What do you do when the role you swore you’d never take suddenly lands in your lap?
That was my reality. For years, I said—without anger or guilt—I will never live with my dad. I had a good plan in place, one that allowed me to help from a distance while protecting our peace. But after my mom passed away, the Lord began to quietly shift my heart. Within months, we were preparing to move in with my dad.
If you’re standing in front of a caregiving decision you didn’t plan for, this is for you.
She Had the Paperwork, But Not the Peace
Many caregivers—especially adult children—begin with a purely logistical mindset. You organize medications, schedule appointments, and maybe even arrange in-home help. But deep down, you’re unsettled. You may be thinking, Am I even called to this? Or am I just stuck with it?
Caregiving is more than a task list. In the DigniCare™ Method, the first phase is Decide: moving from reluctant reaction to purposeful stewardship. Without that decision, resentment easily grows.
What Is a Calling, Really?
We often think of “calling” as something reserved for pastors or missionaries. But biblically, a calling is any providential role God assigns. It’s where your responsibilities meet His purposes.
Scripture says, “Only as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each, in this way let him walk” (1 Corinthians 7:17).
That means caregiving—yes, even for a parent with dementia—can be a calling when God places it in your life.
Internal vs. External Call
Callings usually have two dimensions:
- Internal Call – A growing desire or conviction to take on the role.
- External Call – The circumstances or responsibilities God has placed in front of you.
Sometimes the internal comes first. More often in caregiving, the external call—like a diagnosis or crisis—arrives before your heart is ready. That’s not failure; it’s an invitation to grow.
You Can Grow Into Your Calling
For years my husband expressed a desire to become a pastor, by I resisted saying “I didn’t marry a pastor, I am not a pastor’s wife”. His internal call was there, but my reluctance stopped us from going until my internal call caught up to his and we moved to go to seminary.
In the DigniCare™ journey, this alignment is crucial—because when you own the role as part of your sanctification, the resentment fades, and peace takes root.
READ MORE: 274. When You’re the Only One — How to Avoid Exhaustion in Dementia Caregiving
Biblical Principles to Help You Discern
When you’re unsure whether to step deeper into caregiving, three biblical lenses help clarify:
- Honor Your Father and Mother – This doesn’t always mean hands-on care. It means ensuring their dignity and well-being.
- Leave and Cleave – If you’re married, your spouse is your first priority. Decisions must honor that covenant.
- Station and Providence – Your life stage, family role, and resources matter. God uses your current station to shape your call.
Begin With the End in Mind
One of the tools in the DigniCare™ Method is the DigniCare Lens™:
“Imagine it’s three years from today. Looking back, what would need to have happened for you to say, ‘By God’s grace, I have been faithful in this role, honored my loved one, and stewarded my health, relationships, and future well-being?’”
This future focus keeps you from making decisions based only on today’s stress.
Caregiving Is Not a Detour
The temptation is to see caregiving as an interruption. But in God’s economy, nothing is wasted. This season is not pulling you off course—it is the course. It’s shaping you into the person God intends you to be, deepening your trust, and anchoring your hope in eternity.
One Small Next Step
If you’re wrestling with whether you’re called to this role:
- Pause and pray over both your external and internal calls.
- Write down what you fear—and what you hope—about stepping into or deepening this role.
- Use biblical principles to check your alignment.
- Seek wise counsel before making a major decision.
And if you need a safe, structured place to work through these questions, join me in our free monthly workshop: How To Immediately Reduce Dementia Caregiver Overwhelm and Stress In 3 Easy Steps.
Caregiving clarity anchored in Scripture will not just help you make peace with your role—it will help you live it with dignity, calm, and conviction.
Because when God calls you to care, He also equips you to walk it well.
Transcript
Introduction to Caregiving Journey
For years, I said it. I will never live with my dad. I wasn’t being angry. I wasn’t avoiding my responsibility.
And I had a solid caregiving plan, one that allowed me to support both my parents, but from a distance. This plan protected peace. It preserved our relationships. And my husband and I were in full agreement. We were helping and it was working. But recently, after the death of my mom, all of that changed. Not because we are now living in a crisis. It’s been about five months. But because God has stirred something up inside me, a quiet change in my thinking and in my beliefs about my calling of being a caregiver. It has given me an internal clarity that I haven’t had before.
And right now, we are in the process of moving in with my dad.
Spirituality in Caregiving
And I want to take a minute and talk to you about what’s really happening here. Not just the logistics of moving, not just the messy middle that we are living in, but spiritually, because this isn’t about moving. This is about a calling. And maybe right now, you’re asking the same question.
Am I being called to be a dementia caregiver?
