As with the life, we arrived at year ten with in a blur and sliding in sideways. It appeared on the horizon a while back and I made a mental note of gifts to buy, photos to schedule, and cards to share. It’s the eve of the big night and I am sitting at an airport gate with horrible coffee and slow jazz, fighting a migraine.
On this night, ten years ago, a baby shower was thrown for me by my family. A basket with items appropriate for three boys filled to the brim, introduced me to what laid directly ahead. All of them knew what I was jumping into. I did not.
When David and I fell in love, we fell hard. I didn’t see anything, or anyone else. It was like what we had discovered was a secret recipe that no one else understood and had superpowers. We could finish one another’s sentences and knew what each other were thinking pretty quickly. Further confirmation that all was right and we were meant to do this life, together. So, on May 4, 2013, we made vows in front of God – and three little boys.
Today, those boys are 21, 18, and 15. For ten years, these boys have of watched us live out those promises. For better or worse, in sickness and in health. For ten years, I’ve lived as a childless step-mother to these boys and become a woman I would have never become, without them.
I’ve considered so many things I could share here on this milestone. I think the most helpful – and less boring – to you, might be the top 10. So, here we go…
Top Ten Tips
Pay attention to how your step-children feel about the marriage, and the wedding. This will likely not change after the wedding dust settles. For better, or for worse. What was a dream come true for you, may be a nightmare for them. To avoid conflict before it begins, this needs to be settled.
Everyone has role in the family. Be intentional to give each member of the family a voice and ultimately, responsibility is on dad to determine the health and happiness of the family. Check in with each person from time to time to give air to grievances, anxiety, joy, and small victories.
Don’t lose you. I’ve failed at this. In my excitement, and best intentions, I have neglected having gal-pal weekend trips, girls night out, standing brunch dates, and local adventures. I feel this deeply after ten years and have determined that’s an area that I need to nurture. Without paying attention, I feel I’ve lost an element of fun and adventure and need to plug back into this side of my personality.
Have fun! I cannot overstate the importance of humor and fun in a family dynamic. Boredom causes all sorts of problems and can usually be cured with intentional planning and small effort. Laugh with your partner and remember your “Why.” This will save your marriage more than most anything else. If you need tips on how to walk this one out, ask me.
You are not creating or re-creating a biological family. Even if you are answer to prayer at the end of a long and painful journey, there was a story before you. The psychological, emotional, mental, and spiritual baggage from that origin has now made its way into your life. This point is painful. For a woman who is grieving, this can cause a stomach flip and shortness of breath. Make sure your partner walks this one out with you. He should be part of this hurt with you. He should understand your tears. If he doesn’t care, or understand, question this. Your partner should love you well in this area. Create ways to make your own mark and have your own influence in the lives that you are stewarding. Trust me, small investments – and more importantly – living with consistent character, impacts the lives of these little people. You will have your day, mom.
Own your tribe. Competition is toxic to a human. Especially small humans. They are watching your comfort level so when you are rejecting your family and their role in it, they feel every bit of it. Take pride in your role as dad’s wife and enjoy supporting these kids in their clubs, sports, and whatever their hobbies are. If they game online, take interest and ask them to show you their game. Sit down on the bed next to them and ask about the strategy and try to learn their why. They’re probably not like you, so learn them. Adults rarely enter a child’s world apart from criticizing or critiquing them. When you take time, they notice. One last point on this…SUPPORT YOUR HUSBAND. You are his champion. So champion him!
Family rules are made together, and enforced by bio-parent. We have created rules and systems, and failed miserably in this area. We started strong and every year tried to develop some type of chores/reward pattern that would teach them responsibility and grow them into men of character. I am laughing as I type this because they became this in spite of chores or work. We show them respect by valuing their voice and they show us respect by honoring our leadership. I let the frustration and pressure of parenting go when I realized that our inconsistent enforcement of these systems were not harming or helping these boys. Time will take care of how well the boy’s dad followed through or failed to do so. (And prove whether he should’ve listened to me or not :))
Physical space is important. You need a place to escape. Create a place in your home where you find safety, solitude, and serenity when the waves hit. I dreamed of having white carpet and white leather furniture. That will not happen in this lifetime. When the last boy is grown and raised, it will be time for grandchildren. I let that go many years ago. So, I have a very girly corner in our room – yes, my sports fanatic husband had to concede to this one. It has beautiful bottles of perfume and pretty containers of girly things. This is a visual that not all of my life is given to testosterone.
