Daily Devotions for Caregivers

Colossians 4:2 says to devote yourself to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.  (NLT) It can be far too easy to allow the responsibilities and daily grind of caregiving to lull us into a spiritual sleep. Taking care of another person takes a lot out of us emotionally, physically and even spiritually. Over time we can tend to relax spiritually if we do not guard our hearts. Personally, I am a very structured person. I set my schedule and just keep it. Well, that's how it was BC (before caregiving) anyway. I got up early enough when I was teaching school to have my coffee, Bible study and prayer time long before the day got out of hand. When I first brought my son home, I tried to do that again. Honestly, I was worn out all the time and soon it went out the window. Recently, I've been able to come back to some type of schedule but of course remain flexible for caregiving's sake. It's so important to keep our spiritual guard up. We have to maintain our spi...

Do you ever feel cheated  out of life? For me caregiving interrupted some really good plans that I had laid out. I was heading to Africa as fast as I could get there- one of my life-long dreams. But when my son had his wreck that and my future were jerked right out from under me. I have to admit that I've dealt with some anger over that. Caregiving makes it hard to dream. I'm aging along with the rest of you, and these are supposed to be the years I've looked forward to. It's time for me to start planning retirement. Of course, I wanted to relax, travel, spend the golden years fulfilling all the dreams I still had. Instead I'm trying to figure out how to put back and prepare for taking care of my son once I am gone. No retirement in sight - ever. Anger is just one of the things Paul instructed Christians to put off in Colossians 3. Actually, he gave a whole list of things to put away from us.In verse 8 he lists things like anger,rage, malicious behavior, sland...

Following Paul's advice in Colossians 3:2 can be difficult for the caregiver; beneficial, but difficult. He told us to set your mind on things above - Our days are filled with tons of caregiving tasks to do and when life itself is blaring in your face it can be difficult to set our minds on things above . Any given day our minds can be full and busy getting tasks associated with caregiving lined up and done. Take my week for example. It's the last week of the month and it seems like all the health professionals wait until the very last second to do their visits. Then they expect m to jump through hoops rearranging things to make room for them in an already tight schedule. Fortunately and unfortunately they are all doing them today. A new aide, the doctor and the case manager are all coming today. I don't see getting anything done today. These kinds of busy days it can be difficult to get your mind on anything other than just surviving. How am I supposed to be able to ...

As a caregiver, we can play many roles and wear lots of hats all at the same time. People looking in often don't realize that there is a lot more to us than just caregiving - even though it consumes a lot of our lives. Sometimes I feel totally scattered; my thoughts and life feel like they are going in many different directions all at once. The caregiver can be caught in a very fractured life. Colossians 2:10 says that we are complete in Him.  Even though our lives can feel shattered or scattered, and we don't enjoy some of the "freedoms" others seem to have, we are not fractured.  We are whole. In many instances caregiving brought hurt and confusion into our lives and quite honestly, in many cases it never goes away we just learn to deal. I'm still trying to come to grips with the fact that this is what my life looks like from here on out. And one of my biggest challenges is trying to prepare for when I'm gone. It's not a fun thought - but it has to...

In many instances, caregivers can feel out of touch or out of sync with the "real" world simply because most of our lives are lived in a cave. We can tend to be on either side of the spectrum. One, we are trapped there; or two, we feel safer in our caregiver's cave even though we are alone. Personally, there have been periods of time when I didn't have the capability to get out and there have been times I've preferred being tucked away in mu cave. But God's word does not know any boundaries whether they exist only in our mind, or if they are an invisible barrier we put up ourselves. God can reach all the way into the depths of despair. He can see past the walls we build to keep ourselves in, and others out. His love can reach all the way into our life-mangled hearts. In Colossians 1:5-6, Paul is speaking to the Christian believers when he says that the Word of God bears fruit from the time we first hear it. And guess what! His word does not stop bearing ...

Philippians 4:19 is going to finish out our little journey through Philippians. My God will supply all your need  according to His riches in glory. Those of us who grew up in church know we learned this one early on. It was also used by our parents when we didn't get or couldn't have something we wanted. As we learn to be content in Him and with Him as we talked about in yesterday's devotion, our list of needs begin to shrink. I think some of that comes with age too as we learn to distinguish the things that have true value. We all have the same basic needs like food, shelter and love; but beyond that our needs can vary greatly. 1 Timothy 6:6 reminds us that godliness with contentment is great gain. I have to admit that during this caregiving journey I've had some very tight almost suffocating financial situations. Anxious thoughts try to take over my mind and infiltrate my life. But in those moments I stop and talk myself through it by saying things like I have foo...

Caregiving is one of the hardest things I've ever done; and I've done a lot of "above average" things. I have started and ran my own freelance business, taught junior high math, hiked 10 mile wilderness trails and run a marathon. I also got rid of all my stuff at one point and picked up and moved half way across the country all by myself to stay with people I had never met. But as I read this familiar scripture one more time, it didn't seem to fit exactly like it did before. In Philippians 4:13 Paul says I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.  Paul wrote it while sitting in jail. He wrote it to encourage the Philippians. What did he really mean? If we look at it contextually, it might not mean what we thought. We've used it for every tight spot in life and for an encouragement to get things done that we thought we couldn't do. While that might not be a bad thing, it doesn't seem to be the context of the verse. Looking at the enti...