News of Christian Author's Marriage Falling Apart Went Viral, But No One Shared When They Reconciled
Lysa TerKeurst is a best-selling author, speaker, and president of Proverbs 31 Ministries. She has millions of followers on social media, as she is considered one of the leading voices in the Chrisitan community today.
In June of 2017, TerKeurst shared a heartbreaking blog post with her fans that she was seeking a divorce from her husband, Art, after nearly 25 years of marriage. Art had been repeatedly unfaithful with a woman he met online.
TerKeurst’s original post has since been deleted but was detailed online by Jenny Rapson on ForEveryMom.com. According to Rapson, TerKeurst stated she’d been trying to save her marriage for the prior two years.
She kept his secrets and tried to love him enough to save their family, all while seeking counsel and praying for their marriage. The mother-of-five had fought hard, but ultimately her husband refused to give up his affair and continued to abuse substances.
TerKeurst’s original post went viral. It was buzzing all over the internet, people sharing the demise of the prominent Christian author’s marriage.
Since her original post was deleted, we don’t have actual numbers, but the post that ForEveryMom wrote was shared over 122,000 times. That’s just from one of many sources that covered the split.
Then something happened — but many people missed it.
It wasn’t talked about. It wasn’t all over the internet.
A year after sharing that her marriage was over, TerKeurst shared with her followers a surprising photo and message on Father’s Day.
“A hard prayed for and fought for, glorious, messy, miraculous, honest, treasured gift of together. Happy Father’s Day Art! The way you have pursued the Lord, healing, and us… is evidence of God’s supernatural grace and goodness.”
Incredible, right? After so much sorrow, so many prayers, their marriage was being restored.
As Rapson pointed out in a follow-up post, this news from June is just making its way to many followers now. Why hasn’t this gone viral, too?
Perhaps the greater question is why are we so quick to share bad news instead of good news?
Maybe because it helps us feel better about ourselves. Here is a prominent Christian family with a crumbling marriage and dirty secrets. Well, at least my marriage isn’t THAT bad.
Maybe because those who were sharing the original post only shared it to bash Christians and their “perfect lives,” finding joy in someone else’s pain. See, even Christians sin and cheat.
Maybe because we can’t actually believe that prayer and healing could truly restore a marriage after that much hurt and suffering. He’ll just do it again, right?
Whatever the reason, Rapson tied it up with the perfect bow, sharing Romans 12:15, which says: “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.”
“The fact that the news of the TerKeurst’s reconciliation did not spread like wildfire says to me that as a Christian community, we’re not as good at the rejoicing part of this command. And that certainly needs to change,” Rapson wrote.
It certainly does. It’s also important to have people walk alongside you who will be “your rejoicers.” People who will give you the hard truths, fight for you (and your marriage), and pray for you relentlessly.
Ask yourself if you have those people in your life. If you don’t, find them. Ask your friends, members of your church, neighbors, or coworkers to do that for you.
Be rejoicers, my friends.
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