Daily Devotions for Caregivers

 This morning, I revisited Psalm 104. It's one of my favorite passages and one I call one of the "creation" chapters. The psalmist describes many aspects of creation and of course, as find it amazing and encouraging. My favorite verse out of this chapter is verse 19 where the psalmist says, the sun knows where to set.  It never rises and then isn't sure which way west is. God set things in motion and they remain. But what caught my eye this morning was the first verse. It says, Praise the Lord, I tell myself. Then he goes on to talk about God's overwhelming greatness and glory. I think for me, thinking about creation is one way I celebrate the greatness and enormity of God. But sometimes, I have to tell myself  to praise God. You know? Creation reminds me that God is still in control. It helps me remember that He is consistent even when my world looks and feels topsy turvy. He created with intention. And part of that plan was that I, as a human, could easily see H...

A conversation I had with some people yesterday turned my thoughts toward prayer, so I was looking at the model prayer Jesus gave His disciples. It starts out with Our Father, in heaven . And that's where I stopped. For a few minutes, my thoughts tried to wrap around just that seemingly little point. Just think about it for a bit - our God, our Father - is in heaven. He exists. He is. I flipped over to Psalm 95. In verse six, the psalmist says, come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our God our maker, for He is  our God. We are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. He is. And He is our God. That's a good reason to take a posture of worship at His throne - in the heavenlies. If we back up to the first of that psalm, David says this: Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the Lord is a great God And a great King above all gods. In His hands are the depths of the eart...

The account of creation in the final chapters of Job are among my favorite scriptures. To hear the account of creation from God's point of view is nothing less than powerful. All of a sudden, Job and his friends are silent as God begins to describe His handiwork in words they could understand. And as He gives us intimate details of His creation, that only the creator could know - I am awed once again by His power and wisdom. This morning as I was reading the questions God was asking Job, I turned them around to statements of action. These are some restatements of the way God handled creation in my own words: He calculated and measured earth's dimensions He set boundaries for the waters of the earth and told them they could "go no further" He commanded the morning to appear He knows where light comes from...and where darkness goes when light appears He knows where the seas "come from" He ensures the proper sequence of the seasons He placed the co...

Although this picture doesn't do it justice, sunsets in Oklahoma are gorgeous. I rarely get to catch one and when I do it can be breathtakingly beautiful. As I was reading this morning, I came across a scripture that seems very simple, but has packed a lot of punch with me over the years. It's Psalm 104:19. The NLT reads: You made the moon to mark the seasons and the sun that knows when to set.  It might not seem like much insight, but it has a lot more than we might think. Over the last few weeks things have been a whirlwind with me. Several things are happening all at once in the many arenas of life: family, work, relationships, physical challenges, finances, etc. And of course, this is all on top of caregiving which is its own world inside a world. Suffice it to say my life, head and emotions have been spinning and I really didn't even know where to start reading this morning. I opened to Psalm 104 looking for a scripture I'd read in a blog last night and fou...