‘They fell in love and lived happily ever after’, which is how Princesses’ fairy tales end and what all romantic hearts desire.
But they were not living in the perfect ‘land of the (eternal) living’, rather in the ‘land of the dying’ while they lived, which is how Matthew Henry describes Psalm 27.13. Yet this hope remained – ‘I will see the goodness of the Lord’ while I live on the earth.
Two marriages
Our story starts with two young Christian couples getting married, on different continents, and seeking to serve the Lord faithfully. One couple in full-time ministry internationally and the other in their occupations fully involved in the local church. They both had children; one had five and the other three. After ten years of marriage, the ministry couple end up in a ‘heavy shepherding’ Independent Church which brought abuse into the home. The teaching of the senior pastor, which was followed by the pastor husband, brought destruction to the family and the marriage. The marriage became ‘rent asunder’ although the wife tried to save it, stalling a divorce for nearly two years. This woman became a single parent of five children aged from eight to infant. She was betrayed, abandoned and cast off.
