I love You Anyway

I’m going to be straight up with you here. I never really understood just how big of a rotten sinner I was until I married my husband and inherited his 4.2 million pounds of baggage. See, “love” had always come easy to me. I have always loved people. I was friends with everybody. I didn’t have any enemies! Not that I know of anyway. And kids. Man, kids loved me. Not trying to brag here but I had always been THE favorite babysitter in my younger years. Kids fed, in bed. House cleaner than they left it…ok I digress. So, why would any of that change just because I got married? 

I think we can all agree that marriage is in itself challenging, especially in the beginning. If you think marriage is easy, then you’re either lying to yourself or your spouse is mute. Pretty sure that at one point in that first year of marriage, I was convinced that my husband was a massive jerk and had deliberately tricked me into marrying him. But here we are, four years later, and I can honestly say that loving my husband is the easiest thing I have ever done in my whole life. He is truly my soulmate, my BFF. Not to mention, he is God-fearing, hilarious, hard-working, romantic as all get out, gorgeous and has AH-mazing shoulder and arm muscles. Plus, he thinks I hung the moon. I mean, what’s not to love people?!?! Well, if you haven’t noticed yet, this post isn’t about the struggles of loving your husband. This post is about the ugly truth that loving the other people in your blended tribe isn’t always that easy. In fact, a lot of times it can feel downright impossible. Is it just me?

I think one of the reasons it’s so easy to love my husband is because he is so good to me and loves me so deeply. (Don’t get me wrong, it took years of training learning and growth to get to this point)! The thing is, when we think of love we most often think of reciprocal love. When we love our spouse, we (hopefully) get love in return. We love our children so much because they depend on us entirely and love us unconditionally no matter how many times we mess up. Heck, it’s even easy to love our dogs because they don’t talk back and they are always excited to see us. But what about when you love someone and don’t always get something in return? What if that someone doesn’t depend on you and isn’t always ecstatic to see you? Or how about someone who not only doesn’t reciprocate your feelings, but possibly wishes you didn’t exist or maybe even wants to annihilate you from planet earth? That is a WHOLE DIFFERENT BALLGAME, FOLKS.

There are some days that us stepmoms just can’t pretend it’s always easy to have loving feelings towards the members of our blended family or ahem…the ex. Why try to pretend anyway? God already knows my thoughts before I even think them. There’s no faking Him out. Well, one day last week I was having one of those days and just kickin’ some mental dirt as I pulled into the parking lot of the local bakery when one of my all time favorite songs came on the radio. I pulled into the parking spot and right there in prime parking right next to the front door, I suddenly found myself gripping the steering wheel, violently crying in utter shame and gut-wrenching repentance as the reality of these words penetrated the stubborn heart of steel I had woken up with that morning.

I am the thorn in Your crown, but You love me anyway.

I am the sweat from Your brow, but You love me anyway.

I am the nail in Your wrist, but You love me anyway.

I am Judas’ kiss, but You love me anyway.

See now I am the man who yelled out from the crowd for Your blood to be spilled on this earth shaking ground.

Yes then I turned away with a smile on my face with this sin in my heart, tried to bury Your grace.

And then alone in the night I still call out for You, so ashamed of my life, my life, my life.

But You love me anyway.

How could my heart be so prideful, so foolish? Here I am complaining about how hard it is to love to the very One who pursued me and loved me, even to the point of death on a cross before I ever even knew His name; before I ever even cared. Stepmom, let’s not kid ourselves. At one point in our lives, we were enemies of God and it is only by His grace and mercy that we were drawn to Him and made the decision to become His beloved child. Had we been there, we could have been the one crying out “crucify Him!” We could have been the one spitting on Him as He dragged a cross on his raw and bloody back. I know we would all like to think we wouldn’t, but it is only because of His spirit in us that we are any different than the ones who nailed Him to a tree. The truth is, at the end of the day, I sent Jesus to the cross. You sent Jesus to the cross. And without Him, we are just sick, desperate sinners with no hope and no ability to love beyond ourselves. Yes, there are some days that God has to rock me to the core with this truth and remind me that it is only through Him that I can sincerely love anyone, especially those who are hard to love. When I think about all I have done and all I will do to break my Father’s heart over and over again, all of a sudden it gets a little easier to release all of the grudges piling up inside my own heart. See, when you truly understand all you have been forgiven for and how much you are loved despite the fact that in your inherently sinful humanness, you could never be good enough to earn it, then there is no more room for pride. Or hatred. Or resentment. Instead, you find yourself ugly crying in a parking lot, completely humbled before the God of the Universe, praying, “Lord, I love them. I can’t believe it, but I really do. Please bless them, Father.” And guess what? It’s ok if you have to start over every day. It’s ok if you have to start over every minute. ITS OK IF YOU HAVE TO START OVER EVERY SINGLE SECOND! Turn to the one who IS LOVE and keep on loving, Stepmama.

Dear Hard to Love,

I love you anyway.