Stepparenting is a losing game.
If it’s ever a competition, you, by default, will lose. You will lose to your spouse. You will lose to the other biological parent. You will lose to your stepkids. You will lose to your OWN kids. You’ll just lose. One strategy I’ve discovered is to NOT put yourself in a position to lose, at least not at the beginning. If the opportunity arises to enter into a competition with anyone, choose love. Don’t fight, don’t defend yourself, just love and let it pass. It almost always does. (DISCLAIMER: That strategy doesn’t always work. Actually no strategy ALWAYS works. Just making this up as I go along, people.)
Brad and I had been married for just under six months, and we worked hard for every moment. There were moments of soul-scraping difficulty. There were moments of startling peace. There’s nothing easy about the circumstances of life throwing together two busted families and telling them to be a new family. We have five sets of issues, life experiences, perspectives, broken hearts all to be tripped over in this wild adventure of trying to live as a family. Not for the faint of heart. And not for the God-less heart.
It’s been a wild season of growth since day one. Growth spurts with growing pains that have turned up the heat on the fire of sanctification, revealing who we really are and making us deal with it, in all of its glory and grossness.
Brad and Caroline had their own unique challenges with each other early on. I tried to mediate their relationship for a while, but finally learned to step back and let them figure it out. It is THEIR relationship, after all. And they have to do what works for them. Brad worked incredibly hard and they covered a lot of ground in those first six months. And today, well, they’re just crazy about each other, and I could not be more thankful.
I watched a particularly touching and poignant exchange between the two of them one afternoon. Caroline was four and woke up not feeling well. She seemed to have bounced back somewhat since that morning, but was still dragging after lunch. It was naptime and she was heading toward whining, which is Brad’s FAVORITE version of her. She wanted me to go upstairs with her and help her settle in for a nap. I wasn’t quite finished with my lunch, so Brad stepped in.
“Caroline, want me to give you a piggyback ride upstairs?”
She paused, considered the offer, gave a shy, sleepy smile, then nodded.
He stood up and moved toward her. She went to reach for him but was hindered by her arms full of two stuffed animals and her Leapster. Brad looked at her dilemma and unknowingly uttered some of the most powerful words I’ve ever heard:
“Here,” he said, holding out his hands. “Let me hold your stuff so you can hang on to me.” She quickly obliged and handed over her treasures. She jumped on his back, he easily moved her loot into one arm so he could wrap the other arm around her and they headed upstairs. Tears stung my eyes as I instantly heard God’s powerful words echoing in Brad’s voice.
Give me your stuff so you can hang on to Me.
I’ll carry you. I’ll go with you so you’re not alone. But you have to hang on to Me. Give Me your stuff. I’ll hold it. I can manage it better than you. You need your hands free to hang on to Me.
Who doesn’t need that reminder? Even the most mature Christians who walk with God with enviable regularity will look down occasionally and find their hands full. False security, self-reliance, material possessions, reputation, comfort, power, influence, idols. Things that jump into our hands with surprising ease, some of which aren’t bad things in and of themselves, but things that force us to loosen our grip on the only means of true security: Jesus Christ Himself.
I have a framed picture on my dresser. It’s a picture of a hand holding a phone with the text message screen open. And on the screen are these words: Open your hand. It’ll be ok.
A precious friend and truth speaker texted and spoke those words to me on a regular basis during the darkest season of my life. The idea is that if you’re holding on tightly to something you think you want, afraid that God is going to take it away, your hand won’t be open to the things He might want to give you. You’re holding on so tight so you don’t lose, that you’re not available to win. He may want to take some stuff away. He may want to add some things. But the point is surrender: Hold everything in an open hand as an offering to God to do what He wants with it.
My friend took a picture of herself texting those words to me, framed the picture and gave it to me as a going-away present when I made my big move to Orlando. And the wisdom in those words have shifted my perspective in moments of suffocating fear and uncertainty.
Jesus said in Luke, “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?” He has been trying to pry our dirty little hands open since the beginning of time and knows full well the danger of holding on to anything but Him.
Abraham held his beloved son Isaac in an open hand, and got to keep him. David held his beloved son in an open hand, and lost him. The Lord gives and takes away. May the name of the Lord be praised.
I’ll never forget the tender words of a stepfather to his stepdaughter as he reached out to her in love. And I’ll never cease hearing those same words in my Father’s voice as He tirelessly pursues my stubborn heart.
There is nothing else I can hold on to that can deliver me. Nothing in the world even close to worthy of competing with Jesus in my life. He continues to teach me to hand over whatever I hold in order to cling to Him with everything I’ve got. And that’s my only shot at living the abundant life: To surrender to His love, His all-knowing, all-powerful will, and hang on to Him for dear life.
