write him? He’s a good church boy and would be glad to correspond with you. He’s awfully lonely.” “Maybe I will,” I answered. “What’s his address?” My letters were friendly, about home town things, about the church, and even about the weather. Martin’s letters were friendly, too. In June he came home for a thirty- day leave, as handsome and stunning in uniform as his picture. After get ting acquainted in person, he asked me to go out with him, and from then on we were together constantly, at his sister’s, at my house, or in church. Like any impressionable girl my age, I was taken back but really not surprised when Martin asked me to marry him. We had known each other just two weeks. Eighteen, overwhelmed, and in love, I said, “Yes.” Then he went overseas. I wrote him every day while he was in Japan. Strangely enough, his let ters were infrequent, and I noticed, too, without much spiritual content. I thought about it frequently, but brushed it aside. Martin returned home a year later, and we were married. It was a simple but lovely wedding in the pastor’s home. Changed Behavior Two weeks were all that we had been married when it happened. His attitude and behavior changed. Be lieve me that is an understatement. He came out of the bedroom to break fast in levis and a T-shirt. It was on Sunday. “ Aren’t you going to Sunday School?” I asked. “ Does it look like it?” he replied apparently for no cause that I could see. I was heartbroken! Disillusioned! He wasn’t at all what he had pre tended to be at first. And I didn’t give myself time to really put him to the test; I had married an unsaved boy whom I really had known only forty-five days. And 1 said it couldn’t happen to me! Not only that; he started drinking and has drunk heavily from then on. He is cynical in his attitude toward religion, blames bickering in the church for it. Problems of Divided Home No one really knows the problems of a divided home unless he or she has experienced it. Nor is it possible for me to convey what it is like. Soul anguish is something I simply cannot put into words. Take the children, for example. We have two bright, healthy little boys. Neither one is old enough yet to real ly understand why daddy does not FEBRUARY, 19«!
come home night after night. But the older one is starting to wonder. What am I going to tell him? What is there to tell him? The strain of a torn-up home tells on them and on me. When Martin is “ taking it out” on me with his drink ing, prolonged absences, and sullen ness, I find myself — quite uncon sciously— “ taking it out” on the chil dren. A few times I have had to drop to my knees, sobbing convulsively, and ask God’s help. “ Forgive me, Lord, for slapping Jimmy in anger, and give me grace sufficient for the day.” “Why not leave him?” This has been suggested by friends, well-mean ing perhaps; but I will not yield to it. I do not believe in divorce. As the apostle Paul said, “ The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth” (1 Corinthians 7:39). Mar riage is binding until death, except for the one cause (Matthew 19:3-9). I find that in my case— that of a woman with an unsaved husband— God’s Word says, “ If he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him” (1 Corinthians 7:13). For myself, to go contrary to this plain teaching would be to sin against light. Then there is the matter of friends. Martin has nothing to do with my Christian friends. I hesitate to bring them home for fear he will either be drinking or insulting; and to say the least, I miss the fellowship of others of “ like mind.” There are times when all of us, humanly speaking, need com fort and encouragement. I am denied this comfort in my companion and in close personal friends, because of the home situation. I, of course, have little in common with the kind of people Martin brings to the house. You can imagine what the atmosphere of the home is like when they are around. It’s not easy to be fervent about the things of the Lord in such an atmosphere. Gradual ly it wears you down. Our Sunday routine, I suppose, is like that in most homes where the partners live in two worlds. I get myself and the children ready for Sunday school and church. Martin sleeps. When I return, he is ready to go out for a holiday, to places where I, by conviction, cannot go on Sunday. And so it goes on, Sunday after Sunday. Occasionally, strong feelings of re sentment well up within me. I see whole families seated together in church—happy families. There I am, alone, trying to manage two restless children. I have not known complete happiness in my marriage. True, the children bring some measure of hap
piness, but it is offset by the fear I have for them and their future should Martin remain unsaved for a long time. My husband and I have never prayed together — not once. He de votes most of his leisure time with cronies, not with me and the chil dren, spending money foolishly that should go for necessities. I live in dread of what he is going to do next. I cannot trust him nor take his word at face value; probably it is a carry over from his awful false pretense in the beginning, and certainly from the way he has treated me since then. With nerves raw and on edge, I sometimes come near to the breaking point, and have to choke back a cry, “Why do I have to pay for what he is doing? Do I have to suffer all my life for one mistake?” Spiritual Life Suffers More than anyone else, I know my spiritual life has suffered. I have neg lected important things. I am not the Christian I ought to be, nor can I really serve God under the circum stances. When I married Martin, I I did not marry his unbelief, but it is awfully hard to keep his cynicism from taking root in my thinking. Oh! the awful distress that one suffers from being pulled from two sides. If we are not to put asunder what God has joined together, then it fol lows that we are not to join what He has separated. God does not sanction mixed marriages—Deuteronomy 7:3, 4; Amos 3:3; 2 Corinthians 6:14-16; James 4:4—for a reason! He knows the inevitable cruelty, anguish, and injury which result to both parties. I don’t believe I could bear up under it, had I not the assurance that Mar tin is going to be saved. Pray God that it will be soon. I believe every pastor ought to counsel with his young people before their marriage. The pastor in whose home I was married never gave us any kind of counsel or word of cau tion. Nor did he inquire into the mat-, ter of spiritual status. If beforehand, such counsel had been given, and such inquiry made, it might have helped. The most important thing is for young people to know positively, be fore they are married that they are both Christians and that they have the same interests in life. As one min ister put it, “Make sure your friend is a true believer in Jesus Christ. Do not wait until the courtship develops, for you may be too weak to halt it. Before the first date, settle this sub ject. Even then you will want to pray much about your courtship and mar riage.” 13
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