Praying for Help During Divorce

When Marjorie could no longer stay with her friend, she was still unemployed, and being barred from the marital home, she was sure she was destined for the homeless shelter. Then, she says she put her trust in God and her life started to turn around. Here’s Marjorie:

I did believe in God before all this but I don’t think that I was co-creating with him in the way I am right now in my life.

A lot of people say that God is just more of a religious thing and it’s about what you’re not supposed to do and what you should do, but my spiritually has gone even deeper since all of this has happened, and understanding that my connection with God is so much more of a partnership.

I was in a bible study group for years, and in the past I had had a lot to do with church. My church family, who I’d been involved with for years… I never heard from them again, they basically turned their backs on me and my husband still goes to that church.

I didn’t go to church for a while, I guess I was having a bad taste in my mouth about church, so I really turned inward.

There were times I felt I was about to lose my mind.  I would close myself up in the bathroom and just want to scream, but I couldn’t, so I would just scream in my mind. Missing my child was so unbearable. The things I had to endure from this man were so unbearable, thinking that I was going to end up in a shelter, not knowing…I just felt like I was losing it.

I would jump in my car, I would drive over to the beach, the beachside, just a block from where I live now, and I was sick.

I would start talking to God and I would start meditating. I had never meditated before, I had never really gone inward, everything was about an outward expression, but I went inward and just really started seeking God from within, asking him to show me in some sort of signs…just show me the path that I was to take.

I was offering up my desires because what I wanted to do was to start visualizing. Let me start visualizing what I want from my future, let me start connecting to what it is I want from my life, where I want to live, where do I see myself. That’s when things started to click and after a while I started to see that happen.

All of a sudden, the apartment I wanted to be in, I got that. I had no money, I had no money to move into this apartment, and God sent me an angel and sent me the deposit for this apartment. I had no job. I couldn’t tell the landlord that I could pay the rent, but he let me move in.

I told a friend I was going into a shelter and he said, “I’m sorry, I can’t let that happen. Find an apartment and I will send you the money.”  I said, “I don’t have a job” and he said, “Don’t worry about that, the job will come.”

I did exactly what he said and I did it on faith. I looked at some dumps, places I just couldn’t bring my child.  All the time, I knew I wanted to live by the beach and I saw this apartment. I had driven by it so many times and finally called. I went to see it and it was perfect. Within two weeks, the guy approved me to move in here, and the same day he approved me was the same day I got a little job. It was just a minimum wage part-time job, but I got the job.

I moved into this apartment with just the clothes on my back, not a bed, toilet paper, nothing. I remember that morning, all I had was the money order, no gas in my car, my clothes in the trunk, and I’m sitting, waiting two hours by the beach. My stomach was growling, I want coffee, I have no money at all and I’m sitting there waiting for the landlord to show up. I’m just happy I’m moving into my apartment.

I sit there and I start meditating and visualizing what I want from my life. Then before the time that I was supposed to meet with the landlord, I had $200 given to me by two family members I had spoken with that morning.

“OK, there’s something to this, there’s really something to setting my desires out there, offering it up to God, visualizing what I want, there’s something to this. And things just manifesting in my life!”

Before the end of the day, people started bringing things to me and my daughter, people we didn’t even know. “Oh I heard…someone told me.” My apartment is fully furnished, fully furnished! Bedding, towels, everything you can think of and I didn’t pay for one thing. The only thing we bought in this apartment was a toaster.

That’s when I really started thinking , “I can get through this. It’s going to be tough, but I can get through this.”

I still have to deal with him, I’m still having to deal with not having my youngest daughter with me but I can get through this.

This gives me goosebumps.

What Marjorie did here that I think is so critical, is to start visualizing her new life. Whether you do that through prayer, counseling, coaching, friends or even on your own, it seems to be a cornerstone for helping people get through this crisis. I think it is powerful because it gets you focusing on the future, on what will be, on what could be instead of being stuck regurgitating what has happened. I also think it’s powerful because it gives you a role in creating your future, you start feel that you do have some influence over your life and how it’s going to look, that you’re not at the total mercy of your ex, the lawyers or the court.

To help with this, I recommend buying a cork board and putting it up somewhere you’ll see it every morning and every evening. Maybe that’s in your closet, in your bathroom, in your bedroom or even at your workstation. Start pinning up pictures from magazines that speak to your future – could be a woman cooking in a kitchen with her kids, could be a couple in a passionate embrace, could be garden, could be someone doing your dream job, could be a singer whose song tugs at you. Don’t over think it – if it says something to you, pin it up. Don’t limit yourself to pictures – could be a poem, a quote, a job advert … Start building your vision.

What else came through here was the help Marjorie got from strangers but to get help, you have to be open to it. You have to admit, to at least one other person you need help and admitting that can make us feel vulnerable. I’ve learned that admitting you’re vulnerable, also means admitting you’re human. And one amazing human trait is, we’re wired to help others.

Photo credit: samantha celera