This is a Preview of the Book Entitled

Devotions for Caregivers

Edwin Ray Frazier

One Hundred Encouraging Devotions
For Anyone Giving Care
To a Spouse, Parent, or Other Much Loved Individual
In Trying Circumstances

Abbreviated Table of Contents

  vi        Table of Contents

  xii        Foreword

  xiii       Preface

1           Introduction

2           To All Upon My Way: Let Me Be Joy!

Page          Devotion      Devotion

Number            Number        Title

4                        Chapter 1: First Things First

4            1       The Caregiver's Self-Care

6            2       The Lord, Our Help and Shield

8            3       Blessed Be the Caregiver

10          4       Continuing Jesus' Prayer Habit

12          5       They Will Be Comforted

14          6       Reducing Stress

16          7       More Than Conquerors

18          8       Resting in the Shadow of the Almighty

20          9       Taking Care of Ourselves

22         10      As the Mountains Surround Jerusalem
 

24                      Chapter 2: Becoming a Student

42         20         What to Expect

44                      Chapter 3: Managing Responsibilities

44         21         Separating Essentials from Non-essentials

64                      Chapter 4: Cultivating Our Mental Health

82         40         Correcting Our Own Shortcomings

84                      Chapter 5: Support Groups

84         41         The Capacity to Be Inspired

104                     Chapter 6: Supportive Individuals

110        54         Still Receiving

124                      Chapter 7: Adjusting to Realities

130         64         A Secret of Fearlessness

144                      Chapter 8: Making Decisions

154         76         Looking Ahead

164                     Chapter 9: Staying Positive

182         90         Guided by a Positive Purpose

184                     Chapter 10: Legal Matters

200         99        Unsurprised by Surprises

202         100     Let Me Be Joy, Be Hope!

204         Conclusion

206         Endnotes

218         More Books by Ray Frazier

Foreword  

I have had the pleasure of working with senior adults as a Sr. Adult Pastor for the past 22 years at Winter Park Baptist Church in Wilmington, NC. I understand the value of taking a few moments each day to step toward God. I lost both my parents back in 2008. My dad died in March and my Mom in December. It was a hard year. I can't imagine not having God's word and taking time out each day to meditate and hear from God as I walked that hard, difficult road watching both my parents slowly fade and leave us.

I have been blessed to know Ray Frazier and his lovely wife Sandy through Winter Park Baptist Church. Ray has been a Pastor and a Minister for more than 50 years. He is blessed with a compassionate, caring heart and fully understands the needs of caregivers and particularly spouses who are providing care to their loved ones during illness.

Caregiving is hard work. It will challenge you and bend you but with God's help and Devotions for the Caregiver you will be strengthened and encouraged. What a wonderful tool to help you as you love and offer care to your loved one. Ray reminds us over and over again that God walks with us in the good times and in the hard times. God's offer to come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest is for me and for you. Rest in the Lord! His mercies are new everyday. I pray that Devotions for the Caregiver will help you find some much needed rest and help. Blessings!

Mark Teachey

Minister to Senior Adults

Winter Park Baptist Church, Wilmington, NC

Preface

I have observed and sympathized deeply with the fatiguing realities of individuals giving care to dear loved ones. That sympathy was the seed of this book. Compassionate people are accustomed to feeling helpless as we see a friend or family member struggle to carry a heavy weight day in and day out. That compassion motivates us to find ways to help them carry the load. This book was conceived by that motivation.

My vision therefore is encouragement, reassurance, daily bright and lifting moments in a continuing task. Further, we want to go beyond a collection of nice thoughts, to a frank recognition of the dark feelings that caregivers frequently encounter. On these pages we aim to speak health and healing to those feelings.

Other books treat the medical, legal, and other aspects of caregiving and also of each individual's particular illness. We make no claim to giving legal or medical advice, definitions, or directives.

If we consider one of these devotions each day, obviously they will take some caregivers through their entire task. Others' tasks continue much longer. Hopefully a caregiver will find strength in meditating through these pages more than once.

Introduction

This is a book of devotions. I have intended for these pages to provide the caregiver with daily sources of spiritual, mental, and emotional strength.

The primary focus is spiritual, as is most obvious by the constant use of scripture. Many Bible texts are reformatted and paraphrased rather than quoted precisely. The NIV Bible translation is the one used most often.

The mental focus is helpful. Caregivers, and others as well, can increase in emotional strength and overall well-being by intentionally studying, learning, and staying positive.

The emotional focus cannot be ignored. Regular efforts to keep the inner person recharged will pay significant dividends for the caregiver.

We'll draw a lot from the Bible, but also from a wide variety of other sources, both classical and contemporary.

While others can find meaningful thoughts herein, the specific scenario I have in mind is that of someone giving care to an increasingly helpless dear one, often a spouse.

