My life totally changed on August 9, 2015. That Sunday afternoon, I made my vows to love and to cherish my best friend, Brandon, from that day forward—through sickness and health, richer or poor, heart & soul, until death do us part. On that day, I also made a vow with Brandon's son, my now stepson, to be there for him and to love and care for him as my own son.
Rewind about four years earlier—Brandon and I met and became good friends through our small group. After ignoring our interest in each other for two years (and all the comments and encouragement from our friends), we finally decided to give it a shot and started dating, but that decision also included pursuing a relationship with his son.
My stepson and I hit it off from the start. We shared a love for art and being outside. I could make him laugh and he was always excited when I came over. I'll never forget a conversation we had one evening. We were building a fort in his room and I said, "Hey, I have a secret to tell you." He leaned in and I said, "I love your dad and . . . I love you!" The bashful, yet excited smile on his face meant the world to me when he quietly whispered, "I love you, too."
When I chose to marry Brandon, I also chose to adopt his son as my own son.
Nowadays our hobbies include rocket launching, Legos, board games and, believe it or not, cooking together, but there's another conversation that is forever seared in my memory. We were checking in for an appointment and the receptionist said, "How nice of your mom to drive you around today!" And without skipping a beat, he said, "She's just my stepmom." The receptionist, taken back, responded by saying, "Well, stepmoms are moms too." He replied, "No, I don't think so."
I was crushed. I felt second best, subpar, and . . . jealous.
Since then, this comment has been made multiple times, each bringing a flood of emotions and questions. Does he not see me as a mom figure in his life? Why does he feel the need to clarify that to everyone? What do people think of me when they find this out? Does he not love me the way I love him?
I wanted to be on the same playing field as his birth mom, with as much, if not more influence. It is a constant battle to remind myself that my stepson does love me, but at the same time he is navigating through the differences between having a mom and a stepmom and obviously his connection with his biological mom is going to be different than my connection with him.
The hardest part for me was that I chose Brandon's son and adopted him as my own, but he doesn't always choose me.
As I've been processing, learning, and growing over the last several months, I thought about my relationship with God and how he must feel when I, or any of his children, blow him off or make him less of a priority. We know from God's Word that:
1) He loves us.
See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! (1 John 3:1)
2) He has chosen us and has adopted us into his family.
God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. (Ephesians 1:5)
3) He is jealous for our love. God desires for us to put him first in our lives, but we don't always choose him.
So be careful not to break the covenant the Lord your God has made with you. Do not make idols of any shape or form, for the Lord your God has forbidden this. The Lord your God is a devouring fire; he is a jealous God. (Deuteronomy 4:23-24)
Now I know this picture of God's relationship with us compared to my relationship with my stepson isn't perfect. But through this experience, God gave me a little taste of what it's like to be in his shoes; to experience how much he loves us and how it feels when we turn from him and replace him with day-to-day distractions and fleeting pleasures. But even in my wandering, on days when I put my relationship with God off and don't choose him, God is still there pursing and loving me. And on days when my stepson doesn't choose me, I will still be there, pursuing and loving him—even if I am just his stepmom.
No matter who you are today or what you are going through, we have a Father in heaven who loves us, has chosen us, and adopts up into his family. Choose Him today.
