Daily Devotions for Caregivers

 When my son had his wreck over 17 years ago, I didn't leave the floor we were on for 10 days. Then, I only went to the cafeteria to get something to eat. I recall waking up in the SICU waiting room, trying to recalibrate my mind to what was going on, and hoping it'd all been a bad dream. From the beginning, I knew that God was in it.  (Whatever that meant.) Honestly, I thought God would touch Chris, he'd do some rehabilitation, and we'd all go back to what we were doing before the crash. Somehow, I thought, and hoped, that I'd wake up and see God riding in a white horse and rescuing us. Obviously, that did not happen! I openly and frankly admit my frustrations with God and the times I spent so angry at Him for allowing this to happen. But I kept finding that I really couldn't do life without Him, wreck or no wreck.  I needed Him to hold me and carry me, no matter how mad I was at Him.  All of these thoughts came rushing back in as I was reminded of the story of...

 As I was doing my personal Bible study this morning, my eyes fell on an odd verse. It kind of stood out because it said, I ground them as fine as dust carried by the wind. I swept them into the gutter like dirt. (NLT) I thought, what in the world? So I read the next verse, which says, You gave me victory over my accusers... That's where I stopped. I remembered that Revelation 12:10 says that the Devil is the accuser of the brethren. These verses (Psalm 18:42-43) say we win over the accuser. I liked that, so I thought I'd camp there for a while. I do think our enemy gets some bad press, and he is often accused of things that he didn't do - sometimes stuff is the result of our bad decisions. But I also know that he likes to accuse us of things to discourage us or talk us out of God's blessings.  Some accusations he likes to throw at me a LOT: You don't have any faith or this wouldn't have happened (or you could reverse it)... You are a doubter and not trusting Go...

  One of the improvements my son has made lately is that he can communicate "yes" and "no" more clearly. He uses his left hand to sign, "yes." He's also started nodding his head for yes more consistently. To communicate "no," he shifts his eyes from one side to the other. As he has regained more function, this is broader, and now he is moving his head from side to side for an emphatic, "No!" I'm learning not to ask questions he might say no to. I need him to know that I respect his answers. But this morning, I forgot and asked him if he was ready for his shower. I got a whole head and eyes side to side, "NO!" lol. Too bad, it's shower day. A little compassion kicked in as I thought of all the mornings I've thought, NO! I do NOT want to get up and get started today!  So many times, caregivers are tired before they even begin, but must just get up and get going since there is so much to do! How many mornings have...

 As I was writing yesterday's post about finding  what we seek, I thought of another familiar passage. I went there because I was writing about waiting on God for strength. That always makes me think of Isaiah 40:31. But since I wanted to keep that in context, I backed up to verse 27.  The prophet Isaiah asks Israel, how can you say God doesn't see your troubles? How can you say God refuses to hear your case? (NLT) Then he says, Have you never heard or understood? I interpreted that as "Don't you get it?" And the answer, of course, is He's got you!  I am not sure we will ever be able to fully understand His grace, His strength, or His love. But that doesn't mean we are excluded from enjoying them if we can remind ourselves of them.  The question itself (Don't you get it?) makes me look back at what I am supposed to "get."  How can you say the Lord doesn't see your troubles? Interpreted: God sees you and your troubles, struggles, and situa...

 This morning, I was thinking about how many "enemies" David had. He ran from Saul for years. But at one point, the Philistines hated him, even though he'd been running and fighting with them. At Ziklag (1 Sam. 30:6), his own men talked of stoning him. Then in 2 Sam 15 we read the story of how his own son, Absalom, rose up against him. That's a lot.  As caregivers, it can feel like life is stacking "stuff" up against us constantly, right?  As I was thinking about all of these situations, I wondered how David kept his mind right. That's a lot to navigate, physically and emotionally. Thankfully, most of it didn't happen all at one time. It sounds like a typical caregiving day to me.  We never know what is going to happen in a day, when things may take a turn for the worse or for the better. Caregivers continue making the best decisions they can with the information they have available. This happens over time and sometimes it happens several times in a ...

  I'm working my way through Psalms for an upcoming book I'm writing on grief. I love that the psalmists were so expressive of their feelings, and that God let  them put them in the Bible. We can easily forget how human our beloved Bible characters were. They felt pain and joy. Many lived stressful lives. The Psalms are one of the most "human" books, I think, because we get to see a piece of how people like Moses, Asaph, the sons of Korah, and, of course, David, really felt. Psalm 73 was written by Asaph. He is obviously writing during a very troublesome time in his life. It was verses 22-24 that caught my eye. In verse 22, he admits his ignorance and foolishness. In the NLT (1996), verse 22 says,  I must have seemed like a senseless animal to You.  Boy, I've felt senselss and foolish before God, haven't you? But the first phrase of verse 23 is what grabbed my attention. Asaph has felt like he lost it before God, then he says, But I still belong to You. Man, I...