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Showing posts with the label challenges

The Back of the Cave

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  This morning I let my mind and heart run around in Psalm 57 for a while. It's been a long-time favorite as I "found" it during one of the darkest storms of my life in 1986. I find myself going back there a lot. David penned this psalm while running for his life from Saul. He was hiding in a cave. Do you ever feel like you live in a cave as a caregiver? I know I did when I first brought Chris home. I found myself all alone almost all the time.  What David did in the cave is an example for us all. He wasn't shy about expressing his emotions or concerns. But he also wasn't shy about declaring his faith and trust in God, even in the tough times. He declared from the back of the cave I will hide beneath the shadow of Your wings. I cry to God! I will sing Your praises. Be exalted O God above the heavens. Even while navigating a difficult time in his life, he put his trust in God. I think we do that a lot. David also declared in verse 3 that God was going to send forth

Beyond the Reach of Change

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For some reason, the last few days have been particularly difficult for me. Memories flooding my mind of the way my son was BC (before the crash) just kept flowing. Sometimes I have to stay off social media to protect myself from seeing what his friends are doing. I'm happy for them, but he got cheated out of life. I'm still learning new strategies to combat depression and other crazy emotions that go along with caregiving. One of them was of course, getting back to writing my devotions down here. And that's why we are here! :-) Yesterday I made a few decisions about work and projects that gave me quite the energy boost. I sorted through the things on my plate and am removing all non-essentials. I found that when I took control  rather than feeling like I was underneath the load of it all - my energy, perspective and emotions took a huge swing in a positive position. This morning, when I woke up and reached for my Bible I was thinking I needed to read something abou

I'll Take That as a Challenge!

Benaiah got a whole 4 verses in the Bible, but this dude was a warrior of warriors. He actually earned himself the position of being over King David's bodyguard. How? Well in just this short passage we find out that he did several phenomenal things. He killed 2 of Moab's best warriors. He also went into hand-to-hand with an Egyptian warrior; the thing was that Benaiah only had a club and the Egyptian warrior had a sword. I guess Benaiah decided he'd rather fight with the sword so he took the sword away from the Egyptian and used it to kill him. There's no disgrace like being killed with your own sword! But the thing that I find most intriguing about Benaiah is that he killed a lion. That is enough when you think about the lack of technological and tactical weaponry back then. But he had other factors. Not only was he facing a lion (the king of the jungle!) he was in a pit; and besides that it was snowy which means no place for a good foothold. That's all admirable

Praise in Adversity

Most of the time when we live in such a stressful state we do not think about praising God. We ask Him to help us get out, but praise is not always on our lips. The prophet Jonah found himself in a very deep, dark place - the belly of a whale. The difference, of course is that Jonah had disobeyed God and this was his punishment. Personally, I wrestled with whether I was going through this deep trial as punishment for some sin I had committed; or something I had omitted. We have all probably had those moments where we questioned why adversity had to happen in the first place, most of us at least thought we had our religious t's crossed and i's dotted. Unlike Jonah, our circumstances are not punishment for something we did wrong. We are not off course - and we must learn to rest in His peace and embrace His love for us once again. But Jonah had run the opposite direction to avoid what God had told him to do. He found himself in the deepest, darkest parts of the earth...the b

Strength to Serve

This little walk through 1 Peter has helped me sort through many of my thoughts. But this one verse helps me bring my perspective back to where it should be. Caregiving is strenuous on body, soul and spirit. Many days you have to just suck it up and give it all you have - even though you feel there is nothing left! One way to look at caregiving is to consider yourself a servant. We spend our days (and nights!) taking care of our loved ones. Depending on the nature of the situation we must perform various tasks of different levels of difficulty. Some just need assistance with skills associated with daily living, others maybe just need help with mobility, and still others need total care. Whatever our function is in the lives of our loved one - we can consider ourselves their servant for Christ's sake. He said there was no greater love displayed than when we lay down our lives for another. And we have done that. 1 Peter 4:11b says this: whoever serves is to do so as one who is

Truth Vs Fact

The story of Gideon in Judges 6 has always fascinated me. Here is Gideon determined to not let the enemy have his crops. The scene opens with him hiding from the Midianites and this angel appears and actually calls him a man of valor. Could he not see that Gideon was in hiding ? The fact was that Gideon was hiding from the enemy - the truth was that inside he was a mighty warrior. We've given him a bum rap all these years over the facts and forgot about the truth that God saw concerning Gideon. The facts for a caregiver are that we feel very incapable at times, feel alone and many times very weak. But the truth about us is that we are able to face another day because of the strength God provides. The truth is that God is walking this journey with us and we are never really alone (no matter how deep that valley may feel!!!). And the truth is that we may look weak - but it takes more courage for us to get up each morning to face a new day doing what we do - than pretty much anyo

Perspective: Bondage or Challenge?

Sometimes we can get so caught up in the feelings of entrapment. There is not always the liberties of a "normal life" for caregivers. Even if we can come and go at will it can be so much work to accomplish a simple outside task. I am still so amazed with the book and character of Daniel in scriptures. He was actually a prisoner. His body had been disfigured and tormented. Yet we never hear any complaints coming from the book of Daniel. It's amazing how he made that choice to not defile his mutilated body. His, as well as the three Hebrew children's, tenacity in serving God in spite of their circumstances is inspiring. In looking at the turmoil in their situations I wondered about how they worked through to find the freedom to serve God even in the midst of their obvious bondages. Did they see their circumstances as such, or did they decide that it was more of a challenge to figure out how to serve God with their whole heart even in the midst of adversity? What

The God of Endurance and Encouragement

Here we go, ready to face another day and take all the challenges that will be thrown at us straight up! That's what caregivers do - like Benaiah who ran into the snowy pit to kill the lion - we take on each day full force and straight in! (2Samuel 23:20-21) And we are here ready to take on our most challenging battles too! Did you ever wonder what it would be like to go back to having normal days? Days without mobility issues, incontinent issues or feeding someone else? It's not that we mind the caretaking, it's what we do! Remember the days when we used to get up to go to work - and complain about that instead? lol! Hindsight makes us long for the things we used to dread! huh? One of the questions that arises in my heart is will the rest of my life look like this? It can be haunting to think I will live out the next however many years simply caring for my son. It's not that I mind and can make the mental adjustments but it's like is this all there is? And t

Challenges are...Well...Challenging!

Many times caregivers are faced with huge challenges. It can sometimes simply be trying to make it through a particularly rough day. These are different for each of us. For my situation it's been transfers. That's not the only one of course - but that was the scariest part of bringing my son home. As he has improved and I have improved my techniques it has become quite easy - or at least I don't dread it as much. I used to sit and contemplate each transfer and worry about it. Then after it was done I'd be relaxed and reward myself with a cup of coffee! Now it is just part of the day... We start to get used to our own surrounding no matter what type of challenges they present to us. And maybe it doesn't get any easier, we just get more accustomed to doing them. We adapt to inadequacies and learn how to do what we have to do. Face it - we really have no other choice - it has to be done! I've often wondered if God looks at us in our own frail state and conte