And how would I even know? Hey, Christian Care Companion. Welcome to Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians, the podcast where we live in the messy middle of caregiving. My name is Lizette Klute, and right now, I am literally living in the messy middle of a move.
Today’s episode is a solo reflective episode. It’s just you and me. And we’re going to talk through what it looks like and what it feels like to go from helping from a distance to actually moving in, to discern and to accept a call you once said you’d never take. So if you’re standing in front of a decision you didn’t plan for, this one’s for you. And if you haven’t yet joined me for one of our monthly workshops, they’re free. And the next one is tomorrow, Saturday, August the 9th at 12 p.m. Eastern. We’ll spend about two hours together in the messy middle. We will look at three unusual mistakes Christian caregivers make in their caregiving season and how to navigate the caregiving season with peace and clarity. You can register at thinkdifferentdementia.com forward slash WSL.
Understanding Your Calling
I would love to see you there.
Now let us get right into episode 275, how to know whether you are being called to be a dementia caregiver. Many people understand a calling in terms of a sacred call versus the thought of a secular call. So many people understand calling in terms of pastoral ministry or perhaps mission work in general. You’ll often hear people say things like, we’ve been called to the mission field, or I feel an internal call to be a pastor or a ministering.
But a calling is not just in terms of ministerial work or sacred work. It can be and should be considered in terms of all of our different stations and places in our life. In today’s episode, we’re going to unpack what it is and whether or not you should consider whether you’re being called to be a caregiver for somebody living with dementia. Martin Luther said, there is no work, however vile or sordid, that does not glisten before God. And I believe it was Calvin that said, and I could be wrong, but if you are going to be a street sweeper.
Be the best street sweeper that you can be to the glory of God. And so we’re going to look at this today in terms of four different points. You know I love my points, right? The first thing we’re going to look at is, what is a calling? The second thing is, we’re going to look at callings having two dimensions, an internal call and an external call. The third thing we’re going to look at is, you can be placed in a position or role without feeling called.
Yet. And please note the yet. And then lastly, biblical principles help you to be discerning and not just make a decision, right? So those are the four things that we’re going to look at today. Like I mentioned in the introduction, right now I am living in the messy middle. And this episode may actually be reflective of the messy middle because I have tried four times this afternoon to record this episode. I try to record my episodes a week or two in advance. It is Wednesday afternoon at 5 p.m. And this episode will go out on Friday. And because my environment is messy, because I’m living between three, in essence, different places and trying to consolidate and make thousands of micro decisions all the time. Do I keep this? Do I throw this away? Consolidating my household with my dad’s household. I literally am living in the messy middle and I’ve switched topics this week. I’ve thought of different things I wanted to bring to you.
And this one, the Lord really put on my heart earlier to talk about whether or not, or how to see, or how to even think about your caregiving journey in terms of being called. And we don’t We don’t think about being called to be a caregiver. We think about caregiving as a job or a duty or a responsibility or things that we need to do, tasks on a checklist, all of these different things.
But what I’d love to propose to you today is that If you have a person that you love who needs help in any shape or form, that we are being called to be their caregiver. Now, what that looks like practically may be a lot of different things,
Conversations That Transform
and that is not what this conversation is about. This conversation, today’s episode came about because of two recent conversations that I’ve had with two separate people. Well, the first conversation that I had, which actually preceded and prompted my husband and I making the decision to actually move in with my dad was because I had a conversation with a local one-on-one client.
Who is supporting her husband, who lives with dementia, and he is 58 years old, and she is 58, and she wants to work. And she has two goals. The first goal is she wants to be able to work as long as she possibly can. And the second thing is she wants to be with her husband. And she’s been struggling with paid caregivers not being reliable and calling out in all of this different drama, which is another conversation. However, in my conversation with her, I asked her, I said, what are you willing to give up or do in order to achieve your goal of being able to continue to work and stay with your husband? What are you willing to do? Because we can come up with a solution for that. And the solution I proposed was way out of the box thinking. And it was enough of a pause for me to stop and say to myself.
Lizette, what are you willing to do? What are you willing to quote unquote sacrifice in order to meet and or achieve your long-term goal your husband and your long-term goal of when your caregiving season is completed to be able to do foreign mission work what are you willing to do.
And I prayed about it. I went to sleep that night. I woke up the next morning. I said to my husband, what are you willing to do in order for us to be able to achieve our long-term goal, recognizing that caregiving is a season. It’s going to end at some point. And my husband and I want to go into foreign mission work. And everything we are doing is to set us up for success to be able to do foreign mission work in the future. And so that was the one conversation. The second conversation was with a person who came on to the Ask the Dementia coach a couple of months ago. And something she said really struck me related to calling because she mentioned that she felt resentful. She felt very resentful of the fact that she was her mom’s caregiver. She’s an only child. Her episode aired this week, episode 274, and it really made me stop and reflect on whether, you know.
