Nothing can prepare you for it.  No manual, conference, or therapist on the planet can provide perfect steps on how to do it.

And when Anthony and I married nearly 20 years ago, we had no idea what we had just signed up for.

No one, I repeat, NO ONE warned us about how difficult blending a family would be.  To be honest, had we known in advance that it was going to be the hardest thing either of us had ever done in our lifetimes, we may not have ever married.

But, we didn’t know.  So, we entered our marriage blissfully ignorant of the countless layers of emotional, mental, and spiritual turmoil we were going to have to unpack and navigate.

Adding to our challenge was the fact that no one seemed to want to talk about the hard truths of blending a family. 

Truths like you can’t make people like each other; you can’t manufacture feelings that aren’t there; and a bio-parent will naturally (and blindly) defend their biological child at all costs.

While the lessons we have learned are far too numerous to detail here, there is one that stands out, head and shoulders, above the rest.

You can’t force relationships.

I know that seems like a no-brainer, but when you find yourself suddenly living under one roof, the temptation to force people to coalesce is very real.

Yet, the simple truth is that relationships require trust and trust takes time.  It’s not something you can snap your fingers and make happen overnight.  It’s a slow progression of one moment, one activity, one conversation, one day after another.

Even then, there’s no promise that those relationships will ever really gel.  As a parent, you hope and pray they will.  But, there’s no guarantee.

Blended families are made up of people and people are messy.  And, every single one of those messy people make their own choices.

Interestingly enough, God, who has the biggest blended family ever, doesn’t force us into relationship, either.  He lets us choose (check out A Confession from a Former Battering Ram). 

And, just like blending a family, the dynamics of our relationship with Him fall on the part of God and us.  How close we become and how quickly it takes place falls on us to decide.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs…it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (I Cor. 13:4-5, 7 NIV)

Until next time, Grace and Glory!