Daily Devotions for Caregivers

This morning I kept thinking about an old song. I like to hear my sister, Kenella sing it. It's called The Anchor Holds.  It talks about a ship that is battered and torn but that it's held sure by the anchor. No matter what the storm does to the ship - the anchor holds secure. Since I had the anchor on my mind, I decided to look it up in a concordance. One scripture stood out to me. It's Hebrews 6:19 and it says this hope we have as an anchor for the soul , a hope both sure and steadfast.  I like to read verses in context, so I backed up and read the entire chapter. It's talking about Abraham and how he hoped against hope and held to the promise of God.If you back up a couple of verses, you'll see that God simply wants to show us the promise of the unchangeableness of His purpose. It can be so easy for His purpose to get lost in caregiving. However, it's only lost to us - we just can't see it. But His purpose is never lost, never wasted and remains eve...

Forgive me for my absence once again but we spent almost all of last week in two different hospitals. I know many of you know that drill! But we are home and I don't doze off every time I sit down now, so maybe I am almost caught up. I think hospitals are just part of the journey, but I still don't like them. Since my son is nonverbal I feel like I have to be right there every second. This time, my daughter stayed the first couple of nights too so we both got 2-3 hours sleep here and there. Thankfully we are all back home and back to a caregiver's normal. The home health nurse came by after Chris and I were back home. She asked if family helped. I told her my daughter helped immensely but no one else seemed to care. It's like they get used to it and figure we don't need anything. As caregivers we get used to living in crisis mode.  It becomes the norm for us - and the norm for them. She explained it this way. At first, for us that was Chris' accident 9 y...

This week promises to be a busy week, and by that I mean a busier than usual week. My mind and heart are all over the place and I woke up this morning trying to sort through how I will adjust and rearrange to make everything happen that needs to happen. Sometimes it can feel like I always fall short, like no matter what I do, it's never enough. With tons of frantic thoughts running through my mind this morning I forced myself to consider where God told Paul, My grace is sufficient for you.  But I translated that to My grace is enough. I started thinking about that one word, enough . I did a Bible Gateway search for enough and found several interesting things. That was all I needed to get my mind going in the "right" direction. I thought about the woman in 2 Kings 4. She owed a huge debt and had no way to pay. Her sons were going to have to become slaves to pay off the debt, but the prophet stopped by. He told her to collect all the empty vessels she could and then s...

If you know me much at all, you know I love the psalms, and coffee of course. Growing up, I missed a lot of the deepness of the psalms because I read them through religious eyes and failed to see the psalmist's humanity. There's nothing like real life and some time to help you see life with your eyes wide open. When we become real and raw with God - we start to see His work more clearly. One thing I appreciate about the psalms is the honesty. David, who wrote most of them, was open and real about how he felt whether he was elated or deflated. In a few psalms he sounds like me - very ambivalent in his emotions. On one hand, we trust God fully. On the other, we're angry with Him and trying to sort life out. But then there's the flip-flop back to absolute trust. Crazy ain't it? (I know you understand!) Sometimes I just look at one psalm at a time. David was usually pretty good about covering it all. He poured out his heart in amazing honesty, told God just how he...

This morning during my devotions, my eyes fell on the last verse of Psalm 19. It's a simple prayer at the end of a beautiful psalm. David prays, Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. David has just written about the majesty of God and the wonders of creation. He follows that with the power of the word to change a life and then follows it all with  this simple prayer. When my kids were growing up we had a rule. They could say anything they wanted to me - as long as they didn't have an attitude. I valued their honesty, and their feelings but explained there was a right time and a wrong time to say the exact same thing. They did well with it and we had some rewarding conversations. As they grew into their teen years, they were able to be honest with me, and I with them. We grew close. I think God feels somewhat the same way about His kids too. He values conversation. He values our thoughts and w...

There's just nothing easy about caregiving, is there? Maybe the choice to do it is the easiest part because it is made based on love, at least for most of us. But the actual walking it out is so difficult. I'm talking more than just the daily chores here. There's the emotional strain, financial strain, worrying over making decisions for a whole other person, who in my situation and many others can't tell you what they want or need. It's like playing a life-size game of guess-and-check. I guess this is what I need to do... check. Was it right or wrong? Sometimes, taking on a caregiver's role can feel like it's because something went wrong  with life. It's certainly not the picture perfect  life we envisioned, is it? I taught public school for several years and not one time did a student have a life goal of being a caregiver. Pretty sure that one's not on the list. But we are here. One thing I prayed early on was that I would not let it make me bit...

I make no apologies for the old picture! It's my favorite of my mom and me. Rumor has it that it was the last time I owned a dress! I'm so thankful that my mom is here this week, even though she continues to forget so many things we used to enjoy. For now, I keep her comfortable and happy, knowing our time is short. Emotions can be strung tight for the caregiver no matter what type of situation we are in. Our days are full of so many necessary activities we can barely have time to breathe. But breathing is good. If we are still breathing, then there is hope. We can still breathe a prayer to Him bringing Him every concern. It is an understatement to say my life changed drastically when I became a caregiver. And for some, it wasn't a sudden shock. But no matter what type of situation brought about a caregiver's role in your life, I want you to know you didn't lose a thing.  Naturally? Maybe. But not one spiritual blessing is diminished for the caregiver. Every p...