After my ex-husband told me he was having an affair, I was an emotional wreck for about a year. We spent many hours talking, going over the details of what had happened. In spite of our effort to straighten things out, I struggled to understand what had happened and why he had done it. At one point, my ex-husband told me I needed to just “get over it,” so we could move on.

Solomon said, “Therefore, remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity” (Ecclesiastes 11:10). The word translated remove, sûwr (soor) means “to turn off” (5493). The implication being that we can control our emotions if we want to.

Looking back at my situation, I can see now that my ex-husband’s advice was biblical. There was no way to make sense of what happened and understanding the reason why it happened didn’t lessen the pain, it actually made it worse. Although it seemed impossible at the time, I could have stopped thinking about  it and the emotions I felt would have eventually gone away.