Daily Devotions for Caregivers

  Ever have those days where it seems like one bad (or mostly bad) report follows another? Yesterday was one of those days for me. It wasn't super horrible stuff, but just not the best news either. I mulled it over in my mind and overthought all this new information. Because that's what I always do - until I turn to get God's answer. lol. I know, I'm weird. But my hyperactive analytical mind has to run information through all these formulas. You know what though, the answer is always  to trust Him.  As I was thinking about all this early in the morning, I thought about Job. He's one of my all-time favorite Bible characters. He stayed the course in some of life's stormiest seas. He navigated his life's boat right toward God no matter what presented itself. So I turned my Bible over to the first couple of chapters and read the account again. Job didn't even have time to process information on that day. One person after another came bearing bad news - it ke...

This morning, I was working on my latest devotional 31 Days in Psalm 31  which I hope to complete and have in my bookstore by the end of the month. There are so many things in this one psalm and I've read it so much my Bible falls open to it automatically now. lol. I was thinking about fear, grief, hurt, and the dark night of the soul. Caregiving can be an emotional roller coaster. Sure, there are those caregiver moments like when my son actually hugged me the other evening. Those moments erase a ton of pain. They make it all worth it. But they are not lasting and it's back to the day-to-day grind. As I was working on the devotional, I took a look at Job again. His story intrigues me. He took all the overwhelming pain and turned it into worship. It wasn't about a congregational song on Sunday morning, he wasn't sitting out back playing his guitar, and no Kumbaya around the campfire either. He took his deepest grief and pain and he worshipped.   Like David in Psalm ...

Let me just get this out there - I'm no Job!  I've been thinking about him a lot and how his response to trouble when it comes is very much NOT like mine. I whine a lot more than he does and honestly, praise doesn't come that easy. Oh, I finally get there - but I always seem to take the long way around. When Job's trouble started he went straight to his knees; and when it got even more complicated He worshiped. I did not.  He seemed so at peace  with his life whether he could physically see God's blessings or was standing there stripped bare. Job said we need to take both good and bad from the hand of the Lord. And he said that when things were bad. For a long time now I've noticed that people tend to say "God is good" only when things go their way. You know, they get a raise, their loved one escapes a horrific wreck, a kid graduates from college, or someone gets healed. Why is it we don't hear that when someone gets fired, a loved one is inj...

My thoughts are all over the place this morning and I'm trying to reel them back in and keep them balanced. I'm sure I'm the only one who ever has to do that, right? Cargiving is not for the weak of heart, that's for sure! But today it's not having the heart to carry on - it's the battlefield of the mind that is the problem. In my heart, there's no question. The stamina is there and no choices need to be made at this point. But my head has to deal with the day-to-day struggles of caregiving. There are so many things going on around me right now that just set me off the edge with tons of questions. Some are simple, like why? I wonder why this ever had to happen. Why my son was ripped away. Why my shattered heart can't heal. Why the grief doesn't go away. Why my life was boxed up and seemingly put on hold. I've said before it's not the actual caregiving that is the difficult part, it's the heart issues, the living grief and the beat...

Today is one of those days where I woke up and my thoughts were running away with me. Seriously, my thoughts are all over the place. When I first got up, something someone said yesterday started running around in my head and it went mentally viral from there. I work for an SEO company - we work on websites. Its founder is a believer and a group of us meet online to pray for the company and all the employees. During that meeting yesterday, someone told me that God would restore   these years to me.   I know the guy meant well, but even as my heart can agree my head can't grasp that thought. My biggest question is How? I have become very familiar with the story of Job and everyone gets all excited at the end of the story about how God restored his fortunes (I had none of those before my story began! lol), and Job had 10 more kids! Yippee!! I'm not overlooking or lessening the work God did in Job's heart and I understand the story had a good ending. But Job didn't ...

Yesterday after I wrote the devotion, I couldn't shake Job from my mind. I kept thinking about the last few verses of the book and how quickly it smoothed his "life" over with what seems to be a he lived happily ever after. God restored Job's health and wealth and he went on to have more children. I thought about that for awhile. Just because he had 10 more kids doesn't mean he didn't miss his first set of kids. These 10 didn't make up  for the loss of his first children. He had still raised them and loved them and his memories of them were still in tact. On my caregiving journey I have good days and bad days. I have pictures of my son BC (before crash). Some days when I see them, they tear at my heart. I remember how he was and see him as he is. Other days, I enjoy the memories we made and honestly wouldn't trade for having had the opportunity to make them. Most days I miss him too much to express with words. Even though it's different now -...

