For Better or Worse...

“For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part…”

Marriage. Satu kata dengan jutaan arti. Jutaan rasa. Jutaan kisah. Marriage. Lihat saja tagline satu perusahaan rokok terkenal, kau pasti tahu yang mana. Waktu aku iseng coba meng-google tagline itu, hasilnya… luar biasa! Entah berapa topik terjaring! Padahal dua kata itu dalam bahasa Indonesia, bisa dibayangkan bagaimana jadinya kalau dalam international languages! Maka, demi menghindari agar post ini tidak masuk dalam Google search untuk tagline itu, sengaja aku tidak cantumkan dua kata ampuh tersebut. Ampuh untuk mempopulerkan blog/post maksudnya!


Kapan vs Kenapa
Tagline rokok itu jelas salah alamat. Yang harusnya ditanyakan bukannya “kapan”, melainkan “kenapa”. Kenapa menikah. Apalagi sebagai mahluk yang punya awal tapi tidak punya akhir di dalam kekekalan nanti, bukankah nuansa kapan itu hanya berlaku saat ini saja, tapi tidak nanti? Kenapa, jelas lebih penting daripada kapan dalam konteks ini.

Pernahkah kau terusik melihat kegelisahan milyaran pria dan wanita lajang dalam kesendirian mereka, gelisah yang memikat mereka memasuki pernikahan karena dikejar “kapan” dan melupakan “kenapa”? Pernahkah kau terusik melihat indahnya pelukisan arti pernikahan hanya untuk kemudian menyaksikan dan mengalami sendiri bagaimana semua lukisan itu terobek-robek tanpa belas kasihan?

“For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”
Mark 12:25 NASB

Sebelum menuju ke salah satu bagian yang mungkin paling sering dibuka mengenai marriage di Ephesians, aku jadi berpikir soal “kenapa” tadi dalam kaitannya dengan ayat di atas. Kalau dalam kekekalan nanti pernikahan tidak akan ada lagi dan kita semua saling berelasi satu sama lain dengan jauh lebih indah (sampe ngga kebayang sekarang, apalagi kalo liat perpecahan relasi dimana-mana!), kenapa marriage seolah (ngga seolah juga deh, memang bener begitu!) menjadi salah satu hal paling dikejar dalam hidup ini? Bukankah lebih baik remain unmarry? Karena dengan demikian kita tidak mengejar sesuatu yang tidak kekal artinya bukan? Kalau begitu apakah marriage sebetulnya insignifikan?

Manusia vs Binatang
Aku baca kitab Kejadian dan jadi berpikir, kenapa Tuhan harus mengikat seorang pria dan wanita dalam pernikahan? Apakah karena untuk fill the earth dan dua lebih baik daripada satu? Tetapi bukankah binatang-binatang juga demikian, fill the earth dan saling berpasangan? Kalau begitu, kenapa ikatan diantara mereka tidak dibentuk Tuhan seperti pernikahan pada manusia? Betul, manusia adalah mahluk yang paling tinggi derajatnya karena diciptakan sesuai dengan image Allah Tritunggal. Tetapi apakah itu berarti bahwa dengan demikian binatang tidak perlu menikah sedangkan manusia harus menikah? Apakah dengan menikah berarti membuat kita lebih tinggi derajatnya daripada binatang?

Kalau jawabannya ya, entah mengapa terasa agak aneh, karena banyak dari kita yang berlaku lebih buruk daripada binatang dalam pernikahan, contoh saja beberapa jenis binatang betul-betul setia sampai mati pada pasangannya, bandingkan dengan manusia. Kalau jawabannya tidak, kalau begitu apa yang membedakan manusia dengan binatang dengan adanya pernikahan ini?

Man-his wife vs Christ-His church
Surat rasul Paulus kepada para jemaat di Efesus pasal 5 (lima) pastilah merupakah salah satu bagian yang paling sering dibacakan dalam pembahasan tentang marriage. Buatku, lewat bagian tulisan ini, Tuhan seolah memberikan konfirmasi lebih lanjut akan signifikansi pernikahan pada manusia.

Pernikahan memang signifikan karena Kristus sampai menyamakan relasi antara suami-istri dengan relasiNya dengan kita. Suatu relasi dimana Ia dengan rela turun dari surga mulia dan masuk dunia hina karena sudah jatuh dalam dosa ini demi untuk menyelamatkan kita dari keterpisahan kekal dariNya. Padahal relasi yang ada dalam Allah Tritunggal sudah begitu sempurna dan tidak membutuhkan manusia untuk membuat relasi itu jadi lebih sempurna, lebih mulia ataupun lebih bisa dinikmati. Tapi Kristus melakukan semua itu karena kasihNya pada kita dan kemudian memberitahukan kita bahwa seperti itulah seharusnya relasi dalam pernikahan antara suami-istri. Bagaimana mungkin kita berkata bahwa pernikahan tidak punya nilai signifikan meskipun dalam kekekalan nanti ikatan seperti itu tiada lagi?

Pernikahan diadakan Tuhan sebagai salah satu sarana untuk mempersiapkan kita, His bride, untuk memasuki hidup dalam kekekalan nanti. Lewat pernikahan akan banyak sisi tergelap dari seorang manusia tersingkap di hadapan pasangannya, seperti Terang Dunia yang dengan sinarNya menyingkap sisi tergelap dari jiwa mempelaiNya. Manusia dilatih to walk in the Light. Segala proses dan latihan yang perlu untuk mempersiapkan kita hidup dalam kekekalan nantinya akan kita alami salah satunya lewat pernikahan. Itulah sebabnya binatang tidak perlu diikat dalam pernikahan karena jiwa mereka tidak kekal. Tapi tidak demikian dengan kita…

Pernikahan anak-anak Tuhan akan menjadi refleksi akan relasi antara Tuhan dengan gerejaNya. Dunia ini akan melihat bagaimana para anak Tuhan bersaksi akan Sang Pencipta dalam relasiNya dengan ciptaanNya. Dunia ini akan menyaksikan bayangan kehidupan di dalam kekekalan nanti. Suatu bayang-bayang akan keindahan sejati yang sesungguhnya didamba setiap jiwa. Dunia ini akan menyaksikan bayangan akan kerajaan Allah yang akan terwujud nyata sempurna saat kedatangan Kristus nanti, sehingga biarlah setiap orang yang terhilang akan kembali kepada Dia lewat kesaksian ini.

Aku pernah berpikir dan meragu kenapa pernikahan harus penting, Bapa… Tapi kalau segala hal yang ada dalam hidupku (termasuk pernikahan) adalah untuk mempersiapkanku memasuki hidupku nanti, bertemu muka dengan muka denganMu, ajarlah aku menghargai pernikahanku karena hal itu sungguh berharga untukku, sebagai satu hadiah indah dariMu, meski badai dunia yang jatuh dalam dosa ini akan pula membayanginya…

“Until I see You face to face, and tell the story saved by Your grace…”

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Not-so-quiet Desperation

An 'funny' discussion about Pastors' Wives. Glad that while I was going through the concerns aired, I realized how far God had helped me to understand about it and made me feel secure with many things I was once so concerned about. Late lesson learnt? No. Instead, what a perfect timing =) !

Not-so-quiet Desperation
A Leadership Interview

I thought I could handle being married to a pastor … but now I'm not so sure," says Lisa, a character in Desperate Pastors' Wives by Ginger Kolbaba and Christy Scannell (Howard, 2007). The novel tells the story of four pastors' wives in fictitious Red River, Ohio.

"It's a town so small that when you take out your garbage, people already know what's in it," Ginger says. We were first interested in the book because Ginger is a former Leadership staffer and currently editor of our sister publication Marriage Partnership. Our interest was further piqued when the authors appeared on Court TV to comment on a recent trial of a pastor's wife accused of killing her husband.


How has a fun, breezy novel tapped such a deep need?
The characters in our book are all desperate for something: love, faith, peace, fulfillment. They all live in the fishbowl of pastoral ministry. Their husbands don't understand the stress of being a pastor's wife, and they have no one to turn to. So these four women from different churches, different denominations start meeting together. They drive 40 miles out of town to meet at a small café. It's the one place where the façade can come down.

Why use a fiction? Surely there are true stories of hurting pastors' wives.
Unless it's a murder, who would read it? We wanted to be able to reach out to pastors' wives, but if we did so in a non-fiction, reportorial way, nobody would believe it. From the outside, pastors' families often look so perfect. We wanted church members to pick up the book and say, "Oh, my. I had no idea I was doing this to my pastor's wife. She's just like me, and I need to give her a break."

What kind of research did you do?
As a pastor's kid, I'm familiar with the struggles of pastors' families. And in my role as editor, I receive hundreds of letters from pastors' wives who have nobody to go to, and so they come to us. We interviewed women and surveyed their blogs, and we found there really is an underlying desperation in many of their marriages and relationships.

We also studied the polls. Global Pastors Network reports that 80 percent of pastors' wives say they feel left out and unappreciated by church members. You talk about desperate—that statistic really threw me: 80 percent? That's a lot of hurting, isolated women.

And 84 percent of pastors' wives feel unqualified and discouraged in their roles. More than half of pastor's wives said the most devastating thing that happened to their marriage was entering the ministry.

Do you think pastors would be surprised to know their wives are this unhappy?
Yes. Ministry wives face problems of calling and expectation. He's called, but is she? She is expected to be a role model and a first lady and to keep her whole family in perfect order. Everything she does and says reflects on her husband's ministry, and I don't think the men understand the stress that places on a woman. Their whole identity can be wrapped up in being the pastor's wife, and they begin to lose themselves, who they are.

And they have nowhere to go. If you're a pastor's wife and you're really ticked off at your husband because he isn't helping at home or he works too much or he's inadequate in bed, you can't go to the pastor to discuss it. You can't tell other women in the church.

So your use of the word desperate is not hyperbole.
Not at all. One woman told me, "I hate organized religion." After decades in small churches, she hates what the church is doing to her husband and their family. I was told, "I can worship God so much better when I'm not around church people." She was just being real. And I've heard that many times: life is messy, community is messy, and in too many churches it becomes nasty, and your soul takes the hits.

In your story you advocate the "safe place," where the pastors' spouses can open up in a protected environment. We found safe places on blogs, dozens of sites where pastors' wives are writing anonymously to get the toxins out of their systems. But how much real community is there on the Web? The friendship among the four women in our book is a rarity. At least it offers the hope that there are real friends out there and people who truly understand.

