Stuck in the Crosshairs of Responsibility and Limited Stepmom Authority #218

When we don't fill ourselves up with the things that we need for survival in this alien land in which we live, we are going to fall to the temptations that are so common. Because Satan is at work. We know this because God's Word says so. Satan himself tells the Lord that he has come from prowling around the ends of the earth, going to and fro. Peter reminds us that he's (Satan) prowling around like a lion, looking for someone to devour. 

Take a moment and imagine where Satan is prowling around in your life.  Remember, he is sneaky and he's looking for someone to devour. He's looking to pick somebody off, one by one. That's why we are not isolated. That's why God designed us for community, not just for our spiritual growth, but also for our protection. 

When we find ourselves struggling in our role, there's one thing we can do to begin to find our way out.  Check out today's episode to find out exactly what that is!

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Looking for The Empowered Stepmom?

Be anxious for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. Philippians 4:6

Chapters

• 0:10 Dangerous Environment
• 5:05 How Do We Achieve Balance?
• 6:45 Ephesians 6
• 12:17 Courageous Challenges (Journal Prompts)
• 17:09 Spiritual Warfare is Work
• 18:27 Get Unstuck

Transcript

The Empowered Stepmom™| Biblical Boundaries, Habits, Mindset

My mission is to help you conquer second-wife syndrome for good.....So you can stop wrestling and start investing your time, money and energy into your dreams.

Stuck in the Crosshairs of Responsibility and Limited Stepmom Authority #218

JenHost00:00

Do you know what AW Tozer says Is Satan's greatest weapon? He says Satan's greatest weapon is man's ignorance of God's Word. 

Biblically, as a society we are illiterate. We just simply don't know God's Word. And we don't know God's Word because our noses are not in the good book every single day. What makes that so important? 

Well, when we don't fill ourselves up with the things that we need for survival in this alien land in which we live, we are going to fall to the temptations that are so common. Because Satan is at work. There is no doubt about it. Satan is at work and we know this because God's Word says so. Satan himself tells the Lord that he has come from prowling around the ends of the earth, going to and fro. Peter reminds us that he's (Satan’s) prowling around like a lion, looking for someone to devour. 

Take a moment and imagine what that would be like, that Satan is prowling around. So when he's prowling, he's being sneaky and he's looking for someone to devour. He's looking to pick somebody off, one by one. That's why we are not isolated. That's why God designed us for community, not just for our spiritual growth, but also for our protection. 

01:24

Are you feeling isolated? Do you feel like nobody else understands how hard it is to parent someone else's children, especially when you know you have the responsibility, but your authority, it's quite limited. 

On this podcast, we practice bossing our feelings around because they often lead us to dead ends. Today, let's acknowledge what we know to be true yes, we have responsibility for our stepkids and, yes, there is limited authority that goes along with that responsibility. Those are facts, not feelings. 

Balancing the two well, that's where those feelings can trip us up, because we often feel frustrated, unsure and all alone. In today's episode, number 218 of the Empowered Stepmom Podcast, I'm going to mush together solid teachings from the Prayer Challenge of 2023 to answer how we achieve balance between the responsibility and limited authority. 

When we implement this one strategy, we will experience change, not necessarily on our timeline, but definitely on God's timeline. Stick around to find out what you can do to create balance between authority and responsibility and grow closer as a family. 

02:42

The mission of the Empowered Stepmom Podcast is, well, to keep it real, sis. We don't gloss over the challenges of being a stepmom. We highlight how we can deal with difficult in-laws, outlaws and exes – without succumbing into the blame game. Here we get downright tactical and practice strategies at work to create harmony in our homes. 

Hey there, I'm Jen Rogers, host of the show, keynote speaker and a woman who is passionate about fostering community with like-minded women, women who are high achievers focused on kingdom work and growth. 

03:15

For the first couple years as a stepmom, I played the blame game, thinking that if other people would just do the right thing, my life would be better if we weren't in court, if his kids would stop sharing what happened in our home with their mom, if we could just skip the hard of working through the hurt and the trauma of divorce, we'd be just fine. Let's just get to the healing already. 

Those first years were the hardest ever. I felt wronged. Regularly I secretly wondered and worried if my family was right – that I shouldn't have remarried. It's a long, dark journey on our own, and that's why I'm here – to light the path for you to remove the shackles of should and shame from your stepmom journey and invite you to celebrate this special calling God has entrusted to you. 

04:01

Know how it starts? With one decision. A decision to go after your dreams. Are you ready to remove the shackles? There are two key things to do when you say yes. 

First, understanding that boundaries are key to your success and boundaries. They're not just saying no to something. They're actually the tool that you need to say yes to what you want most. 

Second, no one succeeds by flying solo. That means you must ask for help. As a certified professional life coach, I can help you get unstuck. I can help you implement boundaries that work for you. I can help you practice chasing your dreams. 

