Discovering a New Beginning: A Journey in Remarriage

By Aaron L. Gravett

Discovering a New Beginning: A Journey in Remarriage brings hope and direction to the divorced and remarried and clears the misconceptions about those who have gone through it—people who often feel like they are under a curse.
It reveals biblical truths behind the subjects of divorce and remarriage by clarifying what God says about it. It answers a number of questions: Can a divorced person get remarried? Do they lose their salvation from it? And can they still serve God in ministry afterward? Discovering a New Beginning also corrects false teaching in the church that has left those divorced and remarried feeling condemned by church tradition. This is done by navigating through the Word of God and applying God’s principles to overcome traditions and obstacles specific to remarriage after divorce. It also brings encouragement and practical guidance to the new marriage.
As a pastor who has gone through the pain of divorce and the joy of remarriage, author Aaron L. Gravett writes from personal experience and reveals the heart of God to those who go through it. Experiencing this led him to search deep into the Word of God for answers. Discovering a New Beginning is filled with encouragement, scriptural truth, and practical application that will bring healing and hope to those on the same journey. When one reads and applies the principles of this book, it will make the new marriage a blessing from God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Aug 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781973666615

Aaron L. Gravett

Aaron L. Gravett is an ordained minister with over twenty years of pastoral ministry, including youth, associate, and lead pastor positions. Aaron and his wife Sheila, who is also an author and speaker, lead Faith to Walk Ministries, which is an evangelistic/public-speaking and writing ministry. They have five children between them, whom they greatly love. He also enjoys playing drums and riding motorcycles with his wife.

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Copyright © 2019 Aaron L. Gravett.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-6662-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-6663-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-6661-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019908875

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/15/2019

To my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, for without Him I am nothing. And to my lady, my best friend and wife, Sheila. She is truly my gift of grace from Christ. God has used her powerfully in my life, and I can never thank Him enough for her. She amazes me with her persistence in life’s challenges and her faithfulness with everything God has placed before her. I love her with all my heart—always and forever.

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

CHAPTER 1     God Didn’t Divorce You

CHAPTER 2     The Journey Ahead—A New Start Is Allowed

CHAPTER 3     Healing Together—Mourning and Healing

CHAPTER 4     Fighting Ghosts

CHAPTER 5     Keeping the Peace—Fighting Well

CHAPTER 6     Compromise Is Not a Bad Word

CHAPTER 7     Walk in the Light – The Importance of Accountability

CHAPTER 8     Close All Exit Strategies—Plan for Success, Not Failure

CHAPTER 9     Opposites Attract—Introverts and Extroverts

CHAPTER 10   Be Jesus to Each Other

CHAPTER 11   Live Your Calling—Comfort Others

Foreword

Divorce is messy, emotional, and painful. It strips you of all you are and leaves you exposed to the world and their judgments. It presents an array of emotions and a sense of loss to navigate as you step forward, with trepidation, on your path of life. Then there’s the religious sect. You may have tried to reenter their world and found yourself wondering where you fit in—or if you ever will fit in.

Colliding with all the external perceptions is the internal battle that rages. Questions crash against your soul constantly: How does God see you now? Are you still loved by Him? Has He abandoned you? Can He ever forgive you and accept you again?

In this book, Discovering a New Beginning, Pastor Aaron does an excellent job calming your fears and exposing the misconceptions of divorce using the truth of scriptures. For, you see, grace and love go farther than a divorce decree. God’s love for you is truly unconditional, without bounds, eternal.

Pastor Aaron has taken his experiences as a divorcee and a remarried man, who has lived the heartache and rejection of the church and then rediscovered God’s grace through a second marriage, and carefully penned words to teach healing and peace, as the words of truth have brought for him.

The wisdom found on the pages of this book can lead you to freedom. First, from within as you draw closer to Christ, discovering the love and healing He has for you. Then, freedom from the opinions of others, learning to live beyond wrong teaching in the church, discovering divorce doesn’t mean death to your walk with Christ—serving, worshipping, ministering, fulfilling the call of the Lord on your life. Truly, in all that we live through in this life, we can learn and grow closer to the Lord and then help others with the same love and compassion the Lord gave us when we faced the circumstance.

Pastor Aaron does an excellent job helping you navigate a new marriage and discovering your new spouse in a manner that enables you to love the way God intended for you to love. This is the way Christ has led and taught Aaron to love through His Word. If you apply these principles, though not always easy, as it requires us to get over ourselves, you will truly discover and embrace your new beginning. A new beginning not only with your new spouse but most importantly with Christ.

Thank you, Pastor Aaron, for writing a book that is needed for healing. A voice that has risen to speak truth. I pray the voice of truth in this book reaches the hurting and brings healing. I pray it opens the eyes of ministers who have wrongly divided scripture and belittled divorcees, treating them as second-class Christians who were not fit for the work of the church. I pray it strengthens marriages and brings Christ to the center of them so they will never be broken. May each person who reads this come to know Jesus as they have never known Him before and be stronger in their faith and love for Him. May the truth of this book reach many for years to come.

Sheila Gravett

Introduction

They say you should always write about what you know. The first thing I want to say is that I never saw myself writing a book on remarriage. I never thought, You know, one day I want to get divorced so that I can write on remarriage. Divorce happens though, and whether or not it was your fault, many—and I mean many—people find themselves divorced and wondering, Now what?

Life seems to be all turned around, and you question everything in your life, even your own salvation. The two of you were one flesh, and then suddenly it seems like you’re half a person. Your whole life is turned upside down.

