Salvation Changed My View Of Parenting

“And Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.” (Genesis 25:28)

I am a product of a blended family. In other words, as a child I lived under the same roof with a parent and a stepparent, both of whom were rearing children of their own.

I am now the head of a blended family. And while my whole perspective about it has changed, one thing hasn’t: Harmony in a blended family is a difficult to sustain.

I am ashamed to admit this, but when I married my wife eleven years ago, I told her that she shouldn’t expect me to love her children as much as I loved my own. I even let her know that I didn’t expect her to show the same measure of love for my children that she showed for her children. “That’s something that may come over time,” I told her, “but you just can’t expect it to happen overnight.”

The older I get the more I realize that I’ve been a bigger part of the problem than I may care to admit when it...