Is it always wrong for your external call and your internal call to not align? And then I’ve had another client over the years who is a wife who obviously says, I don’t want to be the caregiver.
And her actions follow. And so it’s been this mess in my mind related to this
What is a Calling?
and related to calling as a Christian, as a caregiver. So, what is calling? A calling is a providential placement in your life for God’s purposes, and it has an internal and an external component. It is where your life and your responsibilities and your purpose meet.
And it is where we stay faithful to where God has placed us. That is what a calling in essence is. 1 Corinthians 7 verse 17 says, Only as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called Eve, in this way let him walk. So, a calling is not just, you know, in the pastoral ministry or a sacred thing. There’s not a sacred-secular divide in calling. It is something that we all are. We are called to certain roles, tasks, and assignments.
And your calling can change over time. I’ll use two very specific examples in my life. I am 100% sure that my 30 years as an occupational therapist, I was called to be an occupational therapist. And I was extremely gifted and good at what I do. And I loved my calling as an occupational therapist, 100%. I can also 100% say with a hundred percent conviction that i have been called to be a pastor’s wife.
And i can also tell you there was a time in a season where i flat out said i didn’t marry a pastor i don’t want to go to seminary and the lord is good and kind and we’ll bring it up again And the third point, where we talk about sometimes we haven’t grown into that particular calling, that the Lord does call us to something, but that we aren’t there yet and that we have to grow into it. And so without a shadow of a doubt, I know now that my internal and my external call for certain things do meck, right? And I also a hundred percent know that I wasn’t called to certain places and stations in my life that were possible and available because they’re not there. I’m not in those positions. So.
That’s the first thing. We briefly looked at what it is, what a calling is.
Internal vs External Call
It’s a providential situation that God pleases us in. And the second thing we’re going to look at is callings are to be understood in two specific dimensions. We have an internal call and an external call. And it’s been very interesting because I’ve been thinking through this a lot over the last couple of weeks.
An internal calling is oftentimes the thing that we see and understand when we have an internal desire.
An internal sense that we are called to be something, that we are called to do something. So very specific examples of that might be a man who believes he is being called has an internal desire or an internal call to be a pastor. For example, a single woman or a single man who has an internal call or desire to be married and or a woman who has a desire.
An internal call to be a parent, a mom. And then there’s an external call. An external call is an external validation of an internal feeling. And so the external call for these specific examples are a pastor, a man who has gone through seminary training, who is now being called by a particular church to serve in a particular geographic location. Or if you have been praying for a godly spouse and you are desiring with an internal call to be married that God provides you with a spouse or a woman who is desiring to be a mom who becomes pregnant. There is an external validation of an internal feeling and that’s one way that callings play out. But there is also a second way that callings play And the second way that a calling plays out is one of the ways that it plays out in caregiving.
There is an external call due to a situation or a circumstance that God has providentially placed you in that makes you a caregiver. Mine happened at 19 when my mom had a humdinger of a stroke. I came home from going out. I was 19, went out for dinner with my friends, and I came around the corner and pulled into the driveway to see the ambulance outside and my mom on the way to the hospital with a hemorrhagic stroke. Hindsight’s 20-20. We were blessed with 30 plus more years of my mom. She never should have survived her original stroke, but she did. And for that, I am eternally grateful.
And so externally, the Lord placed me in a position to become a family caregiver from that moment on. However, ironically, because I haven’t understood and I haven’t been looking at caregiving through a biblical model, through a biblical perspective, because I got sucked into the medical model, sucked into the medical world, I never had an internal recognition or an internal awareness of being called to be a caregiver. You may not be called initially to be a caregiver.
Growing Into Your Role
And so my dad was my mom’s caregiver. And providentially in a caregiving situation, sometimes the circumstance is there first, and then the internal call develops later. Or Lord willing, the internal call should develop later. And so thirdly, what we’re going to look at is you can be placed in a role without feeling called to do it yet. But if you are called to do that role, the Lord is good and kind and gracious and patient.
Patient with us to let us grow into a specific role over time. I’ll go back to my example of being a pastor’s wife. I will never forget. My husband wanted to go to seminary to become a pastor years, I kid you not, years before I was willing. Our conversations went on round and round. He’s like, I want to go to seminary. I’m like, I didn’t marry a pastor. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go, right? And the Lord was kind and gracious and gave me time.
To catch up to the internal call. And so guess what? The external call was there. My husband is a pastor and I am now a pastor’s wife. And the same thing has happened with my business, with the podcast, with everything that I am growing into. I wanted to start a business and I wanted to serve family caregivers of people living with dementia.
