My 29 year marriage was ending. I had become a follower of Jesus nine years into the marriage. My husband had become enraged at my conversion. He hated everything about “Christianity”. I spent the next 20 years trying to make sense of my life. 1 Peter Chapter 3 had been my go to verse:
In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives,
1 Peter 3:1
I couldn’t even say the “D” word, divorce. I tried so hard to hold the marriage together. I didn’t know it then, but I had become the controller. I tried to control everything so that my husband would not get angry, and somehow he would love me. I had failed. My unbelieving husband had left. The Apostle Paul said the believing wife is not “bound in such cases”,
if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother or the sister is not bound in such cases.
1 Corinthians 7:15
but I did not feel “unbound”. I had brought that angst to the Lord, in prayer. I needed help.
Email was in it’s infancy in 1996. We were not yet bombarded by advertising and spam when we opened our computers in those days. Emails were something that we expected to be messages from friends, family members, or notices from our employers or teachers. So, when I opened my email program that morning, I had not expected the turbulence caused by what I read.
The email was from my soon to be ex-husband. He said he had been reading a book that had a quote from scripture in it. The verse he wrote to me was
Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.
Psalms 37:8
Rage roared up in me. Several weeks prior to this, my counselor had asked me, “Where is the anger?” I had told her, “I don’t get angry.” I had learned early in my marriage, that I could not express anger. For me to get angry was dangerous. I had learned to never, ever, show anger. But here it was when I read this email.
“How dare he!” my heart screamed. “How dare he quote scripture to me! Who does he think he is, and what is he trying to prove, quoting scripture TO ME! After all he has put me through!”
I slammed the lid on my laptop, grabbed it and headed out the door. I didn’t know where I would go. I had another counseling appointment in about two hours, but I was so enraged I could not be still.
When I got in my car I decided to go see my best friend, Daphne. She lived just two doors away, but her car was not in her driveway. I decided to go see her at work, so continued down the road. In about half a mile, she drove past me, heading toward her home. When I got to the next corner I turned right to go around the block, so that I could go back to her house.
The road I turned onto went past the little cemetery where my sister’s body is buried. I turned into the graveyard. I parked the car and stumbled to her grave.
Her husband had killed her and their daughter. My husband and I had tried to rescue them from her abusive husband. They lived with us in Washington State for a couple of months. When things seemed to have settled down with her husband, she went back to California. Two weeks later, he killed them. What no one, besides me and my husband, knew was that my husband had been having an affair with her while she lived with us.
I stood, shaking, in front of her headstone. I wailed, again, “How dare he quote scripture TO ME! After all he put me through.”
As I cried out to God the injustice of it all, my eyes lifted up to a gravestone behind this one. I had known the man who was buried there. The gravestone had his name, years of his birth and death, and his wife’s name and birth year. She had not yet died. The gravestone had no religious symbols on it, just a picture of a deer.
As I looked at that headstone, I heard the voice of the Lord. He said, “You are not bound to an unbeliever’s grave.”
I had a moment of stunned confusion, then great peace washed over me. No, I was not bound to an unbeliever’s grave. The rage left. In tears I dropped to my knees in thankfulness for the mercy and grace that had been poured out on me.
Paul said,
“ BE ANGRY, AND yet DO NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger”
Ephesians 4:26
Anger is an emotion given to us by God. Anger is like a red light that shows up on your car’s dashboard. It is a signal that something is wrong. Something needs to change or be repaired. If we ignore the warning light we can expect trouble. Anger, handled correctly, is not a sin. It is a gift to protect us. However if we do not deal properly with our anger, it can lead to unforgiveness, hatred . . . and even murder. “Be angry, but do not sin,” said Paul. Recognize anger as a preventative of bad relationships , and even a preserver, of good ones. “Do not let the sun go down on your anger.” Be quick to forgive and make changes, if necessary.
So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.
Colossians 3:12-15
Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.
Matthew 18:21-22
Yeshua also said this. It is one of the scariest verses in the Bible:
For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.
Matthew 6:14-15
I had not recognized that the red light of anger was flashing on my dashboard. I had buried my unforgiveness and did not see the warning light.
As I confessed my unforgiveness, the red warning light went out. Peace flooded my soul. More words from Paul came to my mind,
The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing ( Don’t be anxious about anything), but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:4b-7
Yeshua said,
Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.
Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.
John 14:27-28
Shalom. Shalom.
Afterward
Later I did talk to my friend, Daphne.
As I told her the story she asked, “When did you see me on the road home?”
I told her.
She said, “That was not me. I worked late that day.”
We both realized that the Lord had given me a super-natural vision of her in the car on her way home in order to turn me onto the road where the cemetery is, and to take me to Nora’s grave to speak to me.
Daphne said, “The Lord stood in front of Lazareth’s grave and said, “ ‘Unbind him!’ He has just said the same thing to you, Jonni*. You are not bound.”
Amen.
*My name had not yet been changed. See “The Lord Knows My Name” blogpost.
Faith Walking 