Some Pharisees came to test Him. ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’ they inquired. ‘What did Moses command you?’ He replied. They answered, ‘Moses permitted a man to write his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away.’ But Jesus told them, ‘Moses wrote this commandment for you because your hearts were hard. However, from the beginning of creation, “God made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.’ ~ Mark 10:2-9, Berean Study Bible

My husband divorced me in 1998. Our divorce was final in July of that same year—just 28 days shy of our 27^th Wedding Anniversary. 

In 1971, we got married on August 13^th. This year, on August 13^th, it would have been our 45^th Wedding Anniversary. 

While I realize that what is done is done, which simply means that my divorce is in the past, and while I have not put my hands to the plow and looked back but have continued to reach upward and go forward, as the Holy Spirit leads me, empowers me, teaches me, and helps me to be about my Father’s Business, being divorced STILL troubles me. Without fail, every year for the last 18 years in a row, about 5 days leading up to and at least 2 or 3 days after August 13^th I invariably feel a deep sense of loss. 

For the record, I would rather be singing “because I’m happy,” from the song “Happy” by Pharrell Williams—or doing backflips (which I never could do, even when I was way younger). What I am trying to say is that feeling anything other than this profound sorrow would be an improvement. Let me make this perfectly clear. I do continually praise and thank God for His Love and the ministry He has given to me, yet, even though I know that I am His Child and that He has my best interest at heart, the fact still remains that what God has joined together has been altered by the state of Virginia. This man-made alteration is what brings me down every year around this time.

Now, according to America’s divorce laws, I am a single woman. I have been, according to the state of Virginia, single now for 18 years—divorced on the grounds that we “had lived separate and apart without any cohabitation and without any interruption since October 15, 1996!” Well, that is a lie, because my husband moved back in with me several times before he made his last exit. However, I could not contest this false living ‘separate and apart without any cohabitation and without any interruption’ claim, because I was denied all divorce proceedings’ notifications—but that’s another story that I may blog about one day. The point here is that according to God’s marriage LAW—the One who joined us—I am still married to my husband in my spirit and soul. 

Contrary to popular opinions, just because a married couple signed legal separation papers, this husband and wife’s agreement only means they have gotten into bed with their state government. In other words, signing and returning a marriage certificate (a legal state document that proves a couple is married to each other) to a county clerk of court gives that state’s man-made court system the right to issue legal separation papers that literally allow a living separate and apart couple to have an open marriage—their state has the LEGAL secular power to give every couple the okay to break God’s Commandments! 

Put differently, since both civil and religious marriages involve a husband, wife, and their state, this fact means that each state—once it receives and records a marriage certificate—now has the right to issue legal separation papers, which give legally married couples the okay to commit adultery, fornication, covetousness, marital genocide (married couples are now helping their state systematically “kill” God’s Institution of Marriage), and familial genocide (married couples are now helping their state systematically “kill” God’s Institution of Family), and so on and so forth. Furthermore, because each state receives and records marriage certificates, this fact also means that when a divorce happens each state government not only has the right to issue legal divorce papers but also has the right to take control of a married couple’s marriage, home, children, material assets, financial assets, social security benefits, and retirement benefits. 

The uncomfortable truth is that, as far as God and His Institution of Marriage are concerned, legal separation papers in no way speak for God. The Divine Truth is that God never issues legal separation papers—HE NEVER gives a couple He has joined together the right to move on with someone else while he or she is still legally married! 

The deeper uncomfortable truth is that a marriage license, though considered to be a legal man-made document, does not give a couple the right to marry. Additionally, a marriage certificate, which also is a legal man-made document, does not mean any couple who gets legally married is married in God’s eyes. For the record, REAL MARRIAGES—the God-kind of Marriages—take place in each couple’s spirits (hearts) and souls. As such, this kind of union is supernatural, permanent, and divine—the kind of union God forbids anyone to try to pull apart or divide. 

God is the One who sanctions, sanctifies, and seals every couple who has entered into His kind of spirit, soul, mind and body marriage—a totally committed marriage. This Divine Truth is why a signed and recorded marriage certificate doesn’t prove any couple who has NOT entered into a totally committed marriage is married—is joined in marriage in God’s sight. Indeed, a marriage certificate doesn’t make anyone married! Only a spiritual and faithful—a permanent and divine—commitment in each other’s spirit and soul is what makes a man and a woman a married couple.

The bottom line is that each state government only can separate and dissolve or divorce couples that each state has joined together—every state government, in God’s eyes, only can separate and dissolve or divorce couples who are not genuinely married in their spirits and souls—couples who spiritually (supernaturally) are NOT ONE as God has sanctioned, sanctified, and sealed them to be. When any state government legalizes a separation and then legalizes the dissolution of marriage (legalizes a divorce) of a couple who is married the way God intends for that couple to be married—permanently, divinely, and supernaturally in their spirits and souls—then that state government has overstepped its bounds. This last statement is uncomfortably true because from the moment we Americans gave our state governments the power to put asunder (pull apart; divide) what God has joined together we all began to play a part in our state governments’ systematic destruction of God’s Institution of Family and God’s Institution of Marriage. 

I said all that to say this: Regardless of whether or not my former spouse meant to be joined to me permanently, divinely, and supernaturally by his spirit and his soul, this is exactly how God joined me to my husband. No doubt this unbreakable connection to him is why God has not allowed me to move on and be joined to someone else. As a result, every August 13^th—as well as at least 5 days leading up to it and 2 or 3 days after it—I suffer from a deep sense of loss that cannot be avoided no matter how hard I try. It is what it is. I feel like I lost my soulmate, and, until God changes me, I believe I will feel this way, every year around this time, for the rest of my life on Earth.