Because of the agony of her own marriage breakup, singer Amy Grant sees why God hates divorce, she says in an interview with CCM magazine this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know why God hates divorce because it rips you from stem to stern, and children are the total innocent recipients of a torn and shattered life,\u201d Grant told the magazine, a leading publication in the Contemporary Christian music world.<\/p>\n
Grant, one of the most successful singers in Christian music, ended her 16-year marriage to fellow Christian performer Gary Chapman in June. The couple have three children.<\/p>\n
Grant, 39, said she was raised to think divorce is sinful.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m from a big family,\u201d she told CCM Managing Editor Gregory Rumburg.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy parents are still together, and my three older sisters are married and still together. I stood up at the front of a packed-out church and made a vow before God about — as best I could — how I would lead my life. And I failed in that. Failure\u2019s incredibly humbling.\u201d<\/p>\n
After years of painful counseling to try saving the marriage, and after sessions with pastors and much prayer, she now has a sense of healing about the break-up and a feeling of being \u201creleased\u201d by God, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes me incredibly thankful that God is a God of second chances,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She recounted what one counselor told her: \u201cHe said, \u2018Amy, God made marriage for people. He didn\u2019t make people for marriage. He didn\u2019t create this institution so he could just plug people into it. He provided this so that people could enjoy each other to the fullest.\u2019 I say, if you have two people that are not thriving healthily in a situation, I say remove the marriage. Let them heal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grant\u2019s divorce has been an intense preoccupation in Christian journalism and among fans. If the Christian music past is an indicator, CCM said, Grant might lose support from some disillusioned fans. Grant said she\u2019d have no argument with that, but she had a few thoughts on judgmentalism.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess I would say, judgment is usually exercised from a distance, but in more than one instance the thing that has brought about change (in people) is compassion. Jesus led by compassion. No one is ever changed because of judgment. No one\u2019s ever healed through judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Because of the agony of her own marriage breakup, singer Amy Grant sees why God hates divorce, she says in an interview with CCM magazine this month. \u201cI know why God hates divorce because it rips you from stem to stern, and children are the total innocent recipients of a torn and shattered life,\u201d Grant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[496,495,26,171,497],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7792"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7792\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}