Take a few moments to ponder these questions:
How deep is the love in your home?
Does a spirit of blessing others exist in your home?
Does compassion for others flow freely?
Do you love your stepchildren as your own?

To help you answer these questions truthfully and accurately, let us look at some “scenes” that exemplify love.

Scene
1: Imagine a young couple who enjoys every moment of time they spend
together. On a Saturday afternoon they decide to go on a picnic by a
nearby lake. A special lunch is packed, and all that really matters
that day is that they are together. Sitting on a blanket next to the
lake, they stare into each other’s eyes, hold hands, share their hearts
with each other and begin to plan their lives together. Money and stuff
is not even an issue.

Scene 2: Next, imagine a stepfather
coming home from an out-of-town business trip and as he pulls into the
driveway to unload his car, he finds the driveway blocked by his
stepdaughter’s car. His mood momentarily goes “south”, but later that
day he washes his stepdaughter’s car before she gets home.

Scene
3: A family has two children, Jane, a 12-year-old daughter, and Josh, a
5-year-old son. The family learns that Jane has leukemia. The doctor
tells the parents that Jane needs a blood transfusion from a perfectly
matched donor, and their son Josh may be a good candidate. Josh is
tested and found to be a perfect match. The father goes into Josh’s
bedroom that night and asks him if he would give Jane a blood
transfusion so she could live. Josh asks if he can think about it and
let them know in the morning.
At breakfast the next morning, Josh
said he would give her his blood. Later that day they go to the
hospital and Josh & Jane are hooked up for a direct blood
transfusion. After about 10 minutes, Josh’s father goes over to Josh
and asks him how he is doing. Josh said that he was all right, and then
asked, “when will I start to die?”

Scene 4: Consider a man who
was sent by God to demonstrate the immeasurable love that God has for
mankind. His death was to be the way for people to obtain eternal life,
as well as to obtain more abundant life on earth. He spent his entire
life serving others. As a result, he never married and he did not have
a home of his own. His goal in life was to meet, teach, and serve as
many people as possible during his lifetime.
Yet his display of love was rejected by most. He was falsely accused of doing wrong and was sentenced to death.
As
planned by God, this man was nailed to a cross, and as his life blood
drained out of him, he cried out to God, “Father, forgive them, for
they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23: 34) He even forgave
those who were in the process of killing him.

Each of these
scenes displays a few of the many facets and depths of love. Let’s
parallel these scenes to the great love that God has for us.
As in
scene 1, God desires an intimate relationship with you. He wants you to
stare into His eyes, hold His spiritual hand, read His eternal Word,
share your heart with Him and to learn of the awesome plan He has for
your life.
Jeremiah 29: 11 says, “For I know the plans I have for
you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future.”

As in scene 2, God will
get upset with some things that we do, but He always forgives us
because of the deep love He has for us.
Psalm 30: 5 reads, “For His anger lasts only a moment, but His favor lasts a lifetime.”

As
in scene 3, God has already given us His very best! He sent His Son
Jesus to be our Savior, Lord and friend. As Josh did, Jesus held
nothing back. He laid down His life for us so we could obtain eternal
life with God Our Father. As a result, we are able to become Children
of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ.
John 3: 16 says, “For
God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[1] that
whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

As
in scene 4, even today God desires to touch our lives in many ways. Our
heavenly Father is such a good God. He desires the best for us. Our
greatest dream is God’s smallest thought for us. In Isaiah, the prophet
spoke of the reason Jesus was to come.
Isaiah 61: 1-3 reads, “The
Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon Me, because the Lord has anoint Me
to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release for the
prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of
vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those
who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a
garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

In Ephesians
Chapter 5, there is instruction to the husband and wife that compares
the love in a marriage & family with the love that Jesus Christ has
for the church.
We have responsibility toward our spouse and all
children in our home. That responsibility can be summed up as LIVING,
INVOLVING, SHARING, CARING, DREAMING AND SERVING TOGETHER.
God ordained the family to be a place of love and close, intimate relationship.
There needs to be intimacy.
There needs to be respect for each other and the children.
There needs to be commitment to each other and the children.
There needs to be common dreams and goals.
There needs to be a good quantity and quality of family time.
Family members need to be living life together.
Family members need to be serving others outside your home.

Take the lead! Your daily life decisions will always influence those around you.
Let God’s love for you and your family run deep in your heart!
Pursue new levels of relationship in your home!
Your spouse and children will follow your lead!

So, for me, this leads me straight to my bible, to 2 Corinthian 13, here I read what love is to be…

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on other,
Isn't always ‘me first,'
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
(The Message version)

I believe we choose to love, and with our step children it is sometimes
a much harder choice. My choice is to love, with an honesty that says I
choose to love to the best of my ability, there will be times when I do
not like the choices my step children make, but I still choose to love.

What this means to me…

·    I choose to never give up on them, and I can assure
you there have been times when that would have certainly been the
easiest choice for my emotions.

·    I choose to care for them more than I do myself, to put their needs before my own.

·    I choose not to force myself onto them, to give them the space they need.

·    I choose to try and not fly off the handle, this is
probably the hardest one and the one I have had to go and apologize for
the most.

·    I choose not to keep score of the times they have hurt me, my husband or my own children.

·    I choose to be happy when the truth is told, even when I don't want to hear it.

·    I choose to put up with a lot of things, this does
not mean being a door mat, but letting some thing slide depending on
how these things may effect others.

·    I choose to trust God…this is the only thing that keeps me getting up some mornings.

