Daily Devotions for Caregivers

Yesterday I spent more time thinking about how adversity can open the door of hope. My thoughts led me to Joseph. God had given him dreams when he was a young boy and his family had made fun of him and judged him for it. I am sure he wondered some about those dreams as he was imprisoned for something he did not do. Joseph's situation was dire. First of all, prisons back then were nothing like they are today. While our prisons are not pleasant, they are humane. I figure it had to be a very lonely place for Joseph. His family was far away and they weren't coming to look for him. Did he think back about those childhood dreams?  I wonder if he thought about his brothers and family while he was there. Did he ever think about what it would have been like if he hadn't been betrayed and sold by his brothers? I also wonder if forgiveness and acceptance were daily choices for Joseph. In my situation, someone else caused the accident which injured my son and made me a caregiver. S...

The first couple of chapters of Exodus contains two things that I have found very interesting. In the first chapter  I found it interesting that the midwives were directly blessed by God for disobeying Pharaoh. Verse 21 state that they feared God and He established households for them.   Even though it was a very tough time for them and their people, they continued to trust and fear the Lord rather than caving in to man's evil commands. In chapter 2 we read about the birth of Moses and how his mother protected him until he was found by Pharaoh's daughter in a basket in the Nile. Those who are familiar with scripture know that as the story unfolds, Moses becomes the deliverer who God uses to take His children out of Egypt's bondage and into the promised land. This time of great adversity  became a door of hope  for the Children of Israel. The caregiver's life can be filled with adversity and some days every breath can be a struggle. But there's a scripture in Hos...

It can be difficult to answer some of the simplest questions like How are you?  The easiest answer is I'm okay.  But a lot of people don't really like that answer. What are we supposed to say? I'm sure they do not want a rundown of what our day really  looks like. We could say: tired, frustrated, exhausted, too busy to breathe, hurried, emotionally drained... you get the idea. So we opt for a simple I'm okay and just leave it there. It's okay to be "okay". Okay is an in-between term that lies somewhere between really good and horribly bad. Maybe it actually signifies a balance in our lives for the moment. It's actually a fair answer to a very difficult question. We can also use it when we just really are not sure how we are doing for the moment. What caregiver has time to check to see if they are okay or not? Sometimes when I get up I might consider my energy level and assess how I feel; but we don't have time to think about if we are okay or not...

As a general rule I am a planner. I'm pretty flexible inside my "plan" but I like to have everything organized, thought out and well planned. At the same time, I can get by with some fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants days. The one thing about caregiving is that a schedule can mean absolutely nothing.  Everyday stands (or falls) on its own. Joni Erikson Tada is someone I've followed for many years now. I read her book about how she was injured and became a quadriplegic in her teens. She says the thing about having a disability is that it's so daily . There isn't a day off - ever. Caregiving is the same. We don't have weekends, holidays or days off. Even though I try to get out of town two or three times a year just to have a break I'm on call and never really "off" even though I get somewhat of a break from daily tasks. Caregiving is a constant - ever moving, never ending, never done job. As I am getting in bed at night my thoughts are combing...

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...

It took me awhile to learn that it was okay to grieve the life I lost when I became a caregiver. Of course, it's not healthy to park there emotionally, but it is okay to grieve over what was lost. I think at first I felt guilty for grieving, like maybe I didn't want  to be my son's caregiver if I was sorry over what I had before his accident. Once I grieved, cried and got it out of my system though, I was able to move on and be a better caregiver by giving my full attention to his needs. There are a lot of things that change as we transition into the role of caregiver. For some there are a few schedule changes but for others it is an entire lifestyle change. In my situation I lost the freedom to come and go as I wanted to, the spontaneity of life no longer existed. I had to gather all my stuff and my son's stuff up into one location which took quite a long time. I physically moved twice after his wreck to try and provide better care and to make sure he was close to fa...

I don't know about you but lately my days seem overly busy and downright crazy at times. It can be so easy to get carried away in the details of caring for another. And try making one simple  change to something as basic as a meal plan, changing a supply order or going with a new company for an aide and a snowball effect of crazy events can begin. There's a reason we can feel like we have too many irons in the fire.  We do. But they are all necessary in order to take care of ourselves and our loved ones. Caregivers have days where we are just tired. It does not change the long list of chores we have to accomplish for the day, but we can be tired before we even begin. It can be easy to get caught up in the world of caregiving and forget about ourselves. We sort of wear this caregiver's mantle because we need to. We can be that take-charge-kind-of-person it takes to get things done. Who else is going to do it, right? This morning when I arose I thought about how tired I...