Daily Devotions for Caregivers

I've been reading the book of James this week. He encourages believers to be patient with the process of faith. James talks about building endurance and growing in faith. In fact, maybe we've tried to make faith a destination rather than the journey it is! That's one conclusion I've come to, anyway. Faith is definitely a journey! One of the recurring themes in James is patience. He encourages us to be patient as our faith grows. In fact, in chapter 5, he discusses how a farmer must wait for his harvest. Depending on the crop that was planted, it can be a loooooong wait from seed-planting to mature crop harvesting! The farmer can't really do anything to make the process faster, he has no choice other than to wait for the natural process to unfold over time. I'll be the first one to admit that sometimes, it's the wait that is behind our greatest frustrations. We certainly can't hurry the caregiving journey. We have to take each day as it comes and walk it ...

 I do not think that all caregivers are depressed! Lol. But I do think that as a society, we deal with depression a lot. Mental health is a hot topic, and as caregivers, we have to be in charge of our own mental health. And that can be a very rough road. Not to brag, but I can go from totally elated (90 miles an hour) to utterly depressed (0 miles an hour) in just about a second and a half. Things hit us hard, and it can be a constant struggle to keep our heads above water, so to speak.  I've shared a few strategies for beating caregiver's fog, which really stems from overwhelm and emotional stress. Each day can feel like a struggle to breathe emotionally, and many of us do it alone. I think that's why Psalm 25:16 captured me. David said he was alone and depressed.  Two things the church culture doesn't want us to admit. Why? They don't know what to do with it and with us - because we cannot just confess it away. We can beat it, but we have to do it over and over a...

Does it seem to you, my fellow caregivers, that other things in life weigh a bit more than they should? It's like we carry so much that the smallest concern weighs us down even more. We often experience living grief,  and the losses seem to add up and weigh more as we go along. Even the smallest loss can send us off on an emotional journey we didn't bargain for. I don't know, maybe it's just me?!? We can be joyful, thankful, grateful, and find ways to manage and hopefully minimize caregiver stress , but it's still heavy sometimes. This is especially real for those who walk this caregiving journey alone.  Over the weekend, I read and reread Psalm 25. As I tried to unpack it all, I found there is really a lot going on in this psalm. David, the writer, is reconfirming and declaring that he will continue to trust the Lord no matter what the battle looks like, feels like, or what life throws at him. This prayerful psalm is a request for mercy. For deliverance. For God...

  As caregivers, we deal with so many things on a daily basis. I'm not even talking about the actual caregiving part! Lol. If we could sit and talk for a few minutes, we could probably make an exhaustive (no pun intended) list of extras we didn't know came with taking care of a loved one. We could start with social isolation - the alone ness. Sigh. Our anything-but-normal lives separate us from others we love at times, and we even miss out on big family events. Friends don't "get" us anymore. They don't understand that the rules of engagement  have changed. There's no more hopping in the car to grab a cup of coffee or a movie. Everything has to be planned and all the bases covered.  Then there is the financial aspect of caregiving that no one bothered to warn us about! Many have the opportunity to work from home, which is a blessing, although it's a complicated one! Some caregivers have lost their jobs, homes, and lifestyles because of caregiving.  Whe...

 I read an interesting statement this morning. The author was talking about trauma and having PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Personally, I think all caregivers probably suffer from post-traumatic stress on some level. We just don't always have time to pamper ourselves, and we often live in survival mode. There's no time to get an official diagnosis. And even IF we did, when would we have time to “treat” it? I laugh - but it's not funny, really. The author made a really good point. She said that she shifted her focus to how much she'd grown since the trauma in her life. That made me pause and think a little bit.  Has caregiving been difficult? YES! Has the journey been the hardest thing in my life, so far? Absolutely. But I have to admit that I have grown as a believer. I call my journey a redefining of faith. Nothing looks like it did - absolutely nothing. And even though I didn't get the answers I've prayed for, I have to acknowledge that I view faith ...

