How can I keep from feeling like my life is stalled out while waiting for my divorce to be finalized? I feel like I can’t move on or function because I’m afraid of my husband’s retaliation until we’re legally divorced. I really relate to this question, too, because I know what it feels like to feel like life is just completely stalled out when you’re in that in between time.
You’re separated, not feeling married at all, and yet the divorce hasn’t finalized. So, it’s just a really weird state. I want to toss it to you guys and um see what you have to say to this question. Yeah, I mean I’ll go first. Um I think that uh there’s this really great quote from Charles Spurgeon and I’m going to uh paraphrase it, but essentially Spurgeon talks about when you’re in a season of waiting and your season of delay and it feels like you’re stuck um and you’re waiting for rescue, you’re looking for hope. And he has this like
brilliant line where he says um that the one who brings rescue, God himself, has never been known to be late. And so it’s this kind of like reframing of that moment of being in pause of saying, “Wait a minute. I’m waiting for rescue. I’m in this place of um of longing. Uh and God’s timing is also perfect.” And so as we’re in this place of patience, what do we do? Uh and Lisa, one of the things that I think that is so important language is is vital in the language of the scriptures.
There’s a preposition, the preposition through, which is the most important preposition in my view of the scriptures. But we don’t live in a society that wants to go through anything, do we? You know, like even on the way here, I saw traffic, you know, to get get here. My map said, “Do you want to save four minutes?” I said, “Yes, absolutely.
I want I don’t even have to think.” I’m annoyed that my maps even suggest that anymore. Just save me the time. And um and so but sometimes we have to go through things. Sometimes there is no shortcut. There is no route to bypass the traffic. And you sit there waiting in traffic and you make an inch by inch move.
And the people of Israel had to go through the Red Sea so they could experience the power of God. They had to go through the wilderness so they could experience the provision of the Lord. Jesus has to go through Samaria so he can meet a Samaritan woman to meet the presence of God. And Jesus has to go through the cross so that you and I today can experience his power, his presence, and his provision.
And so I would just say as you’re sitting there in that waiting moment, you’re actually participating in something that might not feel like that’s what you’re doing, but this is exactly what you’re doing. You’re actively engaging in the preposition through. You’re walking through that moment. And you’re also experiencing the grace and the mercy of God in the midst of it.
And it is still grace. that it is still mercy even if it doesn’t feel like that in that moment. So good Joel Jim I know you really helped me a lot during the different waiting series um seasons when I was walking through my journey was very very long the last 10 years of my marriage. I was separated five of those. So there was a lot of alone time.
I was struggling with the loneliness. I felt like it was such a waste of time. I just wanted to know like which direction is my life going to go? Am I going to be divorced? Am I going to get back together? And even once I knew that that the death of my marriage was there, the state of North Carolina um requires that you’re separated a year and a day.
And I just felt like this is an entire year of my life where everything is just on pause. But you really helped me because during that time frame, I was expressing to you in our therapy sessions, Jim, how intense the loneliness was. and you gave me this advice that I really did not like. I remember and I said, “I feel like the loneliness is just killing me.
