For the Caretakers
Dusting off my parent’s dresser, my eyes fall on pictures of my siblings and I when we were young. As mom runs to the drug store and dad sleeps peacefully behind me, I keep thinking…what I’m doing isn’t much.
These photos, lovingly placed where they could be seen every day is grabbing a choke hold on my heart. And in it, this tender moment of love and worry and memory and hardship and peace, a thought catches me…
Somewhere in this world others are doing these very same things, thinking these very same thoughts.
Someone else is caring for their loved one, who has cancer. Someone’s daughter is sitting with her father. Someone’s spouse has turned into a home health nurse. Someone is tending to a sick child. Someone is caring for another Covid patient. Someone is helping their loved one in and out of a wheel chair. Someone is heading to the hospital, again.
Someone else is dusting the dresser and looking at old photos wondering what the future will look like, and if these photos are about to turn into beloved treasures.
The caretaker warriors weary from battle but oh so strong. I am feeling your presence, I am seeing your heart. I know what space you are filling.
You are giving endlessly to the one you love, not knowing if it will turn out okay. Carrying with you worry like spare change falling out of your pocket. Waking up to change the diaper, the feeding tube, check the blood pressure, get the ice pack…whatever it is, it’s the love part.
How many of you are drowning in care taking, asking yourself if it matters at all. Wondering if you can keep going like this…if all your outpouring is filling up anything?
Let me tell you, it is.
It SO is.
You’re overflowing into the one that’s empty. The one who can only held up by your pouring out. In the smallest of things, you are doing the biggest of things. And you aren’t alone in the worry you hold in your beautiful brave heart.
Keep going. I know it’s so hard. As you wipe away the dusty tears of a poured out season, a poured out life, may these words bolster you with strength.
Love is with you, it’s on your side.
What you’re doing means everything. You’re touching the most vulnerable part of life. Even if you never see the fruit, even if you can’t feel it’s power. Others can. In fact the most important other, can.
It’s all that matters. This tangible, sacrificial, all you are kind of love…
I’m watching it pour out of my mom. And I see it seeping through my siblings.
And it might be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Then again, the hardest things usually are.
Stay the course, dear warriors.
You aren’t alone, you aren’t forgotten.
In fact…
you are everything.
“Let your gentleness be apparent to all. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.”
Praying alongside you in love, and maybe, you can pray with me too.
Jenna