 I am not sure anyone but caregivers "get" our responsibilities. Sometimes, we don't "get" it ourselves. We can hear a lot of voices - and not in the crazy way, either! Lol. People condemn us for so many different things and just really don't understand our position as chief caregivers. And that's okay, they don't need  to understand. But the fact that they don't want to  can sting a little bit, am I right? The healthcare system is making financial cuts and simply does not care about the particulars of our situations. That, and many other circumstances, can leave us feeling stranded emotionally and sometimes literally. But it's all good, right? My thoughts are running along this line due to a series of events, for one. I don't need to explain to you how crazy it can get around here! Lol. Secondly, I was rereading the story of David and Goliath this morning to prepare for my morning Facebook Live devotions. David had so many voices (negati...

Do you ever feel like one of your biggest daily struggles is just trying to "hold it all together"? Life can feel so fragmented, a shattered shell of what once was. Sometimes, caregivers may feel like others just don't get it, and that we chose  to be a caregiver. We are looked at as some sort of less than. Someone who is not worthy, or who is beneath the standards set out by the world. It's easy to feel like we are undeserving of help. Of love. Of other people's time. Can I tell you right now that if you feel less than, or like you are just trying to hold it all together - you are in good company and in good hands! A series of events over the last few days had me questioning my own existence. I began to feel like I was incapable of a normal life. And worse than that, some things said by loved ones made me feel shunned, like I'd committed some immortal sin and needed to be sentenced to a life sentence of aloneness.  I started writing some of it in my journal, ...

 Luke 7:36-49 recounts the story of the woman who washed Jesus' feet with her tears. Jesus had been invited to the home of a Pharisee to share a meal. The woman, who has no name, like the woman at the well, was called "a sinner." We can fill in the blank as to what her "sin" was, but it can go unsaid. In verse 48, Jesus says her sins plural were forgiven. We can assume she led a rather interesting life, which Jesus did not condemn, but the Pharisee did. One thing that stood out to me this morning as I was reading this passage was how different the two hearts were. The woman came to Jesus and never said a word. She poured expensive, fragrant oil on His head and began to weep at his feet. She cried so many tears that she began to dry His feet with her tears. Somehow, this woman of ill repute knew  Jesus heart to heart. Even if she couldn't put it into words, and maybe hadn't even been taught it, Isaiah 52:7 was real to her. (How beautiful are the feet of t...

 One of the many difficulties with being a caregiver is that we are always on. There's no break and no time off. Even when we get a little respite, we have to have our phones ready in case we get a call about our loved one's care. It's not like we are caregivers on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with an occasional weekend tossed in. It's an every single day, 24/7, seven days a week deal!  Being on all the time can wear on our emotions and work into our souls. This is why it's so important to stay focused on our Help - the Great Sustainer of our Souls. Psalm 54:4 says Surely God is my helper, the Lord is the One Who sustains my soul. (NIV) When we invite Him into our messy worlds, whether it's our emotions, thoughts, feelings, or broken soul, He walks right in with all that He is. AND - He brings all that He is right into our brokenness. While the world avoids us because it makes them feel uncomfortable, He rushes into be with us and walk with us on the rocky ...

 Does it ever feel like you are being pressed on every side? Who am I talking to? Caregivers often feel like life is being conducted in a crucible. We deal with blow after blow, day after day. Sometimes, it's emotional blows, grief, sadness, and loss. These are things we cannot see, but boy, do we feel them. Other times, it's physical. I'm not sure there is a feeling worse than being a caregiver who can't caregive because of illness or impairment, even if it's a temporary setback due to an injury. During Flu season or Covid outbreaks, God forbid the caregiver catch something. It's more than "difficult" to care for someone when you are feeling less than your best. But even without these "extra" frustrating complications, it's easy to feel squished all the time. We may find ourselves always living on the edge, and it's not what Aerosmith was talking about, either! Lol.  David was in a very different situation, but he was responsible for...