And when I was thinking through this podcast, I came up with all sorts of names. And at the beginning, it was going to be Dementia Caregiving for Families and then Dementia Caregiving for Christians. And I flip-flopped back and forth. And I did not, I could not, and I didn’t want to step into this space as a Christian. So I went with Dementia Caregiving for Families, and eventually the Lord changed my heart and made me realize and grew me into the internal awareness that my role is supposed to be to serve Christian family caregivers. And so you can be placed in a role without feeling called to it yet and then grow into it. So particularly this can happen in caregiving. So the external call sometimes comes first, right? And so you can, for example, the person could have a stroke like my mom, right? The diagnosis of dementia, the person can fall, whatever happens, the thing, right?
And so Proverbs 16, verse 9 says, the mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. So I can’t tell you how many people have told me. I have no choice, right? And your station and place matters, right? If you’re a spouse, if you’re a sibling, if you’re the adult child, those things matter. You have been providentially placed in those specific roles. But the Lord gives us agency, always, always gives us agency to make a choice. We have a choice in how we respond. And when we don’t, when we don’t make an active choice to respond, that is where resentment lives. That is where our thoughts come out. But I deserve better. I don’t know about you, but I have often felt, but I deserve better than that.
Agency and Responsibility
No, I don’t. I deserve the wages of sin, which is death, right?
But being called to be the caregiver doesn’t mean necessarily that you’re being called to be the hands-on caregiver. It doesn’t mean necessarily that you need to stop working and move in. But what it does mean is taking ownership and making active decisions. And so in my situation, I felt when my dad got sick a few years ago, I did feel the internal call to be a caregiver, but not as the hands-on caregiver, not as the caregiver living with my dad. I literally, I kid you not, I have said for years, I will not live with my dad.
I will not live with my dad. Well, guess what? The Lord overnight changed my heart and aligned the external call with the internal call. He had already given me that external call of being the caregiver. And now the Lord and only the Lord and the Lord’s spirit could change my heart overnight. I have no shadow of a doubt that we are doing the right thing and that we are being called to be the live-in caregivers to my dad.
Philippians 2 verse 13 says, For it is God who is at work in you, both to desire and to work for his good pleasure. I’m not doing this for me i’m not doing this for accolades i’m doing this because number one it is the right thing to do number two the external and the internal call align number three there is a part of this season that will end and it puts us in the position to be able to do the thing in the future that we feel being called internally to do which is foreign mission work and it is a good part of our stewardship on this journey so that was the third thing the third point and now lastly we’re going to look at biblical principles will help you discern because this is a part of being discerning wisdom wisdom biblical principles help you discern not just decide the bible will give you structure for the right discernment and i’m going to look at three underneath this three things that you can work through on your own.
The first thing is the fifth commandment, right? Exodus 20 verse 12, in essence, talks about honoring your father and your mother, right? And so it is good and right for us to honor our parents when we are adult children. Yes, we are to honor our parents. It gives us, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we need to live with them. It means that we need to honor them. It means that if you were abused by your parent as a child, you do not necessarily become the hands-on caregiver, but you honor them by helping make good and wise decisions with and for them. The second thing that the Bible teaches us that gives us structure for discernment related to caregiving is leaving and cleaving. Genesis 2 verse 24 says, For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife.
And so if you are married, you are now a unit. And if you are a husband caring for a wife, you are still a unit. And that means that the Lord has provided, given you an external call through your circumstances to be the caregiver to your spouse. And my dad has a lot of faults, but I will tell you one thing I will never fault him for. My mom had a stroke when she was 42.
My dad will be 80. And for 55 years, he was her primary caregiver. And he did a good job of physically and financially taking care of her. And so we have to factor that in if you’re the married adult daughter or the married adult son being a caregiver to your parents, you do have to honor them, but you’ve left and cleaved. And so we’ll use this as an example. There’s a couple of family that I met with a few months back, probably over a year ago. And the husband told me my wife and my mom do not get along and did not hire me and did not ask my advice but then moved his mom in well guess what it didn’t work because they left and cleaved and yes he was trying to honor his mother by bringing her into the house but the secondary Every relationship of leaving and cleaving, not the I was born into this family relationship.
Actually supersedes your relationship with your parent. And it did not work out well for them.
Biblical Principles for Caregiving
His mom ended up being placed in a facility. they declared bankruptcy because they made unwise decisions because they did not use a biblical structure for discernment when they were making this decision and so the last one we’re going to look at here is station and providence because yet again when first corinthian 7 verse 17 says only as the lord has assigned to each one the lord puts us in stations and his providence is your external call. It is up to us to follow in obedience. It doesn’t mean that we do not think these things through, but we have to factor in exactly where we are. And if you are the adult daughter who is the caregiver of a parent and your husband isn’t 100% on board, You cannot.
