Dear 100th Sheep,

You ask how I got through the most painful time in my life. The truth is I hate divorce, not as much as God does, but having gone through becoming one and the ripping of one back into two, I can tell you it is the most painful thing I have ever gone through.

Almost every night in my dreams, I visit with the woman with whom I spent over 36 years of my life. It's like my soul is a confused child that can't quite grasp how life can be so utterly different than it was for so many years. It’s what I was used to for so long. I wonder many of my neurons contain memories of someone I spent close to 70% of my life with in an intimate relationship? I suppose over time those ratios will change and my present life will fill the gap.

The only solace I have is knowing that in the summer after the divorced, I did everything I could to restore the broken relationship. I couldn't do much because everything I did was filtered through the past pain. Yet, God knows I tried.

I think about how Adam had to live the rest of his life with the memory of Eden. How did he live knowing God and his wife so intimately and then see those relationships destroyed, to know the entire universe was negatively changed because of his sin? Looking back must have been torture to him. Not that my present life is like being cast from the Garden, and my former life was Paradise. Alas, the effects of the fall affect both, but so does the grace of God.

I believe He honored my repentance and my obedience by giving me a second chance with a new wife who is as kind, loving, and honest as they come. In the end, I got through the difficult times by trusting in the sovereignty of God. 

In my previous marriage, we both were responsible for the divorce, yet somehow all is happening according to the counsel of His will. God’s own counsel exists in the eternal relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is in the Trinity that I find peace, comfort, and hope. I find comfort in knowing I do not have the power to thwart God's eternal and internal decree. I believe that He is good and all that happens is for His glory and my good. I do not completely understand the relationship between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility, but I live in that tension daily doing what God requires of me.

In Ecclesiastes 7:10, Solomon says, "Say not, 'Why were the former days better than these?' For it is not from wisdom that you ask this." I see God's sovereign grace in my present life. How did I get through the roughest time of my life? It is how I get through each day, by entire and total trust in God and by endeavoring to obey Him at every turn. I learned the fear of the Lord the hard way. I will not make the same mistake again, God willing. 

In the meantime, I will follow other advice given by Solomon in Ecclesiastes 9:9 "Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun." I embrace the life God has given me and try to enjoy it to the fullest. I hope you can learn to do the same and find the peace for which you are seeking.

Your Fellow 100th Sheep,

Norman H. Patterson Jr.

Sola Deo Gloria