Sharon Kay Ball - Divorce to Wholeness

The printed version of this eBook is the Divorce to Wholeness book, ISBN-13: 9781596366237

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Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Divorce to Wholeness
Copyright 2013 God Crazy/Bella Publishing
Published by Aspire Press
An imprint of Hendrickson Publishing Group
Rose Publishing, LLC
P.O. Box 3473
Peabody, Massachusetts 01961-3473 USA
www.HendricksonPublishingGroup.com

Build: 2022-01-19 09:44:25 EPUB 2.0

Divorce

to

Wholeness

Sharon Kay Ball

Paige Henderson

The Freedom Series

Created by Michelle Borquez

• Shows you how to live, laugh and love again after a divorce.
• Uplifts and encourages you with powerful stories from Sharon Kay Ball and Michelle Borquez, both women who went through divorces and found Gods strength and helping hand through the tragedy.
• Includes questions for personal or Bible study use along with scripture passages and a space to journal.

Chapter 1

By Sharon Kay Ball

I always believed life was kind of like the ocean, and I was a surfer. All I had to do was pick the right wave, stay balanced, and I would experience the ride of my life, all the while heading toward a beautiful destination. What I chose to ignore was the fact that storms can come without warning over the ocean, and lurking beneath the beautiful blue-green surface are sharks, stingrays, poisonous jellyfish, and other dangers that want to take you down.

I grew up determined to be a good girl. If I did everything right, that was like catching the right wave. As long as I didnt rock my surfboard, Id stay on top of lifes waves. My life would be smooth surfing, and anything dangerous would stay far beneath me. Skies would stay blue and filled only with puffy, marshmallow-white clouds, and I would glide straight into my happily ever after. Sound a bit naive? Maybe to some, but to me this was reality. This was my dream, to have the happily ever after. Its what we all strive for.

I was a rule-follower and a goal-setter.

What I didnt know is that the picturesque ocean I had spent so long learning to stay atop would try to overtake me and eventually leave me on the shore of hopelessness when I found myself, as a thirty-something, in the midst of the greatest storm I had ever encountered. By this point in my life, I was professionally counseling others whose lives had gone topsy-turvy. Now I found myself in desperate need of the very hand of hope and healing I was used to offering.

My lifes dream, like many other girls, was to get married, have children, and maintain a career. Pretty normal, right? I was an American woman. I was taught that I could have it all. At an early age, I began to believe that if I just followed the rules, kept on being good, and did things the right way, I would get what I wanted. I was a rule-follower and a goal-setter.

Goal No. 1: Marry Mr. Right.

Goal No. 2: Have three beautiful children.

Goal No. 3: Set up a thriving psychotherapy practice.

My focus on being good and following the rules worked at first. I received praise for being good, I liked the success that came with hard work, and I easily adapted to others expectations. I began to define myself by my dreams and by how other people saw me, instead of seeking the will of my heavenly Father and desiring his approval of me.

On the surface everything was going just fine. Goal No. 1: Check. Goals 2 and 3: Check and double-check.

My life could not fall apart. It would destroy everything I had ever believed in.

But after sixteen years of trying everything in my power to hold it together, my marriage capsized. When there had been betrayal in the past, I had patched it up, sucked it up, and gone on with our lives. Not just for me, but for our children. My life could not fall apart. It would destroy everything I had ever believed in and known to be true. But it did. My marriage washed completely away. The storm had come, and now I felt as if I would drown in my tears and pain.

We had almost divorced once before when I was pregnant with our third child, but I rode the wave of focusing on my marriage at all costs. I was teetering, but I was determined. I took a year off from work, he quit touring, and I kept riding the wave. Betrayal was all around me. I had to fight not to become resentful and bitter, but I knew more than anything that I had to press on ... for me, for the kids, for our families, and God.

I clung to my board even when the waves became tsunami-sized. The betrayal and lies continued, but I could not, would not, give up my dream. What would other people think? Good girls, Christians, overachievers like me did not get divorced. I was a psychotherapist for goodness sake. Couldnt I get to the bottom of the issues in my own marriage and fix them? The weight of the waves crashing over me began to wear me down. I grew weary by the day. Can you relate? If you have experienced divorce, I am sure you can.

As weak as I was, I continued to grasp and cling to any ounce of hope I could find, only to feel as if my head was being pushed under the water over and over again. Papers in hand, attorneys present, I no longer could live in denial. This was my life. This was real. It was happening to me and there was absolutely nothing I could do. My childrens tears, the hard reality of my new life as a single mother, quickly jolted me out of my dreams and made me realize that life as I knew it for sixteen years was over. No more happily ever after. I thought in that moment I had lost it all: my marriage, my childrens innocence, my chance for love. All gone. All washed up.

When my despair could go no deeper, I surrendered.

God never promised us a perfect life. What he did promise me was that he would never leave me nor would he ever forsake me, even in my darkest moments, my tsunami storms. This was the hope I had to hang on to. The deep blue ocean I had once only known from afar, thinking that avoiding its predatorsthe sharks, the poisonous jellyfishwould keep me safe and happy, was now the very thing God was using to teach me. He taught me that in the depths of the ocean, in the midst of the pain and trials, the things life brings to destroy us are the very things he uses to reveal his bountiful love for us. No longer would I fear the ocean and its darkness. Instead I have allowed it to wash over me, cleanse me of my own sin, my own prideful nature, and show me that my value is not based on my performance, but it is rooted in Christs deep love and acceptance of me just as I am.

When my despair could go no deeper, I surrendered. I could not make my marriage work. I could not fix the heartache my children were going through. I had to stop fighting the waves and allow them to wash over me. When I finally did, I was weak and shaken to the core, but in my weakness God became strong. My trust had to be in him. I learned to entrust my future to him. I didnt understand it. I couldnt fix it. I didnt feel it was deserved, and yet I have entrusted the outcome of my life completely to himand this is not a one-time act of surrender, but a daily revelation.