Transcript Divorce Recovery Lesson One Why Me?

Divorce Recovery
Lesson One
Why Me?
Mosaic A Divorce
Recovery Program of
Harvest Bible Chapel
“Will This Pain Ever Go Away?”
When a relationship ends in divorce, the mass of
potentially depressing emotions can wreak havoc in
your life and your children’s.
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This is especially true for the person who didn’t
want the relationship to end.
But for the Christian, there is a very good answer to
this question.
Yes! Your pain will go away in time.
The Heartache Will Heal
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For a Christian who knows and is willing to do what
the Bible says, the heartache will be healed.
The more of God’s Word you implement, the sooner
the anguish will stop.
Through this study over the next couple of months
you are going to learn specific things you can do to
ease the pain and help yourself get back to the way
you were before the breakup.
Start With Prayer
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We will pray that God will change your heart.
Your prayers must include confession of any selfcenteredness or failure to love God, thanksgiving to
God for His attributes, and a request that He give you
a greater desire to please Him than to get over your
sorrow.
You can continue to pray this way until you have the
assurance the Lord has answered.
You will know He has done so when you find in your
heart a willingness to endure this trial for as long as it
takes to produce genuine godliness in your life.
We Will Pray For You
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Our prayer is that as you study with us we will
keep before you the things you can do as well as
those things you should not do to help you lose
those lamentable feelings as quickly and
righteously as possible.
Yes I mean righteously, because you can battle
your sorrow in sinful ways such as reminding
yourself what a “turkey” your former spouse is,
but you will end up in more misery and displease
God in the process.
My Name is Miserable
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You may feel pretty miserable right now, if don’t
respond in a godly way to the breakup of your
marriage you will face other kinds of misery later
in life.
If you do this God’s way, you won’t have to
resort to methods that are displeasing to God.
If you are a Christian, you can do it.
The Bible will show you how, the Holy Spirit will
lead you, and may we give you encouragement
along the way.
Will I Ever Stabilize Again?
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We pray you will learn in the weeks ahead how to
deal with the overwhelming feelings that you may
be carrying that are preventing you from getting on
with your life.
Our prayer is that God will bless you as you respond
to your trial by depending on His Spirit and His
Word.
What Do I Do Next?
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We need to make a distinction between two kinds of individuals:
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Those whose marriages are in the process of coming to an
end and…
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Those whose marriages have already ended in divorce.
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In cases where a divorce has not yet been finalized, the
believer has a wider scope of responsibilities to consider.
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Issues such as what can be done to save the marriage.
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Whether church discipline is an option.
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To what extent one should seek pastoral, marital, and legal
counsel.
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Keep in mind a marriage is a very difficult thing to terminate
without sinning.
How to minister to the children during this difficult time of
transition is a predominant concern.
Tearing Yourself Up
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The breakup of a marriage involves the tearing
of the one-flesh relationship.
There is no relationship as intimate as marriage.
You don’t have anyone to share things at that
deep level to which you were accustomed.
You have not lost a close friend you have lost a
part of yourself.
God’s Word offers hope and help for the intense
loneliness and sorrow that comes with divorce.
Emotional Heartburn
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If you have children, your ex is going to be a continual
part of your life for a long time.
This continued contact will trigger all manner of
temptation to sin in thoughts, words, deeds, and may
even lengthen the time it will take to displace the
sorrow in your heart.
Routine contact with your ex will be especially painful
if you do not have a clear conscience and have not
sincerely forgiven your ex for all the hurt he/she has
done to you.
Realize, even if you have fulfilled all of your
responsibilities before God your ex may try to make life
miserable for you.
God’s grace will enable you to endure these hostilities
using all His available resources to overcome evil with
good (Rom. 12:21).
More Difficult Than Death
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Divorce can be the most difficult of all relationships to loose
especially if you did not want the relationship to end.
It can seem more difficult than a death.
The grief a person experiences when a person dies is not
the long drawn out process as in the case of divorce.
Before death, the hurt, rejection, guilt, and bitterness
experience by the widow-to-be is not near the level that
usually exists for the person going through an unwanted
divorce.
Divorce is not as abrupt and final as death.
For a while, the divorced spouse dies in the heart every day.
There will be times when reconciliation seems promising.
This will give hope, but then can cause disappointment
when no remarriage occurs.
The Ripples In the Pond
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There are other issues you face that are unique
to divorce that can seem like continual ripples of
pain.
Guilt over having failed in your marriage.
Uncharitable judgments from well meaning
Christians who view divorce as an almost
unpardonable sin.
Unloving attitudes form self-righteous individuals
who treat you as a second-class citizen in the
body of believers.
The loss of friends as they avoid you because
they can’t handle conflict.
Recuperate
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Recuperating from divorce will require total
dependence on God and His grace.
If you are a Christian, you have the Lord’s
unlimited resources.
You have the mind of Christ (I Cor. 2:16), and He
will get you through this trial.
Emotional Wisdom
My Energy
 Normal energy distribution is the equal balance of
the emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual.
 When a divorce occurs the emotional is out of
balance and taking up an enormous amount of
energy. Leaving you feeling tired, with clouded
thinking, not able to make decisions, and leaving
you spiritually depleted.
What Are You Thinking?
Romance Makes the
World Go Round
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We live in a world that glorifies romance more than it
glorifies God who created man and woman with the
capacity to enjoy romantic relationships.
The grief and emotions associated with divorce can
become overly intense, if we do not run to God as the
Bible directs.
Scripture Has a Lot To Say
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Scripture gives us answers to emotions of grief,
loneliness, rejection, anger, bitterness, guilt, and
jealousy.
It will give you what it takes to change these feelings
It will give you what you can do to keep them from
paralyzing you.
It will show you how to turn them around.
The most direct way to do this will be to learn how to
to control your thoughts and behavior.
Who Will Console You?
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Draw Near To God.
Proverbs 14:14 gives us a warning of the danger
associated with allowing our hearts to draw back
from God’s resources. “The backslider in heart
will be filled with his own ways.”
If you allow yourself to be consoled with
unbiblical thoughts, you will be filled with your
own ways, which is, your misery will increase.
You must depend on God’s solutions and
resources to get you through this.
Your Ways and Your Thoughts
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Your ways and your thoughts must become God’s
ways and God’s thoughts.
You need to examine your thoughts and motives
so that you can be “transformed by the renewing
of your mind.” (Rom. 12:2).
Our problem is we listen to ourselves rather than
talking to ourselves.
When we go through trials it is easier to just put
our minds in neutral and listen passively to our
hearts.
Are you a listener or are you a talker?
Thought Pattern Inventory
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We are going to take some time to answer the
20 questions below.
They represent thought patterns that are bound
to produce misery in life of someone who is
experiencing the pain of a broken relationship.
After each sentence, write the number that best
corresponds to the frequency the statement is
true of you.