Daily Devotions for Caregivers

Do you ever feel like God put you here on this planet to sort everything out and then He just walked away? Caregiver's lives are not in sync with the rest of the world and we can feel separated and alone even in a crowd. Caregiving adds a new dynamic to life, doesn't it? It's one that can't really be described. It's draining and rewarding. Tiring and energizing. Emotions run along all extremes much of the time and many battle with depression, grief and other issues. I have to say that recently I have asked God if He remembered where He left me. Now my heart knows He didn't really leave me. I mean, really - where would He go? He's everywhere - He can't physically leave us. But for those who struggle with abandonment issues, it can certainly feel like it. Evidently, someone else has had similar feelings because in verse 14 of Isaiah 49, it says Jerusalem says, "the Lord has deserted us, the Lord has forgotten us."   But at the thought of ab...

Over the weekend, I heard a phrase in a song, "You are perfect in all of Your ways." I knew it was a scripture but couldn't remember where it was located.  This morning I looked it up and it is in Deuteronomy 32 at the beginning of the Song of Moses. I read the whole chapter a time or two and went back to meditate on the phrase for a bit. I closed my eyes and thought about how perfect God is and how right and just every decision He makes is. When I opened my eyes, they fell on a scripture on the opposite page - I had marked it sometime ago. It is in chapter 30, verse 4. Though you are at the ends of the earth, the Lord your God will go and find you and bring you back again.   I thought about that for awhile and read it in context. Moses is encouraging the Children of Israel to return to the Lord. He is calling them to come back to Him with their whole heart and seek Him fully. But this verse to me is God reaching for them. He continues to seek a relationship with ...

I like organization. But I'm beginning to think caregiving and organization are distinctly opposed to one another. No matter how much I try to organize or make a schedule to try and keep up - the further behind it seems I get. Playing "catch-up" is a daily game - and I keep losing, or so it seems. Don't get me wrong - I am SO thankful for my jobs and being able to take care of my son. It's just that it seems like I put off the thing I feel is the most important to me. God. It's not like I don't want to spend time with Him, it's just that when I get up at 5 each morning I make my coffee (real priorities here!) and bolus and change Chris. By the time I get set down to drink my first cup, there's tons of things in the forefront of my mind needing to be done, NOW! And so it begins - the circus I call a morning. The aide comes, there's errands to run. Every time I turn around it's time to feed Chris, which means pureeing another meal; or c...

I've never been very good at awaiting no matter what the situation. From doctor's offices to DMVs to standing in line at WalMart - I just don't do well. It may be that my mind is going a hundred miles an hour, or it could be that I finally have time to think of all the things I could  be doing instead. Whatever it is about my makeup waiting just doesn't fit me well. We've talked a lot in our devotions about waiting on God and maybe I have seen just a tiny bit of improvement since I've become a caregiver. We have some great examples of men and women of faith who waited on God patiently; and some who waited not-so-patiently too. Abraham and Sarah waited for years for God to fulfill His promise; and Joseph waited many years for his dream to come true. When we read the scriptures we can cover several chapters in a matter of minutes and it can be easy to forget that years passed between one chapter and the next. Last night I was reading in Daniel. I love his stor...

Long nights are one of the most difficult situations a caregiver has to face. It's 2 AM and your loved one is ill or not sleeping comfortably and you don't know what to do to help them. What a miserable place to be in! It's in those dark hours that I struggle a lot with faith. In those dark, lonely hours there is no one to reach out to and I find myself asking questions like Where are You God? Do You see us? Do You care? For many caregivers, the wee hours of the morning can be the hardest time to wait . Nights in hospitals or just being up with your loved one can lead to sleep deprivation which has a whole host of adverse effects on the body and the mind. We can find ourselves in a perpetual state of waiting on Him. Isaiah 26:8 says we waited for you eagerly.  I'm not sure "eagerly" is a word I could use to describe my manner of waiting sometimes. But then, maybe we can. If I am "waiting eagerly" it would mean that I am waiting in expectancy - kn...

