Yet there is a part of me who knows I could easily be grieving all weekend because there are some key people missing from this celebration. My mom and my sister. And none of our other family members could fly out.
However, one family member is coming. My step-dad.
As I was getting my hair cut yesterday, my hair-stylist and I talked about the “step-factor”. Well, we didn’t call it that, but this is what it is. It’s part of our culture these days. She deals with it too in her family. Growing up I never thought this would be something I would have in my life, but things change don’t they?
My step-dad is so not my dad. His DNA is definitely not mine. For years I wouldn’t call him my step-dad; he was my mother’s husband.They married two years after my parents divorce. (My parents had been married 36 years, and I was in my 30’s). It didn’t seem right to even call him a step-dad. But this dear man is taking his time and money to fly all the way from Texas to North Carolina to witness a milestone in my son’s life. He has earned the title.
I’m praying to love him as God wants me to love him. I’m praying to be thankful for every little and big blessing in my life and to focus on those blessings rather than the obvious holes as we sit in the stands at graduation among families with throngs of extended family members by their side.
I need your prayers.
I have no wisdom to give today. Just a plea that many of you will understand because this is something many of us face. And even if you aren’t dealing with the step-factor, God has placed at least one if not many people in your life to love whose physical, spiritual, and emotional DNA does not match yours.
We are called to love.
I pray that when my step-dad stays with us this week, (he only had two good years with my mom before she got sick) he will smell my mom, taste her food, and hear her voice in the things I do. I pray he will feel loved.
Thanks for lifting me up this weekend and through next week.
Much love,
andy
“Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22,23).
