Divorce, Women, and Success Series: Lynnda Ell

A Life Renewed by Lynnda Ell

Your life can be renewed after divorce

Broken

Goodbye
He went away
Hasta la vista baby
I don’t live here anymore
Slashing words of pain to make
Grey ashes from amazing joy
Believing it to be forever
Pain overwhelms
When morning comes alone
Too late for a new love
Too soon for the grave

The lines of that poem by Joan Gilbert could easily have been a summation of my marriage when I divorced my husband at age 40. It is the too common story of trust and love betrayed. Nevertheless, that poem is not my story.

My story began with two hearts broken by our high school sweethearts. Both my husband and I were on the rebound. We met at the wedding of a mutual friend when we were 19 years old. We corresponded for several months, and then he asked me to marry him. I said yes for two reasons; I was in love with whom I thought he was and I was afraid that no one else would ever want me. Rebound will do that to you.

We were married for 19 years and had two children, but my husband continued going to bars and picking up women. I didn’t have to confront this because I didn’t go to the bars. Also, since he was in the military and we moved every two or three years, I never got to know anyone in the community well enough for the gossip to get back to me.

This was a time of suffering for me. Many times, I asked God to either kill me or kill my husband. Thankfully, God did neither; instead, my husband abandoned me for a woman just a few years older than our oldest child.

I was a junior in college by then, with two children in high school. By a series of miracles, we were able to survive for a year when I had only a 10-hour per week job at the university. That was a year of panic attacks and teenage rebellion.

The following year I graduated from college with a degree in electrical engineering. I was hired by a Fortune 500 electric power company and moved to a new city. My career life was challenging and stimulating. My family life was peaceful and enjoyable. My social life, centered on serving others in my church, was satisfying and rewarding. I even had a couple of boy friends, though nothing permanent ever resulted.

After 23 years, I am single, still, and love the life I’m living. I’m not sorry that I married. I became who I am because of my response to being married to an unfaithful man. I also have two wonderful children who are more than worth the cost. For me, my marriage was the disaster, my divorce was the solution. Life is wonderful!

Learn more about Lynnda Ell can be found at her website. Her book Changing Me, Change the World: Prayers from the Psalms, Book I can be purchased from Amazon.com or from BarnesandNoble.com.

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