The purpose before us now is not to provide a thorough or comprehensive analysis of any kind, but rather to call attention briefly to many of the realities involved, and to provide devotions in which the caregiver can find daily strength and direction. ¹

1 At times we'll mention some matters that can be studied further for benefit, but most often we'll move quickly back to encouraging and uplifting thoughts.

 

Devotion Number 30

 

Those Demanding and Stressful Realities

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30  

 

Blessed Leaning

At best, some of our days grow long and weary. Stress inducing situations follow close to each other. Blessed are they who can lean heavily on the Lord on those days, and on all our days.

Soaring

He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.    Isaiah 40:29-31

 

Abandoning Old Nonsense

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. ⁴⁶     Emerson  

 

Outstanding Moments

You will find, as you look back upon your life, that the moments that stand out are the moments when you have done things for others. ⁴⁷     Drummond

 

The Splendor Where I Wait

There is a Light where'er I go,

There is a Splendor where I wait.

Warm on my eyes I feel the glow.

The fight is long, the triumph slow,

Yet shall my soul stand strong and straight.

There is a Light Where'er I go,

There is a Splendor where I wait. ⁴⁸

Author unknown

 

Prayer

God, strengthen me to give the care you have called me to give, for this day. In Jesus' name, amen.

46 Ralph Waldo Emerson. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/18830-finis h-each-day-and-be-done-with-it-you-have accessed 1-14-20

47 Henry Drummond. The Treasure Chest, page 124. Charles L. Wallis, ed., Harper and Row, New York, 1965

48 Author unknown, There is a Light Where'er I Go.

Devotion 44

 

Inner Strength and Peace

By the time I came along, our family had water pumped into the house. But the well was still out there, with its roof and two well buckets. Those buckets were attached at either end of a long chain, looped over a strong pulley up above. Pulling one bucket up allowed the other one to go down, then to be pulled back up full of water.

Someone has noted that our prayers and God's grace work like those two well buckets: when prayers go up, grace comes down. That's one dependable principal of inner strength and peace.

Cultivating Inner Strength and Peace

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. (From Galatians 5:22-23)

For most of us, character is a very general concept, not easy to grasp. But our Galatians text names nine specific virtues that we can see and work at. And in cultivating those virtues, we are cultivating our inner strength and peace.

Laws and Character

The nation's laws would be powerless to maintain order were it not for a host of good and honest people. Often, order is kept or lost as much on the strength of the citizens' character as on the strength of the laws of the land. That can be the main reason why crime is scarce in one area and rampant in another: the people are different in character.

Virtues like courage, kindness, and grace, also are scarce in one person and more fully developed in another. One major reason for the difference is individuals' inner strength, although outward appearances may be nearly identical.

In whatever assignments lie before us today, we pray for and strive for that inner strength: that character that determines so very much: our motivation, our sense of fulfillment, our power to love, and much more.

 

Water in the Desert

So do not fear, for I am with you;

do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you;

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

I will make rivers flow on barren heights,

and springs within the valleys.

I will turn the desert into pools of water,

and the parched ground into springs.

Isaiah 41:10, 18

Devotion 86

 

Encouraging with Gracious Words

 

Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.

A person finds joy in giving an apt reply– and how good is a timely word!   

Proverbs 15:23, 16:24

Jewels Beyond Price

The art of saying appropriate words in a kindly way is one that never goes out of fashion, never ceases to please, and is within the reach of the humblest.

Kind words are the bright flowers of earthly existence; use them, and especially around the fireside circle. They are jewels beyond price, and powerful to heal the wounded heart and make the weighed-down spirit glad.

Let us use our speech as we should wish we had done when one of us is silent in death. Let us give all the communications, make all the explanations, speak all the loving words ere it is too late.

A kind word often can raise a depressed spirit.

Always say a kind word if you can, if only that it may come in, perhaps, with singular opportuneness, entering some mournful man's darkened room, like a beautiful firefly, whose happy circumvolutions he cannot but watch, forgetting his many troubles. ¹⁵²     Helps  

 

Smooth, Quiet, and Comfort

Cold words freeze people, and hot words scorch them, and bitter words make them bitter, and wrathful words make them wrathful. Kind words also produce their own image on men' souls; and a beautiful image it is. They smooth, and quiet, and comfort the hearer. ¹⁵³    Pascal

 

Speak always with modest and gentle words, for words can cut deeper than knives. A knife can be pulled out, but harsh words are permanently embedded into our souls. ¹⁵⁴Chapman   

Priceless

Let the weakest, let the humblest remember, that in his daily course he can, if he will, shed around him almost a heaven. Kindly words, sympathizing attentions, watchfulness against wounding men's sensitiveness, -- these cost very little, but they are priceless in their value. Are they not almost the staple of our daily happiness? From hour to hour, from moment to moment, we are supported, blest, by small kindnesses.¹⁵⁵     Robertson  

 

 

Prayer

Lord of grace and patience, strengten my resolve today,

I pray, to speak only gracious words. Amen

Devotions for Caregivers

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