Daily Devotions for Caregivers

 I'm sure you've heard the popular phrase, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  I kinda hate that saying. Of course, I get it - but sometimes, dying might be easier. Lol. I am mostly joking. It's on my mind of late because, as I was reading the Psalms lately, I noticed that David often asked for God to prevent his enemies from killing him. Thankfully, caregiving won't physically kill us - but it might suck the life out of us, right? David often asked God to save him from his enemies, who were literally physical enemies trying to stab him with a sword. Thankfully, and hopefully, we don't have a physical enemy who is chasing us down, trying to end our lives. But we do have some enemies of our souls. Fear. Doubt. Exhaustion. Helplessness. Hopelessness. Anxiety. Stress... need I go on? I'm pretty sure you can fill in that blank adequately! We can sympathize with Paul about being pressed in on every side. The struggle is real. I guess that's why David...

 I love reading and I really enjoy self-help books. Maybe it's because they are a cross between learning and doing life better. There are a lot of really good books and I've read a bunch of them! I've also been listening to some great motivational podcasts. One common thread and term has to do with setting goals and prioritizing. I'm like, really? When you are standing there staring down 5 important  things that need to be done now (or yesterday), how do you choose? Ugh! It's easy to go into emotional shutdown mode when there is too much that has to be done all at once. Time to sit and stare and drink another cup of coffee. Eventually, I'll figure out a place to start and get it all knocked out - maybe. But it can be such a sense of overwhelm that it's almost paralyzing. Or mostly paralyzing. I find myself going back to covering just the basic needs of my son and hoping it all pans out. I know it will. I even know I will survive. It's the rocky path to g...

  A verse in Psalm 108 caught my eye this morning. It starts with a question that was interesting. David asks, Have You rejected us, O God? He seemed to ask this type of question a lot. I don't think it's a lack of faith. Actually, it's a display of great faith and delayed answers. I can't tell you how many times I've wondered where did God go? In my heart, I know that He is still right here and that He is with me.  Gideon asked a similar question too. (Judges 6) If God is with us then why ... Things happening don't make God go away. However, our circumstances can be so in our faces that we cannot see Him. It's even very easy to see the enormity of our situations so that we can't quite see around them to find Him. I think God gets that. We are silently reaching for Him around our stuff - and He is always right there.  David was able to move on from this momentary struggle - that most likely felt like a forever struggle. And he begs God in verse 12, Pleas...

When you are a caregiver, the littlest thing can send you over the emotional cliff. Why is that? (So glad you asked!) We live in situations that are stressful and our emotions can be raw. It doesn't take much to cause an avalanche of emotions. We tend to wear our grief and loss on our sleeves so to speak. For me, this morning, it was simply seeing a profile picture on Facebook. The innocent person posted a photo of a male member of her family playing a bass drum in full band dress. It tanked my emotions immediately. These emotional triggers can be so innocent, so natural, so spontaneous, and very unexpected. I've "bragged" that my emotions can go from a million to zero in less than a second! Lol - but it's true. Triggers can be anywhere and they can tank us so fast! Can I say this? It's a normal, though unpleasant, part of caregiving. Something like a picture, a smell, a memory can knock our emotions off center and have us scrambling for some sort of semblance...

 You know, sometimes it seems like our teaching would lead us to believe that when we trust God and follow Him nothing bad will ever happen to us. How far from the actual truth is that? Lol. Not one story in the Bible would even provide a slight indication that this was true. But somehow, we've got a generation or two that believe it is so. Think about Moses. He was was on the back side of the desert hiding for his life because he had killed an Egyptian. He went there in fear but this part of the story is very short. He passionately stood up for his fellow Israelite and slew the oppressor and then he ran away. (Exodus 2) About all we know during this phase of his life is that he stayed in the land of Midian. He married. He had kids. There's not much to see here, folks. Enter the burning bush.(Exodus 3) God called Moses to go back and get His people and deliver them from their oppressors. And he did. But it certainly didn't mean all his problems were going to disappear. He o...

