FamilyLife Today®

Cheryl Shumake: 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.

Dave Wilson: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Dave Wilson.

Ann Wilson: And I’m Ann Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Dave Wilson: Okay everyone, you're in for a treat. We've got Cheryl Shumake 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.

Cheryl Shumake: 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 go ahead and 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.

Dave Wilson: Now your daughter was 10? She was 10 at the time? Because I went through it when I was seven. We never talked. Never was a conversation with me. Later, when I was probably 19 or 20, I’m like, "Mom, can we talk about the divorce?" But my dad comes to visit. Sitting across in our little apartment.

Ann Wilson: And you didn’t know your dad well at all.

Dave Wilson: I saw him four or five times a year. He lived in Florida, I was in Ohio. Long story. 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."

I thought, "No, no, no, no, no! We don’t talk about that!" My dad has never talked about this and I thought he is going to be so mad. Oh my goodness.

Ann Wilson: He gave me a look like, "Don’t ever. We don’t do this in our family." Why not?

Dave Wilson: And my dad just looks across and he goes, "Nobody’s ever asked." And then he told us, and I heard a whole another story I’d never heard my whole life, 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 on... as a mom or a dad, you’ve got to be in their life to help them walk through that, right?

Ann Wilson: What were some of the things you asked your daughter or you said to your daughter during that time?

Cheryl Shumake: 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, as 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. I was like, "Did you see that?" She’s like, "Mom, I lived 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. 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 broken up her parents’ marriage, right?

Ann Wilson: Oh, that would be so hard.

Cheryl Shumake: 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." I was like, "Great, you have good food to eat when you’re there," right?

Ann Wilson: Inside you're thinking, "I didn't want her to do anything good." Sorry, that would just be me.

Dave Wilson: My mom never said that. Your mom never said anything negative about my dad. She never said because my dad remarried and I’d go down and see him and my stepmom, and she never said, "What’s great about his new wife?"

She wasn’t negative, she was never negative about either one of them, but she didn’t do what you did. You went next level. That’s next level. You were just next level.

And Ann mentioned discipleship, and I thought we could start another show, but I say we just keep going. That’s a passion of yours.

Ann Wilson: Explain that because there's Stepmom Sanity, there's discipleship, it's all woven together. And you've spoken all over the country, maybe the world on this.

Cheryl Shumake: I don't separate discipleship from the other things that I do, from Stepmom Sanity or bonus blended 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. 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 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. It's to connect this person over here with God, and the Holy Spirit will do the job of formation and transformation. 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. The first thing that we did is we ran out to the Indy 500. So here I am, newly saved, we’re at the Indy 500. It's a huge party, everybody, it's like Mardi Gras but with executives. They’re all out there partying and drinking and I’m trying to give the gospel to different people.

Dave Wilson: I’ve got to hear what did you say coming up to them?

Ann Wilson: Because Dave and I did this too with Cru. We would go door-to-door when we’d go to Christmas conference. Let's hear.

Cheryl Shumake: Yes, I would go up to these people that are partying, drinking, and doing all the things and ask, "Excuse me, do you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior?" Brand new. I heard so many rude comments and a couple of people that kindly listened, but for the most part, 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 and 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." They really don’t know the disease that they’ve been diagnosed with: 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 and 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 owns his outcome. My job is obedience.

Dave Wilson: And you were a college student then, right?

Cheryl Shumake: I was a college student. I was 17, 18 years old, something like that.

Dave Wilson: 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. They’ve gone on a really dark journey and you’re as hot for Christ now as you were.

Cheryl Shumake: There have been ebbs and flows. Right after I got married, we came back from our honeymoon and I went right into ministry: youth ministry, phone ministry. 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.

But eventually that stopped and 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 about a six-month period where I did not like people at all. I didn’t want to be bothered: don’t talk to me, don’t call me. No, I’m not praying with you. That’s how I just didn’t want to be bothered with people.

But at some point I realized, "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 with people." Life had beat it out.

Ann Wilson: That’s a good litmus test of how we feel about people. I love that you're saying this.

Cheryl Shumake: The Scripture tells us in Luke to guard your heart lest 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 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, the Scripture also tells us that we with unveiled faces are looking into a mirror, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into that same glory. 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. It's prayer for revival. It's all the things that we’re talking about right now.

