I set my paper plate of tacos on the folding table in our church fellowship hall and smiled at the woman who’d made them for the six families in our life group that Tuesday. “Thanks for cooking dinner tonight,” I said, hoping my words didn’t sound forced. “Fall is such a busy time.” My husband Eric and I had gone to this church for eight years now. We felt comfortable here. Yet we’d never joined any group, Bible study, nothing. We’d kept our distance in that respect. Or at least I had.
My 15-year-old son, Nathan, sat at a table with the other teens in the group. I overheard one of them say, “You have brothers and sisters?”
I held my breath, wondering how Nathan would respond. But he simply said, “I have two brothers and two sisters, but they’re older than I am. I’m the only one who still lives at home.”
I exhaled with relief. And yet that voice I could never completely silence persisted in whispering, What will people think if they knew? What will they say?
Eric and I had been happily married for 17 years after difficult first marriages. We’d each brought two kids to our marriage, then had Nathan together. Being divorced wasn’t some big scandal. I knew that. Unfortunately, it was all too common. And yet I lived in fear that if the people at church knew, they’d treat me differently. That I’d be judged. Found wanting. I wanted so badly to feel truly part of a church family, to feel as if I belonged. But there was part of me that just couldn’t risk opening up. And that was the whole point of a life group, wasn’t it?
I’d grown up in a church feeling accepted. Every week, we were one of the last families to leave after Sunday service. My father was a deacon. My parents’ closest friends were church friends. They were there for all of the big events in my life. All that changed after my parents’ divorce. I was then in my early twenties and living a few hours away, but I saw how people treated my mom. Our family used to be part of the “in crowd”—the ones who were always counted on to help with potluck dinners and Vacation Bible School. But no one called Mom after that. She was shunned. Judged. Mom drifted away from church and eventually stopped going altogether. I couldn’t blame her.
Then came my own divorce. I wasn’t about to let the same thing happen to me. I learned my lesson after I told a woman at a church I was attending how my marriage fell apart. She practically turned her back on me, at least figuratively. Judge not lest ye be judged. Right. If I really wanted that closeness I had known with my church family growing up, I would have to be vigilant about what I shared and not give people a reason to judge or reject me. Now I was asking myself what on earth had prompted me to join this life group.
“It’s about deepening our connections,” said the woman who’d reached out to invite Eric and me to the group. “It’s about growing closer to Christ and supporting each other.”
That’s what I had been wanting for years, to feel that connection. That closeness. I can share, I thought. It’s not as if I have to tell them everything. It was too late to back out. And besides, what would people say? I’d be judged for that too.
After that first Tuesday night, the life group met every week. We took turns bringing dinner for the group; after eating, the adults did a faith-based study—usually about parenting or marriage—while the teens hung out. Nathan loved it. It gave him a night with his closest friends. Eric and I enjoyed getting to know everyone, but we didn’t share anything about our past marriages. I never lied. The subject never came up directly, and I never volunteered more than necessary. That didn’t prevent me from feeling as if I were walking a high wire. Still, as the weeks went on, I felt myself growing closer to the other couples in the group.
That March, another couple, Brandon and Katie, invited us to go out to the Olive Garden for dinner. I was twirling spaghetti onto my fork when Katie said they’d be celebrating 17 years of marriage in June.
“Really? What day?” I asked. “Our anniversary is June 30.”
“We’re June 16th, but you and Eric have been married longer than 17 years.”
I shook my head, and Katie immediately apologized. “I just assumed because you guys are older than we are….”
Eric jumped in. “This is a second marriage for both of us. Our first marriages ended very painfully, but they taught us some important lessons. God helped us see these lessons. Diane and I appreciate each other so much more, and we work hard to keep our relationship healthy. Honestly, I think we have a better marriage now than we would have if we’d married each other fresh out of college.”
In all our years of marriage, I’d never heard Eric say these words, not quite like this. And while he was talking to Brandon and Katie, there was part of me that knew the words were meant for me too, maybe especially for me.
Brandon nodded thoughtfully. “That makes sense,” he said. “And it’s obvious that you guys are really happy together.”
“That’s the important part,” Katie added.
Eric squeezed my hand under the table, and the conversation moved on to a discussion about our kids, without a single awkward moment. We were just two couples sharing honestly with each other.
Afterward, when Eric and I got in the car, I said, “Thank you for saying what you did and how you said it. I didn’t feel judged at all.”
Eric glanced at me and smiled. “Did you really think you would be?”
His question stayed with me after we got home. Why did I care so much what people thought of me? Why did I always think I was being judged? My divorce was a major trigger, understandably, but it went deeper than just a failed marriage. Sometimes I feared being a failed person.
I didn’t get the most positive reinforcement as a kid, especially from my dad. I always felt that he found me wanting, not serious, that I just didn’t live up to the expectations he never actually articulated. I grew up in the shadow of his disappointment in me and feeling I was being judged and found inadequate without ever understanding why. After he left my mom, he made little effort to maintain a relationship with me.
Eric did not share my fear of being judged. I realized he knew that the only judgment that mattered was God’s—and God judged with love.
Now I wondered if, deep down, I feared I was a disappointment to God. As if when my first marriage failed, I had failed him.
And yet what Eric had said, that God had brought us together to heal us from our past was so true, I felt as if I were understanding it for the first time. How could I fear judgment when God loved me that much? I had to trust that love and be honest about myself and stop hiding. I could start with our life group.
At our next life group meeting, we watched a video on how to handle finances as a couple. During the discussion time, I asked a question I hoped would give me the opening I wanted. “Do you keep your money separate or together?”
Most of the couples said they combined their finances. Then it was my turn. I took a deep breath and said, “Keeping our money in one account was really hard for me, because this is my second marriage. It was hard to combine everything right away because I’d experienced so much loss. I really struggled financially when I was a single mom, and I was afraid of being in that situation again. I had to ask God to help me trust Eric and not hold my past hurts against him.”
I looked around the table and made eye contact with one of the men in the group. He had the kindest expression on his face. “I never knew you guys went through that,” he told us. “I bet that was really hard, and I’m so impressed you found the strength to trust each other.”
Everyone else was nodding in agreement. There was no judgment in anyone’s eyes. Just understanding and acceptance. It had taken me eight months of weekly meetings to trust that these people were the church family God had led me to and that I could trust them to love me, despite my very imperfect past and my very imperfect self. God didn’t want me to be perfect. He just wanted me to be who he made me to be.
In May 2024, our life group had to decide whether to continue our weekly meetings for another year or separate and join different groups at church. I prayed that everyone else would feel the way I did. We voted unanimously to keep our group together. The other couples asked Eric and me to lead the group. Tuesdays are my favorite day of the week.
Sundays are pretty great too. Our car is one of the last to leave the parking lot after services. There was an advertising campaign a few years ago for a national fitness chain that proclaimed its gyms were a judgment-free zone—so people wouldn’t feel self-conscious, I guess. That’s what I want church to be like and my life to be like too.
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