Fight fair. Words hurt or they heal. This is for all of us. Regardless of family ingredients. It took many years, but I finally raised my voice in an argument and when I did, it shook me. I had denied myself the right to be angry for so long, that I had built up resentment. It all came out in a car ride when a very small topic, exploded from within me. That was not fair to Dave. Over time, I’ve learned that feelings lie, but they do need to be acknowledged. The thoughts that accompany my feelings tell me that this was all a mistake and I’ve made promises I’ll never be able to keep. But one whisper from the voice of the Holy Spirit reminds me that all of this is much bigger than this temporary moment. David taught me that when we have a bad moment, it does not equate to a bad marriage. Plus, you have eyes and ears watching you how this is done in their own life.
Not every hill is the one to die on. Evaluate your demands and requests with honesty and truly measure where they land on the larger scale. If your “thing” is the dishwasher, or making beds, or leaving clothes laying around – communicate that. If your “thing” is talking back, being ignored, or stealing – communicate that. You need to use your words, in a responsible way, to tell your family why this is important to you. They will likely respect this more if they understand why you are triggered by this behavior. If you keep taking hills in your family, this will be a lonely existence for you.
All of these items have been learned, mostly the hard way. Some have come instinctively and I’ve learned by watching some of my fellow S’moms learn the hard way. Either way, know that you’re not alone and there are moments we understand that likely few others in your life do. Your crown will come in the least expected moments.
Lastly, if you try to do this life without an anchor, you will get tossed around and may capsize – or sink. My relationship with Christ has been the single most stabilizing factor in this past decade. When work has rejected, the kids have misunderstood, Dave has dismissed, and my friends disconnected, I run into His presence and find identity and peace. Without having this, I could not endure. If you need to know how to do this, I’d love to share.
This was the key phrase in a Nationwide Insurance advertising campaign that first debuted in the mid-2000s. The messaging was intended to remind the viewer that you just never know what is around the corner in this life, so be prepared with a great insurance company. (One of my favorites in this campaign is this one featuring MC Hammer and his 15 minutes of fame.)
The commercial that had a bigger impact on me was this one, where Dad is pushing his little boy in the tree swing, only to have his son transform instantly into a teenager. He crashes into Dad, knocking him down, and the tag line “Life Comes At You Fast” appears on the screen. When this commercial came out, I was the father of a four-year-old and a one-year-old. My youngest son hadn’t even been born yet. This commercial was a great reminder of how fast life flies by, before you know it, your children are adults. On the first day of the school year, Hope posted about the special season that we are in. She wrote: “I can sense that we have crossed a significant bridge and things have hit a new speed from here on out.”
It hit me that we have entered the latter phases of the season that we talked about and prayed about when we were dating and first married. Thanks to some great advice from some blended family experts, we’ve always viewed the process of blending our family together like slow cooking in a crock pot. This has been our mantra from the time that Hope and I realized that we were heading toward marriage. Many blended families, if not the majority, make the mistake of putting their families in a pressure cooker and trying to force everything to happen. When that is the mindset, there isn’t time for anyone to adjust, they’re just supposed to accept how things are and do the best they can to make it work. The slow-cooking mindset allows for failure, forgiveness, recovery, and redirection. One of the things that we constantly reminded ourselves early on is that it normally takes 5-7 years after remarriage for the family unit to find that “new normal.”
Somehow, we are already smack in the middle of that time period. In May of next year, we will have been married for 7 years. About a month after our anniversary, my oldest son will be graduating high school. Life will change quite a bit, but not as much as it changed for us in the couple of years leading up to our marriage. That provides a sense of peace as life continues at this breakneck speed. When my first marriage ended, I was faced with the reality that my sons were going to spend half of their boyhood and teen years with their mom and away from me, further accelerating the speed at which life passes. Half the time, twice the speed.
