Hi friend. I'm Julie Sattery and thanks for listening to Java with Julie. This podcast is a listener-supported outreach of authentic intimacy, a ministry dedicated to reclaiming God's design for sexuality. And I have a great conversation to share with you today with Ron Deal, who is the director of Family Life Blended at Family Life Today.

Family Life Blended is a ministry specifically designed to strengthen stepfamilies

to provide resources that speak uniquely into the challenges that they face and break

some of the generational cycles that might be there of divorce.

And I don't think I know of anyone who's more

knowledgeable about blended families or who has more compassion for blended families than Ron Deal.

Today we're going to talk about some of the conversations that you need to have if you're

thinking about getting married and entering a blended family. So this conversation is for engaged or pre-engaged

couples who have at least one child from a previous relationship. And that might not be you,

but probably as you've noticed with other job with Julie conversations, you're going to find

this one fascinating and you'll probably know somebody that you're going to want to forward it

onto. So stay tuned and share it with them.

In our show notes, we're going to link to a book that Ron recently wrote called Preparing to

Blend as well as a leader's guide going through that resource.

You can also find those at our website, Authenticanimacy.com.

And before we jump into my conversation with Ron, I'd be thankful this week if you took a few moments to leave us a rating and review in your podcast app.

That really helps other people who are deciding whether or not to take a chance on job with Julie and spend some time listening.

And as always, we love hearing from you too.

So let's head to the coffee shop for my conversation with Ron Deal.

So, Ron, you are known as the step family guru in the Christian world.

All right.

Do people call you that?

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