Divorce and Christmas

One of the hardest things for people to handle while sperated or divorced is Christmas or the whole holiday season. I totally understand. I am here in this country with no other family( blood relative, but my own little girl who is 6). It is not easy. It almost feels like it's not even Christmas, right? You look around and you see couples hugging, kissing, walking together in the mall; you watch the Hallmark channel or ABC Family and they all show movies about romance and family during the holidays and you sit thee and wonder, " Who cares? I don 't feel like it's Christmas anyway. No one care how I feel. No one cares how I look."

It is easy to get depressed during the holidays, especially when you know your spouse is with someone else; it's almost like satan laughs into your face and says, " I won!"

So, what can you do to handle the holidays better?

1. Take some time and cry it out. Go before Jesus and just tell Him how you feel. You know past few days one the things God has been trying to get me to understand is that Jesus IS a PERSON. Sometimes I think we really do everything out of a routine and it is almost like God is just waaaaaay out there and He has no idea what is going on in our lives, but Jesus is a real person. When you put your trust in a person and not in yourself anymore, things change. Hope comes. So, just get your Bible out, sit on the floor and just close your eyes and imagin Him sitting right there in front of you. Then pick out a love song for Him and sing it to Him and remember He is your best friend. If everyone in the world would love you, you would still have Him love you the most. Make Him your best friend. Start renewing your mind and let Him show you how good He is towards you.

2. You are valuable. No, this is not just me saying it. Please really get this. You ARE VALUABLE. So, valuable that satan is trying to bring you down and destroy you because he knows how much you are worth. If you were worth nothing, satan would not bother. But he knows how important you are to God and how powerful you are in Jesus. He knows how powerful you CAN be once you believe God and his whole mission in life is to destroy you. When anger and bitterness comes in about the other person, please recognize that satan is trying to destroy you and tell him, " I might not like the other person , but by being bitter I will side with you. I will NOT do that. You have done enough! No more!" Believe what God says about you. Because you ARE worth so much and you are the temple of the Holy Spirit, please take care of yourself. You think your husband or wife mocked you and did not value you or your body? Guess what? The Holy Spirit, God Himself, lives inside of you, and that body needs to be taken care of for Him. I know what you are saying, " Who cares? God. God. God. He doesn't care. If He had, He would have already done something."It is during that time you need to remember that marriage IS temporary and in Heaven there is no more, but you are an eternal being and you WILL face God one day and give an account. Yes, satan and maybe your spouse , too are rotten, but we will still stand on our own before Him one day and we will not be able to blame anyone to excuse our sin. That is because Jesus has suffered more than most of us. God did give His own Son to die for us who did not care about Him. Yet, He loved us. So, your spouse doesn't care, but we need to love them like Jesus did. No, it doesn't mean we have to hang out with him and his new girlfriend or with her and her new boyfirend. I do not believe God wants us to encourage that relationship and pretend everything is fine. In fact, Paul said we should not even eat with people that claim to be believers in Jesus, yet they do these things. Yes, that is written by the Holy Spirit out of LOVE for you and the Bride. It will infect the Bride. It will infect the church. A little leaven makes the whole dough rise. The church has ignored that part on the basis of a false "love". Love correct. We need to love Jesus' bride so much that we don't want it stained either. Love is not saying to people, " Well, I do not judge. do whatever you want". I would not do that to my daughter or brother and sister. I would pursue them until they listened. We have brothers and sisters in Christ, or should I say people who think they are brothers and sisters, but they are just in the world and they need you to tell them the truth. How come we will go tell the truth to non-believers, but those who are in sin in our churches we do not tell the truth. Just because they are in a building, it doesn't make them a believer.

3. Do something for yourself. The truth is if your spouse was home you would probably still feel lonely, maybe even argue about the presents, money, your family coming over, etc. So, why not do something for yourself? Take a bath. Relax. Listen to some music. Bake some cookies anyway. You and if you have children , you all will eat them; or hold an open house and let the neighbors come over. Go shopping and get a present for someone in need. I think one the things that depressed people is not feeling wanted or needed. Why do we fill fulfilled only if our spouses want us? There are people that will absorbs all the love you can give them. Here is a "secret". We will all go from this world one day and this is your time to make a difference. This is your time to touch lives and fill up your love bank. If your spouse doesn't , that is their own business. Yes, we pray for them and love on them the best we can, but I am afraid we have made them an idol in our lives and we love them more than we love Jesus. Jesus said in Luke 14:25 and on that we it is not even possible to be a disciple as long as our families and our own lives come first. He knew it was one of the hardest things to give up for Him: family and our own lives. But if we can do that, then we are truly disciples. Why does it matter? Again: one day we will all leave this Earth and we will be with Jesus if we loved Him. Keep your eyes on things above. We are here to do His will, not to focus on marriage or our own lives. We are on a journed and sometimes things happen ont hat journey. I want to be found a faithful servant. Don't you?