In my younger years, a mistake that I made quite often was trying to force things to happen before it was time. That caused quite a bit of heartache and frustration for me, and also caused me to point fingers at other people instead of looking inside of myself. When Hope and I married, I knew without a doubt that if I reverted back to that mindset and tried to force our family into this new normal before it was time, I would end up exactly where I did before. There was too much at stake for all of us for that to happen. We had to figure out how to slow cook at high speed. It seems to make no sense at all that the way to make all of this work is to cook slowly, when everything is moving so fast. But that is the only way to make it work. Letting go. Praying. Forgiving. Learning. And letting go some more, because life comes at you fast.
“How did I end up here?” was the question that the voice in my head kept asking. I came home from work to see only my clothes and open space where some of the furniture used to be. Sadness, anger, frustration, it all washed over me. I was like a fighter who had taken a right hook that I didn’t have a chance to brace for. As I crumbled to the canvas, I was pissed and hurt. How does 13 years of marriage, three children and a home together, a life built together, end up here? Sometimes there just isn’t an explanation. Sometimes there just aren’t any answers. Sometimes bad stuff happens to people who tried to do everything right. It doesn’t make any sense.
After the separation began, my boys would go spend the agreed-upon days with their mom. Instantly, a house that was full of the sounds and activity of a young family was as quiet as a funeral home. Appropriately, I felt like I was dying inside. Toys left where they were played with last. Their clothes in the laundry, Capri-Suns in the refrigerator. The TV left on the last channel they watched, the baseball laying in the front yard. I couldn’t wait to talk to them, but despised having to tell them “Good Night” over the phone. I missed them so bad, I felt like someone was using a vacuum to suck the life out of me. I would lay there in bed and be enveloped in the silence. It made me sick to my stomach. It was in those times that I began to experience the love of my heavenly Father like I never had before. I have been a Christian since 1997, yet I discovered during those lonely nights that my faith had never been tested like this. I began to beg God to make His presence known, I was having a real crisis of faith, wondering if all of the stuff I had said about Jesus through the years was really true or if I was just repeating what everyone else was saying.
I know now that it is all true. I can’t explain it in words so that anyone else would understand. I just know because I’ve sensed the presense of my Savior in times when I just wanted to curl up in a ball in the floor. I know because I was broken down and stripped of everything that I held dear, and yet still knew that there was a reason for it. I know because He waited for me to ask Him for forgiveness before He began to reveal His new plan for me. I don’t ask “why?” anymore. That’s because I know the answer. It wasn’t so I could start over. It wasn’t so I could get answers to all of my questions. I’ve learned over time that the specifics don’t matter. Who did what, who said what, who was wrong and who was right, none of it matters. I spent plenty of time being self-righteous about my circumstances, and it still left me empty. The reason I don’t ask why anymore is because every day I live this life completely differently than I did prior to the day my first marriage ended. It is encompassed in this quote from author Ken Gire:
“When suffering shatters the carefully kept vase that is our lives, God stoops to pick up the pieces. But he doesn’t put them back together as a restoration project patterned after our former selves. Instead, he sifts through the rubble and selects some of the shards as raw material for another project – a mosaic that tells the story of redemption.”
The End was The Beginning for me. I made the choice to get up off of the canvas, spit the blood out of my mouth and get back in the fight. The fight for me was to figure out what I did to cause what happened and fix it. I went to counseling for months to open up those places that were in the shadows and bring them into the light. The fight for me was to lead my sons through a traumatic situation. I could not leave them behind as I jumped back in the ring, I had no choice but to be a healthy Dad for them. I fight for them every day, even when they aren’t with me. Someday they are going to have to fight too. It is my job to be their Mickey, to prepare them for the day they are going to step into the ring. Now the fight for me involves my young marriage to a woman who is my Adrian. I refuse to let my past or my enemy win, and that means fighting for what is good and right. Even though my greatest fears were realized, they were also defeated the moment that stopped trying to control what wasn’t mine begin with. Freedom and power are my assets thanks to Who I serve, not who I am.
When I was a kid, I remember watching my mom crochet different things like blankets and pot holders. Although being a boy kept me from ever wanting to crochet anything on my own, I remember being amazed at how these different spools of yarn could turn into a big blanket or a coaster for the coffee table. The different colors of yarn formed a pattern that held the final product together.
During January, we’ve been in a sermon series about the patterns in our lives. This series has focused on how the patterns in our lives play out on a day-to-day basis. We’ve been studying how the growth and implementation of our faith determines the patterns that are displayed as a result.
