Life’s Changed

The day may come when your caregiving responsibilities are over. You’ve passed them on to someone else, or the recipient of all your time is no longer with you. A sense of relief settles about you—and stirs up guilt. Did I do enough? Could I have done something differently? What if…? A flood of questions, doubts, and worries assails you.

For the most part, those of us who nursed and cared for a parent, child, or grandparent did the best we could with what we had. Recriminations and hindsight aren’t our friends at this juncture. We need to focus on the present and look forward to the future. As the apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 3:13–14, “Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (KJV).

Finding ourselves with empty hours in our new life, we might wonder what to do. What now? First, we can rest. We can take care of ourselves for a change. Next, we can check out our own health, because we all tend to overlook it while caregiving. Third, we can gird ourselves with the positive in this new season. Let’s learn to rejoice as we seek the Lord, making prayer and praise a lifelong habit.