Blended

For once in my life I have someone who needs me
Someone I’ve needed so long
For once unafraid I can go where life leads me
Somehow I know I’ll be strong

Blended family. When I’ve told people we are a blended family, we’ve gotten many different reactions. The look of shock…or confusion..or disgust..or a comforting smile.

The conversation usually starts like this:

Them: Do you have any kids?
Us: Yeah! We have 4.
Them: Oh wow! You look so young! (Haha… they really do say this though.) What ages are they?
Us: 9,9,8, and 6.
Them: Oh, do you have twins?
Us: Nooooo.

And so begins the great way God opens up conversations for us to share about our blended family.

Here’s our story, in case you don’t know it. Daniel was married for 7 years and then his wife wanted a divorce. At this point his kids were  5, 4, and 2. He was a mess, and things were pretty rough for him for a while. He was single-dadding it, and so he feels for all of you single moms and dads out there. It ain’t easy! When he was ready to move on, he would often think, “Who in their right mind would want to marry someone with 3 kids that are so young?!”

At the same time, I was a single mom who had made some pretty poor choices with dating in my past. I wasn’t proud of who I was until I had a come-to-Jesus moment a few months before. I was on my knees begging to be cleaned and forgiven. That’s a blog for another time. God came – and He forgave, and soon after, He gave me something I never thought I deserved.

Daniel and I were friends who played volleyball on Monday nights together. He burped a lot while we played, and I thought he was hilariously gross! We started talking more after his divorce and became good  friends. Our friends insisted we were more – and finally we went on a date. After that, we knew we were meant for each other – and I wanted to have more kids, but didn’t want to get pregnant again – so it worked out perfectly! There have been many stressful times in dealing with becoming a family together, but every second has been worth it.

For once I have something I know won’t desert me/ I’m not alone anymore (I’m not alone anymore)

As we are all on different journeys in life, please remember when you hear someone’s story that you don’t know all the details, and sometimes life throws us curveballs that hopefully we can still hit. I always cringe in my mind a little before I tell people we are blended. It shouldn’t have to be that way. God took our mess and gave us a message. We are so grateful for his grace and love! In all reality, our family doesn’t feel different than any other family except that we have to share our kids.

Becoming a blended family has been a long and winding road, but we’ve made it to the next turn! If you’re struggling as you combine families, don’t give up hope! “The evil stepmother” and “red-headed stepchild” are silly ideas people have put in our mind to make us think we don’t belong…but we do. Blended families can be just as great as normal families. (What is normal anyway?!)

I’d love to write more blogs about how we dealt with the beginning stages we noticed with the kids when we decided to get married, becoming our own family, conversing with their other parents, and so many other topics. This is life.

And truly, we all have a soundtrack. Play yours with confidence.

Side Note: Here’s a video we made in 2014 before our wedding to introduce our kids to our relatives. It’s cute. You should watch it 🙂