Handle legal issues well. Find a competent attorney to help you tackle legal issues like child custody, child support, and alimony. Make sure you understand all the fees and other costs involved. Openly discuss all your concerns with your attorney so he or she will know how best to proceed. Consider use mediation rather than the court system to work through differences with your former spouse, if you’re both willing to do so.

Set goals for your new life. Think and pray about what specific goals you should set for your relationships, personal growth, work, spiritual maturity, finances, education, family, health, emotions, and sexual purity while single. After you set your goals, share them with others who are willing to encourage you, support you, and hold you accountable as you pursue them.

Share what you’ve learned with others. Help others who are going through divorces by sharing the wisdom you’ve gained through your own divorce experience. Be a friend to people on both sides of the divorces, assuring them that you won’t judge them. Listen to them with love and understanding. Give them whatever practical support you can, such as providing child care, helping them move, giving them job leads or referring them to a good attorney, social worker, or counselor. Pray for them along the way.

Adapted from Growing through Divorce, copyright 1995 by Jim Smoke. Published by Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, Or., http://www.harvesthousepublishers.com/.   

Jim Smoke is an internationally known author, speaker, and life coach. A pioneer in the divorce recovery field, he has worked with singles and singles-again for more than 30 years. Jim has written more than 18 books, including Seven Keys to a Healthy Blended Family, and coauthored Finding the Right One After Divorce. Jim and his wife, Carol, live in California.