You have a ministry background. What was the novel's effect on you?
Therapeutic. My characters said things I couldn't because I was the pastor's daughter. One served a burnt casserole to the church leaders who had refused to replace the broken stove in the parsonage. In the end, they seemed like real, ordinary people, like me. Even with all the things the pastor's wife does and is expected to do, she's often invisible, and few people really appreciate who she is. I thought, I need to do more to express my gratitude to my pastor's wife—and to all pastors' wives.

Copyright © 2007 by the author or Christianity Today International/Leadership Journal.
Click here for reprint information onLeadership Journal.
Summer 2007, Vol. XXVIII, No. 3, Page 17

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In the Fishbowl?

(Sekilas coretan “iseng” tentang living in the fishbowl…)

“Gimana yah rasanya berpasangan dengan hamba Tuhan?” seorang teman bertanya, yang saya jawab dengan kerutan dalam di dahi yang lebar ini seraya berkata, “Yah, pastinya rasanya seperti berpasangan dengan hamba Tuhan!” Tetttooottt, jawaban yang aneh…! Tapi…mungkin sama anehnya dengan pertanyaan yang diajukan, hehehe…! Ini serius meski sambil nyengir kuda selebar-lebarnya. Ada apa dengan hamba Tuhan?


Koreksi. Koreksi. Koreksi. Setiap umat pilihanNya juga dipanggil untuk menjadi hambaNya. Setiap pengikut Kristus juga dipanggil untuk turut memikul salib, menyangkal diri, taat perintah-perintahNya. Jadi apa bedanya yang kita sebut hamba Tuhan dengan yang tidak “bergelar” demikian? Nah, itulah masalahnya. Kita sendiri yang membuat pembedaan-pembedaan yang tidak perlu itu.

Memang ada pembedaan-pembedaan yang perlu seperti para teolog diharapkan lebih mengerti hal-hal yang berhubungan dengan teologi, paling tidak secara kognitif. Sama seperti seorang yang berkecimpung di bidang seni diharapkan lebih mengerti hal-hal yang berkenaan dengan seni. Karena setiap orang memang punya tugas, panggilan dan talenta masing-masing yang diberikan pada Tuhan. Itu sah-sah saja tentu.

Tapi dalam hal hamba Tuhan, saya melihat ada beberapa (kalau tidak banyak banget gitu deh) tuntutan yang “tidak adil” terhadap orang-orang yang disebut hamba Tuhan. Menjadi hamba Tuhan seringkali identik dengan hidup minim rupiah (boro-boro USD), dilarang berbuat kesalahan, harus bisa multi fungsi, akrab dengan penderitaan, taat firman Tuhan (sampai tahap dianggap ekstrim), sementara orang lain tidak perlu demikian. Aneh… Komentar seorang hamba Tuhan senior yang baru-baru ini saya dengar berkata seperti ini, “Jadi hamba Tuhan itu seringkali tidak dimengerti orang lain…” Ooops… jadi pengikut Kristus yang sejati itu seringkali tidak dimengerti orang lain mungkin lebih tepat? Ah… silahkan para hamba Tuhan menjawab pertanyaan ini (ah, males deh!)…

Bangsa Israel # Jaga Image
Dalam salah satu kelas yang saya hadiri, ibu Inawaty Teddy yang begitu handal mengupas perjalanan bangsa Israel di sepanjang sejarah Perjanjian Lama mengingatkan bahwa sesungguhnya sejarah yang dicatat bukanlah sejarah tentang dunia ini, melainkan sejarah tentang umat pilihan Tuhan dari keturunan Israel. Segala sesuatu yang terjadi, baik jatuh bangunnya suatu bangsa, perang damainya suatu masa, berputar dengan berporos pada kehidupan umat Israel. Suatu bangsa yang dipilih Tuhan untuk menjadi gambaran bagi mata dunia tentang bagaimana hubungan antara Allah Sang Pencipta dengan ciptaanNya.

Kalau boleh, saya lebih suka menggunakan analogi kehidupan bangsa Israel untuk menggambarkan kehidupan para hamba Tuhan atau lebih tepatnya orang-orang yang disebut hamba Tuhan. Menjadi hamba Tuhan berarti memiliki hidup yang bersedia dijadikan gambaran bagi dunia ini seperti bangsa Israel dimata bangsa-bangsa kafir pada masa itu. Dalam kesuksesan menjalankan panggilan dan juga berbagai kejatuhan yang dialami. Dalam ketaatan dan juga ketidaktaatan. Dalam kesukacitaan dan juga kedukacitaan. Dan terutama dalam pergumulan menghadapi dosa.

Beberapa saat yang lalu seorang mahasiswa teologi muda berkali-kali berkata pada saya, “Aduh, harus jaga image nih!” Hati saya terasa jatuh ke dasar sumur yang lagi kering airnya. Lecet-lecet gitu deh… Kenapa? Karena yang sesungguhnya dijaga bukan image-nya Tuhan yang dilayaninya, melainkan image-nya sendiri yang dibungkus slogan “Soli Deo Gloria” (duh, kenapa gloria lagi…). Malam itu saya doakan agar Tuhan mengubah hati teolog muda itu sehingga di masa nanti dia tidak akan hancur akibat ja’im-ja’imnya itu. Justru seperti bangsa Israel yang dipilih Tuhan menjadi berkat bagi bangsa-bangsa lain lewat perjuangan mereka melawan dosa. Menjadi berkat bukan hanya lewat keberhasilan mereka, melainkan juga kegagalan-kegagalan mereka. Keliru melihat ini membuat kita terjebak mendewakan hamba Tuhan.

Di sisi lain saya juga berhadapan dengan orang-orang yang mengeluh dalam-dalam tentang kelakuan para hamba Tuhan yang dikatakan sebagai hamba berjiwa nge-boss, sehingga sudah seharusnya malu pada para boss yang berjiwa hamba. Meski prihatin mendengarnya, yang pertama-tama menyentak saya adalah kenyataan bahwa saya pun punya andil dalam menjadikan hamba-hamba Tuhan tersebut menjadi demikian. Kekaguman dan simpati yang dirasakan untuk para hamba Tuhan, sangat mungkin sekaligus juga membuat saya terlalu meninggikan para hamba Tuhan yang kemudian berakibat pada keinginan dari para hamba Tuhan tersebut untuk diperlakukan lebih istimewa. Efek domino. Vicious cyle. Semoga Tuhan memberikan lebih banyak belas kasihan dan anugerah kepada setiap orang yang berjuang menghancurkan lingkaran setan ini…

Para Pendamping
Saya pernah membaca tulisan seorang wanita yang bertajuk “Ogah Jadi istri Hamba Tuhan!”, dibaca terasa lucu, direnungkan terasa trenyuh, dijalani terasa…yak, silahkan para istri hamba Tuhan menyelesaikan kalimat ini, hehehe… Mudahkah menjadi pendamping hamba Tuhan? Seharusnya sama tidak mudahnya dengan menjadi pendamping keturunan Adam/Hawa manapun. Tetapi sayangnya banyak yang terjebak dalam pembedaan-pembedaan seperti di atas. Seorang anak remaja yang tampil di Oprah berkata begini, “My father is a pastor, I live in the fishbowl and I hate it.” Tetapi apakah masalahnya karena seperti hidup di dalam fishbowl?

Sebetulnya bukan hanya para keluarga hamba Tuhan yang hidupnya bagaikan di dalam fishbowl. Kehidupan para selebritis misalnya, para pemimpin, tokoh masyarakat, semua juga hidup di dalam fishbowl. Tapi mungkin yang memberatkan bagi para pendamping hamba Tuhan (termasuk anak-anak mereka) adalah karena seringkali adanya tuntutan yang tidak realistis bahwa keluarga hamba Tuhan harus identik dengan hamba Tuhan itu sendiri. Mereka tidak lagi dipandang sebagai pendamping yang masing-masing memiliki panggilan tersendiri dari Tuhan, melainkan sebagai hamba Tuhan itu sendiri. Bahkan meskipun bila panggilan mereka bersesuaian dengan panggilan sebagai hamba Tuhan itu sendiri, tetap saja dianggap yang paling ideal adalah jika pendampingnya menjadi kembaran (atau kloning?) dari hamba Tuhan itu sendiri.

Bersyukur sekali dengan sharing dari para pendamping hamba Tuhan yang saya temui disini, Pastor’s Wives, yang membuat saya semakin mengerti arti pendamping hamba Tuhan. Saya ulangi lagi, p-e-n-d-a-m-p-i-n-g. Semoga dengan memahami ini saya lebih realistis melihat peran para pendamping hamba Tuhan yang saya temui. Baik suami, istri maupun anak-anak mereka.

Di dalam semua yang saya coba pikirkan di atas, satu hal yang saya akan coba untuk terus mengingat yaitu bagaimana dan apa yang dikatakan atau dilakukan Kristus selama masa-masa hidupnya di dunia. Bagaimana perannya sebagai seorang hamba yang tidak mempedulikan apapun yang dikatakan orang tentang diriNya dan pusat hidupnya yang begitu jelas terporos pada misi yang diberikan Allah Bapa pada diriNya. Tidak ada orang lain yang pernah hidup di dalam fishbowl seperti Kristus. Tidak ada selebriti yang begitu dimusuhi dan direndahkan seperti Dia. Tidak ada orang begitu disalahmengerti sepertiNya, celakanya kalaupun kita suka disalahmengerti, kitapun sering pula salah mengerti orang lain, tidak demikian dengan Kristus. Tidak ada orang yang dituntut begitu rupa akan kesucian hidupNya seperti Kristus. Sekaligus begitu transparan dengan kehidupanNya sehingga pergumulanNya melawan dosa menjadi berkat bagi kita semua. Terima kasih Kristus buat kehidupanMu untuk kami teladani, tetapi terlebih lagi buat penebusanMu yang akan melengkapi kami semua menjalani perjalanan kami masing-masing di dunia ini…

(Thank you Lord for these people you brought into my life to help me understand more about living in the fishbowl CJ, Ta & Ta, Grace & Imelda)

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Kesempatan

Minggu yang lalu waktunya berkunjung lagi ke tukang potong rumput…eee… rambut (!) langgananku. Berangkatnya dengan malas tapi mesti. Sudah kurang lebih empat bulan ini potongan rambutku tidak karuan lantaran hairdresser langgananku cabut dari tempat potong itu. Dua kali rambut yang tidak seberapa ini dibabat hairdresser yang berbeda-beda dengan hasil semakin menciutkan hati saat menatap bayangan di cermin. Well, manis sih… kalo diliat dari jarak paling sedikit satu kilo, hehehe…

Rupanya Tuhan hari itu tahu tekad bulatku untuk kembali memberanikan diri bereksperimen dengan hairdresser manapun yang tersedia. Tidak terlalu memusingkan bagaimana penampilanku nanti karena beauty is only skin deep, yang penting rapi (ehm… rapi apa “rapi”?). Dan… aku dihadiahiNya seorang hairdresser yang tahu persis apa yang kuharapkan. Cekatan, kooperatif dan it is very likely he could be the replacement for my previous lovely hairdresser (God bless wherever she is now!). But… ada satu hadiah lagi dari Tuhan hari itu buatku. Hadiah yang baru kusadari telah kuterima kala di malam harinya aku berbincang-bincang denganNya.


