Silas
Beloved of All
Here is the redacted text:
Your heartbreak after forty years of marriage is real, and God sees every tear and hears every prayer you have lifted up day after day. He is close to the brokenhearted and He does not ignore your crying out for help.
God designed marriage to be a lifelong covenant between one man and one woman, where two become one. The Scriptures use a word for one that means a compound unity, two persons becoming one flesh, and it reflects the very nature of God Himself who is one yet a unity. Jesus also taught that marriage belongs to this present life, and He affirmed that God is the God of the living who will raise the dead, so our earthly covenants matter deeply to Him now and point to His eternal faithfulness.
When adultery happens, the sin is first and foremost against God. When King David took Bathsheba and had Uriah killed, he had broken God's commands not to take another man's wife and not to murder, and afterward he confessed that his sin was against the Lord. In the same way, your husband's unfaithfulness is not only a wound against you and against his vows, it is sin against God Himself. That is why the deepest need is not for the other woman to simply move away or to be tricked by discovering something negative, but for God to bring conviction of sin.
It is understandable to want her to leave or to wish that she would see things that would make her go away, but praying for harm or for deception will not bring the healing you long for. Instead, pray for truth to come into the light, for both your husband and this other woman to face what is happening honestly before God, and for God to grant repentance. Ask God for the miracle of changed hearts rather than only changed circumstances.
There is hope because Jesus welcomed sinners who turned to Him. He sat and ate with tax collectors and sinners who followed Him, and the mark that their turning was real was repentance that led to change and to restoration where possible. God can still do that today. He alone can save through Jesus Christ, He alone can forgive sin when it is confessed, and He alone can begin to heal what has been broken.
So continue to bring your pain to the Lord, but ask Him to work in this way. Pray that your husband will see his sin as God sees it, that he will turn from it and turn to Christ for forgiveness, that this other woman will also turn from what is wrong, and that God will protect and strengthen you. Ask Him to give you wisdom, to surround you with trustworthy and godly counsel and support from mature believers who can walk with you, and to guard your heart from bitterness while you seek what is right. Trust that God can bring conviction, repentance, and either restoration of the marriage covenant or the grace to walk faithfully through whatever follows.
May the Lord have mercy on you and on your household, bring the hidden things into the light, grant true repentance where there has been sin, and give you peace and strength as you keep looking to Jesus, who alone is able to save and to restore. Amen.
Your heartbreak after forty years of marriage is real, and God sees every tear and hears every prayer you have lifted up day after day. He is close to the brokenhearted and He does not ignore your crying out for help.
God designed marriage to be a lifelong covenant between one man and one woman, where two become one. The Scriptures use a word for one that means a compound unity, two persons becoming one flesh, and it reflects the very nature of God Himself who is one yet a unity. Jesus also taught that marriage belongs to this present life, and He affirmed that God is the God of the living who will raise the dead, so our earthly covenants matter deeply to Him now and point to His eternal faithfulness.
When adultery happens, the sin is first and foremost against God. When King David took Bathsheba and had Uriah killed, he had broken God's commands not to take another man's wife and not to murder, and afterward he confessed that his sin was against the Lord. In the same way, your husband's unfaithfulness is not only a wound against you and against his vows, it is sin against God Himself. That is why the deepest need is not for the other woman to simply move away or to be tricked by discovering something negative, but for God to bring conviction of sin.
It is understandable to want her to leave or to wish that she would see things that would make her go away, but praying for harm or for deception will not bring the healing you long for. Instead, pray for truth to come into the light, for both your husband and this other woman to face what is happening honestly before God, and for God to grant repentance. Ask God for the miracle of changed hearts rather than only changed circumstances.
There is hope because Jesus welcomed sinners who turned to Him. He sat and ate with tax collectors and sinners who followed Him, and the mark that their turning was real was repentance that led to change and to restoration where possible. God can still do that today. He alone can save through Jesus Christ, He alone can forgive sin when it is confessed, and He alone can begin to heal what has been broken.
So continue to bring your pain to the Lord, but ask Him to work in this way. Pray that your husband will see his sin as God sees it, that he will turn from it and turn to Christ for forgiveness, that this other woman will also turn from what is wrong, and that God will protect and strengthen you. Ask Him to give you wisdom, to surround you with trustworthy and godly counsel and support from mature believers who can walk with you, and to guard your heart from bitterness while you seek what is right. Trust that God can bring conviction, repentance, and either restoration of the marriage covenant or the grace to walk faithfully through whatever follows.
May the Lord have mercy on you and on your household, bring the hidden things into the light, grant true repentance where there has been sin, and give you peace and strength as you keep looking to Jesus, who alone is able to save and to restore. Amen.
