some moms are grown over time. i know mine was.

my stepmom entered my life when i was 14, a boy with a huge, gaping wound left from the death of my mother. the last thing i wanted was a replacement. she was my dad’s wife, but she wasn’t my mom.

some people would have been threatened by that—of course they’re not half the woman my stepmom, lisa walker, is.

when God made her, He poured a tremendous amount of patience, love and grace into her. and, i believe, He made her for our family.

she had never been married. she didn’t have any children of her own at the time, just a big family with brothers, sisters, a niece and a nephew, which she was eager to share. (and they are equally as eager to accept us.) so this was completely new territory for her.

but the woman was smart. she knew that i cared, but she also knew that what i needed first and foremost was a friend. so that’s what she became.

she did all the mom things—cooked, cleaned, hauled us around. and to be quite honest, i didn’t really think much of it. other than the driving, my brother and i had learned to do a lot of that stuff after my mom died. she was doing things that i knew was perfectly capable of doing myself if needed.

but she didn’t do those things because it was her “job” or “duty.” she did them because she knew that tim walker needed to learn to be a kid again. she knew that i was carrying a wound and that i needed a new chance on life. and completely unknown to me, that’s what i got.

over the years, my friendship with my stepmom grew. but it was until i was 23 that it changed. at a weekend retreat, God helped me connect the dots.

you see, lisa walker was different than my mom. her personality was different. her look was different. the way she loved our family was different. but that didn’t mean she wasn’t my mom.

she has loved me like a mom since day one—just in a different ways than i expected. and she has taught me so much about God’s loving patience through her consistency and commitment.

the ways she loved and cared for me have played as significant a role in shaping me into the man i am as the love of my birth mother showed me until her death. she never saw me as part of the package deal. all along, she saw me as her son.

i don’t have a stepmom. i have two moms, one in heaven and one across town.

the one in heaven lives in my memories.

the one lives in a special place in my heart.