Oh, the actors are fine – I’ve enjoyed their performances in other movies.  It’s the subject matter that is painful – divorce is painful.  I really didn’t care if the Pruitt’s marriage broke up.  Neither character appeared sympathetic, and neither cared about others.

But Bernice – when her father made his selection of new wife/new life over his daughter!  The wailing of the lost child who could not believe her father did not love her enough to include her in his life, but left her abandoned to a woman just as lost displays the death of innocence in children that divorce brings.

Oh, that’s not what you’ve seen?  Most divorces are not only necessities but are amicable?  Hardly.  The ramifications ripple for decades afterward through lives not born at the time of the divorce.

Is divorce necessary?  At times, yes.  Because an error was made by marrying.  And there are so many ways to enter marriage incorrectly – to escape an abusive family, or an unloving family produced by the same erroneous decision.  To ‘save’ someone, to change them into what they should be – which is better left to God.  To find an elusive something missing.  To gain what cannot be gained alone.  To give a family to an unborn child. 

None of those are marrying in response to God’s will.  How great are the blessings of waiting in prayer for God’s choice to be shown?  That question cannot be answered until the wait is accomplished.

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? (Matthew 7:11 KJV)

And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. (1 John 5:14-15 KJV)

Need some examples?  Speak with the couples who have been married forty years and more in your church.  This is not achieved by accident.  It is achieved by commitment – to each other and to their Lord. 

They do not leave behind lost children who do not know a father’s love.