Daily Devotions for Caregivers

As a caregiver, we can feel fruitless. For many of us, our lives changed abruptly with many dreams left unrealized, leaving us with the feeling that we cannot bear fruit since the picture of our life doesn't look like we thought it would. An old favorite scripture came to mind this morning as I was thinking about fruitfulness. It's one of those that we sing, shout and proclaim while we think we will never really need it. It is in Habakkuk 3:17-19. I'll let you read it yourself but I think you'll remember it as it starts like this: though the fig tree does not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines.... and it ends with yet I will praise Him! It's a clear declaration that whether my field ( life) if fruitful or not I will spend my breath praising Him. But as we all know, we don't really think we will ever be in a place to have to force the issue... but here we are. Many of us in circumstances that can make us feel or think that we are fruitless; however...

It can be very easy to slip into oblivion...I mean, who would know? Fighting with thoughts like this can be a daily struggle for caregivers. There's the aloneness that cannot really be described to those who do not understand. Besides the depression that can try to take hold there's a sense of barrenness that has to be fought...and it is indeed a fight of faith for many.  Our trouble with thinking we are spiritually barren is tied up in the church's perception of fruit. Organized religion says that our fruit are all those things that we are doing inside the church. They consider teaching Sunday School, leading worship, helping with the church yard or cleaning the church to be fruit. Never mind that Jesus talked about none of these things when He talked about the sheep in Matthew 25. His sheep will visit the sick, and visit the prisoner, along with feeding the hungry. He didn't say that they attended Sunday School or Wednesday night Discipleship classes, did He?  ...