Daily Devotions for Caregivers

  Sometimes, for caregivers, there are no words to express our emotions. We often deal with living grief over a loved one who is still alive, but they are not who they used to be. Personally, I deal with this with my son who is certainly not the person he was before the wreck, he can't do the things he did. Often I avoid Facebook as I see his friends getting married, having kids, enjoying life, and music. It can spark great grief for me as I am thrilled he is now turning his head from the left to right in response to activities. I'm happy when he takes a step when I used to watch him in the marching band. He is gone - but he's still alive. On the other hand, my mom is in some stage of dementia. She usually still remembers us, but she doesn't recall our lives at all. She doesn't remember the ministry trips we took, the times we played music together, and all the things we shared. She has lost the ability to hold a simple conversation although she can answer some simp...

This weekend I went to the Dallas area to run a half marathon. On the night before I took time to take a walk and got back to my room just in time for the rain to start. After it was over this beautiful rainbow stretched across the sky and I had a perfect view of the whole thing. It was wonderful - nearly breathtaking from the 9th floor. As I sat and watched the rainbow unfold and deepen in color I thought about the first rainbow. The one God painted in the sky after the flood, then told Noah it was the symbol of His covenant with man and the seal of His promise to never destroy man and earth by flood again. I wonder if Noah and his family were nervous the next time it rained. Did they glance in the direction of the ark and wonder if they should seek safety? Or did they fully trust God's promise to them? Could they rest in His promises? Rest is the key word there for me today. A friend of mine has reminded me of how important it is to rest  in Him. She suggested I take some ...

Did you ever have one of those days that when you thought it couldn't possibly get any worse, it did? Yesterday it was like that around here. I do not have to explain the wide range of horrible emotions that go through the caregiver's heart when they feel even for an instant that they missed something. We can feel like we do a very poor job - it does not matter if it's true or not. You see a sore, miss a feeding; it could be anything that just happens because even though caregivers are awesome - we must admit we are not perfect. On one hand we get this superman mentality like, if I can do this (caregiving), I must be able to do anything! This is accompanied by emotions from the other end of the spectrum that are associated with feeling like life is over for us. This is most likely the way it will be from here on out for many of us. Life as we knew it BC (before caregiving) is no more. The lifestyle we had may have slowly oozed away with the declining health of a loved on...