Divorced at 30.
The internet calls it chic.
The church call it sin.
And frankly, they’re both wrong.
This post isn’t to debate theology with anyone, but to close the loop on search terms and past blog posts on this page.
My goal has always been to write fairly, to write honestly, to shout loud about things that could always fall a part. This is real living.
And now, something that shaped me, was me, and was the guard rail of my life, present and future, is now over.
I’m processing this grief over on Substack more consistently, but I want to post this here because this is where it started. That is my married name at the top of this website; and much like the name, I will carry deep, unknown weights with me from my past life into the next.
Divorce is many things, but it is not what they say.
It is to experience death, in the body, and to continue to living.
It can be refuge and rescue from the hidden darknesses that most will not care to understand.
It is standing in UPS offices again and again for them to notarize and “witness” official documents. Having strangers bear witness to what was, and is no more.
It is four hands reaching into your heart and pulling it apart as the veins string through your fingers. (There’s no even cut to a heart; like trying to split sushi.)
It is hard fought, it is hard discerned. And anyone who’s walked through it did not get there by accident, did not get there without having to slay demons those who have not will never meet.
Marriage has cosmic implications, and therefore, so does its undoing. You can feel this in the marrow of the grief that keeps you up at night when you experience it.
It is not unforgivable. I could never believe this about something that comes with so much deadly weight to begin with. To survive it is to pay penance for it in full.
But it is also revealing, deeply stripping of legalism, pomp and circumstance, and in my opinion, will show you ever so quickly, if God himself—
Not the idea of him
Not the institutions of his people
But if he, alone, is enough for you.
And if so, he will be all you have left at the end of it
And that will be enough.
I am divorced at 30, and this was never, ever my plan.
It was really never my plan to be married that early either, but life has a way of sweeping you up. And all the prayers and all the applause can sometimes point to places that wisdom would not.
I am unpacking my relationship with so many things in the wake of this one undoing, because to be married is to be one. It is to be yourself. So, when that changes, so does self, and every belief and understanding that built it.
I have no idea where we (God and I) are heading from here, but I listen with a much slower, much quieter ear these days for Him.
If you know someone who has or is walking through this, the most I can say is to be kinder to them than you think. Call more often than you want to. Respond more slowly than you wish.
Listen more, and fight the urge to challenge with scriptural platitude. Your words cannot change what is going to happen—whatever that is, but your presence, and your understanding will altar how they relate to themselves, to God, and to the people of God on the other side.
A page like this is a home for reality. Things shift, and we get to know ourselves and God through seasons we never anticipated. I hope when you see the archive of posts, you believe in doing that for yourself all the more.
P.S. My website will remain as is, and is still the landing place for any writing inquiries. I am simply writing in other places as well, and ever grateful for anyone who reads even a single post.
