Shattering

‘Forgive as the Lord forgave you.’ Colossians 3:13 NIV

When divorce shatters your family, how can you help? First, stop talking about who doesn’t accept you, and surround yourself with people who do. Love can go a long way towards compensating for another person’s neglect. If you’ve got a little brother or sister, remind them it’s not their fault. Sometimes they think it is. Encourage them (and yourself) to be strong, not self-pitying or self-condemning.

Learn from what’s happened. If you meet someone you have to ‘change’ in order to truly ‘love’, you haven’t met the right partner for life. When love is right it can live with strengths and weaknesses under the same roof, because ‘love covers over a multitude of sins.’ (1 Peter 4:8 NIV) Real love covers a mistake like an insurance policy covers a driver in an accident.

If one of your parents is trying to use you as a weapon to get back at the other, don’t hand them any ‘ammunition’ to continue the war. Everyone will get hurt in that sort of fire-fight. Give yourself a chance to move forward. Pray for your parents. Bitterness is a thief, but you don’t have to let it steal your peace, your creativity, your song, or your hope for a better future.

Remember, that was then—this is now. There must be a ‘now’ for you, so let it begin today. God’s promise is: ‘I am about to do something new.’ (Isaiah 43:19 NLT) Be part of that something new.

SoulFood: Eph 5:21–33, S of S 2:1–7, Ps 45, Pro 5:15–19

word4today an adaptation of The Word For Today is authored by Bob and Debby Gass and published under licence from UCB International Copyright © 2020

Today’s Readings

Ephesians 5:21–33 ()

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21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.