What is Love: Parental Love

Becoming a step-parent is a really wonderful experience, but it can also be incredibly challenging. When you get married without children, you have time to discover your new mate and what it's like to live with them in the reality of everyday life and love them despite their quirks and habits. But if you throw several children into the mix, it can sometimes be overwhelming.

Not only are you starting to really know your spouse beyond the thrills and chills of dating, but you are also getting to know children that you so badly want to call your own. If you're like me, the love is instantaneous, just like the first time you see the tiny little baby being brought to you by the doctor seconds after their entry into the world. But what if love just isn't enough?

What if you love your new children, but they don't love you back? What if you feel like they're yours but they feel like you're an intruder in their home? What if you desire closeness and all they want is distance? What if you're sure that you will never leave them but they're terrified that you will?

As a step-parent, I was incredibly blessed to walk into a home that welcomed me with open arms. But I still had moments when I felt like crying, when I thought I was going to go crazy, when I was more angry than I'd ever been in my life, when I lost my temper, when I felt like giving up. But just as much as I would never give up on my own child or run away from him, I would never give up on or run away from my new children. 

Why? Because they deserve just as much love as I give to my flesh and blood, they need just as much patience, they crave exactly the same amount of attention, they long just as much to be treated equally and fairly, and they also need to know that nothing they can do will make me stop loving them. So that's what I do because to me they are the same as my own flesh and blood and they always will be.

Now that their father is gone and we have been separated, it is much harder to show them the immense love that I still carry for them and to truly be the mother that they need. But I talk to them and see them as much as possible and every time I do, I remind them that I will always be there for them when they need me.

Even if they spit in my face, I will love them. Even if they tell me that I'm not their real mother, I will call them my own. Even if they turn their back on me and want nothing to do with me, I will wait patiently for them to look at me again. Even if they scream and yell and curse and fight me, I will hold them in my arms until the storm passes. No matter what they do, whether they came from me or not, I will always be their mother until the day that the world stops spinning.

So does that make me a living saint or an angel in human clothes? Definitely not. I mess up every single day with everything that everybody else does in this fallen world. So why can I love like this? The answer might surprise you.

I can't. I am not the one that is able to love them like that. I am incapable of that type of love. It is not within my power or the depths of my knowledge to understand and execute unconditional love.

I am not the one that makes it possible for me to know and feel this kind of love. It is the love of Jesus that shows me what love is, it's the Holy Spirit that gives me the knowledge and wisdom to use it, and it's the excellent example of God the Father that encourages me to be the best parent I can be.

I love all four of my children unconditionally, without reservations, limitations, or questions, because that's how Jesus loves me.