I speak to and receive messages from caregivers on a daily basis who are frustrated, tired, hurting, and even hate being a caregiver. Do you know the first thing I say to them? I tell them it is perfectly normal and okay for them to feel this way! After they get over the shock of me saying this, I continue by telling them that caregiving is hard and that it is important for them to vent and be real about what they are experiencing and feeling. The danger comes when we pretend that all is well when in reality we are dying on the inside hiding our true pain and sorrow.
In Philippians 2, God tells us that we are to put others ahead of ourselves and if you are a caregiver you are indeed living out this scripture daily! It also goes on to say in forgetting about ourselves we should lend a helping hand which is exactly what we are doing as we care for others. I tell you this in order to remind you that even when this journey becomes too much to bear take comfort in knowing that you are doing God's work and living out what He instructed us to do in His Word.
Also, know that He understands it is not easy. God is not ignorant to your struggle, your pain, your frustration, nor your loneliness. When no one else on this globe gets how you feel HE DOES! When you feel that no one else on earth cares what is happening to you HE DOES! Give your cares to Him and I promise He will comfort and love you while you go through your valley experience and then He will strengthen you before the next valley comes!
Really? He cares? That's why He allowed my husband to be physically and mentally disabled by a severe stroke 4 years ago, why He allows my mother to suffer memory loss (not dementia, thank God) at age 85 and why he allows my aunt to be nearly blind from macular degeneration and nearly deaf and asks me to care for them all? I have searched and searched for comfort and love and strength, and I get just enough strength, like the mythical Sysiphus, to push the boulder up the hill every day, and then to do it again the next day, and the next and the next ... I truly believe there's a purpose, but I surely cannot see it, and I surely cannot see how these 3 lovely people's debilitation glorifies God in any possible way.
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