I never thought I could love my stepmother
The summer before my senior year in high school, my parents separated after a marriage of more than twenty-five years. They were soon divorced. This took me entirely by surprise, and my formerly idyllic life fell apart.
I became confused, extremely sad, and mad. I had not been raised in Christian Science and had never embraced my family’s religion nor engaged much in their church’s Sunday School, so I was ignorant of the Bible’s teachings and had nothing to lean on during these traumatic years. I ended up dropping out of college after my sophomore year because I was so lost and couldn’t focus on my studies. Suicide was often on my mind.
By this point, my dad had remarried, and the hatred I felt for my stepmother consumed me. Every family gathering was painful, and the suicidal thoughts were hard to ignore. After a crushing breakup of my own, I was devastated and at my lowest point. Finally, in desperation, I pleaded, “Please, God, help me to understand what love is!”
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