Hope for Caregivers

Tak­en from Week 1: ​“The Eyes of Pain”

A word from Henri:

“We live in a world that sug­gests one per­son is strong and anoth­er per­son is weak, or some peo­ple have it togeth­er and oth­ers do not. And that those who are strong should help the weak. Now that’s not what the gospel is speak­ing about. It belongs to the cen­ter of the gospel that God became vul­ner­a­ble. That God stripped him­self from pow­er. That he didn’t cling to his equal­i­ty with God, but emp­tied him­self and became a human being like we are. As a fol­low­er of Jesus, what I have to offer is first of all my own vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. My own weak­ness, my own bro­ken­ness, my own wounds. My wounds can only be a source of heal­ing for oth­ers if I care for my wounds, if I ban­dage them well with my will­ing­ness to cre­ate a fel­low­ship of the weak and trust that there God’s heal­ing pow­er will become visible.”

A word from the scripture:

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus ​‚who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equal­i­ty with God as some­thing to be exploit­ed, but emp­tied him­self, tak­ing the form of a slave, being born in human like­ness.” (Philip­pi­ans 2:5 – 7)

Reflec­tion:

As a care­giv­er you may feel that you have to be strong for the sake of the one you care for. When Jesus emp­tied him­self of pow­er and became human, as we are, he showed us that our weak­ness­es and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties may be as much a gift of car­ing as any expe­ri­ence of knowl­edge and com­pe­tence. What we expect to see in the care­giv­ing rela­tion­ship may not be what God means for us to see. Recon­sid­er­ing the bal­ance of weak and strong may open our eyes.

• In what ways have you felt too weak to be a caregiver?

• How might accept­ing your own weak­ness change your rela­tion­ship with the one you care for?

God who offered vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to a bro­ken world, be the one who ban­dages wounds in a fel­low­ship of the weak. Amen.