This got me thinking about the patterns in my life, and in my own family. This is something that I’m very passionate about, as I believe the lives we live are determined by the patterns we were taught during our upbringing (both good and bad), and by the patterns we learn as we experience life itself (both good and bad). For example, a daughter grows up with a father who doesn’t know how to love her and never shows love to her. She grows up not understanding affection from a man, and then spends the rest of her life seeking this love from other men in an unhealthy way. A son grows up with a mother who criticizes him and never approves of what he does. He grows up feeling like he’s never good enough, then spends the rest of his life trying to gain approval from women in an unhealthy way. And so on. On the flip side, the positive things from a child’s upbringing have a postive impact on their lives.
With enough self-reflection, the patterns in our lives become evident. What about your marriage, divorce, family, or step-family? Can you see any patterns in those? Being sensitive to the patterns in a traditional family are important enough. Some of those patterns are born into a traditional family, there is a genetic pattern that cannot be broken. In a blended family, you’re trying to patch a family together without the genetic bond that is present in a traditional family. Identifying these patterns can make or break the well-being of your family. If you’re in the middle of a season that has you wondering if that “patch” is going to hold up, just give it some time. Patterns aren’t completed or determined overnight. As our pastor said recently, “you hear me preach for 45 minutes and expect to undo 45 years of bad patterns in your life? It doesn’t work that way.”
The challenge then becomes taking the time to look objectively at the patterns in your life. Do I have enough time or energy to change what I see? Is it worth the effort that it will take? It’s just like exercise. You have to start somewhere. There is no quick fix to fixing the negative patterns in your life or family. There’s no pill to take. There’s no 30 day diet that will give you that supermodel body. It will take work, and lots of hard work, to turn the tide. What’s the alternative? Pretending that everything is fine, and that you don’t need to examine the fine print. If that is your choice, not only do you miss out on the opportunity to change the negative patterns in your life, you also miss out on seeing the positive patterns in your life. Don’t let the fear of seeing things you don’t want to see keep you from seeing things that you need to see.
As you look at the patterns in your family, try to steer away from blanket statements, generalities, or decisions instead of taking each individual person into account. This doesn’t mean that one individual is more important than any other in the family. The pattern of the family is set by the individual patterns. To change the patterns in the family, it begins with transforming individual patterns. It would be much easier to make one decision or change of direction that would affect everyone the same. Because we’re created with individual temperaments, personalities and needs, it just isn’t that simple. One person’s positive or negative patterns can affect the entire family. Take a family of four with an alcoholic father who is abusive when he drinks. The patterns of the other three people in the family will be affected. Mom will either become codependent (where one person supports or enables another person’s addictions or irresponsibility) or she will reject Dad’s behavior, causing major conflict between the two of them. Whichever direction she goes will determine the patterns of the lives of the children. This is exactly why so many problems in families are generational, because these patterns show up very early in our lives. If they aren’t confronted and dealt with, you have teenagers and then young adults repeating the same mistakes. Then they carry those patterns into their relationships and marriages, producing children who will carry them as well. And on and on it goes. Dad’s alcoholism and how it manifests itself in the family has determined the pattern, and it has affected everyone. Mom can stand up and say “we’re going to change the pattern of this family” and try to stem the tide of how everything is affecting the children, but until Dad makes a choice to change, the pattern will always be there. This is why you have to look at each individual in the family when looking at the patterns of the whole family.
When Hope and I decided to get married, we had an expectation that it would take plenty of time for our family to be “crocheted” together. In a step/blended family situation, the tendency is to try to put it all together overnight. That puts so much pressure on the individuals in the family that no patterns have time to emerge. Everyone is simply reacting or trying to keep the peace. Our approach hasn’t changed from Day 1, and now we’re starting to experience the fruit from this patience. This doesn’t mean that we’re without conflict and that everything is smooth sailing. This doesn’t mean that we won’t have tough days ahead, especially as our three sons transform into those monsters known as teenagers. What it means is that instead of reacting only to situations and circumstances, you go further into what is happening. Is there a deeper pattern as to why this happened? Does that pattern need to be changed for the family to be healthy? You have to allow the tapestry to be woven slowly as everyone adjusts.
