I am talking about women whose husbands have abandoned them, and often their children too, for the world and other women. Let me use the words of several of these women—I have known about a dozen of these poor souls—to make my point.
One of them said to me when I invited her to our services some time ago, "It's been my experience that the churches of Christ are not welcoming to divorced women." Nothing I could say about my then church family could persuade her otherwise. Another told me, similarly, "They always wonder what I did wrong, and a few have had the nerve to ask me."
Let me tell you, that's the first thing these women ask themselves when their husbands leave. They don't need us asking too. When Jesus gave this one exception for divorce he did not add, "unless she was a nag, or a bad cook, or a poor housekeeper, or gained too much weight, etc." If a man commits adultery against the woman he vowed to love and cherish for the rest of his life, that's all it took in Jesus' eyes to put him away and still be right with God. How dare any of us add to His Word?
Another woman said she was shunned by the other women of the congregation, and somehow it came back to her that they were afraid that now she would want their husbands. Excuse me? She wasn't the one who broke up a home, her husband was. Talk about unjust judgment.
Another told me it wasn't just she who was shunned, but her children as well. After all, statistics say that people from broken homes are more likely to have broken homes themselves. We wouldn't want our sons or daughters to be dating her children and possibly marry them! And so we shun innocent children? Shame on us.
As if these terrible injustices were not bad enough, the faith of these women is also questioned. One had lost her home when her husband left and paid no alimony or child support. She, who had been a stay-at-home mom, had to work two jobs to keep a roof over their heads and food in their tummies. When she was offered a job that had great benefits and paid enough for them to survive on only the one job, she counted it a blessing from God and took it. But others looked only at the fact that it was an evening shift job and she had to miss both Sunday evening and Wednesday evening services. One of the church leaders' wives said to her, "If you had enough faith, you wouldn't take that job." Yet this was a woman who came to both Sunday morning services plus the weekday morning women's Bible study without fail. She is one of the kindest, most generous, good-hearted Christians I have ever known. She loves to study the Word of God, and does so every day. Neither she nor the other women I have known, except the first one I spoke of, have left the Lord despite how His other children have treated them. Now let's compare faith, shall we?
I hope this situation has changed everywhere, instead of just the few churches I am aware of who are, indeed, better. Imagine struggling to make ends meet, trying to overcome for your children the horrible example of a faithless father, and having no one to turn to, not even in that group who should be comforting, loving, helping, and encouraging. Now imagine what the Lord himself would say to that group. You do not want to hear those words.
And he said unto his disciples, It is impossible but that occasions of stumbling should come; but woe unto him, through whom they come! It were well for him if a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, rather than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble (Luke 17:1-2).
Dene Ward