You know, I've realized I'm kind of picky when it comes to Bible translations. Yeah, you are, because you're the guy that underlines half the page and then argues with the footnotes. And I'm a good arguer. But, you know, I care about two things, faithfulness to the original text and just being able to read it without feeling like I'm reading a dictionary. Which is why we're grateful for the support of the Christian Standard Bible.
The CSB was created to be accurate and readable, helping people engage God's word with confidence and clarity. And it's sponsors like the CSB that help make this podcast possible. To learn more, visit csbible.com. Hi. I have a friend, Summer Butler, who says it like this: It's not our job as bonus parents for our kids to call us mom or dad.
It's our job for them to lead them in such a way that they call God father. That became the thrust of my bonus parenting. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson. And I'm Ann Wilson.
And you can find us at FamilyLifetoday.com. This is Family Life today. Mm.
Okay, everybody, you're in for a treat. Got Cheryl Schumacher back in the studio. We're going to dive back into her story and her ministry and you're going to love it and it's going to be a good day. I am a born and reared Detroiter. I went to Eastern Michigan University, met my former husband there, was married to him for about 17 years.
I got saved, began following hard after Jesus, and really believed that this was God's will, that we were going to get married. About six years into that marriage, we had my daughter. Unfortunately, that marriage ended in divorce. Very, very hard time, but I say now that I would do it again for how I learned God. I learned him as father, as friend, as provider, as husband in a way that I didn't know before.
Now, your daughter was 10? She was 10 at the time. Because I went through it when I was seven. Did you? We never talked.
Never was a conversation with me. I mean, later when I was probably 19, 20, I'm like, mom, can we talk? About the divorce, but my dad comes to visit sitting across in our little wood. And you didn't know your dad well at all. I mean, I.
Saw him four or five times a year. He lived in Florida. I was in Ohio. Long story. But so he comes to visit us, and he's sitting across the family room, which was as big as this table.
Our entire apartment was just this tiny little thing. And Ann says, Hey, and his name's Dave. Hey, Dave, we want to hear your side of the divorce. No, no, no, no, no. We don't talk about that.
My dad has never talked about this. And I was. I'm he's gonna be so mad. Oh my god, he's gonna look like, Don't ever, we don't do this in our family. And my dad just looks across and he goes, Nobody's ever asked.
Wow, and then he told us, and I heard a whole nother story I'd never heard my whole life. Yeah, which was very helpful and healing. But I mean, just that was like, man, this is something you need to be talking to to your teenager or your 10-year-old or your eight-year-old. If they're old enough to process, if they're not three or four, but if they're only as a mom or a dad, you've got to be in their life to help them. Walk through that, right?
What were some of the things you asked your daughter or you said to your daughter during that time?
Well, what I asked her a lot was, okay, how are you feeling about this? Tell me, what did that look like to you? What did that feel like to you? What I found out at, she's now 33. What I have discovered over the years is that she noticed a lot more than what I gave her credit for.
She was telling me things about her father's personality, about some things that she noticed in the marriage. And I was, did you, you saw that? She was like, Mom, I live there. Yes, I saw all of that. And now she had the language to articulate that.
So I think what talking to kids can do is it can give them the language to articulate these very big emotions that they're feeling and they don't know how to categorize, right?
So I would ask her to tell me about your emotions around. This. I also, when she spent time, because it was very difficult because she would go and spend time and she was spending time with someone that she believed had broke up her parents' marriage, right?
So she was having a yeah, it was very hard.
So I would ask her, and I'm not saying this is the best thing to do, but I would ask, what's good? What was good? And that was helpful. Even if she only could come up with, well, she can cook. Great.
You have good food to eat when you're there, right? You're thinking, oh, I didn't want her to get anything.
Sorry, that would just be me. My mom never said that. Your mom never said anything. She never said anything negative about my dad. Yeah.
But she never said, because my dad remarried.