Take a look at your life and your family today and see if you can identify the patterns. Look for the good ones and the bad ones. Look for the ones that you want to change. It might be as simple as changing your diet & exercise plan, or choosing to stop watching or listening to things that are preventing growth in your life. Or it could be as big as making the choice to not be an addict anymore. If your marriage is going well, or going not-so-well, know that it isn’t circumstances that have caused that. It’s the patterns. Sew the good ones into the pattern of your life and tear out the bad ones. Then wait for the change to happen.
If you’re divorced with children like me, it is likely you have a separation or custody agreement that tells you when your kids will be with you and when they won’t. My copy of this legal paperwork also spells out what will happen with the children on Thanksgiving and Christmas. For me, these holidays rotate. On the years I have them for Thanksgiving, they are with their mother for Christmas. I had them for Thanksgiving this year, which means that we will spend this Christmas without the boys.
This is year #4 for my boys having “Two Christmases”. It is a constant reminder that our family isn’t like it used to be, and that we’ve had to make adjustments to how we celebrate the holidays. It is a constant reminder that we aren’t a “traditional” family. Because my parents divorced, I remember what it felt like to have a Christmas with my Dad, and a Christmas with my Mom. Even though this is becoming normal for our family, I must admit that on the Christmases that the boys aren’t with us, they are missed terribly. A traditional Christmas is all about the kids, from the myth of Santa, to stockings, to waking up early to unwrap presents, to playing with new toys. Nearly every Christmas movie you watch has some element of Christmas that focuses on children.
If you are spending Christmas without your children due to divorce, I’m here to tell you that if you let it, it will send you into a tailspin. You’ll start to feel emptiness, regret, and you’ll be miserable this Christmas. You’ll get angry at the “other” house or your ex-spouse, and you’ll be jealous that they get to spend Christmas with the kids. Not a great way to spend the Christmas holiday, is it?
I’m not an expert on the subject, but I want to encourage anyone who is going through this during the Christmas season. There have been some things that we’ve done in our home to adjust, and to make Christmas special even when it isn’t our year to have the children on December 25th. On the years we don’t have the boys for Christmas, we always have to plan our family Christmas for another time. Depending on where Christmas falls, we will usually do this the weekend before or after December 25th. We work hard to make sure that this day feels special to them, even though it may not be December 25th when we give our gifts. We build the anticipation. We make it exciting. This year, my mother- and father-in-law got into the act, and made a huge deal out of “our Christmas”, which happened to be on December 20th this year. That really made it feel like a special day to us and to the boys. It really is important to start some new traditions like this to make sure your children understand that you will continue make this time of year special for them. If you try hard enough, you’ll be able to identify ways to do this in your situation.
On the bigger picture, there are some other perspective adjustments that you can make to help you if you share your children with another home for Christmas. First of all, don’t get into a competition when it comes to buying gifts. Don’t go into debt to try to outdo their other parent. Trust me, the kids will pick up on that, and eventually could start to use it against you. Also, if the other home is able to buy more expensive gifts than you, the worst thing you can do is dump this on your children. Saying things like “well, it must be nice for them to afford that”, or “if I wasn’t paying them all this child support or alimony, I could buy you that too” is a sure-fire way to make your children feel guilty about the gifts they get from the other house. It is a sure-fire way to make sure that when they’re older and are able to choose who to come visit on Christmas, it will be with reluctance that they choose you. The bottom line is that no matter the circumstances, no matter how painful it is, you must get above it and be happy for your children for the Christmas that they have in the other house.
Another thing that may help is to remember that there are plenty of families this Christmas who would give anything just to hear their child’s voice this Christmas. You may have to wish your kids a Merry Christmas over the phone, but some parents aren’t able to wish their children Merry Christmas at all because they’ve passed away. Remembering this will help you cherish that phone call on Christmas day, and will help you maintain a perspective that keeps you thankful and grateful for what you do have, even if it isn’t “traditional” or “normal”.
Lastly, we don’t make it a secret on this blog about our belief in Jesus Christ. If you read the Bible, you see that Christmas itself is about a child who came to earth as a baby. That same baby grew into a man, and ultimately died on a cross, separated from His Father. Keeping this in mind reminds you that your Heavenly Father knows how you feel. He knows what it is like to let go of His child. If you have to let go of your children this Christmas, do it with the understanding that the One who created you had to let go too. Just as with Jesus and His Father, the hope of Christmas is wrapped in reconciliation. Keep that hope alive this Christmas for your children, no matter the situation.