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 ...

Philippians 4:19 is going to finish out our little journey through Philippians. My God will supply all your need  according to His riches in glory. Those of us who grew up in church know we learned this one early on. It was also used by our parents when we didn't get or couldn't have something we wanted. As we learn to be content in Him and with Him as we talked about in yesterday's devotion, our list of needs begin to shrink. I think some of that comes with age too as we learn to distinguish the things that have true value. We all have the same basic needs like food, shelter and love; but beyond that our needs can vary greatly. 1 Timothy 6:6 reminds us that godliness with contentment is great gain. I have to admit that during this caregiving journey I've had some very tight almost suffocating financial situations. Anxious thoughts try to take over my mind and infiltrate my life. But in those moments I stop and talk myself through it by saying things like I have foo...

In Job's lament found in chapter three, he made a statement that faith-ers have used against him for years. He said: the thing I greatly feared has come upon me. (KJV) As a caregiver there can be many fears that we have to deal with. Our fears might lead to questions like: What if I can't provide for my loved one? What if I get sick and can't take care of him/her? What happens to my loved one once I am gone? These are all valid fears and are running around somewhere in the back of our minds most of the time. Because they are not imminently upon us we don't have to think about them too often; but they are still there. Another fear that I have had is that I would become bitter through the ordeal. It's been one of my most frequent concerns and the center of many prayers that the Lord would help me in my quest to prevent bitterness from setting in. Caregiving can take a toll on you - but it's the rest of life (which we are not exempt from) that can t...

I enjoy reading the last few chapters of Job where God takes over the conversation. In chapters 38 to 41, God takes the time to describe creation from His point of view. There are many questions that God asks of Job during this passage and we all know He isn't looking for "information." He already knows the answer - He is measuring Job's response. In Job 38:12, God asks Job if he's ever commanded the morning to appear and caused the dawn to arise in the east.  Then in verse 19, God asks, where does the light come from and where does the darkness go?   Put this with Psalm 104:19 where it says the sun knows where to set; and you have a full day orchestrated by God. The sun never "rises" and forgets which way to go. It is so designed and set in place by God. He started it in Genesis and nothing has been able to interrupt the process. Except for that one time on Joshua's behalf where God caused the sun to stand still. Day and night continue the way G...

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 ...

I can't even begin to imagine what Job went through. If you go back and read the first chapters of Job you'll see how he lost his children, his wealth and sustenance, his possessions and even his health. Sometimes I read Job when I think I can't handle anymore. Early on in my caregiving journey (and sometimes even now) I feel a great sense of loss. I had rid myself of my possessions and was headed to the mission field when my son was involved in the accident. When he was going to be released to "go home" I had nowhere to take him. Add that to losing who he was and I dealt with a heavy sense of loss for a long time. I compensated for the losses I felt by buying anything I wanted. I'd see a movie, a book or a piece of furniture I liked and I'd buy it. It took me some time to realize I was making purchases and other allowances in my life to try and make up for the great loss I felt. I say that to say only on a very small scale can I begin to understand the ...

Another favorite Bible hero of mine is Job. I know he didn't lead an army, build a boat or slay a giant, but he intrigues me nonetheless. I cannot fathom the sense of loss that he went through. First of all losing all his children in a day would be too much to bear. But he also lost his crops, livestock, and ways to provide for his family. Then ultimately he even lost his health. My mind just really cannot wrap around all of that. One of the things that stands out in this story isn't really about him at all - it's about his friends. Even though they were not perfect, when they heard of his hardship - they came. And they sat. For seven days they felt his pain and grief so strongly that they sat in silence with nothing to say. As a caregiver I can say that those friends that just sit during the time of trouble are priceless...and few. But what gets me about Job is actually his level of trust. I think that's why he's my hero. In Job 13:15 he stated that even if God...

