Get It Right The First Time

I am happier than I’ve ever been in my life. I want to make that very clear. I’m married to a man that loves me, is a helpmeet to me and gives me lots of confidence and stability. He is a born-again believer who is not content to just be saved, but wants to be renewed daily and transformed in the here and now. He seeks God each morning, reads his Bible and prays. He is a kind man who diligently seeks God. His name is George Kernek and I am blessed to be yoked with him.

He is my 3rd husband. I have 2 children by 2 previous marriages and he has one child by a previous marriage. Together, we share 6 grandchildren – 3 from my side and 3 from his side. George is an independent Insurance person and I am a horse trainer. He has never been on the back of a horse and never wants to be. He is a former St. Louis Cardinal who went through college at Oklahoma University on a basketball scholarship and turned pro in baseball – something I knew very little about.

But, we have in common our love for God and our grandchildren. We love to have our grandchildren come and stay with us on our horse ranch in Wayne, Oklahoma. We especially love taking them to Sunday school and church and reading them stories about God and Jesus. We have had 5 of them in our home just this week- we rode the Amtrak to Ft. Worth and picked up 2 of them and picked up 2 more on the way back. The 5th one who is just a year old came in the car with her mom. The 5 of them are ages 1,2,3,4, and 6. They are very easy to teach and are very curious about the world.

There is one thing that I really struggle with and think about a lot. 4 of these grandchildren’s parents are already divorced. (So, their grandparents divorced their original spouses and their parents have divorced also.) They have to divide their time not only between 2 parents in separate places, but also several sets of grandparents. Think about this! How confusing must this be to the little ones?

God has a plan – first of all for us to be saved. (I found this plan in the middle of my second marriage.) And if we marry, to be equally yoked.  These are the two most important decisions that we will ever make in this life-salvation and selection of a marriage partner. Psalm 127:1 – He wants to build our home and bless it with children. Some of us discover the plan after the facts and after more than one marriage and then have a hard time making our lives work out.

I am speaking to young people on the threshold of choosing your mates. Seek God first for your own salvation AND let Him help you in the second most important decision of your life – that of choosing your lifetime mate. Ask for wisdom from God, your parents, your Godly leaders and your Godly friends. Finding God’s plan for your life will be a blessing that passes down generation to generation. We can pass down generation blessings or generational curses.

God is a god of mercy, forgiveness and compassion, but be mindful that the choices we make have consequences that do not erase reality. We must walk out our mistakes, admit our failures, ask for forgiveness and try to teach others not to make the same mistakes we have made. The Word of God tells us that a wise man will learn from the mistakes of others, but a fool has to make his own.

Divorce means to divide – the more divorce there is – the more dividing goes on. I have talked with a neighbor who is distressed because his son and wife are divorcing and his granddaughter cannot take part in school activities because she has to leave every Friday to go to the other parent. She must come back on Sunday, so has no church activity in the community where she lives. DIVORCE MEANS WEAKENING THE STRUCTURE OF GOD’S PLAN!

And you can be frightened by this fact: When you divorce, you lose all control of who the children will be around when they leave your household to go to the other parent. They will be around whomever the other parent chooses to date and the day care or babysitters etc. that he chooses to leave them with. What they see and are around is no longer in your control.  Think about these things BEFORE you choose a mate- not after. Don’t make the same mistakes that I have.

I feel like the happiness that I live in today causes some of my friends who live in unhappiness to contemplate divorce – because they know how unhappy I was for many years and how happy I am now. That also has a weakening effect on God’s plan.

I hope that this testimony will cause young people to think far ahead to the coming generations – building stronger foundations than I did. I’m saddened by the confusion in my grandchildren’s’ lives because of divorce. I know that God forgives, but I also know that He has set out a plan that works and when we depart from that, we enter into the confusion that He is not the author of. He will pick us up and help us through our mistakes and He can use us to teach others not to make the same mistakes.

Get it right the first time. Listen to some one who didn’t. Get it right the first time. May God bless and keep you and the generations that follow you. May He open your eyes to the perfect will and plan that He has for your life.