As I sit here typing this, they’ve just wheeled my wife Hope back for her hysterectomy. The healing from years of struggling with infertility begins for her. Her post from several weeks ago, The M Word, chronicled this journey. She has been hesitant to share her story at times, and understandably so. If there is anything I’ve learned since we’ve been together, women who struggle with infertility deal with a deep sense of hurt and loss. Sometimes it is painful to uncover that, like when you go to the women’s clinic and you’re surrounded by baby and parenting magazines. When Hope and I began discussing marriage several years ago, I told her that I wanted to be there for her to walk through the pain that she still experienced. I had no clue what that meant then, but I now realize that the past six weeks have been that time.
If anyone can have a favorite letter of the alphabet, “D” is my favorite. Lot’s of important things in my life have happened that start with D. David is my first name, and David is my favorite person from the Bible. D is the first letter of divorce, and this seemingly negative word has shaped and changed my life. D is the first letter of my job description and the most honorable title I’ve ever held: DAD. God has blessed me with the opportunity to raise three sons, something that changed the course of my life. I don’t take the responsibility lightly, understanding that God has chosen me to be the one to launch them into manhood.
When Hope and I were dating, we waited three months before we introduced her to my boys. We didn’t take this lightly. Deep down, I wanted to get to know her character to see if I wanted her around my sons. I never take off the “Dad Hat”, so I knew that the woman I chose to have in my life would be responsible for shaping the lives of my sons. I’ll never forget the day that she met my boys. That was the day I knew I wanted her to be my wife. She was a natural with each of them, and over the next several months their response to her confirmed that she was perfectly capable of raising children. Her body didn’t work properly to give her children of her own, yet her motherly instincts are evident in all that she does.
So, not only was I chosen to be a Dad, God also chose me to be Hope’s husband. Meaning that her struggles become my struggles. Meaning that her pain becomes my pain. How do you find the place inside yourself to both be a Dad, and support the one you love who wasn’t able to have children? How do you identify with someone who desperately wanted children but couldn’t have them, and know that you were chosen to be a Dad? These questions have swirled around in my head many times. For me, I’ve discovered the answer to these questions. Another D word: DEVOTION. It is impossible for me to identify with the struggle of infertility. It is impossible for me to put myself in the shoes of someone who desperately wanted children but couldn’t have them. It IS possible for me to be devoted to her.
Being devoted means being committed, it doesn’t mean I have to come up with all of the answers. It isn’t my job to be the “solutionist”, it is my job to be her companion. Sometimes all it takes is just being there.
Why would I take my pain public? I am not the only one to face infertility. Others live with the hurt I have, and much much worse. You may read this and wonder how or why I’d say the things I say. I’m positive if you were given this same set of circumstances, you’d be a superstar and rock this job like a champ! Me, I’m like the fat kid in gym class that is horribly uncomfortable in the spandex shorts and undersized tee! It’s gonna just kind of hang out there, y’all.
So many ways to make a family in this day and time. With technology and science, there are so many ways we can blend under one roof. Let’s not forget those who chose to be defined as a family without children. I received a reaction to my statement that Dave’s boys “are not mine” in my previous post. I will expand more on that point in a later post, but for now, know that there is a healthy understanding and respect for the title “Mom”. In their life, that position is filled.
On Friday, October 10th, my doctor sat across from me and explained that due to endometriosis I need to have a hysterectomy to address the horrible pain that is plaguing me. Since I couldn’t have children anyway, to him, it made sense to move this direction. This news sent me into a tailspin for days. I couldn’t think, sleep, eat or process a rational thought without applying extreme effort. I have exactly two weeks left to process the loss of my reproductive system. There is part of me that has been begging for this day for decades. Then, there is the woman deep down inside that is grieving terribly. You see, I wanted to have children.
