Latest / Real Life Theology Podcast / Hard Conversations on Saving a Marriage | Kimberly Beam Holmes

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Hard Conversations on Saving a Marriage | Kimberly Beam Holmes · Real Life Theology Podcast

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  Welcome back to the Real Life Theology Podcast. Today's episode features
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  Kimberly Beam Holmes who's going to talk about having hard conversations on
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  saving a marriage. This is gonna be a great episode. I hope you enjoy it.
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  Priscilla wanted to save her marriage. The problem was she was currently madly
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  in love with someone else and this is typically a problem for anyone who is in
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  the church but even more so when it's the minister's wife. But you see the
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  problem was Priscilla really did. She wanted to save her marriage. She wanted
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  to make it work but she had felt that they had grown apart. That her husband
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  wasn't loving her, cherishing her, appreciating her. She wasn't happy in her
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  marriage anymore and so when this other man came along they gave her the
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  attention, the cherishment, all of those things that she had been wanting from
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  her husband. Well it laid weight to temptation and that doesn't make it
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  right but it made it tempting. But at her core she really did want to save her
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  marriage but the church didn't help. The first woman from the church who came to
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  visit her said Priscilla it's okay to have a man on the side. You just
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  shouldn't let anyone know about it. The second woman who came to visit her said
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  listen if Jordan was no longer here, that's her husband's name, if he was no
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  longer here this would be okay. You just need to wait until then and I don't know
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  about you but it sounds like that sister's got a hit man. I don't know
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  what's going on trying to make he's gonna be taken out one day. I don't know.
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  The third woman though who came to visit her said Priscilla you're not
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  only condemning yourself to hell but all five of your children. Jordan, her husband,
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  wanted to save the marriage as well but the advice, the counsel that he was
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  getting from his elders was you just need to lay down the law. Tell her what
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  she needs to do and she'll do it and that's just gonna be what fixes it. But
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  instead what happened was he laid down the law and it just pushed Priscilla
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  further away into another man's arms. Finally it got to the point where both
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  of them went to go and see the elders and the elders pushed a list across the
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  table to Priscilla and they said these are the things that you need to do in
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  order for Jordan to keep his job as the minister. These are the things that you
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  need to say to not say the people you need to talk to or not talk to you and
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  through tears in her eyes she looked across that table at them and said do
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  you not think that I want to do right more than you want me to do right? She
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  was stuck and she went to the church but the church didn't help her save her
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  marriage. In fact they offered to pay for the divorce which they eventually
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  got and it's hard to say which of the five children took it the hardest but
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  their ten-year-old was the most vocal and it didn't matter which parent he was
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  with even after the divorce happened he would cry and beg in his prayers every
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  night to God please bring my mommy and daddy back together. Where was the church?
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  If the church had cared as much about his parents marriage as he did maybe he
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  wouldn't have to be experiencing this devastating heartbreak that no
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  ten-year-old should ever have to experience. If only the church had that
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  same care had that same and I understand that I'm standing up here and talking to
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  a bunch of church leaders but my question for you today is what would you
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  do if Jordan came to you his wife having an affair? What would you do if Priscilla
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  came to you actively in an affair? Would you know how to help them? Would you
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  believe that there was hope? In my work at Marriage Helper which Marriage Helper
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  has been around for over 23 years and by the time that we see couples they are at
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  the brink of divorce. Divorce papers filed many times already separated
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  oftentimes one person or both of them madly in love with someone else and
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  unfortunately by this time is when many well-meaning people, family members,
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  friends, pastors, preachers, counselors, all well-meaning have told them at some
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  point maybe it would just be easier if you would just get a divorce and at
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  Marriage Helper that's where our work is just beginning because you see for the
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  past 23 years we have seen success story after success story of what God is able
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  to do and even the most hopeless of marriages and we believe that God has
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  given us a recipe to help save marriages that has over a 70% success rate. When it
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  comes to having conversations about how to save a marriage you could say that we
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  at Marriage Helper know a thing or two and in the short time that I have with
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  you today I can't give you the script I can't give you the template but if you
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  want to know more you can come to the breakout with me and my dad Dr. Joe Beam
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  after this where we'll go even deeper into this but what I can do is set some
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  foundational principles that you need to have not only in yourself but in the
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  church leadership at your church where if you really care about marriages that's
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  a question you need to ask yourself. If you really care about saving marriages
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  then these are the foundational principles that you need to have. And the
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  first one is this the belief that every marriage can be saved. And a lot of times
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  when we start talking about divorce when marriage crises start coming up a lot of
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  people Christians will turn to our rights as we might say but the Bible says I have
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  a right to divorce my spouse especially in the case of divorce or only in the
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  case of adultery right. We talk about our rights but let's talk about the heart of
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  God because if we look in the context of that scripture in Matthew 19 Jesus
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  clearly states Moses only permitted divorce because your hearts were hard. But in the
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  beginning this was not the way God intended it. Divorce is not God's intention.
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  We see a whole book in Hosea of the heart of God. The heart of God is reconciliation.
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  The heart of God is restoration. The heart of God is redemption. The heart of God is
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  not divorce. And let's talk about the research. When we look at the research on
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  divorce we see that right under 50 percent of first marriages will end in
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  divorce. But if they do the second marriage has a 67 percent chance of
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  divorce. Third marriages a 75 percent chance of divorce. By encouraging and I
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  know we would never encourage first divorce but by by not taking saving a
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  marriage seriously this is what we the spiral that we are putting the people of
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  God into. And what about what's best for the kids? We just heard a conversation
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  about manliness and how important it is. The research about fatherlessness
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  begins with divorce. When we look at that research we see that one year after
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  divorce 25 percent of fathers are no longer active in their children's lives.