Beberapa bulan yang lalu sepulang dari tempat potong-memotong itu aku diliputi rasa gundah yang dalam. Ketidakcocokkan dengan hairdresser yang menangani rambutku berakhir dengan rasa jengkel yang pastinya terlukis jelas di raut wajah dan perlakuanku padanya. Aku mengambil alih proses pengeringan rambut meskipun dengan tetap berbicara baik-baik padanya. Malam itu aku menyesal sekali dengan sikapku dan berjanji pada Tuhan kalau aku kembali ke tempat potong itu, aku akan meminta hairdresser yang sama untuk menggunting rambutku dan aku akan memperlakukan dia dengan cara yang berbeda. Aku akan lebih sabar dan tenang menghadapi dia. Tak dinyana, hairdresser yang menangani rambutku beberapa bulan kemudian adalah dia juga! Baru malam itu aku sadar orang yang sangat menjengkelkan buat aku beberapa bulan yang lalu adalah orang yang jadi hairdresser andalanku kini! Siang itu kami saling bercerita tentang banyak hal dengan begitu enak, harap ada kebenaran tentang Kristus yang bisa didengarnya. Tak habis-habisnya aku berterima kasih pada Tuhan yang telah memberikan kesempatan kepadaku untuk berekonsiliasi dengan hairdresserku cara yang begitu indah. Aku jadi berpikir tentang arti kesempatan…

Kesempatan… sesuatu yang sangat didambakan begitu banyak orang, bahkan dengan rasa putus asa. Aku kenal seorang tua yang menghabiskan tahun-tahun terakhirnya merenungkan berbagai kesempatan untuk jadi lebih kaya lewat bisnisnya, tetapi semua bisnis itu gagal total. Setiap hari bapak tua itu sering termenung-menung memikirkan hidupnya sekarang. Berbagai kesempatan yang hilang di depan mata akibat salah perhitungannya.

Masih lekat di ingatanku satu dering telpon di satu malam, seorang ibu yang aku kenal bertanya dengan nada gundah, “Ehm… maaf Tante telpon malam-malam, kamu lagi sibuk?” Setelah kuyakinkan si Tante bahwa tidak masalah dengan telponnya itu, meluncurlah kata-katanya…“Si Oom pergi, baru saja. Kami bertengkar. Dia membuang makanan-makanan yang ada di meja. Tante coba cegah, tapi akibatnya dia jatuh. Tante dikejar-kejar dengan sapu di tangan, sampai hansip Tante panggil karena takut. Tante sedih sekali karena kami berpisah seperti ini. Kalau malam ini si Oom kenapa-kenapa, Tante tak akan sanggup menghadapi. Padahal Tante sudah bertekad memperlakukan dia dengan lebih baik akhir-akhir ini. Tante menyesal, benar-benar menyesal…”

Hatiku tertusuk sangat dalam mendengar uraian yang disampaikan diantara isakan tangisnya. Aku kenal pasangan ini sudah lama dan sudah lama pula turut berdoa dengan keluarga ini untuk si Oom agar kembali pada Tuhan. Aku berdoa dalam hati memohon Tuhan membantuku dalam situasi si Tante dan satu kalimat yang keluar dari mulutku, “Tante, kalau Tante memang betul-betul menyesal dan sudah meminta ampun pada Tuhan, percayalah Tuhan sudah mengampuni. Berharaplah pada Tuhan untuk memberikan kesempatan lagi bagi Tante untuk berbaikan dengan Oom. Apa yang sudah lewat tidak bisa diapa-apakan lagi, tapi buatlah kisah yang baru mulai dari saat ini.”

Tuhan yang tahu betul hati si Tante malam itu memberikan kembali kesempatan untuk kembali memikul salibNya berelasi dengan si Oom. Malam itu dering telpon kedua dari si Tante yang kembali diiringi dengan isakan kecil, tapi kali ini penuh dengan ucapan syukur, “Si Oom sudah pulang, Tante akan ingat kata-kata kamu, terima kasih!”

Aku termenung beberapa jam setelah itu, betapa indahnya orang-orang yang diberikan kesempatan untuk memperbaiki kesalahannya. Aku teringat satu kisah di Alkitab “The Adulterous Woman” di injil Yohanes (John 8). Satu kisah yang sangat unik dan tidak terdapat di injil-injil lainnya. Seorang perempuan yang telak-telak kedapatan berzinah. Herannya hanya perempuan itu yang dibawa ke hadapan pengadilan, padahal mana ada perzinahan dilakukan sendirian?! Tercium bau busuk konspirasi disini! Perempuan ini hanyalah alat para so called pemuka agama untuk mencobai Kristus. Betapa menyakitkan menghadapi kenyataan seperti itu. Tapi lihat bagaimana Kristus membereskan semua masalah itu sekaligus, luar biasa…! Terngiang-ngiang terus perkataanNya, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.” – John 8:11 NASB

Tentang Menghakimi
Aku belajar banyak hal lewat kisah itu. Seringkali jiwa menghakimiku lebih kuat dibandingkan dengan kasihku terhadap sesama yang tengah berduka akibat kesalahannya. Aku tak ubahnya teman-teman Ayub yang menambahkan cuka pada luka Ayub yang sudah sedemikian dalamnya. Meskipun awalnya datang untuk menghibur, tetapi begitu membuka mulutnya mereka tak kuasa lagi menghakimi Ayub tanpa sebetulnya tahu duduk persoalan yang sebenarnya. Itulah mungkin sebabnya salah satu pesan Kristus yang terakhir kepada para murid-muridNya adalah “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another…” dan mengingatkan bahwa “Vengeance is Mine. I will repay.”

Tentang Arti Kesempatan
Aku juga belajar tentang arti kesempatan, baik memberi kesempatan ataupun diberi kesempatan. Kalau Kristus yang adalah Tuhan selalu memberikan kesempatan bagi orang-orang berdosa untuk kembali kepadaNya, dalam kapasitas yang Dia berikan, akupun sudah pada tempatnya memberi kesempatan pada orang lain memperbaiki kesalahan mereka. Bukan karena aku lebih benar, tapi justru karena akupun sebetulnya tak ubahnya seperti mereka kalau bukan karena anugerahNya. Bukan hal yang mudah. Apalagi terhadap orang yang sudah berulang kali menghadirkan luka dan kesulitan dalam hidup kita. Tapi penebusan Kristus memampukan kita untuk itu. Memampukan kita untuk terus mengasihi dan memberikan kesempatan kepada orang lain yang bersalah kepada kita untuk memperbaiki kesalahannya, di dalam pertobatannya tentu. Dan kalau Tuhan mengabulkan permohonan kita agar diberi kesempatan untuk memperbaiki kesalahan kita, jangan pernah menyia-nyiakannya. Seringkali kegembiraan mendapatkan apa yang kita inginkan membuat kita terlupa akan apa yang harus kita buat untuk mengisinya.

Menanti Kesempatan
Seorang penderita kanker di gerejaku terus memohon pada Tuhan untuk menyembuhkan penyakitnya. Menanti terus saat Tuhan membebaskannya dari penyakit itu. Mengingatkanku bagaimana seringkali kita juga terus menantikan saat kesempatan datang pada kita. Saat kita diberi kesempatan memperbaiki kesalahan kita. Tetapi apa yang kita lakukan untuk mengisi waktu penantian tersebut? Melukis kisah yang baru. Daripada terus menanti kapan kesempatan itu tiba, mulailah dari sekarang juga melakukan apa yang akan kita lakukan kalau kesempatan itu tiba pada kita. Hiduplah dengan satu kepercayaan bahwa Tuhan selalu memberikan kesempatan untuk memperbaiki kesalahan kepada orang-orang yang sungguh-sungguh bertobat dari kesalahan-kesalahannya. Oleh karena itu hiduplah sebagai orang-orang yang sudah diberikan kesempatan, bukan menanti terus hingga kesempatan itu tiba. Karena di dalam Kristus, kesempatan itu pasti akan tiba, sesuai dengan waktuNya yang sempurna.

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Is God Letting Your Family Down?

Is God Letting Your Family Down?
By: Tim Palla
Contributing Writer

The portable incubator
Thanks to the local 4-H office I have an egg incubator in my study. I thought it would be a fun project -- for the kids, of course. As it turns out, it’s not a project at all. You set up the incubator, put eggs in the holders, set the thermostat to the correct temperature, and wait. That’s it. What was I thinking?

It takes 21 days for chicken eggs to hatch, but that’s irrelevant to the five resident egg inspectors that bear my last name. They intrude my study more now than ever -- especially the three youngest ones. "Hi, Dad! Just checking for peeps." I have a hunch this phrase will be repeated often enough to wear holes in my eardrums. "Hey Dad, will you call me if anything happens?" they inquire. "Sure will," I reply with a slight nod. The fact that I’ve answered that same question, or a variation of it, twice already this morning means nothing to them. They need my reassurance and I’ll continue to give it. This is one of my higher callings in life.


Seeing is believing
Fertilized bird eggs aren’t fair to their onlookers. Day after day, eggs look the same. Nothing changes. When the barn cat became pregnant, we watched her go from a size "00" to an 8-XXL in a matter of days. We knew when she was about to pop. It was obvious through the changes in her body. After the Collie was bred, we were mesmerized by the dozen or so spigots which protruded from her sagging abdomen. They appeared overnight. Nevertheless, there is nothing exciting about egg-watching. Eggs are boring. It’s always the same scene, just a different day.

There are several reasons why this could get frustrating. First of all, I don’t know which ones will hatch and which ones will rot. I can’t tell a fertilized egg from an unfertilized one at this point. Second of all, other than plugging in a couple of electrical cords, my work requires no effort, no specialized skill, no talent. I can’t make anything happen. My job is simply to wait. Zzzzzzzz… Zzzzzzzz… Zzzzzzzz…

It’s hard to be optimistic and excited when nothing changes. What thrill is there when, day in and day out, the temperature never varies and the shell is just as round and hard and smooth as it was the day before? Soon you hear yourself asking strange questions. "What if this is all in vain? What if nothing ever happens and it’s all a big joke? What if I’m disappointed? What if God lets me down?"

