God's Plan for Blended Families

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If you are in a blended family, you know that living in that environment can be a bumpy road in life! The process of blending two families into one is often extremely challenging. When two people marry, they always hope to live happily ever after. For first time marriages the success rate is near 50%. However, when people with children marry a 2nd or 3rd time, or when a person marries a spouse with children, the statistics change significantly. The high divorce rate in the world in the last several years has led to a high number of blended families, and the number grows each day.

Why is the divorce rate higher in blended families? A marriage that creates a stepfamily has more dynamics to deal with than a first-time marriage. These dynamics include such things as children from one or both spouses, possible rejection of the step-parent by the children, interference from former spouses, two sets of rules, two types of discipline, many personalities, possible custody or child-support court dates, juggling of children between the natural parents for visitation, and overcoming the "stepmother" syndrome.

It was through our prayer time with God that we started to understand the dynamics in our family and the changes that needed to take place to make our family blend. The first thing we needed to understand was that God was on our side. He had completely forgiven us in our past failed relationships, and He wanted to restore our lives and give us a loving family environment.

Through our prayer time, we began to realize that our family was divided. There were areas we were fighting each other rather than working together. Matthew 12:25 describes the shortcomings in families today.
"Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, 'every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand."

All families can blend, but it takes commitment, love, grace, sacrifice and time...

Your family will blend when you realize that God is a good God, and is on your side.

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