didn’t expect to hear from me, but I’m calling because I’m moving to another state … and I wanted to talk one last time … to clear things up, to apologize … to say I forgive you.”

I continued.

“I still don’t agree with what you did, but I understand why you did it, and I release you from any pain you caused me. I also need you to forgive me … I did a lot to contribute to our problems.”

I couldn’t believe what I was saying.

We talked for nearly four hours, discussing our relationship and the reasons she’d left. And when the conversation ended, I felt sad, as if nearly 10 years of caring about someone had been officially flushed down the toilet.

But I also felt free – free from my anger, free from wishing Sara would be unhappy. I honestly wanted the best for her, which surprised me. I was much too selfish, much too sinful to feel that way, which made me believe my reaction was due to the Holy Spirit’s work in me.

Unexpectedly, my heart had been changed. Though I once prayed for a miracle – that our marriage would be saved – God performed an altogether different sort of miracle, one that I’d never anticipated.

Finding Forgiveness
Despite the miles that now separate us, moving past my relationship with Sara didn’t require going to a new city. Sure, there was symbolism in moving. And there was something to be said about a new start. But rebuilding required releasing Sara from the hurt she had caused me. Calling to say, “I forgive you” gave voice to something that had happened in my heart months earlier, but in some way, it made forgiveness real.

I wish I could remember when I forgave Sara – how I forgave her – but I can’t. I simply realized it one day, as if I finally saw her for the wounded person she was, not the vindictive person she sometimes seemed. Forgiveness also started when I realized that I needed God’s grace just as much as Sara did. Though I would have done anything to save our marriage, I wasn’t any better than Sara. We were both sinful. We both needed Jesus.

The Bible says we must forgive if we expect to be forgiven, which is why I called Sara. It didn’t seem fair, but in God’s kingdom, human laws are turned upside down. In God’s kingdom, the meek will inherit the earth, and we are to love even those who persecute us.

Forgiveness also began when I got honest. I refused to gloss over the pain I felt. I remember wanting to drink, wanting to numb the pain, wanting to give up on faith and life. And yet I kept returning to Jesus, the Man of sorrows. I kept returning to the One who knew what it was like to suffer from a broken heart, what it was like to feel betrayed, what it was like to ask, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

Rebuilding a life after a failed relationship does not mean having all the answers, but it does mean having the courage to ask questions and the faithfulness to walk toward Jesus when everything inside feels dead.

It’s been some time since Sara left. Since then, life has been far from perfect, but I didn’t end up on God’s scrap heap. I talk with people going through divorce. I have friends and a great church. And I understand that God uses imperfect, broken people for His purposes.

Humpty Dumpty couldn’t be put back together again, but Jesus can take the shattered pieces of our lives and build something altogether different – and surprisingly beautiful.

In the end, moving on from my failed marriage didn’t mean moving to a new place. It meant walking toward Jesus, albeit slowly, albeit with fits and times when I just sat for a while. Moving on meant forgiving those I’d left behind, forgiving myself, and ultimately trusting that the same God who led Jesus through His dark night of the soul would lead me through mine.

Cameron Conant is the author of “With or Without You: A Spiritual Journey Through Love and Divorce.”

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