Seeing through God’s eyes
One morning it dawned on me. These eggs are not boring at all -- they’re actually encouraging. A dear friend from church was frustrated with a spouse who had no interest in spiritual things. "I pray and pray and pray. I talk and witness and then I cry, worry, and pray more. Still, nothing changes. It makes no difference."

Without missing a beat, I glanced over at the climate-controlled box on top of my file cabinet. I explained to my friend that life’s most awesome mysteries happen in the most boring places. When there’s no visible changes, no reason to believe, no hope on the horizon…then stand back and "see the salvation of the Lord." He works on the inside -- in the soul -- where no human eye can detect His secret ways.

Sure, things look the same on the outside, but only the Lord can see what’s going on in the heart. It may seem to us that nothing is changing. The outer shell still appears to be hard and stubborn, but who can tell what’s growing on the inside? Not me. My part is to trust, faithfully obey, and wait. I know I’ll be amazed when God reveals the power of His grace, but it’s hard to remember that grace is sown in the heart, not on the skin. We’re not Chia pets.

Out of the mouth of babes
Today, I was lifted and encouraged by 17 brown eggs. The Lord used them to teach me to "walk by faith, not by sight." I’m thankful that God has hid some things from my eyes and revealed other things to "babes." My own wide-eyed optimistic "babes" seem to have more revelation than I do at this point. There’s a lesson in it for me (and you), I’m sure.

Against my counsel, 3 of my youngest children have started picking out "chicken names." My daughter (the baby) will choose names like Jade (after one of her dolls) or Heather (a young woman who has recently started attending our church). The boys have chosen names based upon the size and shades of the sepia-toned shells: Big Brownie, Tiny Tan. Their creativity and optimism increase each day. They instinctively know that something’s "goin’-on" inside those eggs -- something they can’t see -- yet they expect the "big reveal" every day. They aren’t sitting back waiting for day 21 like their Dad, and they’re not bored.

For the next few days five inquisitive minds will sporadically gaze into a borrowed incubator from sunrise to sunset. Their anxious gestures will remind me that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." While you and I may look on the outside and think nothing has changed, God is diligently shaping what’s inside. Isn’t that where He always starts? If you have adopted the frustrating mindset of "nothing ever changes," remember that the miracle is occurring inside the egg. Today, have hope… and wait like a child.


Timothy Palla is the pastor of Fairview Baptist Church in the Lucasville/Minford area of Southern Ohio. He and his lovely wife Jennifer have five children; Drew, Dane, Aidan, Ethan, and Meghan. You may contact him at tpalla@rocketmail.com.

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Irreconcilable Differences—So?

Why you don't need to see things the same way.
By Mark Galli

It didn't take long into my marriage to discover how incompatible my wife and I were. One reason I was attracted to Barbara in the first place was her apparent interest in theology. We'd spent many happy hours in college taking Bible and religion classes together; we even co-wrote a mediocre paper on the Reformation! Few people have my nutty interest in theology, so I felt especially blessed to have discovered an eligible woman who shared that interest. I proposed as quickly as I could, and I was ready to live happily ever after.

Some days into the marriage I was shocked to discover the truth about Barb. I'd just finished some weighty tome—such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Creation and Fall—and encouraged her to read it. She said she wasn't interested. When over the next week I suggested another theology book, and then another, and was turned down repeatedly, I asked what was going on.

"I really don't like theology all that much."
"But what about … ?" I stammered.
"Once in awhile it's okay. But most of the time I find it too dry."

I was floored. Here was the woman of my dreams telling me she wasn't really the woman of my dreams.


That was the first of many shocking revelations. As the years unfolded and we each matured in our own way, the differences became more marked. She liked to get up early; I liked to stay up late—so when exactly were we supposed to have sex? She stayed politically liberal as I became more conservative. She enjoyed being laid back; I liked to plan way in advance. She's energized by a room full of people; I'm drained. She thought the kids should be given a break for being kids; I thought they should be disciplined more. And we couldn't even argue on the same page—I liked to get things out in the open; she liked to do anything but that.

Years ago, we compared our Myers-Briggs personality scores. The literature that interpreted the results was fairly pessimistic about our future.

But surely after 30 years of marriage, things have gotten better, no? I recently took an online marital compatibility test to see whether time has made a difference. We scored a 60 percent. The test maker said, "If you're less than 70 percent compatible you may have to struggle hard to maintain a long-term relationship."

It appears that Barbara and I are simply not compatible. Some would say we have irreconcilable differences. But there's a mystery here: though we're as incompatible as ever these days, we find ourselves happier than ever, as well.

Mired in the self
Like nearly every couple in self-absorbed America, Barb and I originally thought marriage was about mutual self-fulfillment. We mouthed all the Christian platitudes about serving God and each other, but when we first got married, we predictably focused on how much fun it was to be together: companionship, sex, increased income, someone to listen, sex, another shoulder to cry on, someone to go on vacations with, sex, and so on. Early marriage for most couples is very much about mutual emotional masturbation.

As long as we have so much in common, the relationship can blissfully proceed. The problem is that only the rare marriage can be continually compatible.

People grow, mature, and change—or at least we all hope they do. Invariably the person we eye across the table at anniversary 10 will be different from the person we walked down the aisle with. And that different person will just as likely be less compatible.

Though compatibility is good and enjoyable as far as it goes, it never goes far enough to make a successful marriage. That's because it stays mired in the self.

Compatibility is ultimately about finding someone who is compatible with me. Compatibility is about my feeling good about being with someone else who shares my interests, blends with my personality traits, shares my values.

Biblical marriage is something altogether different, but at the core isn't much different from the rest of the Christian life: "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 2:3-5). Jesus, in fact, had little in common with the people on planet Earth. The chasm between Him and us is the difference between the infinite and the finite, holiness and sinfulness, God and man.

But He didn't count compatibility with God a thing to be grasped, Paul says. Instead He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, of those who were markedly incompatible with Him.

Lesson in martyrdom
After a few years of marriage, when couples stare into the abyss of their non-compatibility, they generally panic and try to create a new compatibility. My wife increasingly demanded that I listen with deep sincerity to all the little details of her life. I really tried. Couldn't do it.

For my part, I insisted that my wife go to a driving range with me, and I tried to teach her how to hit a golf ball. We ended that experiment in spouse abuse after lesson one.

The more we tried to find areas of compatibility, the more miserable we became. I remember sitting on the bed beside her after another failed sexual adventure (an activity at which we were no longer compatible, either, it seemed). I began to mull over all our differences: politics, kids, remodeling, attitudes toward in-laws, money issues, spirituality—the list was endless. On and on my mind raced. I was overcome with a profound sense of how utterly different we were, and how it was simply impossible for us to reconcile those differences.

But Barbara and I are compatible on one thing: divorce isn't an option. So we simply decided we were going to make this thing work in spite of the fact that we were so incompatible. We didn't decide it in a day, and we didn't decide it with gusto and optimism. We simply felt we had no choice but to learn how to live with a person so utterly alien to us.

And it was in that period that we began to learn about martyrdom, about the death of the self, about giving up the desire for compatibility. If marriage wasn't about how my spouse could make me happier, we each concluded, then it must be about each of us trying to make the other happier.

One morning on vacation on the beach, she asked if I wanted to go for a walk and look at the tide pools. This isn't my instinctive idea of a good time, but she wanted companionship while she did something that was interesting to her. So I went and entered into the experience as best I could. I didn't get nearly the enjoyment from it that she did, but I was happy she enjoyed it so much.

One evening on the same vacation, after a long and busy day, she suggested we go out to eat. She was exhausted, and the last thing she wanted to do was cook over a hot stove to prepare a meal for our family and the extended family with us. I, however, grimaced about the cost of going out. She responded by saying she'd go to the store and whip something together. While this wasn't something she wanted to do, she knew it would make me happy.

These are simple, ordinary acts of martyrdom, the giving way of self for the sake of the other. Every marriage has plenty of such moments. They can be resisted with complaints—"Why don't you ever do what I want to do?" and "Why don't you consider my feelings?" Or they can be submitted to with grace.

This forsaking of compatibility is slow and painful to learn. At the end of the day, Barb and I each feel a sense of regret at not having done more for the other. But every morning there's a new vow to give it another shot.

And here's the crazy thing: the more we stop trying to get each other to be compatible, the happier our marriage has been. Instead of our differences being insurmountable obstacles to happiness, they're simply facts that make our relationship interesting—aggravating at times, to be sure, but ultimately more fascinating.

And one more not unimportant thing: the more we've learned to love each other despite our differences, the more we've been able to love and serve those outside our marriage, most of whom are different from us in so many ways.

Certainly Barb and I share many things in common. But I doubt we share any more than we do with anyone on the planet. Two human beings are going to share some things in common, no matter how different they are.

But that's not what holds a marriage together. Irreconcilable differences are key—at least how we deal with them and learn to love in spite of them.

Mark Galli, managing editor of Christianity Today, is author of Francis of Assisi and His World (IVP).

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Irreconcilable Arguments?

Solving Conflicts without Arguing
by Gary D. Chapman

Conflicts are inevitable. Arguing is a choice.

Conflicts grow out of our uniqueness. The goal of conflict resolution is not to rid ourselves of our differences. The goal is to learn to work together as a team, using differences to make life better for both of us.

But for some couples, conflicts lead to arguments and arguments often get out of control. Instead of finding solutions, they create new problems. One wife told me, "I just do whatever he wants because I'm tired of arguing." Obviously, this approach won't lead to an authentic relationship.


The downside of arguments
What's so bad about arguments? When you win an argument, your spouse is the loser. And we all know it's no fun to live with a loser.

Arguments accomplish a great deal. Unfortunately, the accomplishments are destructive. Arguments are those carefully worded statements designed to appeal to the other person's sense of logic and reason. The implication is clear: any reasonable person would agree with my argument. When the spouse fails to agree, she now falls into the category of being illogical.

Arguments quickly become charged with emotion. You may end up yelling or screaming or crying; spouting out words that assassinate your mate's character; questioning his motives; and condemning his behavior as unloving, unkind, and undisciplined.

Arguments ultimately lead to one of three results. You win and your spouse loses; you lose and your spouse wins; or you argue to a draw. When arguments end in a draw, both spouses are losers. Neither one is convinced of the other's position, and both walk away disappointed, frustrated, hurt, angry, bitter, and often despairing of hope for their marriage.

