Daily Devotions for Caregivers

  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...

  This morning, I went to the fridge to get something. When I opened the door, I noticed a bag of grapes on the second shelf. Nothing significant, except that I thought I had eaten all of them. So, I grabbed the bag and ate the rest of them again. lol.  I thought for a second about the widow in 1 Kings 17. God sent Elisha to her house after he'd been fed by ravens by the brook during the famine. He asked her to make him a cake. Her reply is heartbreaking. She explained that she only had enough flour and oil to make a meal for her son and herself. That was it. She figured after that, they would just die.  The wise prophet told her to make him a small loaf first. Seems a bit selfish to me, but she obeyed. He then explained that her flour and oil would not run out for the rest of the famine. Sure enough. Her bin always had enough flour, and her jar always had enough oil. My imagination jumped on that one.  What if every time I opened the fridge, there was a small cluste...

  I love the Psalms, maybe it's because the psalmists were so raw and real with their emotions and feelings. They didn't hold back, especially David! They told it like it was. It was finding Psalm 13 anew that helped me start processing the emotions of caregiving. I felt lost. It seemed like God had pushed a "cancel" button on my life, and He wasn't even listening to me. When I found those thoughts and feelings mirrored in Psalm 13, it was like I found a license to hurt. It's okay to grieve; it's not a sin.  I return to the Psalms a lot for my private devotions and use them often in my writings. This morning, I found myself in a very familiar place: Psalm 91. I'm sure you are familiar with it too! But there's this one verse that caught my eye. In the KJV, NASB, and the ESV, verse 4 says something like this: He will cover you with His pinions  (what is that, anyway?) and under His wings you will find refuge;  His faithfulness is a shield and buckler...

One thing I love about my apartment is the bay windows stretching across the living room. As I was sitting here yesterday writing the blog post, I noticed two young men (kids, really) running down the sidewalk across the street. The older, taller boy was running out ahead of a smaller boy. I smiled, and thought about how tall the younger one was going to be when he grows into his long legs. Lol. Shortly after the two went out of view, a couple more kids came running by. Just happened to be a boy and a girl, mid-teens at least. But what caught my eye was that, even though he was taller and older than his female running partner, they were at the same pace. His legs were obviously much longer than hers, but they were running side-by-side. I realized he had slowed down to keep pace with her, even though he could have run far ahead!  I think God does that with us. He adjusts His pace to match our day and the way we are able to handle it. Some days go smoothly. We can clip along emotiona...

I could make a long list of the things caregiving has taught me. One thing I think I'd want to put at the top of the list is that God is a safe place. He doesn't respond in anger, even when I'm mad at Him. But He does listen to my cries, so intently that He hears all the emotions behind every tear that falls and every deep sigh that escapes. He gets it.  As I was walking back through Psalm 91 this morning, I had a deluge of thoughts. I thought about what it means to live in the shelter of the Most High. And how often I've found rest in His shadow. Oh, how I know this is true, even on the roughest of days. It's comforting just to know we have a place we can hide. And even though we don't physically hide in Him, we have that safe place for our raw emotions. He won't condemn us or kick us out. He won't give us that blank stare  either! As caregivers, we get it a lot. People we don't know stare at us blankly. Like, maybe they have tons of questions, but ...

 This week, I was thinking about Abraham and Sarah. They are our "faith" parents. Scriptures call Abraham the father of our faith. He believed what God told him beyond possibility and beyond hope. Don't we love to share the story of the promise of Isaac? He would be the one to continue to carry the promise to generations to come. Generations we are literally a part of by faith. We love a good ending, right? Especially one we get to live out! But it wasn't without human flaws. A story that looked like it might have failed due to the actions of mere humans, Sarah and Abraham. We love our Bible heroes, don't we? But it's easy to forget that they were human just like us. They dealt with emotions, thoughts, fears, and struggles every single day, too. But God gave them a promise. The thing about God's promises is that they don't always make sense in our heads. We can't always figure them out or imagine how in the world He is going to do what He promised....