THE SCARLETT LETTER WE WEAR

There is something that has been really weighing on me for some time now....and I have tried to ignore it, "kind of" write about it, talk to people who don't get it, listen to people who DO get it....

I've decided to start a club called: THE REAL DIVORCED WIVES OF CHURCHVILLE  or perhaps, DIVORCED WOMEN FORMERLY KNOWN AS CHURCH LADIES.

I may or may not be kidding about starting a club - but rest assured, there are more than enough women that would be eligible to join.

This post may take me awhile to write but I guarantee it will make you uncomfortable. 

I ask that you not read this with your defense in mind and then email me and tell me how wrong or mistaken I am. Read this knowing that these are very REAL experiences of very REAL people - the same ones that God loves so much.

For many years, I heard from women who have said that once they divorced, they were cut off from some of their friends, etc. I pooh-poohed it because I didn't REALLY believe it.

I do now.

I touched on it when I wrote about it in this post: WHERE ARE YOU MY FRIENDS?  I hinted at it in this post: MISUNDERSTOOD. I became more blatant in my last post titled "DO I MATTER STILL?

What I am getting at is the question of what the church does with and to divorced women. 

Let me tell you a true story. I will not use names, places or identifiable facts.  Why? Because of the rejection divorced women are put through by those that are commanded to love is painful enough. (Remember what I told you....DON'T defend by saying YOU don't put them through it...)

I have five friends that come immediately to mind and more if I think harder, so I am going to combine them into one character: 

Wanda

Wanda married when she was 23 to what she thought was not only the love of her life, but a solid "man of God" who also grew up in the church. They had a long marriage full of what was disguised as joy to the church that watched their every move. But it was really full of an inner grief that no one could see - not even Wanda. Her husband was very respected in the church - almost revered because of his strong "spiritual" leadership not to mention his large contributions of money to the church. 

Wanda had the children, raised the children, and taught them to go to church. The other thing she taught them was to put on a good face, even when inside, she was crumbling.

Wanda's Pillar husband had a secret life. One that was sickly addicted to sex. Not sex with his wife.... but actually, anybody BUT his wife. Prostitutes mostly - some even underage, pornography of the sickest kind.

When Wanda found this out, she was, as one could imagine, devastated and HIS rejection of sex with her all made perfect sense now. But Wanda was taught not to give up on marriage. She confronted her husband and with what appeared to be deep remorse, he agreed to go to counseling. In private counseling, he saw the error of his ways and was cured. Of course, Wanda, being the good wife that her mother taught her to be, did not breathe of word of this to anyone. Nobody suspected that there was anything but deep love in their marriage and family.

It was deep alright....but it was deep pain within her entire being

 
A very short amount of time went by and Pillar husband was back to his old tricks. Wanda desperately called the pastor and his wife for some wise and godly counsel.

Upon entering the pastor's office, Wanda could feel something very tangible in the air. And then began the unexpected. Accusations. And Wanda was the target.

They asked things like what she did that made her unattractive to her upstanding Pillar husband. Doesn't she like sex? Is she emotionally and physically unavailable? 

Pillar husband sat there smugly with a forced forlorn look on his face, and they bought it.

Wanda left the office and her husband and moved her kids to a safe place... And filed for divorce even after the pleadings of her sex addicted Pillar of the church husband. She was finished.

Enter, the shunning. Not a formal shunning as is practiced by cults and sects, but a slow, insidious shunning. Kind of like a slow bleed. Mrs. Pastor woman tells someone so they can "pray" about it. Pillar husband tells the board of the church he is on that his wife has taken the children and left him (leaving out the fact that he has dishonored his wife and their marriage vows in so many vile ways.) Of course, the board members, consisting of only men, each go home and get it off of their chests that Wanda has gone off the deep end. 

Next thing she knows, she finds out from a curious friend that "she cleaned out their bank accounts and left town with the children." Wanda still keeps quiet about the sickness of her now ex-husband... no defense... she was bred to make things look good.

• Wanda can not go to the church without her Scarlet Letter - even her new church in another town has her tried and convicted.
• Wanda's "christian" college friends have abandoned her.
• Wanda's friends that had "always been there" have disappeared.
• She is rejected by the very people who are charged with loving one another. 
• Wanda gets VERY little child support from Pillar father because, before this happened, he hid any money they had saved and gambled the rest.
• Pillar husband is still on the church board and even more respected for "going through" what he went through. Has remarried some other victim and is still a secret sex addict.

There is a lot more to the combination of stories, but suffice it to say that all of these facts (and much more!) have really happened and are happening right in the churches all across the country.

Women are the rejected ones even if the husband is the one who broke the vows. They are rejected by all of the "happily married" women. And find themselves leered at and proposed to by "happily married" church men - as they are fair game now.

It just doesn't make sense.

If this left you uncomfortable - good. it should.

...or not believing that this is happening in YOUR church. and you would be oh, so very wrong. 

The reason I wrote this is because I have been hearing from some of my friends and acquaintances regarding the treatment they have received from the people in the churches that are charged with forgiving as they themselves have been forgiven. They have been told to get the log out of their own eye before trying to remove the splinter from someone else's eye (linked to my blog on this subject.) But somehow it doesn't apply...

Maybe I will start the club after all.........