4. Find a friend to laugh with. Or go to the movies. Call someone. Do all the things you could not do when you were with your spouse. Adopt a family.

5. Be an example for your children by the way you live. Quit gossipping about your spouse. I did that until God showed me I was wrong and was affecting my daughter. She needs to learn from me that I love Jesus more and that I will not say bad things about her daddy. He will give an account for himself. I pray for repentance, but my first love is Jesus. I need to go forward with Him if the whole world goes against Him. I need to make sure my daughter knows the truth so she will not repeat our mistakes one day. Why? Because we are temporary. We need to not focus so much on temporary things. One day the line will be drawn.

You might think I might not love my husband or I do not care about my family. No. You have no idea what I have gone through. But Jesus said that in comparison with our love for Him, our love for our family should look to others like we hate our family. Not that we really hate them, but Jesus is more important. And He has other people in this world He wants us to reach that will listen and He wants those with Him. Quit being consumed with your spouse. Paul said in 1 Cor 7:" How do you know husband/wife that you will save your spouse?" We do not know if they will repent or not. We pray and we believe God is working, but they are not robots.

I know some people believe that they are just taken captive by the devil and their will is gone. I agree and don't. Yes, that is true, but also the Bible clearly says in Romans chapters 1,2 and others that there are peole that " suffocate the truth in their on lawlessness". Also, that " they chose to not honor God in their minds, so God allowed them to be given over to whatever THEY WANT". Now that shows that they have a part. As Curry Blake says, " Don't say you can't help it, or you would not go to hell over it". Pray, but leave it to God and remember you will give an account for yourself. Let the dead burry the dead and you go preach the Gospel. You were not put on this Earth to be married, but to proclaim Jesus to those who will listen. Your spouse has a choice. Do it well. Let Him heal your heart. Find comfort in knowing He loves you. The God of the Univers loves YOU. He cares about you. Cry on His shoulder and then get up and be strong and walk with Him.

One of the things that helped me deal with all was to pretend my husband was dead. I always used to tell him that I would never remarry anyway and so I wondered, "How would I handle my life if we were together and he died and I did not want to remarry?" How would I deal with loneliness, with my daughter, etc.? I know it hurts more and is different when they left because you feel betrayed and like someone stole your life from you, but in all this, let's pretend they died...how would we live now? What would we busy ourselves with? How did other people do it when they lost their spouse? The truth is your spouse really did die... spiritually. Only if they will be alive spiritually again, they would come back. That is salvation.

Your spouse is a prisoner of war. Satan got him or her. Your spouse lost the battle. Pray and fight for them, but do not let satan make you lose, too. James says, " Some save(go after them), but hate even the shirt smeared with the flesh". In another Scripture it says, I believe it is in Galations, " Save them, but be careful so you won't be tempted to sin, too".

Satan is coming after you and your children now. Stand strong. This is a realy battle not a game. Pray. Fast. Ask others to pray with you. Prayer works.God is not a liar. If you have fallen, stand up! If you have fallen, but now are up, then stand strong. Satan is even angrier now. He thought when Jesus died that it was over, but God had a bigger plan. Through His death, many were brought to life. Through your dying to yourself, you will save your own soul, your childrens', and others'.

This is what Christmas is about. Jesus came to be born and die for you. He came to actually die, so you can live. Do not allow satan to take you down. Submit to God, resist the devil, and he WILL go. It's a promise. But you need to submit to God first. Be grateful that God got you out of the mess or if you are still down because of the divorce or separation, then be grateful that Jesus came to rescue you. Satan is fighting for you because he knows you are valuable.The questions is, " Do you know that?" I could have been down there in sin for the rest of my life. Satan has brought me down a few times, but I cried out to God from the valley of shadow and death and He got me out. Now I just have to watch. I just have to submit to Jesus and resist the enemy. I am so glad is Christmas. I am so glad God saved me.