Cannot move your parents in with you. You cannot move in with your parents. Your spouse supersedes your responsibility and your relationship with your parents. And so these are biblical principles that will help you be discerning when you make your decision. And so if you’re struggling with this type of decision, I invite you to come to the free workshop I have this weekend. We talk about a lot of these different kinds of situations. And help build it out in a practical theological perspective. This is where the rubber meets the road, right? Yes, the Bible doesn’t tell us exactly step-by-step what to do. And the Bible tells us exactly what to do step-by-step in a caregiving journey.
Embracing Your Caregiving Journey
And so I hope today’s episode was encouraging to you. I really do hope it was encouraging. I want you to think about your caregiving through the lens of whether you’re being called. Because if God has placed this particular situation in your life, then he has given you an external call to this particular station.
And we will never, ever, ever be fully aligned until we can work on our hearts, right? So your caregiving journey is not a detour.
Through your life. You’re not being taken off track. The woman who said that she has some resentment related to being the primary caregiver of her mom, one of the things that sticks out in my mind is that the statement that they make, that she made that said, we got married young, We had kids, and we were kind of waiting for all of that to be done so that we could get on, you know, so we could have this time together because we didn’t have it at the beginning of our marriage. Caregiving is not a detour off of your life. It is forming you into the person you are supposed to be in God’s eyes. We are kingdom focused. We are focused on where we are going in eternity. And the Lord doesn’t make mistakes. He has put this particular situation in your life at this particular season for a specific reason. And so with great excitement, I have moved in with my dad. I don’t harbor any resentment. I’m not angry about it. I’m in the middle of the messy middle. it’s not fun being in the middle of the messy middle I can’t find anything I’m making thousands of decisions about stuff.
Conclusion and Reflection
And having said that, I 100% know it is my calling. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is I have total alignment between the two dimensions, the internal and the external. And I know that sometimes we are placed in a role that we don’t feel called to yet and that it is part of your sanctification and your growth to grow into it, particularly in relation to caregiving.
And then lastly, the Bible does teach you principles in how to be discerning when you’re making these decisions. And yet again, if you’re struggling with this, hop on my calendar. I will take 20 minutes and have a conversation and see if it’s the right fit for you and I to work together. If you’re looking for some free coaching, hop onto the next Ask the Dementia Coach. that is an opportunity for you to receive some free help from me. And as I try to remember in the messy middle to end all of my podcasts, may the Lord bless you and keep you. And I pray for you every single day that the Lord prepare and provide the right help for you at the right time. And so I look forward to seeing you in our next episode where we are going to talk about another coaching style episode. I’ll see you next week.
She was literally in the store, her groceries in the cart, many questions in her heart. And like so many Christian caregivers, Lisa didn’t even realize how exhausted she was until she started talking in this real-time coaching conversation recorded during one of our free monthly Ask the Dementia Coach sessions. Lisa, an only child caring for her mother, finally said out loud what so many of us are feeling. I’m doing everything, and I don’t feel gentle anymore.
Maybe you have been there too, trying to love well, trying to do the right thing, but wondering why it still feels so heavy and so lonely. Hey, Christian Care Companion. Welcome to Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians. I’m your host, Lizette Klute, and today you’ll hear what it looks like when a caregiver, just like you, steps into a safe space, asks her real question, and walks away with biblical and practical support, all in under 30 minutes.
In this episode, we’ll talk about what to do when you’re the only one showing up in dementia care.
Why feeling overwhelmed doesn’t mean that you’re unfaithful, and how to finally start inviting help from your church, your doctor, and maybe even from your own expectations. Because this is what happens when caregivers stop suffering in silence and start receiving support. And if you’re ready for your moment, just like Lisa’s, I want to personally invite you to join me this Saturday, August the 9th at 12 p.m. Eastern for our next free online workshop. It is called The Three Unusual Mistakes That Keep Christian Dementia Caregivers Overwhelmed, and how to step into peace, clarity, and confidence without waiting for anyone else to change. So if you’re ready to stop going it alone, go
Support for the Lonely Journey
ahead and save your seat at thinkdifferentdementia.com forward slash WSL. Now let’s dive into today’s episode 274 when you are the only one.
How to avoid exhaustion in dementia caregiving, where we walk with Lisa on her journey. And well, welcome, Lisa. I’m so excited that you’re here. You’re also a new face. You look like you’re in the store, though. I am. I am. You know, caregivers, we try to get out and do what we can when we can. I absolutely understand that. So, Miss Lisa, I’m going to ask you a series of questions like I ask everybody. Let’s say it’s six months from today and things are easier in your caregiving journey. What would that look like for you? It would look like I’m more peaceful inside, mentally especially. I do this by myself as far as being an only child. I would have some time for me to do things where my mind is not thinking about, is my mom eating? Has she taken her medicine? Is she out of the bed? Is she Just anything dealing with my mom, I would have time with my husband and just, yeah, I would know that she’s cared for.
