Single and married people alike quickly throw this verse off with ease, sometimes sure of their immunity to it. Both they and their spouse give the effort needed and would never "overwhelm" the other with "cruelty". They hate divorce just like God does.
Today I walked out of a courthouse completely defeated. I felt the entire weight of 10 years of failure crushing me. A wave of embarrassment flooded into me as a judge granted the death of my marriage in front of a host of witnesses, some of which I knew and some of which were strangers. Those feelings still wash over me in ebbs and flows. Every bit of this entire process has felt broken and wrong. Right now I have no mixed feelings: I am only bruised and humiliated.
With all due respect, single and married people don't know the entire weight of the process. In comparison, they dislike divorce. Divorced people hate divorce.
But yesterday my oldest asked me what my New Year's resolution was. I paused, realizing I'd made none yet. I was so engulfed in defeat, wallowing so much, that I'd forgotten that my divorce would be final at the beginning of a new year. I thought briefly. "To be honest, I feel like life knocked me down pretty hard last year, son", I said. "It's time to get back up. That's my resolution". He just smiled and told me that it was a really good one.
Divorce is the end of a life together. One become two. But if that's true, I can not linger in a dead "one-ness" or in the cruelty of life I feel now. The test of true failure cannot be how hard I fall, but whether or not I stand back up.
So, for everyone who depends on me now, including myself, I will rise back up. Busted and bruised, I will not regret my history but I will learn from it. I will move forward with the race I'm meant to run. I will be a good father, co-parent, friend, son, employee, and any other duty set before me.
"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but rising up every time we fall" -- Ralph Waldo Emerson. I'm not a failure unless I stay down.
God, help me get back up.