The upside of conflict resolution
The good news is that conflicts can be resolved without arguing. Finding a winning solution begins by choosing to believe that such a solution is possible and that you and your spouse are smart enough to discover it. It requires you to respect each other's ideas even when you disagree, and to respond lovingly to your spouse in spite of the fact that you presently have a conflict. The objective is to find a solution, not to win an argument.

Conflicts cannot be resolved without empathetic listening. Unfortunately, most couples believe they are listening to each other when, in fact, they're simply reloading their verbal guns.

Empathetic listening means seeking to understand what the other person is thinking and feeling. It's putting ourselves in the other person's shoes and trying to look at the world through his or her eyes. It means we lay aside our verbal guns in favor of truly understanding the other person's viewpoint. Instead of focusing on how we're going to respond to what the other person's saying, we focus entirely on hearing what the other person is saying. We can't have a loving response until we first understand the meaning and feeling behind their words.

Empathetic listening may require you to ask questions to make sure you're hearing correctly what your spouse is saying. A husband might ask, "Are you saying you want me consistently to take out the trash without your asking?" to which she responds, "Yes. When I have to ask, I feel as if I'm being your mother. And I'd like you to take it out after supper and not leave it until the next morning so the kitchen doesn't smell." Now that he understands her, he can affirm her desires by saying, "I hear what you're saying and it makes sense. I think I can do that. The only problem I see will be Wednesday nights when I have to leave quickly in order to go to a meeting. Would it be possible for you to take out the trash that night?" Chances are she'll agree and the new "garbage removal program" brings harmony to their relationship.

When you affirm your spouse's perspective, then you can share yours and together you can negotiate a solution that will respect both of your ideas and feelings.

The most common mistake
The most common mistake couples make while trying to resolve conflicts is to respond before they have the full picture. This inevitably leads to arguments. When people respond too quickly, they often respond to the wrong issue. Listening helps us focus on the heart of the conflict. When we listen, understand, and respect each other's ideas, we can then find a solution in which both of us are winners. When a husband and wife lovingly seek solutions to conflicts, they find the harmony and teamwork they're ultimately trying to build.

Copyright © 2007 by the author or Christianity Today International/Marriage Partnership magazine. Click here for reprint information on Marriage Partnership.
Summer 2007, Vol. 24, No. 2, Page 17

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His Grace

She just received a letter today..., from a dear friend whom she recently got acquainted..., through an unusual way... This lady friend has been a true example for her..., about believing in the Lord's providence..., she has been blessed with her friend's sharing all these times... This is something she would keep for life..., in understanding more of the dear Lord's way..., in providing for His beloved children... His eyes never leaves His beloved ones...

Sometimes the night was beautiful
Sometimes the sky was so far away
Sometimes it seemed to stoop so close
You could touch it but your heart would break
Sometimes the morning came too soon
Sometimes the day could be so hot
There was so much work left to do
But so much You'd already done

Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2007 10:14 AM
Subject: Hola: on the Move

Hola mis Familia y Amigos,

Well it has come time for me to move. The packers were here all day and will be back to finsh packing up our belongings. Then on Wed and Thursday they will load the truck. There is a tree being planted in memory of Dan on Little Creek base. After the ceremony Danielle and I will head for our new home. Well mine anyways. Hers temporarily. Heidi and Ilene, she flew in to see heidi, are driving down to help me unpack and get settled in.

My new business is shaping up and I hope to have it running by Sept. I already have orders coming in. One of the movers has put an order in too. Here is what I will be doing. Imprinting. I have bought a puzzle machine, a cup heat press and a Flat heat press which will allow me to imprint just about anything that is realtively flat up to in inch thick. I'm looking forward to taking some of my photos and imprinting them on tiles and also making them into puzzles.

Well I promised that I would let you all know what has been happening since Dan' s death. One I have been setting up my business, I have been working on adopting Ray, my oldest granson, who Dan and I have had custody of since he was one. This will enable Ray to get death benefits from social security. They require that Ray be adopted and an actual child of ours before he qualifies for benefits. It didn't matter that Dan was his sole support for four years and that I would continue to be his guardian. that process is almost done. I have had all my home visits and and been investigated quite well. The adoption agency that handled the home studies and did all the investgating has approved me and has sent the forms and approval notice to my lawyer. all it needs now it to be approved by a judge. And it will be final. I have not yet put my house up for sale because i need to maintain a residence in Virginia until the adoption is complete. So Danielle and I will come back here and finish some projects that Dan and I started and did not quite get finished. it will much easier to do with everything out of the house. althoug we do have the upstairs bathroom almost finished and the master bath room is about half way. I have been getting Ray ready for school as well. He will start kindergarten this year. I bought a Bishon as a companion for Ray and I. Dakota and Danielle will be moving to where ever her husband Rick gets stationed. It is in the works for him to go to Camp Addleberry in Indiana to be an instructor there.

The Lord continues to bless. I also promised to tell you all about how the Lord has taken care of me during this time. Where to start? Most of you know that we spent 3 years in Spain at Naval Station Rota. that was our fiisrt duty station. Dan then got assigned to Derson 2. He was suppose to do this for two years but in the middle of his assignment they created the OMC, Operational Ministy Center. They switched Dan's orders from Desron 2 to the OMC and extended his time here one more year. It is the norm to start searching for your next duty assignment a year in advance. So since we thought Dan was only going to be here for two year we started to pray about his next assignment almost as soon as we got here.

Now usually when we pray about this something usually jumps out at us when we are looking at openings. This time nothing. We prayed and prayed some more and still nothing. well we went ahead and made a "wish list" of the places we thought would be interesting. And then we prayed some more. we ad made ours choices based on location in relation to where our daughters lived and to whatever openings were on the Marine side. dan wanted to do his Marine time while he was still relatively young. Through this whole process the Lord was silent. No nudges no sense of peace just a blank silence. So we thought maybe the Lord didn't want Dan in the Navy anymore. Ok then if not what and where then? We prayed some more. Dan researched different types of ministries and we prayed about each one and still the silence, nothing. We did this for almost two years. Dan finally decided to stay in the Navy until he had clear guidance from God on what to do.

While he was deployed for six months Dan emailed and told me to open an account in my name. In the 24 years we had been married we have never had a seperate account now Dan was insisting that I do this. Then in the fall after he got back from deployment I decided to get a credit card in my name to establish credit in my name. Again I had never seriously thought to do this before. About a year earlyier I had started to save some money to start my own business. In hind sight I can see the hand of God working to make sure I was set for the time of Dan's death. These were not the only things that happened.

Dan's Commador allowed him to come home a month early from deployment so we could celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. The girls gave us a wonderful party to celebrate in early December since we thought he was getting home in late December. Out pastor here in Deep Creek told Dan of a hunting place where he go to hunt squirrel. So he got to do that several times. He got to deer hunt with his brother one last time. Scott, his friend when Dan would call him at work alwys seemed to get another call on another line or some one would come to his office and their conversations only lasted about five minutes. The friday before Dan died he called his friend and they were not interupred for about 20 minutes. God gave him this time with his friend one last time. Our nephew Jason drives truck and is somtimes in the area. Everytime jason would happen to be in the area he would call and ask if we could get together. Everytime Dan and i were on our way ut the door to attend afunction of one sort or another. One day in the week before Dan died jason called, he was in town. I almost told him that Dan was not able to come and see him when I looked at the clock and noticed the time. Dan would be leaving the base soon. I gave Jason his cell phone # and told him to call Dan. They were able to get together and spend time together one last time.

In December Dan finally got to see all of the grandbabies at one time. Our whole family was together except for Danielle's new husband who was in Kosovo. Dan even got to perform Danielle's wedding ceremony since the Commador allowed him to come home early. We got to spend one more Christmas together and his 46th birthday was spent in California at Ilene's place. We finally got to meet TC's parent who had been wanting us to come and visit every since Ilene and TC got married but it never seemed to work out until then. We celebrated the Chinese New Year with TC's family in California. While we were there Dan started talking about how we should get some burial plots. And he wondered if there was any spots left up at Tunnel Hill Chapel where we got married. One week to the day of Dan's death We got to see one of our daughters give her heart to the Lord. I had never heard our pastor to ask for a show of hands of those who had given their heart to Lord when he had prayed at the end of the service. Danielle raised her hand. God had given this special blessing to Dan before He took him home.

After we came home and about a week before Dan died we were out for our normal evening walk. As usual we talked about whatever was on our minds. This night we were discussing once again whether he should stay in the navy or if the Lord wanted him else where. Several times before we had talked about what we would do if one of us died and Dan would always say Grace you'll be fine the Lord will look after you. We also touched on this subject that night of our walk as well. What was different that night was not his expressed wish that the Lord would take him home. He had sad that before. But that night he said "I don't know whats wrong with me. I'm tired of moving and just want to stay still. The best thing that could happen is if the Lord would take me home right now." Dan had never before expressed a desire to not move around. He loved meeting new people and exploring new places. Just recently I realized that Dan had also started talking about taking Ray hunting that year. This was also unusual because in Dan's opinion a child of 4 should not be out hunting.

In hind sight I can see God's hand preparing me for that night of his accident and what was to come after. God has sent so many special people into my life to help me thru this time. Starting with the first person to show up at the accident. A lady who was traveling in the opposite direction then Dan and I were happend to be an EMT. She seen the accident starting to happen and called 911 as it was happening. Thank God she did because I couldn't figure out how to use Dan's cell phone and called Danielle by accident or probably not an accident after all but a part of God's plan. I have no idea how I called her because I was pushing buttons and the 911 #'s. It was great because Danielle was able to go across the street to a military ombudsman and was able to notifiy Dan's commanding officer's right away. She was also able to get to the hospital where they life flighted Dan.(Richmond) To look at Dan you would not have thought he was seriously injured. Outwardly he only had a couple inch gash on the back of his head that didn't bleed much. He wasn't all scratched up nor were his clothes. They decided to life flight Dan becuase he was non responsive to us. He was awake but incoherent. He just kept saying to help him because it hurt and kept trying to stand up. The lady EMT that stopped to help and I had a hard time keeping him still. We finally managed to get him to sit and lean back agaisnt me on the ground. That was the best we could do. I'm glad the emergency unit got there quick. while Dan was being Life flighted Ray and i drove to the VMC (??) in Richmond. While we were driving Ray said " Grandma there were three and now there is only two." That hit me hard but I prayed "Your will be done." God's way of preparing me for what I would be told later I guess.