 I found myself reading through Luke 24 yesterday. There is a lot to unpack in this chapter, but I'm focusing primarily on verses36 to 49. Jesus suddenly appears when the two men from Emmaus are describing their encounter with Him to the others. Jesus immediately called for peace - Peace be with you. (NLT v. 36) The next verse says they were terrible frightened  - which seems to be a LOT more than just skeered, if you ask me. They actually thought they were seeing a ghost at that point. Jesus even asked them why they were so scared. (v.38)  Even after He held out his hands for them to see, they were doubting, filled with joy and wonder.  Can you imagine their emotional chaos? They had trusted Him so much they left their careers and families and followed Him for 3 years. The disciples thought all along that Jesus was going to set up a natural kingdom that would last forever. They kept expecting Him to dethrone the government and take it by force. In some ways, they mi...

 When I was in grade school and middle school we had "exemption" days at the end of the semesters. Students who had an A in the class (and maybe a B, I don't recall) didn't have to take the semester tests. They were exempt and got to stay home for the day. Now, I was a pretty smart kid, I didn't know it then, but looking back I wasn't too dumb. Lol. It seemed that I always was exempt for all but ONE class. This meant I had to go to school for the day just to take a single test. Sigh. My poor teachers. I still liked exemption days since it meant I didn't have to do any work and I only had to take one test. With this in mind, I want to take a flip-side look at a topic that comes up often. We are NOT exempt from God's grace, mercy, peace, fill-in-the-blank with anything God's given us due to our caregiver status. He doesn't make promises in the Word to everyone but caregivers. We continue to have access to everything God has provided for us. But w...

  After my son's wreck, I had trouble reading some scriptures. My faith had to be totally redefined. I've shared how the "faith" movement had indirectly taught that when bad things happened it was because we lacked faith. And to not be able to confess your way out or quote scriptures through to "victory" was reprehensible. There was really something big wrong with you. So, I bought a new Bible and started in Genesis and read the Bible with new eyes  - through a painful, broken soul. I saw things so differently and learned how to trust God with my honest, raw emotions. One scripture that just kept coming up and making me mad was Psalm 91. I've quoted it. I even sang it in the 70s.. lol. But it's been misused and twisted to make us think that nothing bad will happen if we stay under God's protection. Or - that we must not be trusting Him if we find ourselves in bad situations. Isn't God protecting us? Why doesn't He protect us from these ba...

  Do you ever feel like your soul is just broke? Not your body - even though I am learning the hard way that stress can do a number on our bodies! (Working on a workbook for caregivers with ideas to reduce stress!) But it's not our bodies that worry us most of the time. It's our souls - our mind, will, and emotions. It would be easier if we had a broken arm. There would be x-rays, diagnosis, and casting. Buy a soul is a lot harder to put a cast on. And add to that the fact that the pain and hurt are recurring day after day - it doesn't give a lot of room for healing. But I do think God can bring at least a level of healing in the middle of our pain. The Bible is full of broken souls. My mind went first to David. Samuel, the prophet told David's father, Jesse, to bring all of his sons to the dinner. When none of them were picked by God to be the next king, Samuel had to ask, are these all of your sons, Jesse? The answer was no - David was out keeping the sheep. That has ...

  Yesterday, I was getting Chris out of the vehicle, he moved his foot and turned, trying to help me. I said, "Good job, buddy!" At that moment, it was like I could feel all the times God told me, "Good job!"  Getting a new vehicle has been such a blessing - I even look forward to the payments, so far. Lol. While he is adjusting nicely, getting him in and out poses a lot of new challenges. It seems to be helping encourage him to move his legs more and I'm noticing more movement in the right leg, which has taken forever to kick in. I learned early on to celebrate even the smallest bit of progress. Progress is progress, after all.  I must admit, though, that there is a bit of sadness that can creep in with each bit of progress. He is 40 now and I should be congratulating him on landing a new job, making a move, or expecting a new baby. Instead, I'm helping him learn to move his hands and feet again, take a few bites of food, and simple things that he learned s...

 This weekend, I was talking to a friend about some of my grandmother's writings. I had started a project and kind of let it slide in the busy-ness of caregiving. But as I was rummaging through time stained papers I found another poem my grandmother wrote. The date she scribbled on the top only says, Jan 9. There is no year, but it would have been before 1966, since that was the year she passed from this life to the arms of Jesus. Since there is no date, I have no idea of what she may have been going through at the time. But apparently, she was facing some difficult times. I found hope and comfort in her writings. I want to share the poem with you - I hope it encourages you today too. Dear Father God, You've given me So many precious, lovely things And now I've learned to wait on Thee To bear me up on eagle's wings. How intimate these last few years- I've learned to listen to Your Voice- And looking up thro' falling tears To make Your holy Will my choice. How qu...