I admit it, I do not watch Jon and Kate + 8. Of course I’ve heard about them, I’m an avid news watcher and their mixed up lives have been all over the news lately.
Last night I was on Twitter reading tweets from Iran. (Yes, this is what I do in my down time.) And I noticed that Jon and Kate were trending #2, so I figured that something must be going on. I clicked on the trend and read what people were saying about them. It is amazing to me how these 10 lives have affected so many people.
I really did not want to watch the impending news of their divorce, I knew it was going to be very sad and upsetting. But then people kept tweeting about this woman’s dirty feet and I started to get curious- how dirty can Kate’s feet really be???
So I changed the channel from Mark’s war stories show and saw the last 15 minutes of the program (he begrudgingly let me!).
We both sat there and watched this couple explain to millions of viewers that they were divorcing. They each shared all the silly little cliche’s that people do when they have nothing else to say, for instance:”things will work out, we’ll get through this”, “change is hard but it’s good – right?” And so on and so on.
It was awful. I was so sad about what a mess their lives were, and watching them in the past-playing with the kids- just amplified this, so much so that I forgot to even look at her feet.
In 15 minutes I gathered that these are obviously two very deeply wounded people who don’t have a clue what being married is really all about. And I’m sure that the lights of Hollywood have dimmed the truth that they may have known at one time.
It seems I’ve heard that they were Christians??? Not sure, but I thought someone told me that once, but I don’t see the evidence of two people bulding their lives on the proper foundation so I wonder. Like I said, I have never seen the show before so I can’t comment on that.
But I will say that if Mark and I were sitting down with them to talk about their marriage, we would say the same thing that we have said to countless other couples facing an impending divorce….
The marriage problems are not the problem, they are a symptom of a greater problem. The real problem here is Jon’s individual relationship with the Lord and Kate’s individual relationship with the Lord. If you deal with the symptoms, you’ll never get to the real problem and you will repeat this cycle in your life…in many different ways….until you address the actual cause of all this pain. It’s kind of like having two broken legs and putting a bandaid on your knee. It won’t help you walk. Your legs are broken! Deal with the broken part and then you can walk.
This couple is broken. There is only One that is truly equipped to “fix” them. He can and wants to heal these shattered lives.
And of course, we would say: “Stop the show, deal with your lives.” Did the show cause the divorce- NO. But it’s certainly not helping. The TV show exposed what was in their hearts. That’s what pressure does, it squeezes out the true motives and agendas that are inside of us and exposes our hearts. The good, the bad and the dirty feet-out there for all the world to see.
I believe that if this couple would humble themselves before the Lord, they would start their healing. They need individual healing first and then healing of the marriage.
I pray this happens.
What do you think??