After I got to the hospital and the doctors ran some tests I was told that Dan's injuries were non opperable. His aorta had split vertically all the way from his heart to where it splits to go into the legs. this was a rare occurance. The Doctors said that most people don't make it to the hospital with this kind of injury and if they do make it most don't survive once they get there. This injury coupled with his head injury made it impossible to opperate. Which was perfectly fine because Dan never wanted to be hooked up to machines and kept alive. Nor did they even have a choice as to trying to resucitate him. God granted his wish that when he died he would be left alone and not brought back. The Doctors that worked on dan were all christians. After they gave me the news about Dan's injuries we gathered in a circle and prayed, their idea not mine. The lady chaplain that was on duty that night was a literal God send. I don't know what I would have done without her.

Chaplains from the OMC office came and gave us support and made sure we got home safely. it would take another book just to explain how the military took care of me dring this time. They were truly an extended family. and God sure put us in the right spot when we bought our house. My neighbors were fantastic. I wish I could pack them up and take them with me when I move. Their love, care and prayers helped so much. Not only did the Lord send me wonderful people in my neighbors and the military but also at my bank. I wish I could pack them up as well. They just surrounded me with love and support when they found out my husbnd died. Now when I go in they always ask how I'm doing and give me a hug. Remember when I told you that Dan insisted that I have a seperate account. The Caco Officer (Casualty Assistance Officer) gave me a check of 100,000.00 dollars (from Dan's military Life insurance) and told me to open an account in my name because they would probably freeze our joint account for a while. I was able to tell him I already had one. After a while it also hit me that I already have credit established in my own name which is important at a time like this. It also hit me that I would now be able to buy the equipment for my business. Through Dan's military life insurance, our personal life insurance, a VA annuity, a military annuity and a church conference annuity I'm am taken care of financially. I was able to buy my new home out right, pay off our car loan and our credit cards in full. fills kind of weird not having any kind of debt except for the house payment, which will be done once I sell this house. Yes, the Lord has definately taken care of me just like Dan said he would.

There is so much more that God has done since Dan died including sending the Orkin man (termite inspector) just when I needed help unloading freight (my heat presses) off the back of a freight truck. That was trully an answer to prayer. And now the main guy that is packing up my belongings is a Christian. And when he found out that Dan had been a chaplain he asked if i had any books or things that he could have because he really wanted to study and grow in the Lord. I had already seperated some bible study books that I had originally planned to give to our pastor but had decided not to. And they were already in their own box. I had a great time today discussing with this young man the wonders of God. At every turn God has thrown these wonderful people in my way. Not only did this young man say that I have inspired him today by the way i have dealt with Dan's death but one of the ladies at the bank had a sister die suddenly at the age of 46. Same age as Dan and she had a 3 year old son whom her sister had babysat for while she and her husband worked. It was my turn to let her talk and to give a hug. Not only did I know where she was coming from in having a loved one die suddenly but I also knew first hand what it was like to deal with a preschooler during this time of loss.

I don't understand why the Lord decided to take Dan home. Sorry Rick, but this is one time I can honestly say "It was meant to be". "It was God's will!" No matter which way I look at it technically this accident should not have happened. The roads were perfect, a four lane divided by a grassy knoll and not a car, animal, gravel or pot hole in sight. I had the bike tested and there is nothing wrong with the bike. And the autopsy found nothing unusual with Dan. I honestly believe that if he had not been on that bike then something else would have happend that day. It also finally dawned on me why we were getting no answer to almost two years of prayer. God had other plans. While I miss Dan alot I have a peace about what has happened. I even have joy. It has been a weird and exciting time in my life because through all this God has revealed himself to me in so many ways. I know that sounds rather an odd way of talking about the death of your husband but there is not any other way of explaining it. As you can see the Lord has been at work and I didn't even tell half of what I could have.

Love and prayers.
Grace

PS sorry this was so long. Would love to hear from you all. If you email I will be off line for a few days while my things get packed and shipped to my new home.

CHORUS:
Oh God, You are my God
And I will ever praise You
Oh God, You are my God
And I will ever praise You
I will seek You in the morning
And I will learn to walk in Your ways
And step by step You'll lead me
And I will follow You all of my days

Sometimes I think of Abraham
How one star he saw had been lit for me
He was a stranger in this land
And I am that, no less than he
And on this road to righteousness
Sometimes the climb can be so steep
I may falter in my steps
But never beyond Your reach

CHORUS
And I will follow You all of my days
And I will follow You all of my days
And step by step You'll lead me
And I will follow You all of my days
And I will follow You all of my days
(Sometimes the night was beautiful)
And I will follow You all of my days

Sometimes By Step
Rich Mullins
(one of her most favorites songs ever!)

Continue?

Amsal 31: The Opening

Extravaganza mode ON.
“Mau tahu gimana caranya bisa hafal Alkitab?”
“Gimana, Pak?”
“Baca tiap hari. Dan bukan cuma satu ayat, tapi misalnya satu surat atau buku. Dulu waktu masih kuliah, setiap hari saya baca Amsal dari depan sampai belakang. Bacanya sekaligus dalam satu kali baca.”
“Oya, Pak? Wah… pasti Amsal 31 yang jadi favorit deh…!”
“Aaaah… kalian ini!”
“Hahahahaha! (semuanya tergelak)”
Extravaganza mode OFF.


Begitulah kira-kira salah satu perkenalanku yang berkesan dengan Amsal 31. Saat itu yang sering kuperhatikan tentang Amsal adalah jumlah pasalnya yang tepat 31 sehingga dulu seringkali dijadikan bacaan harian, satu pasal satu hari (which is not a good way in reading the Bible, hehehe…!). Tapi bicara tentang Amsal 31 memang ada kesan tersendiri, bahkan banyak tulisan-tulisan atau pemikiran-pemikiran yang dikhususkan untuk membahas bagian ini saja. Aku sendiri menemukan beberapa blog yang secara khusus berfokus pada Amsal 31 ini.

Why? Aku rasa mungkin karena orang menginginkan panduan untuk memilah-milah dengan siapa dia berelasi, terutama dalam hubungannya dengan menentukan pendamping hidup (istri gitu lho, hehehe… !). Tapi bukan hanya wanita, menurutku ada bagian-bagian pada Amsal 31 yang bisa berlaku pula buat pria. Dan buatku sendiri Amsal 31 ini menarik karena sejak gigitan pertama nenek moyangku yang cantik, Eve, pada buah dari pohon Pengetahuan yang Baik dan Jahat, manusia sudah kehilangan sense untuk menilai apa yang sebetulnya berharga dan tidak. Sehingga hanya dengan kembali pada apa yang Tuhan paparkanlah things can fall into places again.

Kali ini aku mencoba untuk menuliskan hal-hal yang aku dapatkan dari bagian Alkitab ini dan aku ingin melihat apakah kalau aku baca tulisan-tulisan itu beberapa tahun ke depan ada pengertian lain yang akan aku dapat. Atau masih seberapa besarkah jarak antara apa yang aku ketahui atau katakan dengan apa yang aku lakukan.

Serius mode ON.
(Amsal, Amsal, ditulis Pak Sal, berdasarkan nasehat Ibu Suri. Kok kayak Liz Curtis Higgs yah? à …cengiran kuda mulai muncul…
Serius mode OFF. Mode Macem-macem mode ON.

"The words of King Lemuel, the oracle which his mother taught him:
What, O my son? And what, O son of my womb? And what, O son of my vows?
Do not give your strength to women, or your ways to that which destroys kings.
It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to desire strong drink,
For they will drink and forget what is decreed, and pervert the rights of all the afflicted.
Give strong drink to him who is perishing, and wine to him whose life is bitter.
Let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his trouble no more.
Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all the unfortunate.
Open your mouth, judge righteously, and defend the rights of the afflicted and needy."
Proverbs 31:1-9 NASB

Dari kalimat pembukaannya cukup jelas kita lihat bahwa Amsal ini dituliskan oleh seorang ibu untuk putranya yang menjadi raja. Menarik sekali buatku bahwa sebelum si ibu memberikan berbagai deskripsi tentang bagaimana seorang wanita yang seharusnya dipilih oleh anaknya, terlebih dahulu dia memberikan berbagai nasehat kepada anaknya sendiri tentang bagaimana menjadi seorang pria dan raja yang baik. Sangat bijaksana!

Natur kita adalah menginginkan yang terbaik dari orang lain, tetapi seringkali sedikit sekali atau bahkan tanpa mempedulikan apakah kita sendiri sudah pula berusaha menjadi yang terbaik bagi orang tersebut. Kita seringkali hanya bisa menuntut orang di sekitar kita harus begini dan begitu tanpa benar-benar sadar bahwa banyak hal dari diri kita sendiri yang sebetulnya perlu dibereskan, meskipun mungkin berbeda sisi dengan orang lain tersebut. Bersyukur ibunda raja Lemuel bisa melihat itu!

Sedikit Keluar Konteks mode ON.
Jadi teringat the Golden Rule dari Kristus yang berkata;

“In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 7:12 NASB

Kristus disini bahkan berbicara tentang standar yang jauh lebih tinggi lagi. Jangan hanya bisa menuntut dari orang lain, tetapi sebaliknya lakukanlah terhadap orang lain apa yang kau ingin agar mereka lakukan padamu, terlepas dari apakah orang tersebut sudah melakukan hal itu kepadamu atau belum. Kristus membalikkan sifat kita yang selalu menuntut agar menjadi inisiator dalam menuntut, eeee…. maksudku dalam melakukan apa yang baik terlebih dahulu.

Kristus bukan cuma berkata jangan menyakiti orang lain kalau kau tak ingin disakiti, karena jelas tidak ada orang yang ingin disakiti. Termasuk orang-orang yang menghukum dirinya sendiri dengan cara menyakiti tubuhnya sendiri (para asketis misalnya), sebetulnya melakukan hal ini agar terbebas dari rasa berdosanya. Jadi sebetulnya tidak ada orang yang ingin disakiti. Dan Kristus disini justru mendorong kita melakukan hal-hal yang baik kepada orang lain. Tentu saja baik disini dalam konteks sesuai dengan apa yang Dia ajarkan.
Sedikit Keluar Konteks mode OFF.

Kembali pada bagian pembukaan dari Amsal 31 selanjutnya, mulai dari ayat 10-31 dikatakan bahwa setiap ayat di sini dimulai dengan tiap huruf alphabet Ibrani yang berjumlah 22 buah. Sama seperti Mazmur 119. Sayang sekali saat ini aku belum mencoba melihat tiap ayat dalam kaitannya dengan alphabet yang dipakai (PR, PR!).

