Daily Devotions for Caregivers

I've always been intrigued by the story of Job in the Bible. When I was younger I didn't really get  it; but as life unfolded it made more sense. And even though I would never even try to compare my situation to the hardship Job endured, I feel like in a small way I can relate to some of Job's experience. I have been known to look at people with open mouth and a blank stare when they compare themselves to Job and all they have is something like a broken fingernail or a flat tire. Ever hear one of those stories? Their car broke down or something and they are claiming they understand Job. And I'm like, really? I'd have to say a caregiver's life is not nearly on the scale of what Job went through but it does help bring some understanding. Sadly, I'll never  be able to say I didn't "sin with my mouth" during my journey of faith, but I can say I've always come back around to trusting God. Maybe that's the important part.... Here's ...

Since I have finally got an aide I trust I can get out a little more when she is here. Often I run errands which go a lot faster than when I get to take Chris along with me. Last week I got to stop by a little trail and grab a quick run. As I neared the back of the loop, the path was lined on both sides with beautiful flowers. They were draping everywhere and caused me to stop and enjoy the beauty for a moment. Nature's just cool like that! As I stood there I noticed that some of the flowers had stickery edges on the leaves and on closer observation some of the plants were nearly dangerous for my bare legs. I started thinking about how things are not always as they appear and they are not always as lovely as it seems on the surface. Even though I was enjoying the beauty of the flowers there were stickers, thorns, briers and probably even snakes lurking nearby. Sometimes as a caregiver I can look around at other people's lives and think about how easy they have it or how b...

Have you ever had someone tell you that because your loved one wasn't healed you lacked faith? Sadly enough, I have. Yet if we look at all our Bible heroes we'll see that we admire them because of the trials they endured. Each of them give us a picture of how to trust God in adversity; and how to keep faith during intense testing and trials. Adversity is actually the true test of faith. It's in the midst of the trial that we find out just how much we trust God. Can we trust Him when our lives are less than perfect? The caregiver's life is definitely "less than perfect" if we compare it to others. For some of it caregiving can mean that we are locked up in our own little cave unable to get out and about. For others, there may be some getting out - but there's not quite the freedom we see in the rest of the world. Caregiving can complicate everything on a variety of levels. We can't use the struggles of caregiving to measure our lives. We also cannot u...

The last few days we've been looking at three men of faith: Job, Noah, and Daniel. These are three of my Bible heroes along with many others. But these three men are mentioned together in Ezekiel 14. Twice, the Lord told Ezekiel that if Noah, Daniel and Job were in the land they would be delivered through righteousness. They couldn't "delver" anyone else, but they would be saved if the land was destroyed. I have spent much time pondering why He listed these three men. What happened to Abraham, the friend of God ? What about David, the man after God's own heart? Why not Moses, the one with whom God spoke face to face as a man speaks to his friend ? What made Job, Noah and Daniel's stories so unique that God said these three men could deliver their own soul by their righteousness? Their situations were not similar, neither were their trials. Actually, all three faced difficult adversities of very different types. Like the caregiver has to do many times, they ...

Why do bad things have to happen at all? Ever wonder that? I've given it a lot of thought over the last few years. Tragedy can certainly wreak havoc on what we are used to calling faith. I was always taught rather directly or indirectly that faith kept bad things from occurring. It made me feel like if I really trusted God, then things like traumatic brain injuries, strokes or any type of debilitating illness wouldn't happen to me or my family. That's just not true! Everyone of our Bible heroes are heroes because of the adversity they faced. But does every story have to have a good ending? Moses got the children of Israel to just outside the promised land - he didn't really deliver the goods. He also disobeyed God and didn't get to go in himself. We don't like to think about that though because it destroys our little "Disney" endings. Gideon is a favorite story of mine - but we don't like reading past the part where he wins the battle to learn th...