Okay. And I go down and see him and my stepmom. And she never said, what's great about his new wife? Yeah. I mean, she wasn't negative.
She was never negative about either one of them. She didn't do it. You went next level. That's next level. That's just next level.
And, you know, Ann mentioned. discipleships i thought you know we can start another show but i said we just keep going um That's a passion of yours. Absolutely. Explain that because there's stepmom sanity, there's discipleship. It's all one.
It's spoken all over the country, maybe the world on this. You know, I don't separate discipleship from the other things that I do, from stepmom sanity or self-vulnerable families or working with human trafficking victims. I don't separate it from that because that is the mission. That is what we've been given to make disciples who make disciples then.
So, if I separate the two, or if I conflate activity with making disciples, then I've missed the whole point of what Jesus said to do. The woman who led me to a saving relationship with the Lord, the first thing she did was say, Hey, this is what we do. We go out and we win souls for Christ and we get them connected with churches because evangelism is just the first step of discipleship. Discipling really is helping people know God. And we all have that responsibility.
The Bible. Tells us in, um, I think it's 2 Corinthians 5: everything is from God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and we've all been given the ministry of reconciliation, meaning that we all have the responsibility to know God and then make him known. And that's all discipleship is: to connect this person over here with God, and the Holy Spirit will do the job of formation and transformation as well, right? We get to roll up in their lives in very unique and fun ways.
So when I first got saved, that's what I was told to do. And the first thing that we did is we ran out to the Indy 500.
So here I am, newly saved. We're at the ND500. It's a huge party. Everybody, it's like Mardi Gras, but with executives, right? They're just out there partying and drinking.
And I'm trying to give the gospel to different people. I've got to hear it. Like, give us the whole, like, what'd you say coming up to them?
Okay, so I'm new at this, right? I'm like, brand new with crew. Like, we would go door to door when I go to a Christmas conference. Yes, yes. I've got to hear it.
Let's hear it. Yes, I would go up to these people that are partying, drinking, and doing all the things. They're like, excuse me, do you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior? Like brand new. I heard so many rude comments and a couple of people that kindly listened.
But for the most part, I mean, I got a crash course in what not to do, honestly. But at some point, this is the moment I think that discipleship became a passion for me. I was standing on the corner and I was watching everyone. It was almost like the world went into slow motion, and they were dancing, jumping, and singing, and just revelry was going on. And I started weeping because I could feel God's compassion for them.
And I kept saying, they don't know, like, they really don't. don't know The disease that they have been diagnosed with, the sin, and they don't know that the remedy is available, that death is the outcome of sin, but that life has been made available to them. I was overwhelmed by the love of God to such an extent that I just wept.
Someone thought I was afraid, but the person who had led me to the Lord, she looked at me, she said, Oh no, she's not afraid. And I prayed that day. On that street corner, Lord, please don't let me ever lose. your love for the lost. And I can't say that I have cultivated this.
I have just surrendered to the cultivation of the Holy Spirit. I know that I will never look into the eyes of somebody whom God does not love or for whom Christ didn't die, despite what's going on in their life, despite how they may be acting towards me. I just know that God loves them, even if they come from Ohio and Christ died for them. And My primary job is to communicate that, to give the opportunity, at least. God does, he owns his outcome.
My job is obedience. And you were a college student then, right? I was a college student. I was 17, I think, 17, 18 years old, something like that.
So, have you never lost that? Because a lot of people have the fire in college, and then you see them 10, 20 years later, they're not even cold, they're cynical. Yeah. You know, they've gone on a really dark journey and you're as hot. For Christ now, as you were.
There have been ebbs and flows. Like right after I got married, we came back from our honeymoon and I went right into ministry, youth ministry, phone ministry. We had just started, our church had just started a television ministry.
So I'm praying on the phone.
So I had all of these opportunities to stay stoked, right? But eventually that stopped. And no, it waned. It absolutely waned because I wasn't in it every day. I'm in life.
