This Mother's Day fact brings me great joy.
And sorrow.
You see, I am a step-mom because of great loss.
I grieve for my two bonus children whose momma is not here.
Her absence is a gaping wound on days like Mother's Day.
I grieve for my Lanny Love who loves and misses his beloved
and misses celebrating in person with the mother of his children on Mother's Day.
I grieve for my bonus daughter who has a strained relationship with her mother
and longs for what should be - and isn't.
I grieve for myself as I miss the man who made me a mother.
And I grieve for my children and grandchildren for whom
Mother's Day is a reminder that their daddy isn't here to celebrate with us.
And so, the joy I feel in my bonus children
is tempered with sorrow.
Because without the sorrow,
I would not be a step-mom.
Step-mom'ing is very different from mom'ing.
And yet it is the same.
It is different in that I did not raise my bonus children.
I don't have memories of childhood to share with them.
I don't know them well.
They don't know me well.
But we are learning each other!
It is the same in that I love them!
I love them as my own!
I often wonder that this is possible!
How can I love adults that I did not birth,
did not raise,
as if they were my own?
God!
That is the only explanation!
Just as He loves me
- and you -
as His own!Isn't that just amazing???
He loves us as His own!
Despite the fact that we have hurt Him!Despite the fact that we love Him imperfectly -
or not at all in some cases!
He loves us as His own!
We are brothers and sister to Jesus Christ!Fully His!
And so, I joyously celebrate being a step-mom!
Not just in spite of the sorrow!
Not just through the sorrow!
Certainly not because of the sorrow!
But because being a step-mom is a great gift!
A gift of bonus children!
A gift of love!
A gift of restoration!
A gift of beauty from ashes!
A gift of learning more of the character of God!
A joyous, delightful thing,being a step-mom to these marvelous people,
this Tiffany,
this Aleisha & Blu,
this Zach & Jamie,these wonderful bonuses of Mother's Day!
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