The path from a caregiver to being cared for is a difficult
path. I have spent much of my life being a care giver and now find myself on
the recipient end. My oxygen levels drop dramatically with activity making my
days a journey between the bed and recliner. I have started hospice care to get
some better control of the pain and breathing. In the meantime, I depend on
others for day by day activities. A trip to the dentist today proved that my
going places has come to an end God has blessed me with a wonderful family, as
well as church family, who look after my every need. I am very grateful for
them. In the meantime, I wait God's timing to take me home.
It is humbling to depend on others and something I need God's grace to do. My
son found this quote mostly directed having to be dependent that I found very
helpful both for those of us hating to be a burden and those giving care.
We come into this world totally dependent on the love,
care and protection of others. We go through a phase of life when other people
depend on us. And most of us will go out of this world totally dependent on the
love and care of others. And this is not an evil, destructive reality. It is
part of the design, part of the physical nature that God has given us.
I sometimes hear old people, including Christian people
who should know better, say, “I don’t want to be a burden to anyone else. I’m
happy to carry on living so long as I can look after myself, but as soon as I
become a burden I would rather die.” But this is wrong. We are all designed to
be a burden to others. You are designed to be a burden to me and I am designed
to be a burden to you. And the life of the family, including the life of the
local church family, should be one of “mutual burdensomeness”. “Carry each
other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ” (Galatians
6:2).
Christ himself takes on the dignity of dependence. He is
born a baby, totally dependent on the care of his mother. He needs to be fed,
he needs his bottom to be wiped, he needs to be propped up when he rolls over.
And at the end, on the cross, he again becomes totally dependent, limbs pierced
and stretched, unable to move. So in the person of Christ we learn that
dependence does not, cannot, deprive a person of their dignity, of their
supreme worth. And if dependence was appropriate for the God of the universe,
it is certainly appropriate for us.
(John Stott, The Radical Disciple, pp. 110-11)
Please continue to pray for my abcess and other symptoms.
