Battles And Front Lines Devotional By Rita SpringerSample

The Other Side

My sister always wanted to be married. All she ever talked about was being a wife and mother. Just out of high school, she married a man she had met after a move to Seattle. He was a good husband, and together, they had five beautiful kids. Her husband was rough around the edges, but for most of their 20 year marriage, he was a hard worker and an amazing father. Somewhere along the way, though, he stopped trusting God. His pride came hard before his devastating fall. He left my sister, filed for divorce, and abandoned the children, leaving them penniless. He was killed several years later in a horrific ordeal that brought shame and deep wounding to all of us.

Throughout her whole marriage, my sister represented love. I have never seen anyone love someone else so deeply and so beautifully. Love can make us blind to others’ faults of course, but the consistency of her love was so Christ-like. Her pure heart was intentional, even when her world was shattered. To this day, when she remembers those years with him, my sister will still break into tears and say that she just deeply loved him. In the wake of such tragedy, it took years to leave the “Egypt” her husband’s abandonment had left them in and walk through the Red Sea to get to the other side. When pain feels like a tsunami coming at you, it is difficult to know how to do anything but run.

1 Corinthians describes love as kind, non-boastful, not proud or envious. It also says that it does not dishonor and keeps no record of wrongs. That is a WOW factor to me. Is it possible to love so deeply that even when disaster gives you the right to feel hate, love can outrun your hate and meet you at the Red Sea? Can love see you safely to the other side without blame and anger? When I think of my sister, that’s what I saw happen. Her innocent and pure love knew it was shattered. It knew she was broken. However, that love was so Godly that it served as the boat that eventually sailed her back into promise. If you have felt disaster hit you like a hurricane, find where your love is. If it’s a deep well, it will lead you out of hell and into a season of rebuilding. I promise it can lead you out of the darkness and land you on the other side.