Remember Me, Cowboy (Honeywood Ranch of West Hope, South Dakota) Sweet Western Christian Romance

[@ajb.822]

I'm super enjoying this series so far. - spoiler alert - Maybe they'll redeem this by the end, but so far in the convo ( 3/4th way thru) between Ava and her Grandma, it doesn't sound likely & I have to chime in, and not only as a Christian but as pertaining to just the reality of marriage ( although Christianity is all about reality and vice verse, so... whatever). So, "sticking it out" has nothing to do with an era of time. It has to do with everything involved here. The marriage covenant as put into words by the vows " til death to us part" and "for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health" . With the 2 becoming one/a deeply intertwined unit. In Ava's case, she's, at this point, basing leaving him on his not feeling love for or being in love with her. Obviously, everything that went on before and the lack of any trust being rebuilt yet, must be a factor as well, stated or not. But, like it or not, the love thing is not grounds for divorce or separation. The him basically abandoning her for years prior may be, esp. if one is open to there being a risk of being legalistic even in dealing with biblical marriage. Or, the Spirit of the law vrs. the letter, too. But, Godly principles can't serve a people if all the individuals in the group get to apply them according to their whims, temptations or provocations. Cherry pick when to suck it up against personal convenience and pleasure or seeming do-ability. If we all did that, probably 90% of us would get divorced, even if some of us later remarried each other again.. . Inbetween we'd likely end up having sex outside of marriage or getting married to someone just to want #1 back. A whole lot of half siblings and step siblings to the point nearly everyone is too closely related. Emotional trauma and inability to trust, connect, believe in the do-ability of marriage, fairly, monogamy... . A lot of what we see today only worse if even more Christians adopted this attitude/system. Spiritual decline, as this all goes against God's design and as betrayal abounds, He, His word and wisdom become even more doubted. So on and so forth. I don't say any if this without a lot of empathy. You'd understand if you knew my story. But I am convinced that, most of the time at least, if you put God 1st - & I don't mean just or necessarily by sucking it up and staying, I mean actually ARE putting your relationship with Him and your honor for Him front and center in your soul and daily life - and pray about everything, He will provide a way. Either more Biblical grounds for divorce or you wanting or needing one will lessen enough or totally be gone. And meanwhile, you can remember what you'll definitely need to remember when it's even easier to forget : that we're only here for a little while and we need to be primarily helping win/save souls and glorify God. Not by being perfect but by making these, and God above all, our focus. We can't do that if we're obsessed with how satisfactory our marriage is or our feelings or our spouse's behavior or whatever. We just can't. I'm not saying never think about or addess those things. But they have a way of constantly taking over ! Of bumping God and personal humility and faith down a peg... or 2, or 10, when the rest if life's cares are added in. A great rule of thumb is that if you hate or dislike your marriage now, really dif into God and prayer and doing your part and give it 5 years. The revisit the issue. Take that 6 or 3 months at a time, or day by day and week by week if u need to. BUT I'm not saying to tolerate or enable abuse - of any kind, if it crosses a line - towards yourself or, esp., any children. The Bible doesn't specifically get into this, idk why, but it doesn't. So, pray and pray but read Galatians and remember, we don't need to & actually mustn't, be legalistic, and we aren't to be party to sin, and enabling abuse, esp. towards others, probably IS that, imo. Is enabling after a warning or two and esp. if they won't accept accountability or intervention. Whether they apologize or not. Plenty of examples in the New Testament where Paul refers to, commands to or justifies separations. And since we're always to forgive whether or not they are sorry, forgiveness on our part must not necessarily equate reconciliation. But pray for God's direction and His word, yourself. Amen !

[@freechristianaudiobooks]

Hi! Willow White here. Thank you for your comment--well said! I have tried to write my characters as people who don't necessarily have it all figured out. They do make mistakes, they are not perfect, and then I try to stear them toward the right thing. There is absolutely room in this world for stories about women leaning into God and then getting their happily ever afters with their husbands, but that wasn't Ava's story. She was feeling broken, she was acting on her emotions, and I think this happens to a lot of women, even if they know better. Thank you so much for listening, for being so thoughtful about my story, and for commenting! God bless you!