 It's easy to think you did something wrong or are somehow responsible for bad things happening. That's not the case, but many caregivers feel like they don't have the right amount of faith, don't trust God enough, or did something to bring calamity on themselves or their loved ones. I sure felt that way when my son had his wreck. The church didn't help much when they couldn't pray the prayer of faith to raise him up either. Lots of questions, huh? We brought Jeremiah up last week, and the fact that one of our staple verses we like to use, especially when things don't make sense, was written  to the exiles.  Jeremiah 29:11-14 reassured the exiles that God still had a good plan for them, even if they couldn't see it or understand it.  Think about it for a minute, that there were some notable, good people in exile. Daniel was an exile living in the Babylonian captivity. He didn't do  anything to be put in that position. Neither did the three Hebrew chi...

 "In the Sweet By and By" can be found in almost any old hymnal—and maybe new ones, too, I don't know! It's wonderful to have a blissful afterlife to look forward to, isn't it? I'm not making light of it at all. I cannot wait to spend eternity with my Lord! But there are some days when I think I need a little more of Him in my right now.  Galatians 1:3 and 4 says, Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present age , according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen What would deliver us from this present age  even mean? The NLT adds, just like God planned.  From our right now, heaven is a wonderful escape and we all look forward to it! But God planned to rescue our souls from our right now. He planned for us to have peace and grace (verse 3) in our nows. In John 14:1-4, Jesus explained to His disciples that He was "going to p...

  Memories are a wonderful thing. But they can be haunting at times, too. Sometimes, I cherish the good memories I made with my son before his wreck. Other times, I loathe them because of the loss. But if we can look back on our lives and see it as a whole, as a single action, our memories can help us fight the fight of faith today and going forward. In Nehemiah 4, they were working hard to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem. But it made others mad, for no apparent reason other than they just didn't want Jerusalem to be blessed and succeed. They were under attack by an enemy who wanted to bring confusion and fear. Why? Because those are crippling. We would be correct in labeling them silent killers.  But in chapter 4, verse 14, Nehemiah empowered the workers by telling them this: Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, great and awesome, and fight.... Don't be afraid - just remember God. That turns out to be powerful instructions. It's pretty simple, isn't it? Yet,...

Caregivers are far too familiar with depression. It pretty much just comes along with the package. That's not to say that every caregiver is depressed, but I think everyone battles with it at some point or another. There are a lot of emotions that go along with the losses caregivers have to process.  Honestly, I never thought it would be one of my biggest battles. But as people disappeared and the life I had known slowly faded away in life's rearview mirror, it seemed to swallow me whole.  I didn't recognize it at first. Survival has a way of blinding us to much of what is going on around us as we struggle just to breathe one more breath. I don't care how many scriptures we quote or prayers we pray, at some point the caregiver's fog will try to overcome us and suck the life that's left right out of us. One day, I woke up and realized I'd been depressed. I was about to lose all that I had worked to build job-wise. I sat on the side of the bed and told myself,...

 I often joke that my family was so religious that I went to church 9 months before I was even born. That's actually very true! One time when I was a teenager, my mom was dragging me to church on a Sunday night, and I really didn't want to go. She stopped, looked at me, and said, "I don't care if you are 40 years old. If YOU live in MY house, you're going to church." I still wonder why I had to go and they did not, but maybe, just maybe, she saw something God put in my heart way back then. When Sundays, midweek services or revivals rolled around, the question wasn't if  we were going, it was what time are we leaving? Lol. This is no exaggeration! I raised my kids the same way. My heritage is ministry, and I believed it was a family affair. When I packed up and moved to Chicago in July 2008, I started my search for a church immediately. By the time the call came on that cold November 8 morning, I was involved with two churches, even though I was working thr...