If we really take time to think about it, caregivers look a lot like Him. I know, we will all modestly say, "Oh,no we are far from that." But this week in our devotions I want to look at some ways that we do  look like Him. (That is  the point of Christianity isn't it?) Now I'm not saying we are perfect, or that we have it all together because that is probably not going to ever  happen in a caregiver's world. But day after day we continue to care for our loved one(s) without giving up. If we take a serious look, we'll find that we do indeed have Christ-like qualities. In the New Living Translation, Romans 2:4 is translated this way: Don't you realize how kind, tolerant and patient God is with you? God patiently waits for His children to come to Him. We patiently care for our loved one day after day - whether we see any change or have any hope that the situation will change or not. All of that is irrelevant to providing care. Have you ever heard someone...

This morning as I was reading about some of Paul's hardships in 2 Corinthians 6, I thought about the caregiver. He really nailed a few things on the head for us even though our hardships take very different courses. He talks some about having patience and working to exhaustion and  sleepless nights as well as our sincere love, purity and kindness all through the power of God. Verse 9 says we are close to death, but here we are still alive! Sound familiar? In verse 10 he talks about how our heart aches, but we still have joy and many spiritual riches to share. As I was reading this passage I thought about how much all of this seems to apply to our situations as well. But something else caught my eye - verse 7 says this - God's power has been working in us. We have righteousness as a weapon, both to attack and to defend ourselves. I thought about that a lot and even matched it up with Job and how he had to keep telling his "friends" that he was righteous before God. ...

David was a warrior who faced many battles. The warrior side of him is seen even when he was a youth and went out to face Goliath who was many times his own size. In 1 Samuel 17:28, it says that even after Goliath's lofty threats, David ran out to meet him. David would face many battles after that monumental day. But there would also come a day when he would have to encourage himself in the Lord. Sometimes it can seem like the caregiver's day is one battle after another; and like David, we must many times encourage ourselves in the Lord . It takes some kind of warrior to do that, don't you think? I know - most caregivers are not going to think of themselves as warriors! Our M.O. is more along the lines of well, we just do what we do. While that is true and we feel like we just put one foot in front of the other most of the time...we are doing much more than that. Let me explain. As a caregiver I have battled depression and that is not uncommon for us. But how many ti...

This week I decided to return to Job. It may sound odd to those most familiar with his story, but I was actually looking for some comfort. While his friends did not offer him much comfort or hope, my thinking was that by reading some of the things Job said I could gain a better perspective and find peace in dealing with the situation. So far, I haven't got past chapter 1. I hope we can take this journey through the book of Job together. The first thing that caught my attention was that Job was blameless, a man of integrity, and he stayed away from evil . (You do know that Job wrote the book, right? *smile*) The second thing that caught my attention was further down when Satan confronted God about Job. He said that God protected Job, his family and all of his possessions from harm. He suggested that if Job lost everything, he would curse God to His face. This is where I stopped for some inner reflections. As a caregiver, nothing is easy. Everything in our worlds have likely chan...

Sometimes Sundays are the most difficult since I spent years going to church. Some caregivers can get out a little more freely, but that certainly does not mean it's as simple as jumping in the car and heading out. There are so many other aspects to take into consideration...so today I decided to consider Job again. I read the first chapter where he really lost everything. Yet he still worshipped. I don't think  I have passed that test! Actually, I'm pretty sure I didn't! One phrase in the first chapter stands out. When the enemy came to ask permission from God to tempt Job to give up - he said this: Does Job fear God for nothing?   See, Job had everything possible back then. He was one of the richest men in the land and had everything going for him. It seems like when everything is going our way it comes easier to trust God. At least on the surface level it seems so. With these thoughts it seemed like a good time to stroll through an old favorite again. I thumb...

Just about the time I get totally underneath the load of caregiving and feel I have totally lost my life...my Bible reading program takes me to Job! I cannot even imagine what it must have felt like to receive all that news all in one day . Totally overcome by grief in every area of life has got to be more than anyone can bear. Yet he fell to his knees and worshiped God. I cannot say that's always (or ever) been my initial response. Then Job gets physically ill on top of all his losses. When his friends came to visit (now that's an idea) they didn't even recognize him and sat with him speechless for days. There's really nothing to be said in the time of intense calamity is there? Job made a statement though that I have thought for a long time exhibits total trust. The faith-ers of the 70's gave Job a bum rap and said he lacked faith. However, I think the one phrase is full of more faith than I have seen anywhere in my lifetime. Job said, though God slay me - y...