I am going through my own issues and trying to figure all of that out. And honestly, there was, there were about there, I can distinctly remember a six-month period where I did not like people at. I didn't want to be bothered. Don't talk to me. Don't call me.
No, I'm not praying with you. I mean, that's how I just didn't want to be bothered with people. But at some point, I realized, okay. God, if you love them and I don't. Then my problem is love right now.
And I need you to smear again my heart with your love so that I fall in love with you primarily and fall in love again. I just lost my first love, right? And I fall in love again with people. Life had beat it out. That's a good litmus test of how we feel about people.
I love that you're saying all that. You know, the scripture tells us in Luke to guard your heart less drunkenness, debauchery, or the cares of life. I love that Jesus put the cares of life in the same category as debauchery and drunkenness. It's not the same, like it doesn't have the same moral impact, but it does have the same impact on our lives in that it draws us away from God. It draws us away from fervency and from zeal.
One of the things that I pray on a consistent basis is: God, purify my devotion. Help me to love you. more and without agenda just to love you, just to know you, just to be with you. Because I know out of that, you know, the scripture also tells us that We, as you know, with unveiled faces, as looking into a mirror, behold the glory of the Lord, are being changed into that same glory. That as I behold him, I will become like him.
His heart will be developed in me.
So, by purifying my devotion, by purifying my love for him, the natural outpost of that is discipleship. The natural outpost of that is evangelism, is prayer for revival, is all the things that we're talking about right now. And I'm just going to say it because we've been in the church world and ministry world for 46 years. You can do ministry with a heart that's not on fire for Jesus. Yes, you can.
And we just do it out of our flesh. We've done it for years, we know how to do it. But I think it's really important. I mean, we're not sitting here saying we're doing it right now. No, no, I'm saying confession time.
Every single person can do that. Yeah. But you do not have the impact, the joy, if you're not a person. But I don't think you can love first. Me neither.
Before being loved. And I know you've written about that. Yes, yes. I don't think that's possible. That's a supernatural spirit.
Empowered ability. When somebody is hard to love, or they're not loving you back.
So explain that. Yeah. Well, first of all, let's just say this. Again, we talked about the scripture. It's the love of God that's shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Spirit.
And that is not just God shedding his love so that we can share it, but it is first him letting us know how loved we are. Paul said, I would that you would know the height and depth and breadth and width of God's great love for you. When I know that I am loved, then I am secure in my identity in Christ. I am not looking to other people as props in my life to help my ego, to bolster me. They become, they're not projects anymore.
They become people to love. You're not doing it for identity. You're doing it out of identity. From identity, right? Like the Bible tells us, it's like Colossians 3.
Paul starts that portion of scripture with since then you have been raised with Christ. Like there's an assumption of truth here. Since you've been raised with Christ, Then he goes on the rest of that and says, live like it. And part of that living like it is putting on Christ is loving others, you know, humble.
So I am, I'm not fighting for life. I have life. I'm not fighting for identity, as you said, and I am living from identity. I'm not fighting for position. I'm already seated with Christ.
So I don't have to compete with you. I don't have to compare myself to you. I don't have to use you to make myself feel better. I can simply owe you nothing but to love you. That's it, because I'm already loved.
I'm already wanted. I'm already valued. I'm already chosen, beloved, and holy. I'm already that. If we can believe that.
But first, we have to believe that God is, right? I mean, honestly, like if I don't believe that God is infinitely holy and exceedingly good, then I won't believe anything that he has to say.
So if I can believe that God is true, then I can believe that what he says about me is true. And then that frees me from no matter what's going on in my life. Again, we're not talking about spiritual bypassing. No matter what's going on in my life, I can then love. I can forgive.
I can look at this person in front of me that's acting really ugly and say, Jesus loves you too. And Lord, help me. Help me to express that right now in this moment. I can put up healthy boundaries because sometimes loving a person is, okay, I need to separate myself from you because if I stay in your presence, I'm going to act ugly too.