And so therefore, I have peace of mind and I’m more gentle with her. That’s the thing that I’m really lacking is being gentle. Well, that is definitely a lot on your plate, young lady. So what would you say right now is stopping you from getting there? Because I’m the only one doing it. meaning my husband’s there you know like if i need to say hey will you go check on my mom if he’s you know if he’s not at work will you go check on my mom and just make sure she does such and such but i need this time during the day so when i’m at work a couple of days a week i have someone that comes in and just takes the load off and i don’t have to think i just want to think because i don’t have that i i feel like i’m always telling her what to do you need to do this mom make sure you do this so i want to so i just want to have a relationship with her sometimes but i can’t because I’m doing everything. I’m watching cameras if I’m at work. I totally get that. So may I ask a couple of clarification questions based off of what you just shared? Yes.
Navigating Complex Diagnoses
Okay. You are an only child. You are married. I work part-time. I work about 25 hours a week. Okay. But you’re working or checking on your mom, which to me says that your mom is not living with you. She does live with you. She lives with you? Okay. Yes. She had a heart surgery a few years ago, which caused a stroke. And so she’s been with me ever since she’s been out of the hospital. Plus I have two college age kids and I have a granddaughter that’s here with me now for the summer, but she used to live with me during this whole thing that she just did. Anyway, sorry. Okay. So your mom lives with you and your husband. You work 25 hours a week. When you say you ask your husband to check on your mom, is that, does he work from home or he has to leave work? Not anymore.
Since the first few years, since our new administration, my husband had to go back on base to work. He was at home and that was such a beautiful thing. But now he don’t have to. So that’s where the care is needed. So if he happens to be at home in the evening time and I’ve had to go do something or I’m working late, I can say, will you please go make sure my mom is up out of the bed? She’s, you know, whatever it is, you know, or if he goes home for lunch, I’ll say, will you please just make sure she took her medicine to get her started on eating. Okay.
So does your mom have a definitive diagnosis of dementia? The neurologist said it’s Parkinsonism. Have you ever heard of that? Parkinsonism? Mm-hmm. Yes. So she has a history of a stroke, and now she has what they have termed Parkinsonism. Is she on medication for Parkinson’s disease? Is she on Sinemet or any of those medications? No, because she doesn’t have the Parkinson’s disease, but she’s on Carbolebo for movement. Carbo-lebo is cinnamon. That is genetic. Brand. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And the reason I’m asking that is the way, and this is just by way of education, the way that they determine whether or not a person has what’s called idiopathic Parkinson’s disease versus Parkinsonism or Parkinson-like symptoms or syndromes is whether or not a person is responding to the carpeidopa levodopa.
Replacement, because in essence, Parkinson’s, idiopathic Parkinson’s, means that the person’s brain, the synapses, the neurotransmitter dopamine is not being, doesn’t go through.
So if a person is taking Sinemet or Carpidopa, Levodopa, the drug, and it is helping the symptoms of Parkinson’s, which is tremors, difficulty getting moving, stopping moving, rigidity, all of those five cardinal Parkinson’s symptoms, then it can be determined or said that they have Parkinson’s, idiopathic Parkinson’s. But that still has to do with dementia? Sometimes. Yes, ma’am. So let me explain it this way. About 80% of people who have Parkinson’s, idiopathic Parkinson’s, will over time, if they live with it long enough, develop Parkinson’s disease dementia this way. Think about an umbrella. The umbrella, the top, the umbrella is dementia. It’s just a category.
And underneath that umbrella, you have lots of little umbrellas. There are 19 primary little umbrellas underneath that. One is Alzheimer’s. One is the Parkinson’s bucket of dementias. They’re actually Lewy body dementias, right? Or dementias with Lewy bodies. Underneath that, you have Lewy body dementia, which is what Robin Williams had Lewy body dementia. And then the other one underneath that is Parkinson’s disease dementia. The difference between those two is the following. With Parkinson’s disease dementia, a person first has the signs and symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. So think back to the future Michael J. Fox, right? He’s had Parkinson’s disease for decades. He has the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Later over time, if that person develops dementia, it could be Parkinson’s disease dementia. Lewy body dementia, they have the cognitive stuff first.