Ann Wilson: 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. 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...

Dave Wilson: Every single person can do that. But you do not have the impact, the joy if you’re not connected to the vine. But I don’t think you can love first before being loved, and I know you’ve written about that.

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.

Cheryl Shumake: Well, first of all, let’s just say this: the Scripture says it is the love of God that’s shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Spirit. 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’re not projects anymore; they become people to love.

I’m not doing it for identity; I’m doing it from identity. Colossians 3, Paul starts that portion of Scripture with, "Since then you have been raised with Christ." 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, humble. So I am not fighting for life; I have life. I’m not fighting for identity; 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. 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.

Dave Wilson: How do you do that as you walk into a stepfamily situation? Because I know that’s your world in terms of Stepmom Sanity. And choosing to love before they’re loving you back, that can be a stepfamily experience. How do you manage and navigate that? Because I know you help people do that.

Cheryl Shumake: 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.

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 alongside 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 super stepmom.

It allowed me to put the cape down and just be and know that that I was enough because God had set me in this family. 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. My bonus son, one of the first gifts I got from him was a cup "I love Mom." And they call me Cheryl. Those weren’t things that I asked for; those were things that God allowed to happen just because I loved freely. Not easily, but freely.

Dave Wilson: So how many kids you have now?

Cheryl Shumake: We have four. Our oldest is actually Jonathan’s bonus daughter from his first marriage. Do not tell her she’s not mine, 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 our bio son who is the youngest. So we have four and I have a grandson!

Dave Wilson: Oh, so fun!

Cheryl Shumake: Nobody told me! Grandkids are like God’s reward for putting up with teenagers, that’s what I say. I love this kid like nobody’s business. He knows it, my husband knows it, everybody knows it, he can have whatever he wants from Grandma.

Which is another thing: I am not his biological grandma, but I’m Grandma. And his biological grandma is Suga, that’s what he calls her. And when they were out one day, they asked him, "Oh is this your grandmother?" And he said, "Oh no, this is my Suga, my grandma’s at home."

I love it. He’s so cute, he’s so adorable. He’s four, so he’s at a great age.

Dave Wilson: Well, I think our listeners are going to be excited because they’re going to hear more from Cheryl.

Cheryl Shumake: I’m excited too! Thank you so much for the opportunity. I’m excited for who is going to be in front of me. I’m excited to have those conversations.

Dave Wilson: We never do either. They're always great. Everybody that comes in here is brought by God. There's a sovereign God who’s orchestrated that moment and you never know how that guest and that conversation’s going to literally change the course of somebody’s life and legacy. 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.

Email us and let us know. 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 I'm having a knee replacement surgery...

Dave Wilson: I’ll be laying on a couch.

Ann Wilson: Yes, Cheryl will be working while you’re on the couch.

Cheryl Shumake: I will be praying for you.

Ann Wilson: Thank you. Dave will be great, he’s a very good patient.

Dave Wilson: The last time I had back surgery years ago and I found out later as I came home and laid down on a 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 the next room and started laughing out loud.

Ann Wilson: No, he was trying to be so... it was not nice of me, but he’s like, "Oh I can’t... you guys, you need to..." and instead of saying anything negative, we just both ran to the other part of the house and we laughed.

Cheryl Shumake: Because isn’t it funny when someone that’s larger than life has to... yeah. I get it, I get it. I might have been laughing with you, I’m just saying.

Ann Wilson: See, and that’s why I need prayer because I’m not always empathetic when it comes to that.

Dave Wilson: 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.

Ann Wilson: You're a good patient though.

Dave Wilson: I don’t know, we’ll see how this knee goes, but I’ll be probably an inch taller when I get out because my leg will straighten out again. Cheryl, I think that our guest 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 will inspire so many.

Cheryl Shumake: He's really cool. He's just good, right? And it's fun to just be in an adventure with him.

Dave Wilson: 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. Just go to familylifetoday.com and click on the link in the show notes.

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Dave Wilson: 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 in the valley and they could really use somebody to encourage them and lift them up in prayer. So would you pray for them?

Cheryl Shumake: 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 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 wastes absolutely nothing. Lord God, so I thank you for bringing beauty out of the ashes, for bringing great joy out of mourning, 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.

Guest (Female): FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife, a Cru Ministry, celebrating 50 years of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.