In This Issue: 1. Cut Out to be a Stepmom?
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A reader wrote to me recently, troubled over her family situation. She wondered if maybe she wasn't "cut out" to be a stepmom. I'm sure she wasn't. Neither was I and neither were you. But that's okay. Just because none of us is "cut out" for this role doesn't mean we can't make it something good anyway.
I like to sew, sometimes without a pattern, and often the final product looks nothing like what I imagined. I've thrown away a lot of efforts, but sometimes, I can work with what I have, make a few adjustments, and scrap what I don't need. Then I have something worth saving. The same lessons apply to our stepmom role. Work with what you have. We usually don't enter our adulthood looking for kids to stepparent. Lord knows they don't come looking for us. We usually don't seek the most dysfunctional family we can find and beg to enter it. Yet, here we are. The choices are to walk away or work with the fabric before us. Your stepkids are a part of your life now. You can build relationships with them if they are willing participants, or if that's not possible, you can build a life with their dad alone. The other people in your life will make their own choices. And while you can't force them to do your bidding, you can create a life of happiness despite their interference. That doesn't mean pretending they don't exist or waiting impatiently for them to change to suit you. It means looking at all the material in front of you and making something from the best parts. If your stepdaughter won't talk to you, you can work within her silence. You can talk to her. You can wite letters. You can stake your claim to peace and happiness despite her behavior. Once you accept her choices, you give yourself permission to make some tough ones of your own. You begin to "cut out" the role to fit yourself. Make a few adjustments. A crooked seam here. A misplaced stitch there. I often do more re-sewing than sewing. It might take me several trials and lots of errors before I finally get the piece right. Adjustments are a given in sewing and in stepfamilies. The biggest adjustment is often one of releasing control. How well you make that adjustment will have a huge bearing on your happiness and success as a stepmom. It's often the hardest thing to do -- to quietly let others make decisions you don't agree with. And in steplife, others do that a lot. You can make yourself crazy about it, or you can adjust to the boundaries of your role and learn to let go of what you can't control. Release your hold on what others do and shift to your own responsibilities. More adjustments involve adapting to lost privacy and interrupted plans, uncomfortable encounters with former spouses and family obligations you didn't create. Your adjustments will come in your attention to all these things and thousands like them -- you can either change the situation or change your response. Look first at where you can adjust your behavior to make things easier for you. What simple steps can you take to insulate yourself from the aggravation? Like a thimble protecting a tender finger from the sharp needle, adjust your life where you can and see how much easier the stepping becomes Scrap what you don't need. I finally wised up and threw out the old thread that kept binding up my machine. We often hold on to hurts and disappointments that threaten to stop the workings of our family altogether. It's hard to forgive the big blows steplife guarantees, but it's harder to go on with the pain encased in your heart. Throwing away a spool of thread is easy, and some of your hurts may go that quickly. But many will take a while. That's okay, when you understand you don't need to hold on to them and you're making even small steps toward the trash can. Being able to scrap the mistakes, the bad days and all the other messes your steplife has made will give you plenty of room, energy and power to start again. There's always something new to create.
I told my husband the other day that I could do without most everything except my computer and my sewing machine. They help define who I am, even though both require tons of work and my undivided attention. Kinda like my family ;-) I'm sure you can relate. Happy sewing, uh, stepping!
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(more excerpts here).
Perhaps of all a stepmoms prays for, the greatest request is for peace. A troubled family can threaten even the most centered stepmom's feeling of peace, and a cry for the Lord's care is a daily practice. And He always response because "the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus" {Philippians 4:7 NKJ}. We start to find the peace we need when we recall our lives before stepmotherhood, before we had to adapt to a changing world we can never control. When we look back to who we were before, we see the child of God, untouched by the challenges of raising someone else's children. And we reclaim her, that child God held closely, and we let Him do it again. We return to Him and start there, trusting Him for the peace only He can give in *any* kind of life. We trust that He will show us how to have the peaceful life we need, and in that trust, we learn something very important. Even if we get everyone to do what we want, if we turn our stepkids into angels and their mom into a saint, it won't bring the real peace we crave unless *our* center is in God. Peace isn't about everyone doing the right things, but about us going right to God with the things just as they are. Anyone can be peaceful if nothing is wrong. We need to be at peace in the midst of a great many things that may be wrong.
Only the Lord can save our spirit so that we can deal with a family where no angels reside. Only He enables us to claim a steady faith that gets us through every crisis still in tact. It is the peace we must have within *ourselves* that stems from that centering on God. It's a promise: You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You {Isaiah 26:3 NKJ}. And we can have that peace, regardless of whatever anyone else is doing, despite others' choices and actions. Our peace is not about the absence of error in our lives, but the presence of God in our lives. When we know that we've done our best, that we've responded with integrity and empathy, that we've met others with fairness and respect, then we have the lasting peace that comes from within. Strangely enough, the trials of steplife will inspire us to that behavior, because we recognize a better life when we see it. And the better life is one of *peace within ourselves* first, granted and guarded by God Almighty. My prayer for you: I ask the Lord to watch over you and keep you close, to bring you joy and grant you an everlasting peace, to comfort you and make you strong. I thank Him for all the blessings He will pour upon you, for all the ways He will fill your heart with joy, for all the steps He will make right beside you. May you find inspiration and direction in His words and His presence. May you find abundant happiness and peace in all you do, dear Stepmom. Amen. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Stepparenting Journey is published the 10th of each month. If you've received this issue as a gift, you can subscribe with a blank email here and receive free The Stepparent's Guide to Wise Choices. And please, share our newsletter with your friends! I’d hate to see you leave our group, but if you must, you can send a blank email here. 'Til next month . . . .
Warmly,
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