Marriage and Divorce

Divorce is probably one of the most tumultuous experiences an individual can go through in their lives. Over the years I have seen it tear apart individual’s psyche as they fight internal conflicting feelings of love, despair, confusion and even hate. I have found that there is no better Individual Counselor for a person going through a Divorce than Pastor Wilfred Joseph. Accordingly, I have asked Pastor Joseph to post blogs on my website. Feel free to read these articles in hopes that they can help you through these truly tumultuous times. The following is Pastor’s first article. You can reach Pastor Joseph through my offices.

Marriage and Divorce – A Pastor’s Perspective

I read a statistic that forty to sixty percent of all marriages in the United States end in divorce, this is a very troubling trend that needs attention, especially the very negative effects on the children and the damage to couples who end up being divorced.

A few years ago a young man came to see me to ask if I could give him a divorce from his wife. I told him I could not do that, to which he asked why? I told him that I could not since I could marry people. I asked him why he wanted a divorce. He said that the marriage was not working. This is the problem – many people go into marriage with the misconception that a marriage will work without any major effort on their part. It is important to know that the wedding is a short festive time while marriage is a life long venture.

It is amazing how much effort and resources people will put into the wedding – which lasts only a few hours and how little they want put into making their marriage work. I say all the time to people during premarital counseling “Marriage is like a garden of roses, left to itself it will become a garden of weeds. To keep the rose garden beautiful, one must be willing to do some work in the garden.”

Marriage does not work by itself. There are no automatic gears in it. So many people do not understand that they must be willing and ready to work on their marriage.

Let’s look at some keys on how to make a marriage work in order to avoid the pains of divorce. First and very importantly, remember the origin of marriage. It is not an institution that originated with government; it is something that originated with God. Therefore, it is very important that if marriage is going to work and be successful that we pay very close attention and be willing to do all that God has to say about marriage. When we buy a car from Ford, do we not use the Ford provided manual for maintenance in order to get maximum service from the car? Why not follow God’s instructions if we desire a marriage that will work successfully and all the wonderful benefits from a union ordained by God? Let me close with the following scripture – Palms 127:1 – “Unless The Lord builds the house, the builders’ labor in vain. Unless The Lord watches over the city, the guards watch in vain”.

Pastor Wilfred Joseph, Sept 18, 2013