But I'm ONLY The Stepmom!Pavyzdys

Peace, Love. and Honor

One of the things I enjoy about my unique step-parenting assignment is that I get the honor of mentoring women all over the world. Women that are in different seasons of marriage, co-parenting, and step-parenting.  One of the misconceptions of step-parenting is that you will begin to love the child simply because you love your husband. What I have found is that it takes time and intentionality to love a child as your own, but even then, you will love them uniquely. Love is a result of relationships and honor. 

That said, often when coming into the picture in a parental role, we parent as we were parented and we expect the child to operate under our parental guidelines. When this doesn’t happen and our spouse seems uncaring or unsupportive, we tend to internally question their seeming lack of support for our rules and expectations. This lack of communication inevitably leads to us questioning the marriage.

This can be heartbreaking and devastating to the home and marriage. 

One of my favorite parenting scriptures is Isaiah 54:13. This scripture depicts the very way we should parent. Let me first tell you what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say, “My children will be taught what I was taught.” Nor does it say, “My children will be taught by my spouse only.”

It says, “My children will be taught by the Lord, and great will be their peace.” That means a consequence of being taught by the Lord is peace. So if we believe the scriptures to be true, we then have to ask, “Who is doing the teaching if I'm not experiencing peace?”

Yes, we can be followers of Jesus and still not be allowing the Lord to teach us and teach our stepchildren. Going to church teaches them some of the ways of the Lord, but it’s not them being taught by the Lord. They are taught by the Lord through a personal relationship with God and that relationship is cultivated with our help.  

Our marriages and home will be shaped by how we honor the words that God has spoken. His Word is our best teacher and from it, our stepchildren see how to be taught by it as well. God will give us direction on how to parent our easy and our challenging stepchildren and from that, the love in our home will begin to flourish naturally. Our home doesn't have to suffer because we don't have to parent with our own understanding. We can invite God into the process. 

So today I want to encourage you to seek God regarding how He wants you to step-parent and invite your spouse into the process. Once you do this, peace, love and honor will be present.  

This devotional was provided by Rachel Scott. To get more helpful resources like this visit Better Than Blended.