  The other day, we talked about precocious faith, having faith "too early!" Before things happen our determination is to trust God. Today, another term I spilled out of my pen into a poem is "ferocious faith." I am starting to believe that caregivers must have ferocious faith. We are staring at perhaps the most difficult situations life can throw at us, yet we are still clinging to Him. So what if it's an act of desperation! We're reaching for Him, leaning toward Him, and choosing to trust Him again each day. That's being ferocious in our faith.  I thought I'd share the poem I wrote last week. It was literally a "spontaneous prayer" I wrote in my journal, "just for fun." After I looked back at it, I saw my own desparate reach for His heart. And maybe even my ultimate goal of "just being okay." Spontaneous Morning Prayer (Just for Fun) Lord, today I need direction Fill me with godly discretion So I know which way to walk...

 Life is sometimes like a jigsaw puzzle, which has many pieces. It takes lots of time and effort to decide where each piece goes and how it fits in with the rest of the puzzle to create a whole (hopefully beautiful) image. But for caregivers, it's often even more complicated. I think it's more like someone put all the pieces in a bag. Shook it up real good, then dumped it out and said, "Good luck, have fun!" Maybe for some of us, it's even worse than that. It's more like someone took 3, 4, or 5 puzzles. They mixed all the pieces together and then separated them back out into piles. Now you're left trying to find a picture with mismatched pieces. Some of them might go together, some probably won't. It's more likely that you don't even have a complete picture. Frustrating? Yes. That's the point. I keep asking myself why I'm so frustrated. Why am I so short-tempered at seemingly silly stuff? More likely than not, it's caregiver burnout...

  Can faith be precocious? As I was writing out my prayer in my journal last week, it came out in a poem, and I used the word "precocious." Maybe I just needed something to rhyme with ferocious. lol. It did. So I thought about it a bit, and I looked up the definition so I wouldn't look too stupid to the world if I decided to share the poem.  A simple definition of precocious might be, earlier than supposed or something happening earlier than expected. So, I do want precocious faith. I want faith that comes early, even before a struggle begins, because that is what is going to carry me through the struggle, ultimately. Our first response should be out of faith, but if I'm honest, and I usually am, it's not always that way. But as I penned, "...and my faith in You always precocious," I stopped to think and check the definition. Once I was sure I hadn't mispoken, I made it my prayer.  Faith can always be first. Having faith doesn't keep things from ...

  Nehemiah has been a study focus for me over the last few weeks. But to study Nehemiah, we have to take a look at Jeremiah. Why? Because Jeremiah is the one who prophesied the Babylonian captivity that Nehemiah experienced. In chapter 25 of Jeremiah, we see the prophecy that since the Children of Israel had been rebellious and stubborn, they would be taken into captivity by Babylon, and they would remain there for 70 years. It also says that their own cities would lie in ruins during the captivity. Jeremiah decided to write a letter to those who had been carried away into captivity. It is in this letter that we find one of the most quoted scriptures of all time. Jeremiah 29:11 is found in the letter written to the captives. God is promising them a future, even though they are living in difficult circumstances that are going to last 70 years, and there's nothing they can do to make it go faster.  In fact, later in verse 28, it says the duration was going to be long. (Not the p...

 Do you ever feel like you are surrounded? Maybe that's not the word we use most, but it can feel like we are pressed on every side. Sometimes, circumstances keep pressing in until life feels like it's a boa constrictor trying to crush the life out of us. The good news is that we have all made it this far, so far! But as life has its ebbs and flows, there are seasons when we feel like it's coming at us from all sides. We are surrounded! That's how I've felt for the last few weeks, and honestly, it's not getting any better. There are so many things to juggle, plan, skip for more important things, and the list goes on...and on...and on... Some days our sanity is about just doing the things (all million of them) that have  to be done. Some aspects of caregiving cannot be skipped or postponed. They have to be done, period. A few things can be put off until tomorrow (which is already full, by the way), some cannot. If we are not careful, it can spiral out of control....