Questions & Answers
You have asked us so many great questions that we want to share them with you! If you desire an answer to a spritual question, please feel free to send us an email. If you desire to remain anonymous, we will keep your name private. We know that by sharing, we will help others for God through Good News Ministries!
November 2008 - Unhappy Wife
11/03/2008 11:53 AM
Dear Judy,
My second husband and I have grown apart and I’m considering getting a divorce. My 17-year-old son recently moved out and is staying with his grandparents because he can’t stand his stepdad. Plus my 15-year-old daughter is happy at the thought of my getting a divorce. My husband claims the problem is my job. I’m a Head Nurse at a hospital and put in more than 40 hours. I love my job and we need my good income. I’ve been getting counseling from a local pastor who tells me if I’m so miserable, I should leave him. So everything is pointing in that direction. What do you think?
Unhappy Wife
Dear Unhappy,
I am assuming because you are counseling with a pastor that you are a Christian. You did not say if your husband is a Christian. So I am going to assume you are both Christians. Pastors have different views on separation and divorce, but I believe as a minister of the gospel I need to keep every part of my guidance biblical. I am not a counselor but a minister. You say this is your second marriage so your children have gone through this before with you. I am sorry for this because our children have to make so many adjustments when a divorce/remarriage takes place.
God takes the marriage covenant very seriously and divorce too. Malachi 2:16 records, “For the LORD God of Israel says that He hates divorce…." Jesus goes on to say in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark that hardness of heart brings about divorce, but this is not a good reason for divorce unless this hardness of heart is caused by a spouse’s sexual immorality. If a person is getting abused verbally or physically, then I would also advise a separation.
You say you have grown apart. Growing apart is not sexual immorality, or verbal or physical abuse. In a biblical sense this is no grounds for divorce. Growing apart happens when a couple does not make the time and effort to work on their relationship with one another. God must be at the center of their lives as a couple and as individuals.
You should listen to what your husband is saying about your job being the problem. Talk it over. Maybe adjustments can be made to ease the problem. You have two children who have needed you to help them with the adjustment of a stepfather and that can be a full-time job. You said you like your job and you need the good money. What are these things if your marriage is falling apart?
Being a Mom is a huge job, and being a stepparent is even more huge. Often children don’t accept the new person in that parent role. You need to do everything you can to help everyone adjust to this second marriage and this includes your husband with the children and the children with your husband. These are your children, not his, and this is your responsibility.
I don’t know the issues surrounding your family now with all of the tough issues with parents and stepparents, but I do know that marriage is not a 50/50 deal. It’s 100% giving from the wife and 100% giving from the husband.
Any marriage can be fixed with the help of God when you determine you want it fixed. It’s not up to your children to make this decision. It is up to you and your husband. When you first met your husband, was he important to you? You married him so I am assuming he was. Marriage is a commitment, not an emotional high. Choose to love one another, not just wait until you feel like it.
I pray you do whatever it takes to make your commitment work. Your children need to see their mother work out problems, not run from them, and one who will do the right thing, whatever that takes. Your first commitment is to God and from this commitment He will help you with the rest!
October 2008 - Trusting People or God?
10/06/2008 09:04 PM
Dear Judy,
What do you do when you need help, but everyone you go to keeps passing you off onto someone else? I had hit bottom and my faith was on low. I asked God to guide me through depression and got an appointment with a Christian in the counseling center. It was someone I knew and trusted. But then that person suggested I see a different counselor. Should I take that as God’s guidance? I don’t know where to turn.
Dear Depressed,
A wise man once told me that people are just people, and people will always be people! That was my husband, Vic! These words have helped me time and again. Before I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord, I was in a deep depression and I felt no one could help me, or so it seemed to me. No amount of conversation could bring me out of the dark hole I was in. The doctor’s answer was pills. Soon I was on pills to get up, pills to stay up, and pills to bring me down so I could sleep. Others insisted a drink or two of liquor would take care of my problems, but wow was that an untruth. I became addicted to both!
As Christians, it doesn’t mean that we don’t have the opportunity to get depressed, but it does mean that we have the opportunity to trust God and His Word. God never said that people are to lead us out of or into something, or that they would never forsake us. The only one who will NEVER forsake us is God and He says that in Hebrews 13:5 “…..I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
You seem to put a lot of faith in people and what they say to you and how they say it. Sometimes people move away from a person who is depressed because they can’t deal with it in their own life, or they don’t know what to tell you, or they feel inadequate to give you counsel. I do believe a Christian counselor is the best one to talk with because he or she relates to our belief in Jesus Christ and know His words have the answers, but even then we have to realize that they too are fallible! God never said to put our trust in people. He said in Proverbs 3:5, 6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your path.”
God uses doctors to help us and many times a doctor will put a person on pills for depression but this should only be for a short time so that it doesn’t become a lifestyle. During this time, it’s very important to read the Bible and mediate on what God says about you and what He has for you. The Bible also tells us what the enemy’s plans for us and what he says about us and they are not good! I have a choice to believe what God says or what the enemy says.
Depression is not of God but it’s from the dark side and that is why depression is like a dark hole. Once we have been in that dark hole for a length of time, we build up a stronghold in our mind concerning depression. Jesus Christ is the light and wants us to walk in that light. The key to having a life without depression is found in the words of the Apostle Paul, “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal (fleshly) but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing
that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4, 5).
God’s Word is truth and it brings hope and deliverance from depression. I learned this myself. So take hold of the Word. By believing or putting your confidence in God’s words, you will bring that stronghold in your mind into submission to what the Word says concerning who you are in Him! Take your trust off people and place it in the Lord by knowing you are His child with a future and a hope!