Vanessa Martindale on Being Blended and Redeemed (Part 1)

John Farrell: Could you please tell me a little bit about your book, Blended and Redeemed?

Vanessa Martindale: Yes. The process of writing the book, I think, is very interesting. I love telling this, but we launched our ministry, Blended Kingdom Families, in January 2020, and we quickly started praying about what content looked like for blended families. What we heard from the Lord was to go out and make disciples of all nations. We wanted to reach out and touch as many blended couples as we could and interview them and hear what they were struggling with, what they were being successful in, was their church equipping them, and what were some of the resources they needed?

So, we started what we called the Blended Kingdom Project, and we interviewed around 60 couples from all over the world—from Australia to South Africa, the UK, Canada, and all over the United States. The goal was 100, we got around 60. Scott and I developed a survey, which everyone filled out. Then we also did an interview on Zoom face-to-face. It was a lot of questions, everything from your marriage to intimacy, to family life, to mental health.

Scott and I are both mental health professionals. He’s a therapist of 16 years, and I’m getting my master’s in Marriage and Family Therapy. We gathered all of that information, coupled it with our personal story, and put that in this book called Blended and Redeemed. It says it’s “a go-to filled guide for the modern stepfamily” because what we discovered, and what we felt like the Holy Spirit was drawing us to do was to take the most talked about themes from these interviews and write about them.

It was interesting because there were a lot of things that I wouldn’t think were a big deal, but we heard over and over in these conversations. So, we put some of these family stories in there and a lot of our story.

Our hope is that this book would draw people into a deep, close relationship with Jesus and lead to salvation. That’s what the last chapter is all about. But it’s really about how to build a blended kingdom family.

I think in society there’s a stigma around people who have been divorced and have remarried that they’re unblessable or that they’re just trying to survive and they can’t thrive in their blended family. Scripture reminds us that the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but that Christ has come so that we could have life abundantly. So really, it’s a book of hope for people. It gives them practical tools, but it also gives them a lot of scripture.

The book is very scripture-based as well. And what we’ve heard over and over since launching the book is that it’s been a beacon of hope for people. We just hope that people can experience the Lord through that and that they find that hope, who is Jesus, through it.

JF: Is finding hope the overall message?

Vanessa: There are so many things I hope they would take from the book. I think what I want people to take from the book is that redemption is possible with Jesus, that there is an abundant life that is possible with Jesus, and that nothing is impossible with God. I think that is what I want people to say. So, I guess that would be hope, but nothing is impossible when Christ is your firm foundation. That’s actually Luke 1:37. It doesn’t mean that it’s going to be easy, but when we have Him as our firm foundation, we can experience redemption, restoration, all of these things that we all want to have, and we all want to experience in this life.

JF: Why is that message so important today?

Vanessa: I think the message is important today because look at our society. The breakdown of society begins with family. And marriage was the first institution before sin entered into the world. So, marriage and family are so important to the heart of God.

We have more families that are without father figures. We have more single-parent homes now than ever, and we’re seeing these repeated generational cycles of divorce, addiction, and abuse. If we can just introduce people to who Jesus is, give them that hope, and start a family revival, I think our culture, our society, the world, we could change so much. Family is so important to the heart of God.

JF: The title of your book is Blended and Redeemed. What does that mean to you?

Vanessa: That was actually something the Lord gave me years ago. Scott, my husband, and I went through what we call our “wilderness season.” It was in 2017, and I was served papers one day because my ex-husband was suing me for full custody of my oldest son who is now 16. We entered into a year of just walking through hell, to be honest. It was difficult. We did not see a way out of our situation, but the Lord performed a miracle in that. And within that season, He did a refining in our hearts. I talk about this in chapter one. It’s like when precious metals and gold get heated up to a certain degree it pulls all the impurities out. God didn’t take us out of the fire, but He did promise to walk with us through it and there was a reason for that.

When we came out of that season victorious, God performed a miracle. We now have a great co-parenting relationship with my ex-husband where there were 12 years of disunity. For 12 years, we didn’t get along, and He performed that miracle. There was a beautiful redemption that He did in that relationship and in our personal lives.

I remember having a dream one night and He showed me that we were in that fiery furnace. I think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I remember when I woke up from the dream, I asked Him specific things and He was like, “This is redeemed.” I remember writing that in my journal. I knew we were going to write a book about our experiences one day. So, when that time came and it came to the title of the book, I was like, “Blended and Redeemed.”

I think blended families are beautiful examples of God’s redemption because what the enemy meant for evil, God in His goodness, faithfulness, and sovereignty could turn around and make it into something more beautiful than we could ever possibly imagine.

JF: Is the experience that you went through with your ex-husband what spurred you to become passionate about helping other stepfamilies?

Vanessa: I would say it’s that, but I also grew up in a blended family. I don’t know my biological father. My mom was married three times and fortunately she just had her 29th anniversary this month. So, I would say it’s been a lifelong thing.

I reached out to the local church when we were in that wilderness season going through litigation, and I asked for biblically based set family resources, but there was nothing. We attend one of the largest megachurches in the United States, and they didn’t offer a class or resources at the time for blended families.

After I reached out to them, I got a call from the church asking me to start writing curriculum and things like that. We ended up teaching these classes and saw the need because they completely filled up. But at the same time, the Lord in our personal lives was drawing us into ministry.

There was a moment one day when I was in the car after we had just finished our season of litigation. The lawsuit ended in August or September of 2018, and I was in the season where the Lord had me home. I was homeschooling, and I was frustrated with Him. I’m like, “What was that whole season, that whole year for? What do you want us to do with that?” I remember being in the car and in righteous anger crying out to Him. I asked Him, “God, what do you want me to do?” And He was like, “I want you to help me build Kingdom-blended families.” He said, “Kingdom” first. He gave me this revelation of what that looked like. And I spoke to the Holy Spirit and said, “I’m not equipped for this.” And He was like, “Vanessa, the very thing that the world says disqualifies you, I will use to qualify you in the eyes of men, and I will use to qualify you in the Kingdom of God.” So, I came home, got out of the car, went to my husband’s office, and told him, “I think we’re supposed to start a stepfamily ministry.”

I never thought God would use that season that we went through, and really my entire life, to speak into stepfamilies. My husband told me to go pray about it, and I went into my closet and prayed. He gave me this vision of ashes falling from the ceiling. I was sitting in this room, and I saw these ashes falling from the ceiling. I asked Him what the ashes represented. And He said, “People who have been divorced, who have experienced pain and hurt, people who are in blended families.”

Suddenly, those ashes turned into this tornado, and tornadoes are chaos. Right? They cause destruction. In the middle of that, the cross with Jesus dropped and I saw the words “Blended Family.” Then the cross dropped right in between those two words. I knew that the cross was the navigating point from a blended family to a blended Kingdom family. That’s how the ministry started.

Then the book came along with that. We talk about that in the book because I think it’s such an important part for people to know. I never thought that I would be in ministry, but God did. I think once I surrendered to Him and was like, “Okay, I’m tired of doing things my way. What do you want me to do?” He was like, “I want you to help other families who have been in your position and help walk them through what you’ve also experienced as well.”