“For God is not merely mending, not simply restoring a status quo. Redeemed humanity is to be something more glorious than unfallen humanity.” ~ C.S. Lewis

Yesterday I told you I couldn’t get over this quote. Now I’ll explain why.

In my September 22nd post, I mentioned I’m divorced.

Whew. It took me a long time to be able to say that out loud. And it’s been nearly a dozen years. Being a product of a good “Christian” family, few things seem as unforgivable and unredeemable as a failed marriage. Even still, there are times I feel like I’m carrying this large, heavy suitcase with a giant “D” on it everywhere I go. It’s the elephant in every room which requires explaining again and again to people who want to have their questions answered. I weary of it, and often I’d rather pretend that entire season of my life never existed in the first place.

Which, I believe, is part of my problem. Pretending it didn’t happen doesn’t make it any less so. And the more I attempt to recreate the pre-crisis status quo, the more I end up captive to what is.

I love the above quote by C.S. Lewis because it speaks precisely to this warped way of thinking. God doesn’t mend our messes and make them as if they’d never happened. He doesn’t try to make us “unfallen,” taking us back to the people we were before our hearts were ripped out. Instead, He takes our fallen selves — the mess, the regret, the stuff we wish never was — and builds up His purposes all around it, making the inglorious part of the glorious.

That’s why I can now tell you I’m divorced, without hanging my head in shame or rushing to try and explain. “Divorce” is no longer the name of my suitcase of failure or a measure of my insufficiency. Divorce is merely the part of my history which couldn’t escape a glorious redemption.

Are you hanging on to the inglorious or the glorious?