And then later over time, they develop the Parkinson-type symptoms. But they all fall under the same umbrella. So with the fact that they said Parkinsonism, but they’ve given her medication for Parkinson’s disease, you might want to clarify with the doctor either does she have Parkinson’s or why is he giving her medication for Parkinson’s if she doesn’t. Okay, it’s something else since we’re on the call and maybe other people will know at some point to tell me My mother wears a bipap machine and I didn’t I discovered that something was where I used to tell them After she had a stroke when she was in the hospital and when she was in the still care when she lays down, To sleep for a nap or to go to bed at night when she wakes up and she is.
Moodless so over time I kept saying something’s wrong so i got her a sleep study found out she had severe sleep apnea when she wears her mask well, she does so well so it has something to do with that and i don’t know what to do but she takes it off during the night and i go back in and i’m not so gentle i’m like please put the mask on out of fear so what can you offer a couple a few things so would it be okay if i kind of unpack what I see with you. Please. Yes, I’ll leave.
Seeking Practical Help
No, please never leave. I love having people here. I’m just teasing. So you have a pretty complex situation in this sense. You do not have a clear definitive diagnosis of dementia, and you have indications that can definitely be things that can be contributing to cognitive loss that, if not addressed over time, can lead to permanent dementia. Well, she is diagnosed with dementia as well. But do you know what type? No, no. We go back to the neurologist again, so I will ask again. The neurologist has said Parkinsonism dementia. That’s all she said. Okay. So you need to have the clarification questions for you need to be. Does she have Parkinson’s disease? Yes or no? If it’s no, why is she on a medication for Parkinson’s disease? Because of her movements. I do know that. Because she started to stiffen up in the way she walked. Then they need to say whether or not she has Parkinson’s.
Right. As opposed to saying Parkinsonism. Parkinsonism is a, it’s like a catch-all. catch-all. It’s a catch-all. It’s not really a diagnosis. It’s kind of just saying, oh, well.
We don’t really want to say she has Parkinson’s because maybe she doesn’t have all of the signs of Parkinson’s. And that’s what they said. We’re treating her like she has Parkinson’s, but the fact of the matter is the medications are only effective if it’s Parkinson’s. So why give her medication for something that may not be effective? And if she’s showing signs of rigidity and those kinds of things, is it a different kind of a dementia like Lewy body dementia? Oh, okay. So really dig into the diagnosis with the doctor. Recognizing these kinds of diagnoses are diagnoses of exclusion. So that’s the first thing. Really work on the diagnosis. the second thing is maybe ask for another sleep study or a different type of like work with a respiratory therapist or a provider related to the BiPAP because they have multiple different types of masks yeah and I’ve done that I’ll try again we changed from the full her mouth and her nose to try to do this one but it because her mouth is open at night they said that’s It’s not going to work.
Okay, but I’ll see if there’s another place I can go perhaps under her insurance. And, you know, keep trying. Keep trying. So BiPAP and CPAP are two totally different. Yes, she’s BiPAP. Okay. All right. Good. So based on our conversation today, oh, and one more reflection, I would strongly encourage you to start to put together a group of people around you who can help give you some relief. And if they’re not family.
Then I need you to consider what your options are.
Building Your Support Network
I have craved, and I have craved God to send someone. Okay. The agencies don’t learn. They just don’t. I used to have a young lady who felt that this was her calling. She was with me for years. It was wonderful. She got married and she moved away. I just, yeah, prayer. I just appreciate any prayer for God to provide that. And the Lord will provide it. And now I’m going to give you some places I want you to go ask for help. Okay. Do you go to church? I do. Do you have deacons at your church? I have very trusted friends who are. We have one deacon. We have a small church. Okay. So one of the things that my experience has shown me is people like you in your particular situation are hiding in plain sight. Nobody who knows you, Lisa, looking at you knows what you’re struggling with. They do not know. And when they ask you how you’re doing, you’re saying, I’m fine. How do I know? Because I’ve been there. Okay?
What I need you to do is have a very frank conversation with your church leadership, pastor, elders, deacons, whatever they are in whatever setting that you are in. And say, I need help. I’m burning out. I know it’s a small congregation, but I need some help with some tangible diaconal things. Can you guys send, can you come up with a, think about a nursery schedule, right? Like when a woman has a baby. I don’t know about you all, but our church, like everybody sends meals. Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah. Right? What can we do functionally, practically to support you so that you have some bandwidth? Can you ask the church to set up a meal train for four months, once a week for four months, once a week for a year, twice a week for six weeks, whatever? Can you ask the church to see if they can find somebody who can come mow the lawn or come just sit with your mom for an hour so you can go on a date with your husband?
Waiting for somebody to be sent is good asking for help with tangible things that you know that they can help with so what do we do we generate a list of things that people can do to help you, generate a list keep it in your in your wallet if somebody says um let me know what i can do to help pull it out of your wallet and say here this is what I need help with which one of these can you do for me.
