Hope in the Hard of Being a Caregiver
Lately, I have walked into many conversations with friends who have been thrust into the role of caregiver for their aging parents. Much like Hobby Lobby in October, you wander the aisles surrounded by Christmas, Christmas tinsel and Christmas trees. It’s not what you’re looking for; it’s not what you want, and you even find yourself frustrated at the corporate powers that be for pushing this season on you before you are ready.
In an act of defiance, you pass the aisles filled with green garland and red bows committed to staying focused on the season at hand, the season you had made plans for. Yet, wandering the clearance aisle among the sad remains of the fall decor you realize that the season being thrust upon you swallows up the aisles in a way that leaves you with little hope of walking out with what you were looking for.
So goes the season of caring for your aging, and in many cases, ill parents. It’s not at all what you are looking for, it’s definitely not what you want, and it feels like a ride you weren’t ready to get on. For the past couple of months, this has been my reality as I help care for my dad who is battling two types of cancer. I rewind to just seven months ago when we celebrated my dad’s 70th birthday, who at the time was a strong, healthy, exercising, golf-playing dad. At the time, our greatest concerns were things like homeschooling kids, holiday plans, and continued adjustment to working from home. Battling rectal cancer and multiple myeloma was nowhere on anyone’s radar.
That seems to be a common thread for all my caregiving friends. One minute you’re walking along managing your family’s everyday care, stresses, and plans.Out of nowhere, life pushes you on this bus to a place you don’t want to go. You don’t want to go to this place of caring for aging parents because this place is hard.
It is hard for many reasons. It is hard because it holds the reality of theirs and your mortality in your face. For many, parents have been a constant in all the memories, struggles, and successes. It’s difficult to stand next to the truth that one day, maybe not now, but one day that will all change. It’s hard because you feel helpless. You find yourself in many moments where you can do little, if anything, to bring any emotional or physical comfort. Even greater, you have no control as to how this season will play out. It’s hard because you vacillate between the burdens and blessings that come with aging parents. After a sweet day filled with hand holding and rich conversation, you battle the feelings of guilt for even letting “burden” cross your mind.
This hard makes me sad, it makes me tired, and sometimes even makes me scared. But this hard also makes me grateful, gives me new perspective, and mostly makes me thankful that I know Jesus. Thankful because as I heard on one of my favorite podcasts,
“God does not give us hard without hope.”
Sweet caregiving friends, Jesus is the hope in all of your hard. In this short journey that I have taken thus far with my dad and family, there are a few truths that I have come to know deep down in my “knower”.
Mostly, Jesus holds me together. Colossians 1:17 says, “He is before all things, and IN HIM all things hold together. You or I can’t walk through this season in our own strength. Secondly, this season has called me to faithful obedience in the little things. Like Elijah before his fiery altar Mt. Carmel experience, there was a call to Cherith. Literally, a place name meaning “cutting” or “ditch,” Cherith is a call to a seemingly obscure detour from the big plans and purposes to faithful obedience in little things like cooking dinner and cleaning bathrooms. Things hardly worthy of a social media post. For it is in the desolate valley of Cherith, not the tops of Mt. Carmel, that we experience the refining truth of Jesus’ words when he said, “ Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve…”
Which leads me to my last thought which is to allow your life to be disrupted. In this season of my life as well as others, I have found the greatest refinement, the greatest blessings, the greatest intimacy with Jesus when I can slow down, unclench my fists, and embrace the disruptions of life. For God’s seeming disruptions are always better than any well-focused plan that we have for ourselves.
God continues to teach me that radical gospel love and God’s kingdom is an upside-down kingdom. It’s one where if we want to live; we have to die. If we want to be great; he calls us to serve. So as we walk through this Cherith season of caring for your parents or any season that you weren’t quite ready for, lean into Jesus instead of self-reliance. Let your plans take a back seat to his, and allow yourself to be disrupted. I am learning that these things bring us closer to finding the life, that is truly life that Jesus offers to us.
The ride is hard and the aisles full of things you weren’t ready for, but in them you come to find exactly what you were looking for, more of God’s kingdom.