I am a person that gets excited about change. The rhythmic changing of the seasons is one of the things I love most about living in the Midwest. And if I see a “new construction” sign go up I will drive by it diligently in eager anticipation of finding out what new business is being built. (Secretly I’m always hoping for it to be a donut store and I’m always quite disappointed when it turns out to be another bank.)
However, this past summer brought change that I wasn’t comfortable with or excited about. During a family vacation in the Appalachian Mountains, my husband Chris was in a serious downhill mountain biking accident. He ruptured his spleen, which resulted in emergency surgery, and a weeks’ worth of extended “vacation” for us in a Virginia hospital. God’s timing was evident in every detail and we are thankful that the accident was not any worse.
In a matter of the few hours between the accident and his diagnosis in the ER, our “typical” roles of patient and caregiver flip-flopped and we both found ourselves immersed in unchartered territory and growing in empathy for each other.
I knew exactly what Chris would feel like waking up from a major abdominal surgery. He’d crave ice chips and be in incredible pain as the anesthesia wore off. We’d need to stay on top of the pain, and I knew getting up for the first time would be excruciating but vital in his recovery.
That week was exhausting, but still felt familiar to me. When it came time to leave the hospital, however, all of that changed. Chris was not allowed to lift anything over 10 pound for six weeks. Therefore getting us transported from the hospital to our hotel and then a few days later from our hotel to the airport and home to Wisconsin, all fell on me.
I am not the physically strong one in our marriage. I rely heavily on Chris to be “my legs” in so many situations. It was a major role reversal to have him in a wheelchair with me doing the heavy lifting.
As we continued to plow through those next six weeks of his recovery, the Holy Spirit brought some tough questions to mind that I had to wrestle with. One of those was, “Are you placing your sense of security and confidence in Chris or in Me? Is he your “rock” or am I?”
Prior to Chris’s accident, I would have always answered that God was, but now God was asking me to put my faith where my words were. Would I choose to once again, but in a very different way, trust God to be the firm foundation for everything I needed help with?
As I daily began to ask God to be my rock, my place of security and safety, he started to transform my view of my role as caregiver. He reminded me that while my new task didn’t feel good and was strenuous on my physical body, these new trials were “not raining affliction on me. They were raining tenderness, love, compassion, patience, and a thousand other flowers and fruits of the Holy Spirit. And they are bringing to my life spiritual enrichment that all the prosperity and ease of this world could never produce in my innermost being” (J.M.M. from the devotional Streams in the Desert by L.B. Cowman).
I also realized how unfair it was to both Chris and myself to place the role of “rock” solely on him. When I started to fully understand what it meant for Christ to be my rock, I felt a burden lift that I hadn’t even realized I was carrying. I wasn’t as easily frustrated or disappointed by Chris and it became very plain to me when I was acting out of selfishness and not love.
Please do not misunderstand me. It has been my joy and privilege to care for Chris during this time of recovery, but if you’re currently in the role of active caregiver, you know that it is not an easy assignment.
Who (or what) is your rock? Is it God? If not, will you ask Him to be and believe that He is?
“He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken. My victory and honor come from God alone. He is my refuge, a rock where no enemy can reach me. O my people, trust in him at all times” (Ps. 62:6-8).
