In Christian traditions, marriage is seen as a sacred and unbreakable covenant between one man and one woman, "till death do us part." Yet in reality, many believers face challenges and breakdowns in their marriages, and all these spark a discussion within the church: "Is divorce ever an option?"
The question is at the heart of a recent documentary series by Showers of Blessing Evangelistic Ministry (SOBEM), titled "The Bridge 2", in which Hong Kong actor Wong Cho-lam and his wife Leanne Li visit two single mothers. Together, they explore how to cope with the vicissitudes of marriage and search for faith-informed responses to life's hardest trials.
"Of course, we don't encourage divorce, and we always hope couples can reconcile," Wong said, "but the truth is, marriage problems are rarely simple. We can't just tell someone, 'don't divorce' and expect that to be enough."
He further noted that if someone is living through domestic violence, "then what can we do to help? If there were a better alternative, I believe they wouldn't be struggling so much." Divorce may not be ideal, but sometimes it's the only way out. The role of the church isn't to judge, but to walk with them."There is no standard answer to this matter; it's all about how we accompany them, at the very least, it's important not to turn them away."
One of the women featured is Kitty, a Chinese mother living overseas. After her divorce, she has been raising her child alone. The documentary begins with footage from a year ago when she was decorating her new home. With labor costs high abroad, she hired a helper and did much of the work herself—repainting the exterior of the house and transforming a worn yellow cabinet into a sleek white kitchen cabinet.
Today, the camera pans across that very kitchen, now filled with the aroma of food and laughter. Wong, Li, Kitty, and Vivi talk and cook together. After the meal, Kitty gives the group a tour of her two newly renovated rooms: one for beauty and manicure, the other containing a wellness pod, as she hopes to build a small healing space.
Kitty shared that it took her three years and three lawyers to finalize her divorce. Her marriage, she said, unravels due to deep-rooted value conflicts. Her ex-husband had grown up in a household marked by frequent physical abuse. "He once told me," Kitty recalled, "every time he walked past a pharmacy as a child, he wanted to buy sleeping pills and end it all. His father would beat him whether he was happy or not."
At the time, Kitty felt a wave of compassion. "I told myself, he's suffered enough. He won't become like that."
But reality proved harsher. When their daughter was just seven or eight months old, still exploring food, and often tossing what she didn't like to the floor. Kitty tried to gently correct her. Her husband disagreed with her approach and, shockingly, struck the child.
At that moment, Kitty suddenly realized that people from violent homes either decide to break the cycle, or they become worse. Her husband was the latter.
Their communication broke down entirely. Her husband responded to conflict with cold silence, sometimes refusing to speak to her for an entire month. It was during this painful season that a friend introduced her to a pastor, a single mother of three, whose words deeply moved her.
"She told me, 'You're someone who wants to love deeply. But you're empty inside. You need to be loved first, so that you can be filled again." Kitty said, "Her word released something in me. I felt free."
Vivi is now a volunteer for an organization that helps single mothers. "I was desperate to find someone to talk to," she explained, "a group for women like me who had been through domestic abuse. But I found no one. Not even one person to talk to."
Her son was just three years old when she found out she was unexpectedly pregnant again. Tragically, the baby girl she was carrying had Edward's syndrome and could not survive.
At that time, her marriage had emotionally collapsed. Vivi and her husband barely spoke with each other, only the most necessary exchanges. The miscarriage that followed sent her tense life into a complete collapse. Her husband offered no support, neither financially nor emotionally.
"Then I was hit by a car. I limped for weeks, still caring for our son. He never once helped."
Her son's health was also fragile as he suffered from asthma and severe food allergies. One day, due to her husband's negligence, the child came into contact with a dead rat. Vivi was furious and exploded in a heated argument with him. Her husband ended up punching her, and she called the police without hesitation.
Vivi tears up recalling her daughter. "I wanted her. But letting her go took everything out of me." She remembers going into the operating room alone. "It was during the pandemic. I walked into the surgery alone. I lay there alone. I walked out alone." The only thing she has left of her daughter is a tiny footprint, stamped on a piece of paper by a kind doctor.
Eventually, the weight of it all ended her marriage.
"To be honest, I have complained to God," she admitted. "I think I'm a good person, a kind person. Why has my life been such a struggle?"
In response to Vivi, Wong Cho-lam opened up about his grief. "When I was 22, my father passed away from colon cancer. He was healthy, athletic, and always health-conscious. I couldn't understand why it happened."
At the time, he was hosting a children's program on TVB, always smiling and cheerful on the outside. One day, after visiting a sick friend at the hospital, he ran into one of the show's screenwriters, who was there visiting his mother, also in the late stages of colon cancer.
"I asked him, 'Do you sometimes wish she could just go peacefully, but feel guilty for thinking that?' He said yes. I told him, 'I know it because my father had the same cancer. He's already gone.'"
The screenwriter was stunned. "He said, 'When I used to watch you on stage, always laughing and smiling with the kids, I thought you must have never known pain. But now I know that we've had the same experience. And seeing you now, I believe I can go through it too.'"
"That's when I realized, suffering often comes without answers. Maybe someday in heaven, I'll ask God why it had to be me. But in that moment, I learned—although I don't have answers, I can be the answer for someone else."
To Vivi, he said: "Not everyone can speak to women like them. Not everyone can empathize. But you can, because you've lived it. What you offer to them isn't advice, but hope. Hope born out of tears and sweat."
To Kitty, he added: "The pastor who guided you didn't have answers either when she experienced the marital upheavals. But today, she became your guide."
Originally published by the Christian Times
- Edited by Karen Luo and translated by Joanna Li
