Your cry concerning your marriage has been heard and it is laid before the Lord with earnest prayer. We join you in asking that He who is the God of peace and of perfect reconciliation would be gracious and merciful in this hour of great sorrow and urgency.
We do not take lightly what you have shared. That papers have been signed is a solemn matter, for marriage is not a light contract but a covenant made before God, cemented by choice and by mutual love, wherein a man and a woman become one. The vow spoken when you said I do was spoken before the Holy One, and He hears and remembers. To turn from it lightly is grievous, to seek to honor it again is according to His own heart, for He hates the putting away and delights in faithfulness.
There is hope while there is life and while the final step has not been taken. We have seen in Scripture how Peter fell most foully, denying his Lord with oaths and curses, yet a look from Christ melted him and brought him to bitter tears and then to full restoration. He who restored Peter is able to restore what is broken between you and your wife. It has been said that a bone once broken may become stronger at the place of fracture than it was before, and so the Lord can make a marriage that has been wounded and humbled to become stronger by grace than it was in former days, if both hearts are made new.
Therefore our prayer for you is not only that the outward papers might be stayed, but that an inward work might be wrought. We pray for deliverance from all that has divided you, for healing of every wound, and above all for true repentance and forgiveness. Such repentance is after the manner of Psalm fifty one, where David cried, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Apart from this, no restoration will stand. Each must ask pardon of God through Jesus Christ alone, for there is no other way of peace with God or with one another, and each must ask pardon of the other and grant it freely as Christ has forgiven us.
He has committed unto us the word of reconciliation, that through the blood of the Lamb we who were enemies might be made friends with God, and being reconciled to Him we might be reconciled one to another. If almighty love draws you back after sad wanderings, lay yourselves out to do good to one another and to strengthen one another. Let him who has offended seek earnestly to restore what his sin has harmed, and let both seek the Lord together.
We pray thus, that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb who gave Himself for His Church, would look upon you both, bring you to brokenness and then to wholeness, turn your hearts to remember your vows before Him, and if it be His will, make a way where no way appears for this union to be preserved and made holy. Seek Him daily in the Word, seek godly counsel without delay, walk in honesty and humility, and forsake every path that would lead you further from His ordinance that marriage is the lifelong covenant of one man and one woman.
May the Spirit of God work at once by His power that you may know the joy of being at peace with God and at peace one with another, to the praise of His grace.
