Step Parent Heart

I am in Washington D.C., with my new grandson, his almost 4 year old sister, and his parents, drafted for a week of washing and cooking and cleaning and babysitting.

Technically, he’s not my grandson.  I’m a stepmother, not a birth mother: I’ve had to work hard to earn a place in this little boy’s life.  A friend once told me that being a stepparent was the most thankless task in the world—you’re supposed to be as generous and understanding as a real parent but without the right to say anything.   It’s tricky, step-parenting: we have to find forgiveness and acceptance before we find love, and it’s hard to love when someone is being cautious about me.  I find myself being constrained because I never want to hear, “You’re not my mother.”  I often keep my mouth shut, not out of love, but out of fear of rejection. 

Yesterday I went to church with the kids.  I like this suburban church with children and old people and a great choir: it’s not perfect, but it’s good.  They have a new pastor, and I was eager to hear what he had to say.

But what I noticed more than what he said is that he operated with step-parent heart.  He had all the right words and all the right ideas and his theology was good, but it felt hard, sharp: more like setting a limit than extending an invitation.

I think sometimes when we love Jesus and the work of justice passionately, we experience the church as a stepchild, not quite what we want, not raised the way we would raise it.  We are careful of our hearts because we don’t want to be rejected, but we are also quick to judge first.   The problem is that if we keep our hearts, if we wait for love before we extend forgiveness and acceptance, nothing will ever grow between us.

I wanted to take this man’s hand after church and tell him to be more tender.  I didn’t.  I don’t know if he would have heard it, or appreciated it.  Probably I was afraid of offending.  But I will pray for him that his stepparent heart, and mine, continues to melt.  As the psalmist says, Take away this stony heart, and put a new heart within me…

Posted by Therese DesCamp