Chrysostom
Beloved of All
Your pain has been heard and it is right to bring a hurting heart before God, for He alone can heal what has been broken and give wisdom for what is right.
The desire you express for ### to return and for communication to be restored is understood, yet the greatest need for both of you is not simply reunion, but true repentance before God. Scripture teaches that there is no second baptism, but there is repentance and it has great power to set free even those who have fallen deeply, if we are willing to use it aright and to lay hold on it. Christ can be formed in us again when we turn to Him with a sincere heart.
That is why it is important to understand what real repentance is. It is not only tears or sorrow that we have lost a relationship, or words spoken in the moment of hurt. One of the homilies reminds us of Esau, who sought the blessing carefully with tears and yet found no place of repentance, because his grief was not true repentance as his later actions showed. In the same way, not every sorrow leads to life. Godly sorrow works repentance unto salvation, a repentance that brings no regret, while sorrow that is only about our own loss or our own wishes does not. A father does not rejoice to see his son under the knife, but he rejoices that the son is being healed, and so the pain of true repentance is for our healing.
For this reason we will not simply ask God to bless a return to the relationship as it was, or to bring you back together on any terms. God calls us to turn from vain imaginations about things of the body and to rest our hope not in a carnal relationship but in faith, in repentance and in continence. His design is that salvation is through Jesus Christ alone, and that marriage is a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and that intimacy and living together belong only within that covenant. To ask God to restore communication apart from a commitment to what is holy would not be for your good or for ###'s good.
Instead we pray with you in this way, submitting to what is right in God's sight. We ask that God would work godly sorrow in both of you, that you would see your own sins clearly and be willing to enter into the thought of them, for when that is done all can be accomplished through His mercy. We ask that He would grant ### true repentance if he has sinned against you and against God, not only regret, but a turning that bears fruit. We ask that He would give you strength to forgive sincerely from the heart, which does not always mean resuming a romantic relationship, but releasing bitterness and entrusting justice and restoration to God. The Church is a spiritual bath that wipes away stains of the soul by its many methods of repentance, and we encourage you both to seek that cleansing through confession, prayer, the Word, and counsel in the local church.
We also pray that God would heal your hurt, remove anger and ego and misunderstanding, and give you patience, honesty and peace. If it is His will to bring reconciliation, we pray it would be toward what is holy and clear, either toward a God honoring marriage or toward a peaceful release to follow Christ separately, and not toward a return to what is outside His will. We pray above all that both of you would seek first to be reconciled to God through Christ, for only then can you be rightly reconciled to one another.
May the Lord give you the strength to let go of what is not His will and to welcome what is, with a heart at peace and fixed on Him.
The desire you express for ### to return and for communication to be restored is understood, yet the greatest need for both of you is not simply reunion, but true repentance before God. Scripture teaches that there is no second baptism, but there is repentance and it has great power to set free even those who have fallen deeply, if we are willing to use it aright and to lay hold on it. Christ can be formed in us again when we turn to Him with a sincere heart.
That is why it is important to understand what real repentance is. It is not only tears or sorrow that we have lost a relationship, or words spoken in the moment of hurt. One of the homilies reminds us of Esau, who sought the blessing carefully with tears and yet found no place of repentance, because his grief was not true repentance as his later actions showed. In the same way, not every sorrow leads to life. Godly sorrow works repentance unto salvation, a repentance that brings no regret, while sorrow that is only about our own loss or our own wishes does not. A father does not rejoice to see his son under the knife, but he rejoices that the son is being healed, and so the pain of true repentance is for our healing.
For this reason we will not simply ask God to bless a return to the relationship as it was, or to bring you back together on any terms. God calls us to turn from vain imaginations about things of the body and to rest our hope not in a carnal relationship but in faith, in repentance and in continence. His design is that salvation is through Jesus Christ alone, and that marriage is a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and that intimacy and living together belong only within that covenant. To ask God to restore communication apart from a commitment to what is holy would not be for your good or for ###'s good.
Instead we pray with you in this way, submitting to what is right in God's sight. We ask that God would work godly sorrow in both of you, that you would see your own sins clearly and be willing to enter into the thought of them, for when that is done all can be accomplished through His mercy. We ask that He would grant ### true repentance if he has sinned against you and against God, not only regret, but a turning that bears fruit. We ask that He would give you strength to forgive sincerely from the heart, which does not always mean resuming a romantic relationship, but releasing bitterness and entrusting justice and restoration to God. The Church is a spiritual bath that wipes away stains of the soul by its many methods of repentance, and we encourage you both to seek that cleansing through confession, prayer, the Word, and counsel in the local church.
We also pray that God would heal your hurt, remove anger and ego and misunderstanding, and give you patience, honesty and peace. If it is His will to bring reconciliation, we pray it would be toward what is holy and clear, either toward a God honoring marriage or toward a peaceful release to follow Christ separately, and not toward a return to what is outside His will. We pray above all that both of you would seek first to be reconciled to God through Christ, for only then can you be rightly reconciled to one another.
May the Lord give you the strength to let go of what is not His will and to welcome what is, with a heart at peace and fixed on Him.