Satu hal yang menarik perhatianku adalah judul yang diberikan Alkitab untuk bagian ayat 10-31. Beberapa versi yang coba aku kumpulkan seperti ini:
- NASB berjudul “Description of a Worthy Woman”
- ESV berjudul “The Woman Who Fears the LORD”
- NKJV berjudul “The Virtuos Wife”
- LAI berjudul “Istri yang Cakap”
- NIV (UK) “The Wife of Noble Character"
Buatku ini berarti Amsal ini bukan hanya mendeskripsikan para istri saja, tetapi juga mendeskripsikan wanita-wanita lain yang tanpa pasangan seperti para lajang ataupun para janda. Pada semua putri-putri Eve.

Dan melihat dalam konteks bahwa Amsal ini ditujukan bagi para pria, maka Amsal ini mengajarkan bagaimana para pria seharusnya melihat dan kemudian membantu para wanita mereka agar bisa menjadi wanita yang takut akan Tuhan. Sebagaimana Kristus memanggil para suami untuk menjadi pemimpin bagi istri-istri mereka bukan dengan sekadar berkuasa dan memerintah para wanita-wanita mereka bagaikan raja yang jauh di atas tahta, maka para pria justru harus turun membantu para wanita mereka agar bisa mendampingi mereka.

Sampai disini dulu aku membahas tentang pembukaan dari Amsal 31. Di kali lain aku akan mencoba membagikan apa yang aku mengerti dari ayat-ayat mulai dari 10-31. Please pray for me that by God’s grace I would be able to be one of these worthy women one day, worthy in His eyes, first, foremost and always…

Mode Macem-macem mode (still) ON.

Continue?

Submit?! Get Real...

"Laura mengumpulkan segenap keberaniannya dan sambil memandang lekat wajah Almanzo, dia bertanya, “Apakah kamu akan memintaku mengucapkan kata ‘tunduk’ di janji pernikahan kita nanti?” Almanzo balik memandang Laura dan dengan bersungguh-sungguh mengatakan bahwa ia tidak akan meminta Laura melakukan hal itu, demikian pula dengan pendeta Brown. Almanzo pernah mendapati pendeta Brown berdebat dengan seseorang selama berjam-jam tentang ayat yang ditulis rasul Paulus."

Itulah perkenalanku pertama kali dengan kata “submit” dalam pernikahan. Waktu itu aku belum mengerti (anak umur 6 atau 7 tahun gitu lho…) kenapa hal itu menjadi masalah yang harus diungkapkan Laura Ingalls Wilder dengan ekspresi serius. Kala itu aku sangat koetoe-boekoe dengan seri Little House yang ditulisnya hingga minus kacamataku terjun bebas dengan indah ke titik –4.00 saja. Sebutan “nenek” pun tak ku hiraukan kalau sudah membuka buku-buku setebal 2 cm yang miskin gambar itu. Apapun yang Laura lakukan atau katakan sangat kuidolakan, hingga tiba saat keriput-keriput cantik di sudut mata ini bertambah… Barulah saat itu aku mengerti ternyata aku berbeda sekali dengan Laura (lho..?!?!), eh… (kembali ke laptop!) maksudku dalam soal submission ini.

“Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Saviour of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.”
Ephesians 5:22-24 NASB

Uuggh… get real, girl! Itulah kira-kira komentar yang paling sering kudengar saat ayat-ayat ini dibahas. Ada satu kebaikan besar buatku karena dari kecil hingga dewasa aku akrab bersentuhan dengan pandangan-pandangan yang menolak “Wife Submission” sebagaimana yang tertulis di Alkitab. Dengan demikian saat kebenaran tentang hal tersebut diungkapkan Alkitab, aku mendapatkan berbagai masukan yang justru mengokohkan kebenaran yang diajarkan Kristus tersebut.

It Is Not Easy
We are all fallen creatures. We know it too well although we hate to admit it (hie hie hie… ketawa culas!). Sometimes we think we are doing well in some areas only to find out there are more areas need a lot improvements in! We fear the relationships with other people as much as we want it to happen. Seorang temanku yang hendak menikah dalam waktu dekat ini mengerti sekali apa yang aku maksudkan (wink wink…!).

We know we are imperfect and we know our spouse is imperfect as well. So ladies, we tell God that His command about submission is unrealistic. Christ is perfect, yet our spouses are not. Christ deserves our complete submission because He is good, loving and all (everything you can imagine), again, our spouses are not. That makes submission seems impossible.

Secondly, in this fallen world things are too out of hand. We learn well how we are so powerless when it comes to having control over things. I once discussed with a blogger about this. Our inability to control things even our own body. Pikir sedikit tentang kentut. Seberapa kuat kita bisa mengontrol keinginan si kentut untuk mewahyukan dirinya? Setiap perempuan yang pernah mengalami PMS tahu persis betapa nyamannya bisa kentut di masa-masa itu. Thus my dear amigos, if we cannot control a such seemingly minor thing, let alone controlling something really major like the relationship in a marriage.

Thirdly, we get hurt easily and we know the more we love someone the bigger that person’s capability to hurt us. I see all heads nod in agreement. In submitting ourselves to our imperfect spouse under circumstances we are unable to control will bring risk of getting hurt. Very deeply. So we build our own electrical fence. We tell God that He will have to forgive us for not following the church example in her submission to Christ. After all, does not God know better about imperfectness, does He?

It Is Can Be Done
How? By the grace of God, through the redemption of Christ as He died on the cross. The first and foremost thing we need to remember is that GOD is GOOD. GOD is LOVE. He is GOOD and LOVING. Nothing He commands is to destroy us. Just look at the Israelite when they were exiled, the prophet Jeremiah who brought the words of God told the people this, “For I know the plans that I have for you, ‘declares the LORD, ‘plan for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11 NASB.

So, including that very command is to bring us back into our position as His chosen, holy and blameless one. By following His commands in His grace, this world we know is turned into how it should be.

Secondly, God is in control over everything. He who gives us that command is capable to bring good even out of the seemingly bad result our actions generate. Seharusnya kita terus mensyukuri betapa luar biasa terkendalinya hidup kita saat berada di dalam tanganNya. Begitu mudahnya Tuhan mengendalikan segala sesuatu. Siapa bisa memegang setitik debu? Mustahil, lebih baik kita kembali ke laptop dan lihat pertanyaan lainnya bukan? Tapi seperti itulah dunia ini di tanganNya dalam kontrolnya. “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales. Behold, He lifts up the islands like fine dust.” Isaiah 40:15 NASB.

Jadi, kalau kita tidak meragukan natur dan kuasa Tuhan, sudah seharusnya kita tidak meragukan hal-hal yang dimintaNya untuk kita lakukan. Kebodohan kita tidak akan membuat yang direncanakanNya gagal, meskipun dengan mata kita yang begitu terbatas kita dalam sementara waktu akan melihatnya demikian

What Good Submission Does To Us
Submission membuat segala tatanan bergerak kembali ke arah sebagaimana yang dimaksudkan Tuhan sebelum manusia jatuh ke dalam dosa dan sesudah ditebus kembali oleh Kristus. Ada sinergi indah yang tercipta kala segala sesuatu berada pada tempatnya.

Submission mendidik para istri akan ketaatan mereka sendiri kepada Tuhan. Sesungguhnya, berbahagialah para istri karena Tuhan memberikan kesempatan lebih banyak untuk dilatih berserah, taat, tunduk, percaya, mengikuti pimpinan Tuhan lewat suaminya. Ada kursus intensif khusus buat para istri selama hidup di dunia ini lewat perintah Tuhan yang satu ini.

Submission yang benar akan semakin memperkuat ikatan pernikahan dan keluarga. Aku coba melihat ini dalam hubungan pimpinan dan bawahan yang aku alami sekarang. Tidak terlalu tepat dalam konteks suami-istri, tapi mungkin bisa sedikit menyerupai. Dengan submit pada pimpinanku, membuat pimpinanku merasakah dukungan akan segala tindakannya. Menyemangatinya melalui hal-hal yang sulit sekalipun. Dan in return, pimpinanku semakin memikirkan kepentingan kami semua dalam setiap pengambilan keputusannya. Karena jika hal tersebut menyusahkan kami, akan menyusahkannya juga. Kami saling membutuhkan (meskipun hubungan Christ and His church jauh lebih berarti dari sekadar saling membutuhkan tentunya).

Submission membuat seorang istri menjadi semakin dekat pada TuhanNya. Kesadaran akan ketidaksempurnaan dirinya dan suaminya membuat kebergantungan hidupnya yang semakin kuat pada Tuhan yang pasti telah dengan bijaksana memerintahkannya untuk submit kepada suaminya. Dan tidak ada hal yang jauh lebih indah jika seseorang bisa hidup begitu erat dengan Tuhan. Realitas dunia yang jatuh semakin kehilangan pegangannya. Pandangannya ke hidup yang kekal semakin jelas. Tidak ada lagi yang bisa menggoncangkan hidupnya sampai menghancurkannya. It is well with my soul, no matter what the circumstances be.

Ah… terlalu banyak hal indah yang bisa dibahas tentang submission, melebihi segala kengerian yang kita pikir akan timbul daripadanya. Dengan keterbatasan pemikiran dan pengetahuanku sekarang, terlalu sedikit yang aku bisa share pada teman-teman disini tentang submission. Tujuanku yang utama kini adalah menjalankannya, belajar melaksanakannya dalam kapasitas yang Tuhan berikan sekarang padaku.

Sekarang, mari kita dengarkan juga apa yang John Piper katakan tentang submission ini dalam khotbahnya bertajuk The Beautiful Faith of Fearless Submission, a definitely must read!

Continue?

What God Has Joined Together, Let Not Man Separate, Part 2

By: John Piper (Desiring God Ministries)
July 1, 2007

Matthew 19:3-12

I said last time that there are two ways to be compassionate and caring in relation to divorce—not at all meaning that you choose between them, but that we must pursue both. One is to come along side divorced persons while they grieve and (wherever necessary) repent, and to stay by them through the painful transitions, and to fold them into our lives, and to help them find a way to enjoy the forgiveness and the strength for new kinds of obedience that Christ has already obtained for them when he died and rose again. That’s one way to love. And I pray we will all pursue it. The other way to respond with care and compassion is to articulate a hatred for divorce, and why it is against the will of God, and to do all we can biblically to keep it from happening.


Keeping an Eternal Perspective
One of the reasons in the past few weeks that I preached twice on the dignity and worth and Christ-exalting potential of singleness is because I know that divorce throws thousands of people into that situation, many of them against their will. If we are going to stand for marriage as the life-long commitment to one living spouse, then we must be prepared to love single, divorced people with all our hearts and homes and families. And we must keep a clear, biblical, eternal perspective, and remind ourselves repeatedly that compared to eternal life with God, this earthly life—single or married, divorced or not—is very short. James says, “You are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14). If a person is going to remain single to honor his or her marriage vows, that perspective will be crucial.