·    I choose to look for and remember the best in these
children, it is so easy to remember the bad things, I want to focus on
the good.

·    I choose to not look back, but to keep going to the
end, what ever happens, things change all the time and although it may
take years for some things, if we never give up we will see the end.

Now you may read this and think…oh yeah she must have great step kids,
or doesn't see them much. My husband and I have seven children between
us; his…twin 17yr old girls, 11year old boy; mine…two boys 10 & 12
yrs old; ours…two more boys 3 & 4 yrs old. We have been married for
5 years. Up until two months ago all seven children lives with us full
time for nearly two years, in the past 6 months we have been battling
in Family Court, and though the result was what we were going for,
along the way we lost relationship with both the girls, to the point of
them moving out just a couple of months before finishing their final
year of high school.

Through all of this, times have been very difficult and I have not felt
like loving my step children, but I also know that what I want for them
has never changed, and the relationship that I want to have with them
has never changed. I have been hurt and accused of some terrible
things, but I have chosen to move on past that, even if it means
blocking these incidents out of my mind and only choosing to remember
the great times we have all had together and individually.

So for me, I have no choice but to love my step children, I can't see
any other way to have relationship with them than to do my best to love
them. There have been, and are sure to be many more times, when I have
not liked what they are doing, but this has nothing to do with love.
Love is a choice, not a feeling, if we only follow our feelings then we
are going to changing all the time how we are toward these children and
that is certainly not what I want for my step kids, they have been
through enough all ready.

I must admit this is also very hard for me to do at times, I have had
times when I have not wanted to see these children, or allow them in my
house, the pain has just been too great, but as I have calmed down and
worked through my feelings I have realized that I still want a good
relationship with these kids and want the best for them in their lives.
So I have come to realize that although I certainly have not liked them
very much at times I still do love them in a special way.

One other thing I feel to say though is, I don't think we can ever
truly love them in the same way that we love our own children, that
love is very different. It is not a choice we make, it is something
that just comes naturally. I have also found that in my relationship
with my step children there is no room for error in judgment, with my
own kids if I make a mistake with something and apologize there is
grace and forgiveness along with forgetfulness, but with the step kids
I may apologize but they never really seem to forgive or forget. To
this I must add that I know I have much less tolerance for my step kids
behavior that I do for my own kids, I regularly have to stop and check
my attitude and why I am thinking or reacting to something they say or
do in a much more negative way than I do for my own kids.

These relationships are never easy and as the children grow they
change, small children accept us much more easily, but then as they get
older begin to question more, but then as they become adults with
children of their own again things change as they see things in a very
different light. So much emphasis is place on the STEP part of the
relationship, but when it comes down to it there are a lot of kids in
their biological families who go through and treat their bio parents in
much the same way step kids do their step parents.

Bottom line, these kids need us to love them unconditionally so that
they in turn can learn to love unconditionally too, they have such pain
and heartache that they did nothing to deserve, but love will see them
through. One thing I try to always remember is that hurting people hurt
people, so they need us even more than anyone else.

Ann Ratcliffe

Children welcome, a family
night

One evening, shortly after Richard and I married, he
settled into his lounge chair to read – oblivious to my 14-year-old
daughter's piercing scowl and clenched fist as she stomped into the
bedroom. But he heard her words. Melanie flung her body face down onto
my bed, muttering, "It's not fair, Mother! Richard is sitting where my
dad is supposed to be. I'll never accept him – and don't expect me to
either."

read more http://www.christianwomentoday.com/parenting/stepfather.html

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One of my first introductions to a blended
family was The Brady Bunch. Every Friday night, Americans tuned in to
watch Mike and Carol Brady calmly solve the dilemmas of their combined
six kids – and all in less than thirty minutes.

Some say the
Bradys didn't have it as rough as most blended families, but, hey, what
about the time Jan had to cope with the trauma of wearing glasses? Or
when Greg faced the gut-wrenching decision of voting for someone other
than his stepsister to be captain of the cheerleading squad? Boy, those
were tough times. If not for the Solomon-like wisdom of Alice, the
housekeeper, the Bradys could have easily ended up as just another
divorce statistic.
read more…
http://www.flc.org/hfl/parenting/ptg-136.htm

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I dont even see what you see!! And, you dont
see what I see either!! The truth is: no one understands me and I dont
understand anyone else. Sound disappointing? Maybe at first, but once I
make the transition and embrace this belief; I quit spending so much
energy trying to make something happen in my marriage and stepfamily
that may never come to pass.

The closest I can get to
understanding and connecting with the people in my life is by learning
the skills it takes to do that. The closest I can get to having anyone
understand me is by skillfully getting in touch with me, organizing my
content and delivering it in a clear way. Does this come naturally? Not
in my experience of being me and working with others. Can it be
learned? Absolutely! Can it change your life and relationships if you
do? You got it!

Communication skills are like learning to play
an instrument, a sport, use technology, etc. There is always a learning
curve. Because of our human (or sin) nature, our intuitive response to
people and situations is usually exactly wrong.

Read the Full Article
http://www.successfulstepfamilies.com/view.php/id/54

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Read the full article…

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         Yes, it would.  But sometimes people aren't nice. 

         Dealing
with a difficult ex-spouse can be very discouraging and
defeating.  Yet, we are called to continue trying to pursue good,
to "turn the other cheek", and "walk the extra mile."  Hopefully
the following tips can aid you in your efforts to cope—because it's all about the children.

Read full article…

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Read full article…

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