STEPMOTHERS by Belle Emerson

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 23, 1900

STEPMOTHERS

By Belle Emerson

MRS. BELLE EMERSON.

(Shorey, Kan.)

These women have long been regarded as the personification of severity, and but very little is either written or heard from their standpoint.

The word “step” in this sense is significant of degree. It means that one has taken the degree of mother. Viewing this degree from the true mother standpoint only, the question arises, How can she be mother to children who are not her own flesh?—By adoption. Adoption means to take the child of another, and treat it as one’s own.

As I chose the responsibility of mothering two little boys borne by another, I little realized the importance of the step, though I thought I had made a careful study of what should be required of me.

Having had several years’ experience in school, and being blessed with a natural love for children, I thought I knew pretty well how to get along with them. But, with the two chosen, I ran against difficulties that I knew not how to surmount, and failure after failure was the result.

This became a very serious matter to me. I prayed for wisdom to know what to do, and I found that ignorance on my part was the primary cause of difficulty. In the first place, I did not understand my relation to the children, and theirs to me. I merely felt that to care for my husband’s children was a duty I owed to him, until my senses were aroused by the following scripture: “Ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.” The application was that as God makes us, his adopted children, partakers with Christ in all the Father’s love, so I must adopt the children; or, in other words, treat them as my very own. As this thought flashed into my mind, how my heart rejoiced!

Again: If, in the new earth, I should meet their own mother, and she should inquire of me, “Where are my boys?” and they were not, and she should say, “The Lord gave them to me to train for him; but the enemy death severed me from them, and God placed you in my steps to do my work for me: he gave you the same instructions that he gave me, and you failed to give heed,” what could I answer?

I now understand better the position of step-mother,—doing the work of another for eternity. The children perceived the change in me, and their spirits constantly bear witness with my spirit that they are mine. The boys, now young men, are my friends. I rejoice that the Lord yet gives me an opportunity to redeem, through the wisdom of Christ, what I have lost through ignorance. In Hosea 4:6 we read, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”

The apostle says: “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.” 1 John 3:1. This scripture should inspire a desire in the heart of every stepmother to hold in sacred trust that which invests her with the dignity of motherhood. Then, instead of being looked upon as severe or unjust, it shall be said of us, “Behold, what manner of love.”