In my experience, I do not see that the church has a realistic perspective on contemporary issues of marriage. This is only my take based on my experience... yours may be different... I am not here to say anyone is wrong.
My church experience has included a lot of naïve theories about what should be. I have also experienced a lot of black and white thinking by people who have never walked the walk.... meaning the walk through the valley of the shadow of death of a marriage.
The attitudes I speak of... I once had. I feel my naivity was part of what allowed my marriage to fall apart. This naivity of how life works (as I now see it anyway) kept me blind to the dysfunction that was growing in my own household and in my own heart and mind.
I thought my marriage was bulletproof. I never thought I could become an alcoholic. I disdained the notion because of the drinkers I saw in my family. I never began drinking more than on an infrequent social basis until I was in my 30's.
I have not experienced the church to be prepared to handle the type of pain that I have seen people deal with in the worlds of drugs, booze, abuse and divorce. The Pentecostal approach of laying hands on people and ... well... I am sure many of us know the rest of it.... just is, in my experience unmeaningful to what happens to a person who is ripped apart by divorce and betrayal.
I have learned more from fellowships like these message boards and the rooms of AA and NA from people who either don't believe in God at all or don't believe the way many Christians define God, than I did in church. Yet I still believe in God as I have come to know him.... the God of the Bible.
My experience with much of the church is that it pursues conformity more than truth. By that I mean that the my church experience has included a lot of forcing facts to fit church concepts.... rather than being open-minded enough to accept new ideas or just simply admit that we don't know everything.
Many people I have experienced in church shun AA for encouraging people to accept God "as we understand him"... feeling that it taints true belief in God as the church prefers to define him. Why? Do new ideas compete with the comfort of our old ones?
What is my point in all of this? I believe it is simply this.... I have found more healing and recovery from the hell of my divorce and subsequent alcohol and drug problems by fellowshiping with other vigilant seekers of all faiths than I ever did amongst many church people I once knew.
Truth is freeing. Truth is healing. Truth will always show itself in time. Truth does not need my or anyone else's help or spin.
Thank you all for being a part of my healing and recovery. I hope you find yours as wonderfully as I believe I have found mine. And I hope I can continue to give back what has so freely been given to me.