This is not a book on divorce though; it is a book on remarriage—discovering a new beginning. This subject is taboo for most in the church because they don’t study scripture enough to see what it says; therefore, they treat divorced and remarried people as second-class Christians. They treat them as saved but as failures at the same time.

The great news is just as Christ is the God of second (or more) chances for life, He is the God who gives it for love as well. There is a new beginning, and the greatest love you could ever have might be about to walk into your life. So whether you think you could love again, you just found your new love, you just got remarried, or you have been remarried for a long time, this book is for you.

I am going to take the blinders off and make it clear through this journey of discovery with me. I am not perfect in my marriage (my lady can vouch for that). I have made plenty of mistakes, said words I wished I could grab back, and even made her cry, which I truly hate. Yet I know that, with Christ’s help, He can build anyone up in Him and in the process make a new journey beautiful.

I won’t be presenting other people’s situations—only my own. You won’t read quotes upon quotes from other people’s books and articles. We have enough books out there that are only rehashes of other people’s work. You, the reader, need to know that the words you are reading come from a person who has been there and done that. I will speak from experience, using the Word of God combined with practical advice to show you how to traverse the amazing, thrilling, and intense adventure of remarriage.

I will also be using scripture passages that will appear in multiple chapters, since the theme of these passages can be interwoven through many aspects of remarriage. The use of scripture is of utmost importance, since God is the creator and sustainer of the Christian life and marriage.

In this book, we will cover the challenges, rewards, obstacles, and different parts of the journey that will make this marriage the best and last one. This love is your God-given love of a lifetime!

Chapter One

God Didn’t Divorce You

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It All Starts with a Death

The day came when it happened. The sun was out, and the sky was a dark blue. I probably would have noticed how beautiful it was if my world had not been crashing down all around me. I was standing in the driveway watching my life end, it seemed. When the vehicle was just out of sight, the sorrow overwhelmed me to the point I could hardly breathe. The tears of sorrow welled up to the point that I mourned heavily. I couldn’t stand upright but doubled over sobbing. To this day, I don’t know how long I stood there mourning, but I know the tears finally stopped falling. When I finally stood straight again, I was a broken man.

So many people call divorce a living death. You really don’t understand the gravity of that statement until you go through one. Whether the divorce was the other person’s fault or it was your own fault, whether the divorce happened to you or you were the one to divorce the other, it still feels like a living death.

The first thing I want to point out is that I believe with all my heart what the Bible says, which is that God is against divorce. Scripture is very plain on this.

But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. (Mark 10:6–9)

Staying together is the perfect will of God. If you are reading this book and divorce has not happened yet, I encourage you to seek God through prayer, the Word of God, the advice of your pastor, and, if need be, a Christian counselor. Do everything in your power to seek reconciliation and healing. This book is written, though, for those who for one reason or another have found themselves on the other side of the divorce that has already happened.

The pain of a divorce can be unbearable. The loneliness can set in to such an extreme extent that there will be times you will cry until there are no tears left. Sad to say, some have experienced the absence of the spouse, the children, the extended family, the friends, and even the Christian brothers and sisters as they felt that they had to choose a side.

This is a natural behavior because divorce in the public’s eye always has a victim and an evil monster whose fault it was. I hate to break this to the Christian world, but every person in a divorce is a victim because the devil only wants to destroy, and divorce is one of his biggest weapons.

You know exactly what I’m talking about. You have experienced this pain. You have experienced the separation of everyone you seem to know, and you may even now feel the heavens are brass. The closeness you once had with Jesus Christ now seems to be just a memory. So what do you do?

The first thing is to concentrate on the restoration of yourself. This is difficult because you feel that you need to concentrate on all the external things, such as getting a new residence if you’re the one who was asked to leave, missing the spouse and the children, court, child support, and a host of other things that bombard you.

For you to come out with a vibrant relationship with Christ, though, the first step—and one that needs to permeate your every day—is to concentrate on Jesus Christ, who still loves you more than any other and is still with you in the trenches. Listen to this: whether it was your fault or not, in Christ, there is always forgiveness. In most divorces, each person has blame. There is usually blame to share, but there is no sense reliving that over and over. The time to concentrate on is the here and now. Christ promises forgiveness for all who seek His forgiveness and repent.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

That is one awesome promise of God right there! Before reading more of this book, stop, slowly read that verse again, and commit to believe and obey it. Let the forgiveness of Christ sweep over you and give you a breath of fresh air to sweep the sin and the guilt right out of your life.

Once again, divorce feels like a living death, but realize that when you are in Christ and you keep your faith in Him, you are still in life no matter how the circumstances may feel around you.

In him was life; and the life was the light of men. (John 1:4)

The fact that you need to get deep into your heart and soul is this: Jesus Christ is still with you!

When you are feeling alone, and people are separating from all around you, hold on to the fact that Christ will never leave you or forsake you! (Read Hebrews 13:5.)

That is a promise He made in His Word to you. If you are honest, though, when you are going through such a thing as a divorce, in the months leading up to it, it can be hard for you to pray and read the Word of God. The sad truth is the very thing we usually give up is the very thing that God wants us to do even more. He still desires intimacy with us.

Read this verse and realize God’s plan for you, as opposed to what the enemy of your soul wishes for you:

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)

Let’s break down this verse within the context of a divorce. When divorce happens, the first thing the enemy does is steal the intimacy and affection