Your Home MattersSample

Your Home Matters Because Divorce Matters

'What God has joined together let no man separate'. Matthew 19:6

When parents divorce, the kids will not get over it. The holidays will not get easier. Life will not be more peaceful. Divorce matters.

But let’s be honest, marriage is hard. We cannot pretend that there isn't a multitude of complexities that creep in to complicate the marriage relationship.

We aren’t saying it’s easy. We aren’t even saying that we’ve never wanted to quit.

God says, "I hate divorce." And on top of that, divorce doesn't solve any of your problems. Divorce raises a multitude of practical issues.

Financial Cost

In the year following a divorce, the woman's standard of living falls, on average, by 73 percent.

A recently divorced woman recounted, “I had to find a place I could afford to rent so that my three children and I can live in. A place that feels safe as a single mother. I need to start learning how to pay bills and to live on a budget. I need to stop this, stop that, cut back here, give this up.”

Emotional Cost

There's the trauma of losing the relationship. Then to sell your home. The home where one of your children was born. The home where you felt safe for five years.

Compound that with all of your friends moving furniture out of your home, looking around, and asking what happened? There’s a social embarrassment involved, even in a culture that accepts divorce. 

Physical Cost

It’s like a car wreck that wreaks havoc on your body. Decades later your back goes out, your knees creak “from an old car wreck.”

Same with divorce: you never fully outgrow its effects.

One woman shared, “After finally not being able to sleep more than two hours at a time, I called the doctor and said, ‘I've got to have some help. I can't do this.’ I was dying inside, outside, physically, emotionally, mentally.”

Divorce feels like death because it is death — of a marriage, of a family, of a legacy.

Cost on Children

What increases the likelihood of a child living in poverty, dropping out of school, and becoming a juvenile delinquent?

What increases the probability of a child abusing alcohol, taking drugs, becoming sexually promiscuous, and committing suicide?

What creates fear, insecurity, and a higher likelihood that a child’s marriage will not last a lifetime?

It's divorce, divorce, divorce, and divorce.

Somebody has to tell the truth: divorce matters.

Keeping your vows will take work. Keeping your vows will take time. Keeping your vows will not be easy. But keeping your vows will certainly be worth it. 

For more information on this listen to the FamilyLife Today series "Before You Divorce.