Day 22 — When Parents Split Up

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

— Psalm 147:3 (BSB)

Maybe you saw it coming: months of shouting, or months of a silence that was worse. Maybe it came out of nowhere, in a conversation at the kitchen table you’ll remember for the rest of your life. However it happened, the family you grew up in has changed shape. One parent has moved out. There are two homes now, or one home with a gap in it.

If that’s your story, today is for you. If it isn’t, read it anyway, because someone in your class is living it.

The first thing you need to hear is this: it is not your fault. Not because of the times you fought with them, not because of your marks, not because they argued about you once. Parents separate for adult reasons, and children are never the cause. You couldn’t have stopped it, and it isn’t your job to fix it.

The second thing: whatever you’re feeling is allowed. Sadness. Anger. Relief, if home had been a war zone. Embarrassment, especially if in your community a divorce is something people whisper about. Guilt about loving the parent who left. Confusion about loving both. Most people feel several of these in the same afternoon. That’s grief, and grief is messy.

The Bible doesn’t pretend families never break. Its own families are full of jealousy, separation and pain. But today’s verse says something about God that matters right now: He “heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” The word picture is of someone carefully wrapping a wound. Not ignoring it. Not saying “you’ll be fine.” Binding it up, gently, so it can heal.

Healing takes time, and you can let it. Here are a few things that can help along the way.

You don’t have to choose a side. If either parent asks you to carry messages, spy, or agree that the other one is terrible, you’re allowed to say kindly, “Please don’t put me in the middle.” You can love both of them.

Say it to someone. Bottled-up grief leaks out sideways, as anger at school, trouble sleeping, a numb feeling. A grandparent, an aunt, a youth leader, a school counsellor, a friend who has been through it too.

Find your dwelling place. When you have two houses and neither feels quite like home, remember Moses’ prayer: “Lord, You have been our dwelling place through all generations.” Homes can change. God doesn’t move out. “He will never leave you nor forsake you.”

And some honest words about safety. Sometimes a separation happens because someone at home wasn’t safe, and leaving was how people were protected. If anyone in either home hurts you, threatens you or makes you feel unsafe, tell a trusted adult right away. Keeping that secret is never your job.

If the sadness doesn’t lift, if weeks go by and you still feel heavy and hopeless, or if you ever have thoughts of hurting yourself or of not wanting to be alive, tell a parent or trusted adult right away. That’s not weakness. It’s letting God’s care reach you through people.

Think about it: Which of your feelings about your family have you never said out loud? Who could you say them to?

Try this: Write a short, honest prayer telling God exactly how you feel about what has happened in your family, without tidying it up. Then tell one trusted person one of those feelings.

Go deeper: The God of All Comfort by Hannah Whitall Smith — Smith says that just as our bodies need a home, our souls need a dwelling place, and that God Himself offers to be that place: a fortress and a refuge we can actually live in, not just visit, when everything outside is shaking. Start with chapter 8, “The Lord Our Dwelling Place”.

Father, You know what has happened in my family and how much it hurts. Thank You that it isn’t my fault and that I don’t have to fix it. Heal my broken heart and bind up the wounds I can’t even name. Be my home when home feels split in two, and help me love the people in my family well. In Jesus’ name, Amen.