Divorce

Ministry Manual

Recovery & Small Group Ministries

• Surviving The "D" Bomb

Divorce. A word that cuts. The wounds are deepest in the heart and life of the participants. The open heart of Terry Fraser is a willing sacred trust to supply insight, empathy and indirect instruction. Walk alongside as Terry invests lonely hours to ponder and communicate. Your personal faith will be stretched as you recognize that in the darkness there was always a glimmer on the horizon - just enough hope for a minute, an hour and eventually a day. 

Sample Chapter

• Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road

There are many versions of the joke, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" One of the stranger ones answers, "To prove to the raccoons that it can be done."

If you have traveled in the northern U.S. where the raccoons are plentiful (or armadillos in the south and west) you soon see proof that this is their home. They are a frequent road kill in many places. I guess that they never learned about looking both ways.

I have watched many people go through separation and divorce. It is an all too familiar sight in our society -- even in our churches. Some people seem to recover while others do not -chickens and raccoons, if you will.

How would I get to the other side of this road in front of me? How could I avoid becoming road kill spiritually, mentally and emotionally? I could not stay much longer where I was. The divorce papers made that all too clear. Neither could I rush out in this rebuilding process to discover what was left in my life.

I was always and continue to be an unequivocal supporter of marriage as the best choice. People often walk away from their marriage for the 10% that they don't like. The illusion is that separation and divorce offer a new freedom. Any marriage provides a great deal of baggage to carry with you in life. These are not gym bags but steamer trunks. Lives intertwine and do not easily disentangle. Like a Rubik's Cube, it takes great concentration and a few flukes to come close to making the colors of our lives line up again.

There were certainly no illusions about separation and divorce being good options on my part. They were poor choices that ultimately created many horrors. Marriage for life is the best life can offer. But sometimes we are stuck with poor choices. Worse, we can be left with the results of another's wrong choices. I did not choose this separation or divorce. But here I am so I must make the best of this mess.

I looked for some positive role models of people who had "made it" in spite of an unwanted divorce. I was not interested in hearing the stories of the leavers who needed to continue to justify why they had made the right decision in quitting their marriage. I wanted to look for someone who had been left and who had recovered (as much as one can recover from such a catastrophe).

It was a greater challenge than I would have guessed. With so many remarried and with so few willing to revisit their pain, it was tough to find anyone. Ultimately, I found one person who had gone on to heal. He was honest about the scars and lifelong damage that his ex-spouse had caused. There was a deep grief caused by the wretched impact it had on their children. But he had picked up the pieces of his life and crossed the road.

"Getting on with my life" was a scary prospect. I would be chicken as I crossed my road but it would beat being a raccoon.

Sample Chapter Titles

• The "D" Bomb

• The Funeral Train

• Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

• Hurricane Judy

• More Pony Tales

• The Bell Tolls For Me

• Bears and No Honey

• Shooting the Porcupines

• Check-Point Charlie

• Pin or Be Pinned

• Pinch Hitting

• Moody Blues

• Speech Therapy

• Eight Again

• I'm Sick I Must Be Getting Better

• My Emotional Compass

• The Dark Lord

• Social Insecurity

• Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson

• What's In A Name?

• Kangaroos & Emus

• Me and My Shadow

• WYSIWYG

• A View from the Basket

• Applying the Tourniquet

• Local Heroes

• I've Got the Joy, Joy, Joy...

• The Flip Side

• Live Long and Prosper

• Who's That Knocking at My Door?

• Crushed But Not Conquered

• Top 10 Music

• Love Those Warm Fuzzies

• Cutting The Yo-Yo String

• It's a Wonderful Life

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Resource Questions

Ministry Notes: Ministering To The Divorced

Group Leader's Guide

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