Daily Devotions for Caregivers

Sometimes we don’t realize how heavy the load of caregiving becomes. And other times, we just don’t want to admit it. We love our caregivee – that’s why we do what we do. There are those days we shake off a poor night’s sleep, go into survival mode, roll up our sleeves, and get things done. We can’t not do them, right? Yesterday, I was feeding my son lunch when a notification popped up on my phone. A group was sharing live worship on Facebook Live. I don’t usually pay too much attention to those things as there isn’t time, but since I was just feeding Chris, I clicked on it. I am so glad I did. The worship was wonderful. Based on the chat there were people from Korea, Uganda, Brazil, and I don’t recall how many other places from around the world. We were joining together to worship the King. As I began to sing along, the burden I didn’t even know I was carrying was lifted. I didn’t realize I’d been carrying it until the pressure began to lift. The group began to ...

One of my friends just had a brand new beautiful baby girl. Celebrating new births always makes me think of Psalm 139. It’s definitely one of my most marked-up psalms! I also had Jeremiah 1:5 running through my head. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. I read back through Psalm 139 again, it’s got so many encouraging spots in it if you haven’t read it in a while, it’s a great read for today! This whole psalm is great, but a couple of things stuck out to me this morning in particular. In the first verse, David says O Lord, You have searched me and known me   - and I added a note in my margin – “And it’s okay!” It’s okay that He knows our thoughts, our words before we speak them, when we get up and when we get down. I’m quite alright with Him seeing and knowing every part about me and my days. You see, He sees those parts no one else sees. As a personal example, I maintain a FB page for my son’s progress. I post to it every day or so as he does something notabl...

Well, I started my to-do list for today and it’s official, I have a lot on my plate. I’m pretty sure most caregivers have a similar list. It can be a lot as it’s not easy taking care of more than one person. There’s so much to do and consider when you are caring for another and making decisions for them. It is often overwhelming. While our bodies can get tired from the daily caregiving tasks, our souls get weary too. Our soul gets tired from the constant pressure. Emotions run high when caring for another person. We can get tired inside and out. Sometimes, we don’t even realize it because we can slip into autopilot so easily. That dulling is a preservation strategy for many caregivers. But we are still on overload, even if we have numbed out. (Maybe it’s just me!) I started thinking about all of this during my private devotions this morning. I came across these verses in Psalm 62 and they stirred up my heart and mind. My soul, wait silently for God alone, For my expect...

I’m a bit behind (no surprise there!) but I am still trying to read the Bible through this year. I read most every morning as my quiet time with God is an essential part of my day. I have my coffee, my Bible, and a notebook or journal handy. It’s the only time of the day when the house is quiet. In this morning’s reading, the Children of Israel had just exited Egypt. They ran smack dab into the Red Sea and crossed it to find bitter water. Then they had no food. And then they had no water. As all of these barriers came up and God provided a way, I thought how similar it is to caregiving. It seems like you work through one thing only to be met with another. And of course, this goes on day after day. Life can be like navigating a huge obstacle course. Lol. If we think about it though, this was a series of big things Moses and the Children of Israel had to deal with. They were back to back obstacles. Plus, as their leader, Moses had to listen to all their whining and complai...

This morning during my quiet time, I found myself in John. I read through a few chapters and got lots to think about. I actually started by looking at chapter 7 verses 37-38. Jesus is speaking and says, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in Me as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living waters. I thought about that awhile. If I am “thirsty” I can come to Him. And if I believe – there will be living waters flowing through my heart. There are no exclusionary statements, so I took it that it’s for caregivers too! My eyes sort of followed all the red words on the two open pages and I ended up back in chapter 6 and Jesus is talking about believing again. Jesus said there were some among his followers who didn’t believe. In their defense, He had just shared some hard to understand teachings with them about eating His flesh. And as we humans tend to do – when something makes sense we leave. Many left off from following Jesus...

Over the last two days, tragic events in a nearby neighborhood have unfolded. A young man died in a wreck on Sunday. His father, I presume overcome with grief and still in shock, plowed through a group of high school athletes out for an afternoon run the day after. One track star was killed, and five others are in critical condition. There was head trauma involved. Hearing those words always takes me back to memories of my son’s wreck and following experiences. There is still a lot of unanswered questions such as if he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Those tests are pending, but I am relatively sure he was under the influence of grief. And now, these parents of seriously injured teens are on a road at least similar to the one I’ve traveled. I grieve for them as I know they most likely spent the night in an ICU waiting room. Grief is a funny thing – it’s different for everyone. Many caregivers deal with living grief. For me, I grieve the loss of my son – even ...

My head is swimming in thoughts this morning as I sit to write this devotion. I had a full weekend, and lots to process. Actually, I've had a full morning already with more things to process. That takes time. The overthinker that I am goes back through every experience, action, discussion and more - and breaks it down into thousands of thoughts. As I redigest it - I learn things to do and not do next time. So, I could easily say with no exaggeration that I have about 1000 things running through my mind this morning. On top of all that - I have about 1000 things I need  to get done today. I made good progress over the weekend, let a client go and got finished with another, but I am still behind. So, I've got lots to do today to keep the clients I have now happy. Then there's the writing I want to do for Dove's Fire Ministries - I wanted to get 31 Days in Psalm 31   done in January. So I'm behind on my stuff too. I haven't even thought much about the 1000 ca...