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  And that number raises to 50 percent after 10 years. If we want to talk about
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  fatherlessness if we want to talk about men needing to stand up and be men then
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  we have to first talk about how do we save a marriage? Because that is where it
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  starts. A couple of years ago I was interviewing an amazing researcher his
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  name is Dr. David Matsumoto and he was actually contracted by the United States
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  government to investigate and research what it would take to end terrorism in
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  the Middle East. If we were going to try and do this how would we do it? And so
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  they did all of these years of research looking into what would happen and he
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  he said to me you know Kimberly we found that if we wanted to end terrorism it
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  had to begin in the homes. Because it's in the home that people learn to love
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  and that people learn to hate. And how much more true is that for us here right
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  now in our culture in our society the things that we are up against it is
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  beginning by what they are taught in the home. If we want to have change in our
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  society and change in our culture it has to begin with the home with the family
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  and you can only have a strong family with a strong marriage. It was the first
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  earthly relationship that God designed and gave to us in Genesis and it's
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  important. There is a war on marriage now and Satan knows that when he takes out
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  marriages that he gains ground. You've seen it. You've seen the church leaders
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  that are just being affected, being tempted, falling into the temptation of
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  affairs, divorce, and how is that affecting the people of God? When they
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  see that their pastor had an affair and it ended up being okay it's it's like it
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  gives them a free pass. We have to start standing up and do what it takes but it
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  has to start with church leaders believing that marriages can be saved
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  that there is nothing too hard for God to overcome because it's the heart of
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  God. And not just believing it but having the courage to have the difficult
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  conversations. Someone has to, no one is. The second thing that we hear more often
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  than not from church elders, from church leaders, when they are talking to us
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  about the marriage crises that they're seeing in their church they say, I just
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  don't want to get involved. I don't really know him that well. I don't really
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  have a good relationship. I'd rather not stir the pot. So elders, leadership, not
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  wanting to get involved in personal lives or they come in like the bull in
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  the China shop like happened to Priscilla where they said, you're
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  condemning yourself to hell. You're condemning your children to hell. They
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  start quoting passages and scriptures but there's there's no love. There's no
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  follow-up. There's no help. Or maybe the worst of all is when they just want to
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  sweep it under the rug. We got to keep this down, not let anyone find out
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  because it could ruin our reputation. I know one person who didn't care about
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  having a perfect reputation. He cared about doing what God wanted and his name
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  was Jesus. And we see a story in Luke 7 where Jesus goes to this town and
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  they're carrying out this coffin and there's a woman crying and we all know
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  the story. She is now a widow and her only son has passed away and Jesus does
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  the unthinkable. He looks to her and he says, don't cry. How cold-hearted does
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  that sound to this woman who is grieving? She's lost her only way forward
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  in the world with her husband and now her son who should have been able to
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  take care of her, he's gone too. How dare you come to me and say don't cry? But
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  when you know you have the solution, you're able to speak words of hope into
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  someone's life. And so since Jesus had courageous compassion, he inserted
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  himself into her situation. He took the hard road. He did what wasn't easy because
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  he knew how to help heal it. But the other thing, the key is, he saw it through. A lot
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  of times people won't go up. They won't insert themselves into the marriage
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  that's going through crisis, the marriage that's headed for divorce because they
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  don't know how to. But other times they will and they'll say I'm gonna be here
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  for you. I'm going to help you walk through this only to leave the person
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  high and dry halfway through. And hope deferred, I don't know that that's any
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  better than if they had never walked up at all. I mean, that woman, when Jesus
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  approached her, if he couldn't have actually healed her, it would have been
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  better if he stayed silent. But he did know how to heal her. And we as the
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  church, since God has called us to care for marriage, we need to care for marriage.
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  There is a way to help save the marriages in your church, to approach the spouse
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  who even wants out of the marriage, who we at Marriage Helper call the straying
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  spouse, to approach that straying spouse with love and conviction while also
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  giving hope to the spouse who wants to save the marriage and to be able to see
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  it through. We've seen it happen over and over. And a lot of people will take
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  an easy out. They'll say, well I'm just gonna refer them to a marriage counselor.
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  How's that working out for you? We just had a breakout where several of the
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  ministers in there said, I sent them to a counselor only for them to come back and
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  say the counselor recommended that we divorce on the first session. It's
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  happening more than you think. There is a better way. There is a godly way to
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  believe that there is hope, to courageously and compassionately step
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  into people's lives and to help them see it through, to help to save marriages
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  because it's the heart of God. And for the love of all things, please don't help
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  them divorce. Jordan and Priscilla, the world and maybe even many church people
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  would think that their story ended there. Not long after they divorced, Priscilla
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  ended up pregnant with the other man's baby. Would you think that there was
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  still hope? Most people wouldn't. The book of Hosea would say otherwise. And my
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  experience at Marriage Helper would say otherwise as well. There was one night
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  after Priscilla found out she was pregnant and she said, I can't let Jordan
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  hear this from anyone else. I need to call him and I need to tell him myself.
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  So she called Jordan and she said, do you have a second to talk? Yeah, yeah, I have a
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  second. I need to tell you that I'm pregnant. Jordan, not knowing if they were
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  trying or not, simply said, congratulations. And Priscilla responded
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  and she said, do you want to just hear the facts or do you want to hear my
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  heart? And for the next several hours, they talked. He listened. She listened.
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  Forgiveness was shown. And ultimately, a month later, with all five children
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  surrounding them, they remarried. And when that baby was born, it was Jordan's
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  name that went on the birth certificate.
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  There's always hope. There is always hope. But what about you? Do you believe
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  it? The next time a Jordan or a Priscilla walks into your church, what
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  are you going to do?
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  Thank you for tuning into this episode on The Real Life CLG Podcast. Stay tuned
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  And I'll see you guys in the next episode.