When Love Fails

God’s love never fails, right? But human love does fail – always. Human love always comes to an end. It is only God’s agape love that is everlasting. Human love always has its limits; God’s love goes on forever. So what do we do when human love comes to a finish? We have two choices. We stop loving because our love will always terminate in our human flesh. Or, we move forward with the love of the Lord. God promises to supply all our need, and this includes love. Not only will He give us love when we need it; He gives us His very own. Today, not for the first time, enduring one of the most painful circumstances I have faced, I came to the place where human love ends. I faced my decision – which way would I go?

“I need your social security number, your given name, your maiden name, and wedding date,” the person said on my voice mail.

I had been on the phone with Pastor Freddie who is back in Haiti when the call came in, and I had asked him to pray for me before we hung up. He did, and I needed it.


The voice mail asking for all my personal information was not a business call. It was not about an application for employment. It did not concern a loan. It was not the wrong phone number.


The call had come from my husband, who abandoned me last year. He was asking for all this information, including our wedding date and year, because he is filling out paperwork to divorce me. I cannot describe in words the hurt knowing my husband with a heart as enormous as his could have traveled to a place in his heart and life where he would call me to ask information I would have expected him to know to terminate our marriage.


And I cry even as I write these words. The reality is that human love comes to an end when something like this happens. The world has one answer for someone in my position. Anger. Hatred. Revenge. Meanness. Coldness. Vengeance. Bitterness. Resentment. Hurt. Human love does not have the wherewithal to love a husband whom I love with all my heart and vowed before God to spend my life with who has chosen to say goodbye forever.


But God gave me His very own heart when I was saved and filled with the Holy Spirit. And He gave me His love.


And, by His grace and mercy, within hours of the phone call today, I made my decision. No matter how much this hurts, no matter how devastated I am, I will do exactly what the Lord has asked me.


He wants me to lay down my life – right now, even in the midst of this searing pain – for the husband who is divorcing me. And the Lord gave me these words.


Love your husband all the way through the divorce. And when he looks back, I want him to see Jesus.


Let me tell you something. I love the Lord too much not to obey. And with the Lord’s love in me, I will do exactly what He has asked.


My husband is not only the man I married. He is my brother in Christ. Most importantly, he is a son of God.


There is only one thing I want for him as he signs the paperwork to divorce me.


I want him know and receive the heights and depths of the Lord’s love and forgiveness for him, to love the Lord with all his heart, to love his neighbor as himself, and to fulfill the purpose the Lord has for him on this earth – most especially a personal, intimate, trusting, everlasting relationship with the Lord exactly as He intended.