It was my first day in my new role as insta-mom: the morning after our wedding.
We checked out of the hotel, where the night before we had celebrated with family and friends. Packing ourselves and all the wedding gifts into the car, we started off on our drive to the airport.
My stepkids, then ages 12 and 9, rode with us. Rifling through our wedding gifts in the backseat of the car, my new stepdaughter announced, “Oh, we got a camera!”
That innocent observation caught me off guard and taunted me with what it implied:
We got a camera?
But my new husband didn’t flinch. No side-ways glance or roll of the eyes. No explanation or fatherly correction, such as, “Kids, this camera was a wedding gift for Heidi and me.”
Not any of that. His reply was simple, “Yeah! Isn’t it nice?”
New Role, New Meanings
With my stepdaughter’s simple words, my whole life took on a new meaning.
I wasn’t naïve. When I met my husband, I was well aware that he had two children. I understood that marrying him would mean sharing our time together, sharing our space and our stuff. I was fully on board and ready to embrace my stepmom role.
But that was before the wedding. That was when I was still geographically separated from them by a couple of states, when I still had things on my terms.
Now we were married. We both had rings on our fingers and the wedding documents had been signed. The line in the sand that had neatly separated my life from their life was disappearing.
I could see that going from a hypothetical stepmom to a literal stepmom was going to be a big adjustment.
The Lure of Comparison
Growing up, what girl thinks she will the a man’s second wife? Or third wife? Or be a divorced or widowed wife, herself?
Then that girl grows up and gets married to a man with children. She is over-the-moon happy on the one hand. And yet, she feels a little lost in her role.
Does she ever think she will someday be dealing with things like:
- Divided loyalties between bio parents
- Custody agreements (and battles)
- Pick ups and drop offs
- Parent alienation
- Legal fees and court hearings
- Awkward home transitions
- Child support payments
- Splitting up time over the holidays and dealing with travel arrangements
- And don’t forget tricky relationships with the in-laws if they are slow to accept a new wife…
Whew.
Her eye catches a glimpse of a young couple with a toddler and a baby and it causes her mind to wander. She thinks, “Just a mom and dad and their kids? Not a couple of older kids or an ex-wife in the picture?”
She finds herself daydreaming what it would feel like if her husband just had her and possibly their ours kids to be responsible for. How different it would look if her husband had just been hers from the beginning. No inherited drama from the past. One wife, one story.
But that is not her reality. Not mine. And possibly not yours, either.
Facing Reality
My reality is that I knew I would be sharing my life with a man who was sharing his life with his children. The truth is, my stepkids mean the world to me and I have always wanted a relationship with them. Does it complicate things to have stepchildren? Yes. But I wanted to marry him and take on the challenge, anyway.
That doesn’t mean that blended family life comes easily or naturally.
When my stepdaughter made the comment about the camera, it really wasn’t about the camera or any of the other wedding gifts. Nor was it about me clinging tightly to my stuff or not wanting to share.
It was about the blending of the two sides, which meant figuring out how to expand my emotional boundaries as I allowed others in.
That first day of our marriage had shown to me that I had a lot of learning to do. I had to adapt to sharing my space, my time, my stuff and my husband with two small people who still needed their Daddy.
The question was how to do that without growing resentful and bitter.
Battling Invasive Thoughts: Dwell or Dismiss
Thoughts of all kinds fill our minds all the time: Thoughts that cause our mind to wander over to the land of comparisons and “what ifs.”
It’s what we do with those thoughts that matters. When thoughts of comparison or regret threaten to overtake our minds, we have a choice to make. We can:
Dwell on them and entertain what they offer,
OR
Dismiss them as irrelevant and unproductive.
“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to God.”
2 Corinthians 10:5
Comparison: A Trap of the Enemy.
Thoughts of comparison with the illusion of happiness tend to creep in unexpectedly. They lure us with illusions of sweet escape.
Comparison plants the idea in our minds that we deserve better: We deserve less stress, less anxiety, less frustration, less work and less financial burden.
But that kind of thinking comes with a cost. The cost is dissatisfaction and bitterness. If I fixate on what I don’t have, that leads me to fail to see all the incredible blessings that come from my unique calling as a stepmom.
The truth is, I didn’t marry just a man: I married a family. My reality belongs to me alone. It isn’t open for comparisons.
The reality is that my family will always look a little different than a lot of my friends’ families. And, that’s okay.
Choosing Gratitude
When I change my mindset to one of gratitude, I choose to recognize that I was chosen by God to bless and invest in my family.
I choose to recognize that He has given me the opportunity to live more Christlike as I sacrifice for this family: the family God has called me to serve and love.
What happens when we choose gratitude?
God gives us a sense of purpose. He brings understanding to the madness. He destroys the lie that entices us to buy into the false sense of security of a different life. And He reminds me just how much I have learned and been blessed by my family.
Crazy as it sounds, when our minds obey, our hearts will follow.
Head First, Heart Second
Trusting God to take our thoughts captive will never be in vain. God has asked us to surrender our thoughts, insecurities and our desires so that He can reveal joy, contentment and peace to our individual situations.
Peace Through Surrender
There was no half-way commitment in my mind when I said “I do” to my husband. When I made the choice to pursue marriage, I was wholly prepared to invest my time, resources and heart into raising my stepkids. And all the stuff that goes with it.
But as invasive thoughts have threatened to crowd my mind and taunt me with what they offer over the years, I have had a choice to dwell or dismiss.
Making the choice to dismiss thoughts of comparison or even resentment has brought me greater peace on my journey, knowing that I am right where God wants me to be. With that assurance, comparisons don’t stand a chance!
The peace that comes from a life of obedience through surrender and gratitude far outweighs any illusion that can crowd our minds giving us a temporary escape. What will you choose today?