If you're straddling the fence and wondering what would it be like to work with Jen, you can find out for free. Head on over to grab the powerful, free handbook and training at buildbetterboundaries.comso you can take back your power, regain your energy and reclaim your joy. This is my number one requested training. If you do the work, you will experience results that work for you. 

05:05

All right, let's get started with today's episode number 218 to answer that question how do we achieve balance between the responsibility and the not as much authority as we would like to have in our stepmom role? Let's get to it. 

You know, a lot of times we focus on the things that we don't have. When we think about where we want to be in five years from now, for example, we might struggle to come up with an answer to that question. But if we say what do we want to avoid or what do we for sure not want to do, we have a stronger answer. We're more clear on what we don't want to do. 

05:47

It's no different in this balance between responsibility and authority, we can often focus on how much responsibility we have and how little authority we have. Today, we're going to flip that and we are going to focus on the authority that we do have, and the authority that comes from Scripture. 

Remember how I read in the beginning about our biblical illiteracy? I think, as Christians, we lack an understanding of the power and the depth of prayer, and that is the answer to the question of achieving balance we must pray. When we did the prayer challenge in 2023, one of my favorite things was listening to women pray Scripture. So many women came on and prayed Scripture over us and it was absolutely beautiful. So it seems most appropriate to bring back one of my favorite guests to read Scripture over us as we dive in to the rest of today's episode. 

JenHost06:44

Cheyenne, take it away!

Cheyanne Guest 06:46

Hey Stepmamas, it's Cheyanne! I'm coming to read to you today from Ephesians 6, 10 through 12. Let's dive in together. In the English Standard Version, Ephesians 6, 10 through 12 says Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 

JenHost07:24

When I open my Bible and I look at this Scripture, I have notes everywhere underlines, colors, circles, notes to myself, things that I want to remember. 

Here are the things that stick out as far as the directions that we are given in this Scripture: Be strong in the Lord, put on the whole armor of God. Putting on the whole armor means the whole armor. 

It means avoiding a half-hearted attempt or avoiding being double-minded, letting our yes be yes and our no be no. We're also told to stand against the schemes of the devil, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, which means to me that we do wrestle. 

We are wrestling against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. The thing that stuck out the most to me as I study this scripture is this the cosmic powers over this present darkness. I don't know if you know Frank Peretti. It wasn't that long ago that I read my first Frank Peretti book. Oh my gosh, was that an eye-opener as far as understanding what's going on behind the scenes. If you haven't read one of his books, I highly recommend that you go get one to get a different perspective on what's really happening in spiritual warfare.

I think we understand the evil that is present, this present darkness. It's a great reminder of why it is that it's so hard. We must understand Satan hates us. If we love the Lord, Satan is our enemy. 

Satan wants to hurt God by hurting his children. Satan wants to hurt God by hurting his daughters. Let's go way back to the beginning. He tempted Eve because he understood that Eve was influential. Do you understand your influence, sweet woman of God? You are influential, so you will experience warfare. You will experience things pushing against you. That is why it is so critical that you do have your nose in the good book every single day, because it's important that we remind ourselves of who God says we are. 

09:44

I was just having lunch with a sweet friend of mine and she was sharing about the difficulties that her granddaughter was experiencing because her mother was telling her that she was fat, that she was ugly, that she was never going to amount to anything, that she wasn't going to get a dress to go to prom because she was too ugly for someone to take her to prom. Look that old adage sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me. That's a big, honking, fat lie straight from the pit of hell. Our words do hurt, and the reason that our words hurt is because our words can also heal. So, sweet woman, that is your mission today to use your words to heal. 

10:24

And how this healing happens is through your prayer. You have power in prayer and for those of you who are feeling especially challenged in, “How do I pray? I don't know how to pray.”

I want to give you 100% permission here to pray in the way that you feel led. And if your only prayer is, I don't know how to pray today, Lord God, would you pray on my behalf? I'll tell you what, I know God will honor that prayer. God will honor what's in your heart, because he knows what's in your heart. 

So the most important thing you can do is present yourself before the Lord saying here I am this goes back again to Romans 12:1, to sacrifice your body, to sacrifice your time where you could be doing something else, that you are sacrificing time in prayer for you, for your family, for your spiritual well-being. 

That's exactly how we bridge that gap between the responsibility and the authority that we are balancing. When we were doing the 30-day prayer challenge, we had courageous challenges for each day, so I'm going to give you a couple of courageous challenges to hone in on this idea of being able to bridge the gap. 

11:34

If you are interested in doing the full 30-day challenge, where we spend 10 days praying for your man, 10 days praying for you and then 10 days praying for your step family, head on over to www.stepfamilypodcast.com/prayerchallenge . You can start this challenge anytime. Here's my recommendation for your success. It's just like at the beginning Instead of doing it alone, pick a prayer buddy to do the prayer challenge with and, again, you can both sign up. It's so easy, it's free. It's another great resource for you to help you bridge that gap between where you are right now and where you want to be. So it's a 30-day prayer challenge. Head on over to www.stepfamilypodcast.com/prayerchallenge. 

