Divorce Can Be A Beautiful Thing
4 min readDivorce is ugly. Trust me. But it can also be a beautiful thing. Let me explain.
I was in the sixth grade when my sister Sara and I noticed our parents were not acting like they did when we were younger. There was small bickering at first and I didn’t really take notice as a wide-open, vivacious kid whose activities involved aggravating my sister and playing basketball and baseball. As time went on, it started to take a toll on me and I often wondered why they were not getting along like they used to. I remember many times talking to Sara when our father was not being his normal “Let’s wrestle and have fun and laugh and ride bicycles” self. It was bothering me. What was going on? Why did he not want to practice basketball with me as much anymore? Why did he snap at Sara and me when we asked him to take us to the movies after church one morning? Why was our mother crying and talking to her parents and friends about situations I was not aware of? What was happening to our family?
There were many questions I had, but being the apathetic kid I was I chose to ignore them and assumed they would go away and work themselves out. I did what a lot of teenage kids do when they have issues they don’t want to deal with – I bottled them up inside and tried to get my mind to think on other things. But alas, there are some things your mind and heart cannot bottle up and just let go of. I was coming to a point where I needed to know what was going on. I was sick of seeing my mother cry at random times, I was sick of my father treating me differently and not being the man of God I looked up to, and I was sick of bottling it all up inside. I finally did what I needed to. I asked my mom every question that I had on my mind that night. My sister was right there with me, wondering what was going on. Drugs and alcohol was the answer to our questions. What mom? Drugs? Dad has a problem with drugs? He drinks heavily? How did we not know? Are you serious? We couldn’t believe her at first. How could this be? Pre-teens are supposed to know everything! I don’t want to talk about this anymore, mom! That was our attitude for a good while until the drugs and alcohol took their course. It was too easy to not notice what the truth was. Our father was a drug addict and an alcoholic. Our family was breaking apart.
My parents split up for awhile with Sara and I begging mom to not get a divorce. We loved our father. He taught me to play basketball and baseball and to ride a bike. He told great jokes and stories. He was my daddy and I didn’t want him to go. That was about the time when I became rebellious. Not only did my parents divorce, but we stopped seeing our father. He had found another woman and moved on. It was that quick and abrupt. My life was crashing down. I was going into middle school and I had no father to help me along in those tough times.
Seventh grade was my hardest year and not something I enjoy reminiscing about. But through all of this, God was there for me. I did not really acknowledge Him, but I can sincerely look back and know that He had his hand on me. He had a plan and purpose for the whole divorce and life-crashing events in my life.
The following year, my mother met her husband. A blessing is not even the right word to use here. A Godsend perhaps is close enough. Sara and I needed a father figure in our lives and what we got was much more than that. We got a step-dad who provided for us, instructed us, loved us, took care of us and, most importantly, loved my mother and God. Things were starting to look up. This was just what I needed going through high school.
To this day, I thank God for doing what he did in our lives. Divorce is an ugly thing, but a beautiful thing at the same time. It showed me things I did not expect to be shown. There are things I know now that I would have never known about without that event in my life. I’m 21 and know deep down that one day I will get married and raise a family. I will do the things my father never did. I will never leave my family like he did. I don’t hold a grudge against him to this day. I speak to him occasionally and see him every Christmas. I feel that I treat him as best I can, as someone who was on the receiving end of losing a father. God knows that I will love my family and be the best father I can be so that I would never put them through what my sister and I had to deal with.