Sometimes it's putting up healthy boundaries. Whatever it is, I can do that because I am loved. Yeah, that's so good.
Now, how do you do that as you walk into a step family situation? I know that's your world in terms of step family sanity. And then, you know, choosing to love before they're loving you back. That can be a step family experience. How do you manage and navigate that?
Because I know you help people do that. Yeah, you manage it carefully and you manage it prayerfully and you manage it honestly. There are times when it is hard, when I fall into expecting reciprocity.
So that's an invitation from the Holy Spirit for me to then run back to him and say, okay, I did this with the wrong motives. Can you help me do it with the right motives again? It is also understanding what my job is, which pulls me back to discipleship. I have a friend, Summer Butler, who says it like this. God told her that her job was not for her sons, her bonus sons to call her mother, but for them through her to call him father.
Oh, that's so good. And say it one more time. It's not our job as bonus parents for our kids to call us mom or dad. It's our job for them to. Lead them in such a way that they call God Father.
That became the thrust of my bonus parenting. So that allowed me to be able to come along, mom, and not as a threat, but as, or not as somebody trying to take your place or trying to fight for my place, but as someone who's going to support you in your parenting. It allowed me to come alongside my husband and support him in his parenting. It allowed me to give space to my bonus children for them to lead the relationship and not try to push in and be. This accepted, wonderful cape on my back, you know, super stepmom.
It allowed me to put the cape down and just be and know that I was enough because God had set me in this family, right? Interestingly enough, that without all of the pushing and shoving and vying for position, my place was found, even in the difficulties. My bonus daughter is getting married, and I'm planning the bridal shower with the support of her mom. Um, my bonus son, you know, he the first one of the first gifts I got from him was a cup. I love mom, right?
Those weren't things that I act, and they call me Cheryl, those weren't things that I asked for, those were things that got allowed to happen just because I loved freely, not. Easily but freely, good. Yeah, that's so good.
So, how many kids do you have now? We have four. We have um, our oldest is actually Jonathan's bonus daughter from his first marriage. Do not tell her she's not mine, she will cut you, she will cut you. Then, the next one down is my bio daughter, Kayla, and then we have Jonathan's bio daughter who's getting married, and then we have um our bio son, who was the youngest, who my Jonathan's bio son, I should say, who is the youngest.
So, we have four, and I have a grandson.
So fun! Isn't it? Nobody told me. I grandkids are like God's reward for putting up with teenagers. That's what I say.
I love this kid like nobody's business.
So fun, he knows it, he knows it. My husband knows it, everybody knows it. He can have whatever he wants from grandma, he can, which is another thing. Like, I am not his biological grandma, but I'm grandma, yeah, and his biological grandma is sugar. That's what he calls her.
And when they were out, they were out one day, it's so funny, they were out one day. Mm-hmm. They asked him, Oh, is this your grandmother? And he said, Oh, no, this is my sugar. My grandma's at home.
So, I mean, you know, I love it. They don't know. He's so cute. He's so adorable. He's four.
So he's at a great age. It is funny. It is a fun age.
Well, I think our listeners are going to be excited because they're going to hear more from Cheryl. Yeah. Are you excited? I'm excited. Too.
Thank you so much for the opportunity. I'm excited for who. I don't know who's going to be in front of me. I'm excited to have those conversations. We never do either.
Oh, okay.
Okay. I don't feel bad. They're always great. I mean, everybody that comes in here. It is brought by God.
Yeah. Sovereign God who's Sort of orchestrated that moment, and you never know how that guess and that. Conversation is going to literally change the course of somebody's life and legacy. Right. It's powerful to think.
We sit in here and we talk, and God's spirit goes, I'm going to use that in ways. And hopefully, we hear back. I mean, and for those of you that listen, let us know. But yeah, for those of you that didn't hear the episode before, go back and listen to that one. But Cheryl's going to be coming in.
And as Dave's having a knee replacement surgery, I'll be laying on a couch. Yes. I'll be working. Pray for you. Yeah, you'll be working.