12:17

Okay, let's get to today's courageous challenges. The first one is snag your Bible. Snag your Bible, snag your journal and open up to Ephesians 6. 

Courageous challenge number onelet's keep reading from verses 14 through 18. In those verses, the armor is listed out. So there's the belt of truth, there's the breastplate of righteousness, there's feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel, there's the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation, there's the sword of the Spirit, and one that often gets missed is verse 18, praying in the Spirit on all occasions, with all kinds of prayer. 

So again, it's the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, feet fitted with the readiness of the gospel, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit and prayer, because there's power in the written word and power in repetition. If you are with your journal right now, go ahead and write down all the pieces of the armor. If you are driving, swiffering or changing the baby's diaper, press pause and say the pieces of armor out loud before you move on to courageous challenge number two. 

13:38

Courageous challenge number two, now that you have all the elements of what the full armor of God is…This is a visualization exercise. Take each piece and envision placing this armor on yourself. Imagine girding yourself with God's word the belt of truth. You know how it is when maybe we're feeling a little chunky monkey because we've indulged in one too many things for one too many days, and you suck your stomach in when you pull your pants up. Well, think of it kind of like that. But better way, way better, this cinching of the belt of truth. 

Envision yourself putting on the breastplate. So you are covering your heart with this breastplate of righteousness, and then imagine putting your feet in sandals that are filled with the readiness of preaching the gospel. As soon as you put your feet in these sandals, it's as though you could take flight, supercharged with the readiness, the energy to share the gospel. Okay, are you still with me? This is still part of courageous challenge number two. 

14:45

All right, so we've got the belt, we've got the breastplate, we've got the sandals put on, and so now we need to take up the shield of faith. So imagine taking up that shield of faith, and it's enough to cover you and your family from the evil of Satan. Again, let's not undersell Satan is evil. 

That shield is to protect you, and God has given you your husband to protect you as well. So imagine your husband protecting you. He is called to sacrifice himself for you, sweet woman. That is what God calls him to do. Imagine him holding up that shield protecting you from the evil one. Next, imagine having the helmet of salvation placing it, that protection over your head, that your mind is protected and focused on who Christ is. Then, finally, envision yourself praying. Envision yourself praying with your husband. Envision the two of you praying together, the two of you reading God's word together. Listen, visualization it can be very, very powerful. 

15:54

Now, for those of you who felt resistance towards this visualization, maybe because this is not the way that it is happening in your home yet, here's my question for you:

Is this the way you want it to be? 

Do you want to be girded in God's truth? 

Do you want protection from the evil one? 

Do you want to pray to the Lord on all occasions so that you can experience what it means to walk faithfully to bridge the gap between this challenge of responsibility and authority? 

You, as a woman of influence, you have a role in protecting your family. All right, that was a long challenge. I want to give you one more courageous challenge. 

16:35

Courageous Challenge Number Three:Pray for a hedge of protection around your family. Ask God to protect your home. Ask God to protect your finances. Ask God to protect your health. Ask God to nurture your relationships with all of us. Pray with all of your children, biological and step. Ask God for reunification and for reconciliation in those relationships where it's challenging, particularly those where you are experiencing the difficulties of dealing with a toxic ex-spouse. Pray these prayers. God hears your heart. 

17:09

Spiritual warfare is work. It is definitely work. You know, what's not so hard to do is leave a five-star review for the empowered stepmom podcast. I am so excited when I read your reviews because they are so encouraging to me. Remember, podcasting it's a lot of…it is a solo experience, so flying solo. I love it when you come into my inbox or when you leave a five-star review sharing how the podcast is blessing you. 

One of the latest reviews we have is from Robyn Graham, host of the Robyn Graham Show. She says one of my favorite things actually, which comes up a lot in these reviews – “You don't have to be a stepmom.” 

17:50

No, you don't, because we are all women of Influenced and we are all women who are called to use the gifts that God has given to us to share the good news, to spread the glory of the kingdom. Here's what Robyn shares: Don't have to be a stepmom. Jen provides value well beyond guidance for stepmoms. Anyone can garner gold nuggets to apply to life and relationships. 

Hey, I don't know if you know what's going on with the press of gold right now, but gold nuggets … Well, they're worth a lot more than they were this time last year. Hey, leave your own gold nugget and leave a review, a five-star review, on your favorite podcasting platform. 

18:27

That's going to do it for this week. I'm your host, Jen Rogers, and I am so grateful for you. If you are a longtime listener, welcome, welcome back. If this is your first time here on the show, I pray that today's episode blesses you and I look forward to welcoming you back next Thursday. 

Hey, PS, if you have not yet downloaded that free handbook for building better boundaries, be sure you click on the link in the show notes to go get it. And if you know that, you know that you know that it's time to work together for coaching, head on over to stepfamilypodcast.com/WorkWithJen. Private coaching opportunities are limited, so be sure you head on over to stepfamilypodcast.com/WorkWithJen to see if we are a good fit to help you get unstuck.