This week I travelled to Mt. Vernon, Kentucky to attend a court hearing related to the murder of my Dad twenty years ago.

While we waited for our case to be presented there was a series of other cases ranging from the failure to pay child support to what seemed to be a trivial dispute over property lines.

Of particular interest was a hearing around a divorce proceeding. A man and his wife stood before the judge while there representatives discussing the fate of their ten year old daughter. It was a very depressing scene as the lawyers made their cases while the man and woman were careful to avoid eye contact or to communicate any type of emotion at all.

I couldn’t see their faces other than a profile of the man and I am certain I could not identify either of them if I happened to meet them on the street, but I imagined what they might have looked like a decade or more earlier as they stood before a gathering of people on their wedding day. In contrast to Friday, they pledged their undying love to each other and that their commitment was for the rest of their lives.

I wonder what caused their marriage to fail and I thought about the unintended consequences relating to their only daughter who now is playing one parent against the other as to which parent should have custody.

What a tragedy. It’s no wonder why Malachi 2:16 says, “ I hate divorce”, says the Lord God of Israel……