One of the difficulties I've had as a caregiver is trying to plan the "future." It's just so uncertain - everyday is uncertain. You just never know what is going to unfold, what's going to work, break or who is or isn't going to show up. It's tough enough getting through each day one step at a time without giving consideration to the future too. In my devotions this morning I sort of stumbled across a scripture that helped me see just a little bit past today. In 2 Corinthians 4 Paul explains that we have the treasure of Christ in this "earthen vessel," or our bodies. What's interesting to me is that after sharing this wonderful bit of information with us he goes on to discuss how much trouble we can face in this clay pot. Caregivers can relate to these situations I think - we are: hard pressed - but not crushed perplexed - but not in despair persecuted - but not forsaken struck down but not destroyed Even though we can go throu...

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. ...

This morning during my devotional time I came across this scripture in Proverbs 16:32. It says this: It is better to be patient than powerful; it is better to have self-control than to conquer a city. My thoughts stayed there for quite some time as I thought about how it is better to be patient than to have power. I thought about just patience itself and how in my caregiving role I feel like I am continually waiting on God; daily needing Him to act on my behalf. After several minutes of thinking about how important patience is to the caregiver I came to the conclusion that patience and waiting on God are equivalent. Honestly, I do not think I am a very patient person, yet caregiving requires it of me. But I never thought about being patient, to me it was more about not being able to change the situation and accepting it then doing the best I can with it each day. Right now I am thinking that this comes out to equal patience! lol My mind immediately went to James 1:4. In the old KJV ...

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...

There are a lot of scriptures about waiting on God. David used the phrase many times throughout the Psalms. A good book on waiting is Andrew Murray's Waiting on God. It's a 30 day devotional which uses a different scripture that pertains to waiting on Him for each day's devotion. It seems to me that for the caregiver there is a lot of that. For that matter, throughout our life time we will find ourselves in a situation where all we can do is wait on Him.. Psalm 37:7 says to wait patiently on Him. In all honesty, I must say that my waiting many times is far from patient. It's more whining, angry and frustrated waiting that eventually yields to a quiet and patient waiting! But Micah 7:7 talks about waiting expectantly on the Lord. My first question of course would be expecting what? When my son was first injured I was waiting for the Lord to come in on a white horse and rescue us from the situation. Of course, that never happened...What are we waiting on then, if i...

The life of a caregiver really cannot be compared to any other situation. And among caregivers each situation is so unique that it is really difficult to compare each one. All of us have some areas that our situation is better in some respect than others; and we also each have some worse areas than others. But really this is true in general.  We all have such different circumstances and backgrounds that no two lives are exactly the same. There have never been two people anywhere that have had identical experiences. This is so even for children who grow up in a home together. My point is that we really cannot compare ourselves among ourselves and come up with any wisdom! (2 Corinthians 10:12)  However, in Psalm 119:6 we do find a measuring rod with which we can determine where we stand in life. David says in v. 5-6: Oh that my actions would consistently reflect Your principles! Then I will not be disgraced when I compare my life with Your commands ! I think many times we ...

I know patience is  virtue. It is also a fruit mentioned in Galatians 5. This just means that it won't happen overnight and we will have to be patient while waiting on patience to develop in our lives! And the waiting is the hard part, of course! The caregiver waits for everything , or that's how it seems to me. We wait for supplies each month, for doctor's reports, prescriptions, We wait for help to arrive, for visitors and for pain or fever to subside...you would think we'd be the most virtuous, or patient, people on earth! I don't see it in myself at all! ...maybe it's just well disguised! The good thing about waiting is that even when we don't see it we are gaining strength. Isaiah 40:31 talks about those who wait on the Lord renewing their strength. I am convinced that this strength is what gives us the ability to wait once again on Him. It's a wonderful cycle actually. We wait on Him and He gives us strength to wait on Him some more! Be encou...