I’d like to think that this means there’s a countdown to the sadness and when I emerge from that hospital on December 3rd that I will have left behind all of the pain. Gone will be the days of slipping into a fantasy about what my own child would have looked like, been named, what their voice would sound like and what they would want to be when they grew up. Left behind would be the dream of them running to me with a skinned knee and being the first person to celebrate moments of discovery with. I romanticize the idea of motherhood alright. In my heart, it is sacred. In my intellect and experience, I know better. I’ve watched the reality from a distance and laughed at the comedy of my fantasy. They talk back, ruin good furniture, change your plans and sometimes end up blaming you for all the things that go wrong in their life. Inevitably, that would’ve been my kid. The Alanis Morrisette song “Ironic” comes to mind when I think about the reality of how my whole Mommy journey would’ve gone.
The fact is that I am more than my body says I am. I have more than I will ever need. I have three little boys to impact with my love. I can be an example to young women in my sphere of influence, can speak into their destinies, provide counsel, guidance and become a “mother” to many. This is truth. But there are days, like today, when the reminder of that tiny package with my DNA on it will not be handed to me. That brings me back to the dark of the soul. The ache that hurts into my bones. Its weight can feel crushing and leave me physically spent.
Supernatural things happen in this kind of grief. It is only here, in hurt like today, that I can be reminded of what is needed to get me off of the floor. It is only by the strength of God that I can walk through a day like this knowing it is just a day and that the hurt will pass and life will move forward and I will be stronger tomorrow. I can allow myself these moments to purge the pain and then exhale, straighten once again and continue the march.
What awaits me? How long will it take to heal? Will I change? Well, I guess that remains to be seen. For now, I’ll take each moment as it comes. While I wait, I worship. Regardless of my pain, regardless of my preference, I worship.
Hope and I decided to start this blog in the middle of September. We set up the site, started a Twitter account for our blog, and were all set to get started. The following week, an opportunity came up for Hope that had an impact on her first post, and will have an impact on our family for a long time. She mentioned it here, and I want to use it as an example of what I believe the secret is to making a remarriage and a blended family work. That secret is simply this: be sold out.
We’ve now been married for a year and a half. It seems like time has gone into warp speed, but I can look back and see where we’ve made little decisions and big decisions that have had a positive impact on where our marriage and family is headed. Decisions like taking the time each week to sit around the table as a family and just talk. All five of us. Decisions like getting involved in a church after we moved to a new area. When Hope made the decision to go to the Stepmom Conference, it made an impact both on me and the children. That kind of decision sends a message: “I want to learn how to do this right, whatever it takes.” Making decisions like that ensures that there is positive momentum, which is important when negative forces come into play, and we all know that they do.
Being sold out to your spouse and family isn’t some new idea. This doesn’t only work for remarriages. We know that is how you make a first marriage work too. There are different dynamics in a step or blended family, but the principles are still the same. That being said, they are more difficult to implement in a remarriage because of loyalties to the children, the relationship with the “exes”, and all of the complications/drama that come from divorce. Hope and I have learned that we have to make each other the priority first, be sold out to each other, and that our relationship sets the tone for the entire family. If the children see any disharmony or disunity between her and I, the consequences of that would be immediate and damaging. That doesn’t mean that you have to agree all of the time, it means that when you disagree, you do it in a discussion that takes place without the children around. You keep the emotions out of it, you let the dust settle. Being sold out to each other and to your family means putting your desire to be right aside, making a commitment to come together to discuss the situation.
My mom passed away two weeks ago. Because of our custody arrangement, and the circumstances surrounding her death, Hope ended up being the first from our home to have any personal contact with the boys after her death. I was four hours away, and had been gone for nearly a week while my mom was on life support. Hope became the one responsible for picking the boys up after school and riding four hours with them as they dealt with their grandmother’s death. This is a tough situation for a step-mother to be placed in, yet she handled it perfectly. A lesser woman would have backed down, would’ve said “you need to drive home to get them, I can’t handle this.” Never once did I sense any fear from her, she remained sold out to the boys and to our family.
Being sold out to the family means being placed in difficult circumstances and handling it with grace. It means putting the fear aside and conquering whatever the situation is without letting your feelings get in the way. If you are struggling with your remarriage or your blended family because you operate in protective mode, it’s time to let your guard down. The only way to make it work is to make yourself vulnerable to your spouse, your children, and your step-children. When you’ve been divorced, this is tough because you’ve already been burned. Don’t let the scars from the past keep you from looking forward and seeing what is in store. Be sold out completely to making it work, and that will go a long way toward making sure that this time around you get it right.
Family 2.0 