Dear Divorced Christian
Key Takeaways
➤ Divorce May Mark a Chapter, But It Is Not Your Name. Divorce does not get to define your identity. While painful and real, it is not your name or your worth. Instead of shame, you are reminded of your identity in Christ: beloved, called, daughter. The voice of Christ is louder than the voice of divorce.
➤ God’s Heart Breaks With Yours, Not Against You. While God hates divorce, it’s not out of hatred for the divorced. He grieves the devastation it causes, just as we do. His posture is not one of punishment but of proximity. He binds the brokenhearted, enters the mess, and brings healing, not rejection.
➤ God Still Uses Broken Stories to Tell Beautiful Truths. Through the woman at the well, we show how Jesus seeks out the shamed and overlooked, not to condemn, but to commission. He redeems complicated stories and uses them to reach others. No past is too tangled for His purposes, and no woman is too far gone to be entrusted with holy work.
Dear Divorced Christian,
You are not what was done to you.
You are not what you chose in the fog of sorrow or survival.
Divorce may be a chapter, but it is not your name.
You are not marked by what broke—you are held by the One who didn’t.
I want you to know, we see you.
You walk into church and wonder if the quiet glances mean anything, or if they mean everything. You sit in Bible study, smiling at prayer requests while praying no one asks about him. You scroll past posts about marriage miracles and wonder, with a hollow ache, if yours was the only one heaven did not mend.
You love Jesus, and yet you carry a kind of heartbreak the church rarely prepares casseroles for. There is no neat category for your ache that asks:
Is God disappointed in me?
Will I always feel like a house split down the middle?
You don’t want pity. You don’t want applause. You want to know if there is still a place for you at the table where grace is served.
And let me say this as clearly as I can:
There is.
Not The Plan
Divorce is not the plan. God’s design for marriage is covenant, not convenience. We don’t walk away because it’s hard or because we’re bored or tired or misunderstood. Covenant means something sacred—it means we fight for restoration, not just for comfort.
And yet… we live in a world cracked by sin and disappointment, betrayal and abuse, addiction and abandonment, the quiet bleeding ache of trying to make something holy work in a house going cold.
Some of you didn’t want this. Some of you begged God to fix it, praying until your voice gave out. Some of you stayed longer than anyone knows. And still, it broke. Sin still triumphed and all hope was sucked out of the room.
When all is said and done, we are left with the shame-filled echoes that “God hates divorce.” But not because He hates you, no, because He loves you.
He hates what it does to hearts. He hates the tearing, the silence, the cold war across the dinner table. He hates the way it bruises children, the way it unravels trust, the way it leaves even the most faithful woman wondering if she’s too much or not enough. He hates it for the same reason you do: because it hurts.
God's hatred of divorce is not the same as rejection of the divorced.
But hear me clearly, sister: God's hatred of divorce is not the same as rejection of the divorced.
He doesn’t discard you with your wedding dress.
He doesn’t exile you to the back row of His Kingdom.
He doesn’t love you less now than He did when you said “I do.”
And frankly, the self-help idea that time heals all wounds is a lie. The pain of divorce doesn’t heal with time, it heals with Jesus. And He is not disgusted by your wound. He’s near to the brokenhearted. He binds up what pride and sin and the enemy tried to break.
Divorce doesn’t get the final word, Jesus does. And His word over you is not shame, it’s mercy. Not rejection, but restoration. You, my friend, are beloved: Still called. Stilled His.
Too Messy To Matter
You may feel like your story is too messy to matter. Like your past disqualifies you from anything sacred. Like you’re stuck somewhere between guilt and grace, unsure if God still wants to use someone like you.
But let me remind you of someone Jesus went out of His way to meet?
In John 4, Jesus sits at a well and speaks to a woman whom most people in her town ignored. She had five former husbands. She was living with a man who wasn’t her husband. She wasn’t looking for Jesus, but Jesus came looking for her.
And He didn’t start with condemnation. He started with conversation. He didn’t shame her. He told her the truth, not shying away from her mistakes, but staying with her while she felt all the feelings. Then He did something unthinkable: He made her the first evangelist in Samaria. Yes, her. A woman with a wrecked history, a confusing present, and no religious credentials. He entrusted her with the message of living water. He used her to open the hearts of an entire village.
Because Jesus isn’t afraid of women who have complicated stories.
Why? Because Jesus isn’t afraid of women who have complicated stories.
He redeems them.
He restores them.
He releases them to lead others right back to Him.
Your Sorrow is Welcome Here
At The Bold Movement, we mean to say what too many have only whispered—if they’ve said it at all: your sorrow is welcome here. The covenant you kept was real, and so is the grief that followed its breaking. We won’t insult your pain with platitudes, nor will we dress your story in tidy bows and pretend it doesn’t ache where it once hoped. Mistakes were made—perhaps by him, perhaps by you, perhaps by both. But grace does not flinch at fault lines. It kneels down into them.
God is not afraid of your grief.
He is not confused by your circumstances.
He is not finished with you.
And the King never calls you by your marital status; He calls you daughter.
The cross covers what your heart still carries. Grace is not only for the easy cases. It is for every case. And the King never calls you by your marital status; He calls you daughter.
Yes, there will be hard days. There may still be healing to do. And yes, there may be uncomfortable conversations or awkward silences in pews and small groups. Take heart: Jesus doesn’t fumble with stories, and He’s not done with yours.
There is room for you here: in the Church, in His mission, in the movement of bold women becoming who God designed them to be.
We pray for your healing.
And we stand beside you, not as fixers, but as sisters.
With fierce love and full hope,
Megan Rawlings & The Bold Movement Team
TL/DR
Divorce doesn’t define you—Jesus does. He isn’t ashamed of your story, and He hasn’t sidelined you. Your pain is real, but so is your place at the table of grace. God doesn’t reject the divorced; He redeems, restores, and still calls you daughter. There’s still healing, still purpose, and still room for you here.
Define Your Terms
(Some might call this a glossary)
TL/DR - Too Long/Didn’t Read
Covenant - A covenant is a sacred, binding promise, deeper than a contract, designed by God to be unbreakable and rooted in love and faithfulness.
Grace - Grace is the undeserved favor and love of God—it means you are loved, accepted, and forgiven not because you earned it, but because He gave it freely.
Evangelist - An evangelist is someone who shares the good news about Jesus and invites others to know Him.
Living Water - “Living water” is Jesus’ way of describing the spiritual life, healing, and satisfaction that only He can offer—eternal and overflowing.
The Church (capitalized) - “The Church” with a capital C refers to the global family of Christians, not just a building or Sunday service.
