Accept The Circumstances

“‘For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’” (Luke 15:24, ESV)

Kelly poured her heart out to me. She told me how she took care of her stepdaughter throughout her childhood and how close they were. “And now that she’s a teenager,” Kelly said, “she doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

Blended stepfamilies are full of unexpected surprises like this one. Just when we think everything is going well, we come across a concealed land mine, and everything blows up in our faces.

That’s when we make the mistake of looking for where to place the blame. Husbands and wives in blended families often bear a lot of self-inflicted guilt, whether they truly deserve it or not. So when something like this happens, the affected person often starts looking inward to fix it.

Kelly didn’t do anything wrong in this situation. But even if she had, her stepdaughter would have to choose whether to accept Kelly (imperfections and all) or not.

When a child chooses to reject a stepparent, there’s little a stepparent can do to change the situation. Like I mentioned in day one of this study, the only one who can change a heart is God. So we can certainly pray, but the rest is beyond our control.

Do you remember Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son? The son decided to take his inheritance and leave his father. He ran off to a faraway country and spent all the money his father gave him. His bad choices left him poor and desolate, even to the point he wished he could eat pig food.

The son had to experience some hard things in life to realize how good he had it back home. Then he chose to go home with the right heart.

But notice the story does not say the father went looking for his son to rescue him. When the son came home, the father was willing to bring him in with open arms. But the son was the one who had to humble himself and make the choice to return.

There comes a point when all you can do is embrace the circumstances of losing that relationship and wait for the stepchild to decide to accept you. Let them go.

Hopefully, that child will still have a relationship with the biological parent, and the love planted in his or her heart at a young age will blossom into a relationship later. But until then, all you can do is accept the circumstances the way they are now.

Prayer: Lord, I want to have a close relationship with my stepchild, but if that’s not possible at this time, help me accept the circumstances and make the best of the relationships I do have.