I was sitting in a wheelchair in the airport terminal, waiting to be wheeled up to get my baggage checked in, and I noticed a strange look on my brother’s face as he looked over and saw me sitting there. Did I look as weak and vulnerable as I felt, barely able to see over the two carry-ons hoisted on my lap, with an oxygen concentrator on the side?
For the previous three months, almost all of April, May, and June, 2019, despite my 30% pulmonary function, I had assisted my brother and sister-in-law in caring for her 94-yr.-old mother, who had been hospitalized three times with congestive heart failure, among other health issues.
How does anyone survive the physically-demanding task of caring for someone, who can do so little for themselves?
My service felt much like that of a missionary–with the same kind of hardships to endure, challenges to overcome, and difficulties to surmount.
At last, I was on my way home from this caregiving duty. But it was bittersweet, leaving the loved ones with whom I had shared so much sweat and tears the past few weeks. I could only pray that my time spent with them had been useful, and that the family could carry on somehow with the unpredictable journey that still lay ahead for all of them.
My life has been an interesting mixture of personal physical barriers and the call to help others surmount barriers of their own. This recent episode of caring for Jane, a nurse herself in her younger days, was no less demanding than the long-term experience of caring for my husband for eighteen years after he experienced a traumatic brain injury. And even helping care for my parents in their final year, when they were both battling cancer in 2010.
In future blogs, I would like to share some of the spiritual lessons I have learned through caregiving. Many of you, no doubt, have your own stories of heartbreak and survival already behind you—or maybe you are in the midst of caregiving right now. If not, just wait. Your time is coming.
This verse, in particular, struck me, as I considered my own weakness and how God had used that weakness to strengthen others:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9
Thankfully, we’re never on our own. His grace gets us through the hardest trials, no matter how weak and vulnerable we feel.
