Dear Daughters,
Last week Dad read that there were only three zip codes in the United States that had no connection to the Ashley Madison scandal. Two were in Alaska, one in New Mexico. Each town had a population less than 300.
Divorce lawyers are saying that it may be Christmas in September. The truth is revealed, vows have been broken, lies and deceit come out into the open. Many who had made promises in their lives have opted for something different than the love and faithfulness they had vowed.
Why does that make my heart so sad?
It brings to mind the people I have known who have divorced, the children who struggle decades after the split is final. I think of the couples I know who have had affairs and the heartache and despair that comes with betrayal. I have seen how it shatters families for generations to follow, and it grieves me.
Divorce begets divorce. Faithfulness begets faithfulness.
I had two neighbors when we lived in Kalamazoo. My neighbor to the east came from a family that didn’t believe in divorce. They fought for faithfulness, worked to love and forgive. Generations ago it started, and so it stays today.
My neighbor to the west, a sweet older woman had been divorced decades ago. Her two children followed her example and also divorced.
They were both my friends, we visited often over the fence, shared tea and life together for the short year we lived there.
As a teacher, I have seen the impact of unfaithfulness on children. Learning becomes more difficult because their head space is filled with grief, guilt and abandonment. Their minds are overflowing with emotional trauma, so have no room for learning. As divorce rates continue to climb in our country, so do the Emotionally Impaired learning groups at school.
Family stability, faithfulness and security are so important to young children. Without it children grow up to be adults who continue to suffer from the fear of abandonment and anxiety that comes when parents betray one another and an adult walks out of their life.
Ashley Madison made it so easy to cheat, one could do it in the quiet of their own homes, discreet and anonymous. At least that was the strategy. 
Lots of people these days despise the Ten Commandments. They seem so constricting, so narrow, old-fashioned. But I find it interesting to read in Romans 13:9-10,
The commandments, `Do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not covet,’ and whatever other commandment there may be are summed up in this one rule: `Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
The reason that God gave us those legendary Ten Commandments can be summed up in one word.
Love.
It was His love for His people. He knew the heartbreak and hurt that unfaithfulness brings and He wanted His people to be free from that sorrow. He desires that we keep our wedding vows and learn to love.
God also knows that we are incapable on our own to love the same person – day in and day out, for years, decades, sometimes half a century – without His help. So He stands ready and waiting for us to call on Him for help. How Jesus longs to be invited into your marriage so He can teach you to love, because it certainly does not come naturally.
I think the word love is being confused with warm feelings and emotions in our world today. When the initial glow of marriage wears off, we mistakenly believe that love is gone. It is not gone, it simply needs to mature. And the only way it can mature is through difficult circumstances. Too often people give up as soon as challenging situations arise.
Enter Ashley Madison. Intrigue, secrets, chasing someone new, all have initial exhilaration and excitement, but along with that always comes lots of stress. Let’s face it, whenever we have to keep a secret of such enormity it creates anxiety.
I remember throwing a 50th surprise birthday party for Dad awhile back. People were coming from out of state, reservations had to be made – all under cover and in secret. E-mails had to be deleted, lies had to be told while trying to look like I was telling the truth. It was tough to remember what I told to Dad and what I told to the people coming to the party because, of course, it had to be two different stories.
A friend from many years ago owned a large contracting business building bridges. People would ask him how he could keep so stress free with the high level job that he held. His reply, “I always tell the truth, and then I don’t have to remember what I said.” A very wise and simple statement, but rare in today’s world.
Whenever there are secrets (apart from surprise parties), shame, guilt, and anxiety usually follow. The bottom line of the Ashley Madison mindset is Shhhhhh…..it’s a secret.
As I’ve written before, we have an Enemy of our souls whose goal is to divide, split, and ruin our marriages. Satan delights to see strife, anguish, and bitterness between couples. Make no mistake that the love story of your marriage is set in the midst of a war. Jesus is a reconciler, Satan is a divider. Jesus loves you, Satan hates your very existence and is doing all he can to dissuade you from believing that your marriage is important. 
Recently I’ve been reading Preemptive Love by Jeremy Courtney. Jeremy, an American, lives in Iraq with his wife and two children, obeying that simple command of Jesus to love your enemies.
In war, a preemptive strike is based on the assumption that the enemy is planning an imminent attack, so there is a bold attack that hopefully comes before the assumed attack of the enemy.
What if we used preemptive love in our marriages? We know that our Adversary will attack us, tempt us to be discouraged, thinking that nothing will ever change, that we deserve better. So….why not decide to love boldly, seek to reconcile when there are wrongs, and fight with love, which Jesus tells us is stronger than hate?
The Bible tells us that as we run the race of life, we travel our journey before a great cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1). When we face a decision to dismiss our wedding vows to do some married dating, looking for someone superior to who we have, the whole universe waits – angels, demons, our friends and foes, even God himself – and watches with bated breath to see what we will do. The question remains: Will anyone trust the loving heart of the Father to come and transform our marriage, or will we shrink back and follow our emotion of the day?
Always remember that the decisions you make are not just for today, they will affect not only you, but generations to come. It’s easy to dwell only on our own hurt and dissatisfaction with our husbands, but we need to think beyond now and the consequences that our choices will have for those who come after us. Yes, we may have to suffer a little now – love when we don’t feel like it, forgive those irksome quirks, take time to listen to his side of the story, intercede for him, – but it is worth it. You will see.
Love, Mom
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