God Makes and God Breaks
Last week I took the stand that if the most ultimate meaning of marriage is to represent the unbreakable covenant-love between Christ and his church (Ephesians 5:22-33), then no human being has a right to break a marriage covenant. When the impossible day comes that Christ breaks his vow, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20), then, on that day, a human being may break his marriage covenant.

This explains why Jesus does not settle for the divorce provision of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 (Mark 10:3-9), but says, “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Mark 10:9). In other words, since God is the one who decisively makes every marriage, only God has the right to break a marriage. And he does it by death. Which is why the traditional and biblical marriage vows have one and only one limitation: “till death do us part,” or, “as long as we both shall live.”

Four Crucial Questions
As you know, when a person takes such a stand on the inviolability and sacredness of marriage, and the illegitimacy of divorce and remarriage while the spouses are alive, there are many questions, both biblical and practical, that have to be answered. So what I want to do in this message is to try to answer some of the more pressing ones.

1. First, does death end a marriage in such a way that it is legitimate for a spouse to remarry?
The answer is yes, and no one has seriously questioned it. One key text is Romans 7:1-3:
Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. (See below on 1 Corinthians 7:39)

In other words, Paul says that to divorce and remarry while your spouse is living is adulterous, but to remarry after the death of a spouse is not. I think the reason for this is that Jesus made plain that in the resurrection there is no marriage (Matthew 22:30). So if a person said it was wrong to remarry after the death of a spouse, it would seem to imply that marriage is meant to be valid beyond death and in the resurrection. But it’s not.

Death is the decisive and eternal end of marriage. The spouse who has died has moved out of the earthly sphere where marriage happens, and is no longer married. And therefore the spouse on earth is no longer married. Therefore remarriage after the death of a spouse is not only legitimate, but speaks a clear biblical truth—after death there is no marriage.

2. Second, if a divorced person has already married again, should he or she leave the later marriage?
The reason this question comes with such force is that Jesus speaks of the second marriage as committing adultery. Luke 16:18, “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.”

My answer is that remarriage, while a divorced spouse is still living, is an act of unfaithfulness to the marriage covenant. In that sense, to remarry is adultery. We promised, “till death do us part” because that is what God says marriage is, and even if our spouse breaks his or her covenant vows, we will not break ours.

But I do not think that a person who remarries against God’s will, and thus commits adultery in this way, should later break the second marriage. The marriage should not have been done, but now that it is done, it should not be undone by man. It is a real marriage. Real vows have been made and sexual union has happened. And that real covenant of marriage may be purified by the blood of Jesus and set apart for God. In other words, I don’t think that a couple who repents and seeks God’s forgiveness, and receives his cleansing, should think of their lives as ongoing adultery, even though, in the eyes of Jesus, that’s how the relationship started.

There are several reasons for why I believe this:

1) First, back in Deuteronomy 24:1-4, where the permission for divorce was given in the law of Moses, it speaks of the divorced woman being “defiled” in the second marriage so that it would be an abomination for her to return to her first husband, even if her second husband died. This language of defilement is similar to Jesus’ language of adultery. And yet the second marriage stood. It was defiling in some sense, yet it was valid.

2) Another reason I think remarried couples should stay together is that when Jesus met the woman of Samaria, he said to her, “You have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband” (John 4:18). When Jesus says, “The one you have now is not your husband,” he seems to imply that the other five were. Not that it’s right to divorce and marry five times. But the way Jesus speaks of it, it sounds as though he saw them as real marriages. Illicit. Adulterous to enter into, but real. Valid.

3) And the third reason I think remarried couples should stay together is that even vows that should not be made, once they are made, should generally be kept. I don’t want to make that absolute, but there are passages in the Bible that speak of vows being made that should not have been made, but were right to keep (like Joshua’s vow to the Gibeonites in Joshua 9). God puts a very high value on keeping our word, even where it gets us in trouble (“[The godly man] swears to his own hurt and does not change,” Psalm 15:4).

In other words, it would have been more in keeping with God’s revealed will not to remarry, but adding the sin of another covenant breaking does not please God more.1
There are marriages in this church that are second marriages for one or both partners which, in my view should not have happened, and are today godly marriages—marriages which are clean and holy, and in which forgiven, justified husbands and wives please God by the way they relate to each other. As forgiven, cleansed, Spirit-led followers of Jesus, they are not committing adultery in their marriage. It began as it should not have, and has become holy.

3. Third, if an unbelieving spouse insists on leaving a believing spouse, what should the believing spouse do?
Paul’s answer in 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 goes like this:
To the rest I say (I, not the Lord [which I think means, I don’t have a specific command from the historical teachings of Jesus, but I am led by his Spirit]) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. [Which I take to mean that marriage is such a holy union in God’s eyes that a believer, a child of God, is not defiled by having sexual relations with an enemy of the cross; and the children are not born with any kind of special contamination because the father or mother is an enemy of Christ. They’re not saved by being married to a believer or born to a believer, but they are set apart for proper and holy use in the marriage.]

2 But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

So the answer of this passage is that if divorce is forced on a believer by an unbeliever, the believer should not make war on the unbeliever to make the unbeliever stay. The reason Paul gives for this is in verse 15b, “God has called you to peace.” I do not believe this text teaches that we are free to remarry when this happens. Some take the words, “In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved,” to mean: “is free to remarry.”

There are several reasons why I don’t think it means that:
1) When Paul says in verse 15, “In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved (or bound),” I think he means, “not enslaved to stay married when the unbeliever over time insists on leaving and sues for divorce.” He’s not saying, “The brother or sister is not enslaved to stay single—and thus free to remarry,” because Paul, the lover of singleness, would not have spoken of singleness as a state of slavery or bondage. It is very unlikely Paul would talk like that.

2) The second reason I don’t think he is saying the abandoned spouse is free to remarry is that he just pointed us in the opposite direction in verses 10-11, “To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.” With a statement like that in front of me (“if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband”), I am not inclined to think Paul is supporting remarriage four verses later.

3) The third reason I don’t think he is supporting remarriage when he says, “the brother or sister is not bound,” is that Paul’s argument in the next verse (v. 16) doesn’t support that. It supports freedom to accept divorce peacefully, not freedom to remarry. Verse 16 says, “For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?” In other words, you don’t know, and therefore you can’t use that as an argument to create an ugly fight to stay married. So the words in verse 15, “In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved,” mean you are not enslaved to this marriage when your unbelieving spouse demands out, because you have no assurance that fighting to stay in will save him.

4) And a fourth reason for believing Paul upholds Jesus’ ideal of no remarriage after divorce while the estranged spouse is alive is verse 39: “A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.” So it seems to me that Paul and Jesus are of one mind that followers of Jesus are radically devoted to one husband and one wife as long as they both shall live. This ideal tells the gospel truth most clearly: Christ died for his bride and never forsakes her.

4. Fourth, the last question we barely have time for is: Are there no exceptions to the prohibition of remarriage while the spouse is living?
My answer is no. But I am very much in the minority of biblical students, and even among Bible-believing scholars and pastors. So let’s turn very briefly to Matthew 19 to see the main argument for the exception of adultery—that is, the argument that when there has been adultery against a spouse he or she is free to divorce and remarry. Matthew 19:3-12 is very much like the words of Jesus we saw last week in Mark 10:1-12. There are two main differences. The first one is in verse 9 where there is an exception clause: “And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” Most scholars say that the words “except for sexual immorality” mean that if there has been adultery, the aggrieved spouse is free to divorce and remarry.

Piper’s Position
I don’t think that is what Jesus meant. There is no time to give the fairly involved explanation why. For that I refer you to Divorce & Remarriage: A Position Paper. In a few sentences, since Jesus does not use the word “adultery” here (when he says “except for sexual immorality”), which he uses elsewhere (15:9) in distinction to this word, but instead uses the word typically referring to “fornication” (see especially John 8:41), I think what Jesus is doing is warning his readers that this absolute prohibition against remarriage does not apply to the situation of betrothal, where fornication may have happened.

Matthew is the one gospel that tells about Joseph’s intention to “divorce” his betrothed Mary because he thought she had committed fornication. And Matthew says that Joseph was “just” in doing this, not adulterous: “being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly” (Matthew 1:19). Matthew is telling us that Jesus’ warning that remarriage is adulterous does not apply to Joseph’s kind of situation.

Bethlehem’s Position
This view is not widely held. And not all the elders at Bethlehem over the years have shared this conviction. That is why we do not make my own understanding the standard for church discipline, but rather a standard we can all agree on. This elder position is found in the paper called A Statement on Divorce & Remarriage in the Life of Bethlehem Baptist Church.

So the view that I have been explaining and trying to show from scripture for the last two weeks is mine and does not represent the official position of our church in all its details. The elders all agree that marriage, as God designed it, is vastly more serious and sacred than our culture makes it out to be. And we agree that, if there is any biblical grounds for divorce and remarriage, the grounds are only unrepentant adultery and protracted desertion. As with other matters, we live with each other in peace, in spite of this disagreement.

Our united prayer for the people of Bethlehem and those that we care about outside, is that we all recognize the deepest and highest meaning of marriage—not sexual intimacy, as good as that is, not friendship, as good as that is, not mutual helpfulness, as good as that is, not childbearing and childrearing, as good as that is, but the flesh-and-blood display in the world of the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church. That is what we call you to. Display that. Tell the truth about that in your marriages and your singleness.

Keeping Covenant Through the Gospel
And we believe that through the gospel God gives us the power we need to love each other in this covenant-keeping way, because in Matthew 19:11, after his radical call to faithfulness, Jesus said, “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given.” And it is given to those who follow Christ. We are not left alone. He is with us to help us. If we have been sinned against, he will make it right sooner or later. And give us the grace to flourish while we wait. And if we have sinned, he will give the grace to repent and receive forgiveness and move forward in radical new obedience.

The gospel of Christ crucified for our sins is the foundation of our lives. Marriage exists to display it. And when marriage breaks down, the gospel is there to forgive and heal and sustain until he comes, or until he calls.

1 The imposed divorces of Ezra 10:6ff are an exception to this rule that is probably owing to the unique situation of ethnic Israel living among idolatrous pagan peoples and breaking God’s law not to intermarry with them. We know from 1 Corinthians 7:13 and 1 Peter 3:1-6 that the Christian answer to mixed marriages is not divorce.
2 I found Paul K. Jewett's Infant Baptism and the Covenant of Grace, pp. 122-138, very helpful on this passage.

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