Article December 8, 2003 Issue

Bible friends help restore happiness after a divorce

By Walt Rodgers

More Than 30 Years Ago, my first wife peremptorily left me, taking our two sons, aged four and five, across the United States with her. A note just inside the door informed me she was filing for divorce. I had no money to visit the boys, and I wasn't allowed to talk to them on the telephone. Ahead lay unpleasant divorce proceedings—and for me the prospect of long-term impoverishment. Worse, an alarm bell went off in my mind that said, "You are slipping into deep melancholia."

As I have always done in tough situations, I sought help from a Christian Science practitioner. I made an appointment to visit him. After listening to me for a few minutes, he asked, "Have you ever read the Bible?" I told him I read the weekly Bible Lesson from the Christian Science Quarterly every day. He then stipulated that as a condition to his praying for me, I was to read the entire Bible over the coming year from cover to cover, as well as Science and Health. I agreed, sensing that only through a radical change in my thinking was I likely to get to see my sons again.

The practitioner said I should begin my reading with the book of Job. For someone going through a divorce and the loss of family, he said, few texts could be more appropriate. As I read and studied, Job became like a personal friend. At first, I was primarily looking for access to my children again, and to try to secure human justice. But my friend Job redirected my thoughts back to God: "Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out: he is excellent in power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice" (37:23).