Daily Devotions for Caregivers

In my studies this morning, I found myself in Proverbs 4. I'm actually studying the armor of God and I chased some thoughts that led me to the last few verses of this chapter. I wrote down some notes on my other study but then my mind settled in verse 13. The New Living Translation states it this way: Above all else, guard your heart, for it affects everything you do. I can only feel my situation - and my first thought was - protect your broken heart.  I wondered if it was any different for caregivers than others. Probably not, really. We still need to guard our hearts and perhaps we need to be a bit more diligent about it than others. For me personally, the first two things that came to mind that I must protect from taking root in my heart was bitterness and unforgiveness. When my son first had the accident I began to pray that I would not grow bitter as things progressed along lines I really didn't want them to go. You know? One of my first prayers was that I would move

Over the weekend, I spent most of my study time reading in Daniel. For this week, he's my favorite Bible character, and I continue to learn from reading about his faith in the midst of his life's trial. Like caregivers, his trial didn't miraculously go away one day; it was a lifelong journey. Actually, the 12 chapters this book contains cover a lifetime of over 70 years. Sometimes we tend to read through it in a matter of a few minutes without realizing the time element. 70 years he was in captivity. He lost his family, his country and his life to become the servant of a king. While there is the good side of things - we can't minimize the losses he went through. He was young when he was carried away to Babylon but we see him develop into a man of God in the midst of extreme circumstances. I literally lived in the ICU waiting room for 3 weeks before my son was moved to the floor of the hospital and during that time I prayed that whatever the outcome would be - I wo