A Different Kind of Mother: Encouragement for StepmomsSample

Firsts Are Important But They Aren’t Everything

“Are you so excited to watch your husband become a father?” I looked awkwardly in the direction of the ground, the same way I always did after questions like these. I would always find myself at a loss for words. I knew I wouldn’t be a spectator to the event in question. Another woman gave him that title thirteen years ago.

I wouldn’t be the woman who made him a dad, nor would I share any of those events for the first time with him—choosing a name, taking a baby home from the hospital, hearing the first word, seeing the first steps. Was it normal to feel jealous, envious, hurt, and saddened that I was not first? I think in many ways it is a natural response.

Yet the Bible tells us that “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Nothing. And while this is true, the Bible also tells us the spectrum of the Christian life encompasses more than what happens “under the sun.” We are to do everything to the Glory of God and delight in this Mission for our lives, though countless others have done it before.

I am not the first woman assigned to motherhood, and yet my task, the holiest of ministries I will experience on this Earth, is as full and important as it was for the first mother, Eve. So it is with children; firsts are important, but they aren’t everything.

My assignment for my family at this time is unique, my calling indescribably particular. God doesn’t care if many others have done it before me. He has positioned me here, for this season and for His Glory. He’s done that for everyone who earnestly calls on His Name.

Application: How is your assignment as a stepmother unique and something only you were called to do? Identify and make a list today of all you uniquely bring to your stepchild’s life—not in comparison to anyone else, but in addition to.