We'll be praying for you. Yep. Thank you. Dave will be great. The last time I had, I had back surgery years ago, and I found out later as I came home and laid on the couch and said, hey, I'm going to do everything the doc said.
I'm just going to lay here. I'm not supposed to twist. I heard later that my wonderful wife and my son went in the bathroom next to the next room and started laughing out loud. Because he was trying, he's like, you know, he's so, I don't even, I can't. It was not nice of me, but he's like, oh, I can't go into it.
You guys, you need to. And instead, we didn't say anything negative. We just both ran to the other part of the house and we laughed. Because isn't it funny when the one that's large and in charge has to, yeah, I get it. I get it.
I might have been laughing with you. I'm just saying. See, that's why I need prayer because I'm not always empathetic when it comes to that. You can edit that part out that they're laughing at me and with me because I'm not going to be a happy camper for a few weeks. I don't know.
We'll see how this knee goes. I'll be probably an inch taller when I get out because my leg will straighten out again. Maybe. That's good. Cheryl, I think that our guests and our listeners are going to love having you host some.
And I think it'll be really fun for them. You've got a really cool walk with Jesus that inspire so many. He's really cool. He's just good, right? And it's fun to just be in an adventure with him.
Hey, and again, Cheryl's book is called Waiting to Be Wanted: A Stepmom's Guide to Loving Before Being Loved. I think you would love to get this book since we're talking about love. Yeah, just go to familylifetoday.com and click on the link in the show notes. Uh Somewhere between the schedule, the responsibilities, and the routine, it's easy to forget why you enjoy being together. Weekend to Remember gives you that time back.
away from everything competing for your attention. Focused only on each other. And right now, through September 21st, registrations are 50% off, two for the price of one. Just visit familylifetoday.com and click on the banner at the top of the page and find your date. And location.
You know what I mean? You can pick whatever weekend you want, wherever you want. And you get the deal by just using the promo code SAVE50. That's SAVE50. Hey, Cheryl, I'm just thinking of there's probably a lot of listeners that have gone through some of the same things or just need encouragement.
We've talked about a lot of things with you the last few days. Talked about your story of going through divorce, being a single mom, getting remarried, and then this whole discipleship idea and loving people. And man, I know that some listeners are They're in the valley. And they could really use somebody to encourage them and lift them up in prayer.
So, would you pray for them?
Well, Father, in the matchless name of our Lord and Savior, we come before you, and we do not take it lightly that we can. It's such a privilege and an honor to be named by your name, to belong to your family, to know you, and to stand before your throne on behalf of those who are listening, who are struggling. Lord, your word says that you're close to the brokenhearted.
So I thank you for being near, that those who are struggling are not struggling alone. They're not struggling unseen. They're not struggling unheard. You are a God who has provided a savior who empathizes with every feeling of infirmity that we go through.
So I thank you that not only are you with them, but you know them. You know the struggle. Remind them that you are with them. Strengthen them. Lord God, bring people alongside to encourage them when they don't know how to articulate.
I thank you, Holy Spirit, for praying what they can't articulate. And I thank you for all of the prayers being heard and answered. Thank you, God, that though they are in the valley, you're with them and the best is yet to come. Father, thank you that you're in the rhythm of all of our life, Lord God, through the ebbs and the flows. Thank you, Lord God, that you are with their children.
I just know that there. There are so many moms and dads that are out there right now who are hurting for their children and feel incapable of alleviating pain, but you are the God who transforms hearts, who alleviates pain, who waste absolutely nothing, Lord God.
So I thank you for bringing beauty out of the ashes, for bringing great joy out of mourning, Lord God, and dancing, Lord God, and giving the oil of gladness. We just rejoice in the anticipation of you working in their lives, Lord God, and bringing healing, Father. And I thank you for that now. In Jesus' name, amen. Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry celebrating 50 years of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.
Yeah.
