Hardness Of Your Hearts

A good friend of mine has an incredible marriage story.  She was raised Catholic.  She married her husband but neither of them had a personal relationship with Jesus.  They had three children.  He started having an affair.

She wanted to know if she should divorce him.  A priest was preaching about Sodom and Gomorrah.  He told of the time when Abraham was begging God to spare Sodom if there were 50 righteous people in the city.  God told him He would.  Then Abraham asked if he'd spare it for 30,  then 20, and then 10.  God assured him that if there were 10 righteous people in Sodom, He wouldn't destroy it.

She figured if Abraham could plead with God, so could she?  She started pleading with Him to tell her if she should divorce her husband.  She found a Bible and started reading it.  She found Matthew 19 where Jesus was asked about divorce and Jesus said, "Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts allowed you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so." 

That verse convicted her of the hardness of her heart!  Was she willing to soften her heart towards her husband and forgive him?

She realized all the things she had done wrong in her marriage and started trying to win him back.  He use to love giving her flowers, but she finally told him to save the money and stop buying her flowers.  {After she told us that, she looked at us and said, "Let him buy you flowers and appreciate anything he wants to do for you!"}  One day, she even washed his car as he got ready to go see his girlfriend.

Soon after that, he called her from a phone booth with his girlfriend and told her they had both said the sinners prayer.  He came home for good.  It took him five years after moving back home, however, to ask for forgiveness from her.  He became a strong believer and for the next 32 years they ministered to married couples!!!

He died six years ago and she misses him terribly.  She is so glad she didn't divorce him, but instead fought for their marriage.  She is glad God softened her heart and healed her marriage.  Think very carefully before you get divorced.  It is a very painful road. With God all things are possible.

Wherefore they are no more two but one flesh.  What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder. 

Matthew 19:6