I am sure the Pastor was shaking his head at me as I was trying to justify dating while still being married. I have been separated for 5 years now and I am still not divorced. I have been seeing articles and books everywhere on dating and marriage. We are even in a message series at church on, you guessed it, Marriage!!!! There is no doubt God is using this season of my life in preparing me for marriage. The ex I am separated from is honestly one step away from death but he is not dead. His death probably would warrant a divorce however with my luck I would probably still have a hard time getting the dang thing granted. These days I pray to God that by some miracle I will look online and it will say divorce granted. I probably have a better chance of winning the lottery and I don’t even play. In my defense I live 3000 miles away. In his defense he is so caught up in his addiction I wonder on a daily basis whether I am going to be informed he has passed. I filed for divorce in 2010 and believe this shows intent to divorce. I used all these as strong points of convincing the Pastor I was ready to date. Then there is the part of me that is scared God’s greater plan involves a reconciliation between the two of us. This would become a great test of obedience and faith. One my annual goals for 2015 is to get the divorce finalized. For 3 months now I have been planning and trying to figure out how to accomplish this goal. So in the meantime, I was thinking I can meet some nice Christian God- fearing man. Spend the time getting to know him as I am working on obtaining the divorce. As the divorce is finalized we can start planning the wedding and walk straight from the courthouse to the chapel. Whoohoo what a plan, right? Then Pastor says ” I think once the divorce is finalized you should have a season of waiting” Are you frigging kidding me ?!?!?!?! All the arguments swelled up in my head. I had to remind myself I was talking to my Pastor and that I had solicited his advice. In his mind I am sure he was thinking, she is not listening to me. In my mind I was telling myself that God was speaking to me and it was what I needed to hear and not debate. Its been five years of waiting and not to mentioned I hadn’t been in a relationship in over three years. Well I did have a two-week relationship about a year ago. Too many red flags. But that don’t count, See I am responsible enough to make healthy relationship decisions. I know God loves me and I know its time to start dating. Ummm NOOOOOOOOOOO! Pastor asked me a question ” How long you plan on being married this time?” I assumed he was asking this to test my knowledge on a healthy fruitful marriage. I was thinking if I answered correctly he would indeed retract his “season of waiting” concept. So I was like forever Pastor. This is true. I do want my next marriage to be my last marriage. I want a Christ centered marriage and like I had been saying for the past 4 years now, I want to do things right this time. I quickly learned that Pastor didn’t ask me that question because he was testing me , he was asking me to teach me about time. He broke it down so I looked into the future instead of being stuck in the moment. I am 35 right now. I still have till I am about 87 to live. If I get married when I am 37 we will still have a good strong 50 years of marriage ahead of us. That became the ah ha moment of our conversation. I came to the conclusion that maybe I had been rushing things. Will it really hurt to have another 2 strong years of spiritual growth? Not at all, I would rather have a healthy happy marriage ordained by God due to my obedience to God. Sometimes I wonder why we are in a hurry to do things. God is not in any hurry. This is one of the main reasons why I love living in Tennessee in oppose to California. The slower pace sells me every time. Even though the pace is slower out here society will always try to dictate a faster pace than God ever intends.
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I am sure the Pastor was shaking his head at me as I was trying to justify dating while still being married. I have been separated for 5 years now and I am still not divorced. I have been seeing articles and books everywhere on dating and marriage. We are even in a message series at church on, you guessed it, Marriage!!!! There is no doubt God is using this season of my life in preparing me for marriage. The ex I am separated from is honestly one step away from death but he is not dead. His death probably would warrant a divorce however with my luck I would probably still have a hard time getting the dang thing granted. These days I pray to God that by some miracle I will look online and it will say divorce granted. I probably have a better chance of winning the lottery and I don’t even play. In my defense I live 3000 miles away. In his defense he is so caught up in his addiction I wonder on a daily basis whether I am going to be informed he has passed. I filed for divorce in 2010 and believe this shows intent to divorce. I used all these as strong points of convincing the Pastor I was ready to date. Then there is the part of me that is scared God’s greater plan involves a reconciliation between the two of us. This would become a great test of obedience and faith. One my annual goals for 2015 is to get the divorce finalized. For 3 months now I have been planning and trying to figure out how to accomplish this goal. So in the meantime, I was thinking I can meet some nice Christian God- fearing man. Spend the time getting to know him as I am working on obtaining the divorce. As the divorce is finalized we can start planning the wedding and walk straight from the courthouse to the chapel. Whoohoo what a plan, right? Then Pastor says ” I think once the divorce is finalized you should have a season of waiting” Are you frigging kidding me ?!?!?!?! All the arguments swelled up in my head. I had to remind myself I was talking to my Pastor and that I had solicited his advice. In his mind I am sure he was thinking, she is not listening to me. In my mind I was telling myself that God was speaking to me and it was what I needed to hear and not debate. Its been five years of waiting and not to mentioned I hadn’t been in a relationship in over three years. Well I did have a two-week relationship about a year ago. Too many red flags. But that don’t count, See I am responsible enough to make healthy relationship decisions. I know God loves me and I know its time to start dating. Ummm NOOOOOOOOOOO! Pastor asked me a question ” How long you plan on being married this time?” I assumed he was asking this to test my knowledge on a healthy fruitful marriage. I was thinking if I answered correctly he would indeed retract his “season of waiting” concept. So I was like forever Pastor. This is true. I do want my next marriage to be my last marriage. I want a Christ centered marriage and like I had been saying for the past 4 years now, I want to do things right this time. I quickly learned that Pastor didn’t ask me that question because he was testing me , he was asking me to teach me about time. He broke it down so I looked into the future instead of being stuck in the moment. I am 35 right now. I still have till I am about 87 to live. If I get married when I am 37 we will still have a good strong 50 years of marriage ahead of us. That became the ah ha moment of our conversation. I came to the conclusion that maybe I had been rushing things. Will it really hurt to have another 2 strong years of spiritual growth? Not at all, I would rather have a healthy happy marriage ordained by God due to my obedience to God. Sometimes I wonder why we are in a hurry to do things. God is not in any hurry. This is one of the main reasons why I love living in Tennessee in oppose to California. The slower pace sells me every time. Even though the pace is slower out here society will always try to dictate a faster pace than God ever intends.
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