Who Gets Hurt

Yeah, it's country, but it's right.
)

Exodus 20:18

Neither shall you commit adultery.

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You keep telling me, baby
There will come a time
When you will leave her arms
And forever be in mine
But I don't think that's the truth
And I don't like being used and I'm tired of waiting
It's too much pain to have to bear
To love a man you have to share

"Stay" by Sugarland

If you come to this blog just to read the words, thank you, but this time please watch at least a bit of the video. Look at the pain in the eyes of vocalist Jennifer Nettles. I mean look at it. This song is the story of a woman who is having an affair with a married man and her pain. Look at it.

Scripture says "you shall not commit adultery" but why? (Pretty obvious, but go with me here...) Yes, it messes with the family unit, no doubt about it, and that's a bad thing. Families are stronger when a wedge isn't driven into the log splitting it into pieces. But that's not what this song is about.

This song is about the "other woman." It's about the pain she experiences. She wants more, or by the end of the song wanted more. She knows he won't leave his wife and it's tearing her up. She's in pain. At the moment, in this perspective, we aren't imagining the couple's situation, we're in her shoes. Because of this song's hard lyrics and Jennifer Nettles' emotionally raw performance we can imagine it.

It's easy to imagine the pain and horror of a family coming apart, that's the plot of nearly every "cheating spouse" story ever told. Rightly this is the horror of cheating on your partner, but it is only one of the horrors of adultery. But there's another player in this story too. It's the horror of a woman who is hurt being the third point in the triangle.

Here's the thing about sin, it causes everyone who is touched by it to hurt. Even when it's a situation that begins so right when it turns wrong is goes so very wrong. Know this from the look on Jennifer Nettles' face and the tears in her eyes, because of sin everyone hurts, even those we don't tend to think of being hurt.