Because what I’ve, my experience, and this has been vast over the years, people in church are willing to help. They do not know what to do. So what they’ll do, and it’s really interesting, I have a really good friend who’s a wonderful godly woman, who’s an occupational therapist by background in training, just like me. And I did a presentation at their church. And this strategy was what I said. And she came to me afterwards. words. She’s like, I never thought about telling my patients to do that, right? Because what will happen is somebody will come up to you and they’ll say these almost exact words. Let me know what I can do to help you. And we stand there with our mouth full of teeth because we are overwhelmed and it’s like, I’ve got 500 things going through my head, but it’s not systemized, so I say nothing. Whereas if I have a list in my purse and somebody comes up to me and says let me know what I can do to help you can say I really really could have somebody come sit with my mom for two hours once a month so my husband and I can go on a date.
Come up with a list of tangible things micro micro little things people can do to help you they are willing to help they don’t know how, and then the other part of that is we hide the fact that we’re going through these changes from people because we don’t want them to know that something is wrong with my mother, she’s not thinking as good as she used to whatever it is we try to protect that person, we try to protect their autonomy and what I’d love to propose to you is that, Your mother’s dignity and value does not lie in what she can do, what she cannot do, or what she is thinking or how she’s thinking. It’s in that she’s created in God’s image. And so now we need to find help for you.
Finding Gentleness in Caregiving
Okay was this helpful lisa it was i’m going to try to get on the call with you because i just want to be i listen to you and you i’m so thankful that you come from a christian perspective because it has been so helpful because what i hear you saying is that he’s saying to find me in the midst of this and her but my biggest problem is just treating her with gentleness i think it’s coming from a place of where’s my mom where she’s such a smart lady why are we doing this are you sometimes i go is she just doing this just because and i’m like mom you know that you you should do what are you doing that’s how i come across i don’t want to come across like that but i think i’m still stuck in the fact oh in the mom she was because this just happened so suddenly i’m still I’m still not there. I 100% get it. And I would love to have you schedule a call. Okay, I’ll do that. Schedule a call. We’ll take 20 minutes. We’ll have a conversation. And in that conversation, then if it makes sense for us to keep working together, I can tell you what that will look like. Thank you. Thank you for what you said earlier, too. Just your calmness. It’s good testimony to what she’s doing.
Schedule a call. You can find it on the website. Okay. Or it should just be thinkdifferentdementia.com forward slash call, C-A-L-L. And you should be able to schedule a 20-minute call. I promise you, I do not believe in strong-arming people. I will serve you where you are. And we can make this easier. I promise you. Thank you, guys. You’re welcome.
Community and Ongoing Support
Thank you so much. You are very welcome, Ms. Lisa. People who are really benefiting from the community are the people who joined earlier on, before they need it, and that have been active and are participating in the community because then they already know what questions to ask and they have a place to come and they’re not constantly wondering, what do I need to do? How do I need to do it? So people listening are interested in tapping into or learning about the community. I’d invite you to just go to the website, thinkdifferentdementia.com. There’s a link for you to schedule a 20-minute call. There’s no pressure. I’ll serve you regardless of whether you join the community or not. But it is a way for you to take this relationship a little deeper, a little bit more hands-on support because really the research also shows its longitudinal support over time. Yeah, for sure. I would highly recommend Lizette She’s awesome I appreciate that endorsement.
Introduction to Caregiving Journey
For years, I said it. I will never live with my dad. I wasn’t being angry. I wasn’t avoiding my responsibility.
And I had a solid caregiving plan, one that allowed me to support both my parents, but from a distance. This plan protected peace. It preserved our relationships. And my husband and I were in full agreement. We were helping and it was working. But recently, after the death of my mom, all of that changed. Not because we are now living in a crisis. It’s been about five months. But because God has stirred something up inside me, a quiet change in my thinking and in my beliefs about my calling of being a caregiver. It has given me an internal clarity that I haven’t had before.
And right now, we are in the process of moving in with my dad.
Spirituality in Caregiving
And I want to take a minute and talk to you about what’s really happening here. Not just the logistics of moving, not just the messy middle that we are living in, but spiritually, because this isn’t about moving. This is about a calling. And maybe right now, you’re asking the same question.
Am I being called to be a dementia caregiver?
And how would I even know? Hey, Christian Care Companion. Welcome to Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians, the podcast where we live in the messy middle of caregiving. My name is Lizette Klute, and right now, I am literally living in the messy middle of a move.
Today’s episode is a solo reflective episode. It’s just you and me. And we’re going to talk through what it looks like and what it feels like to go from helping from a distance to actually moving in, to discern and to accept a call you once said you’d never take. So if you’re standing in front of a decision you didn’t plan for, this one’s for you. And if you haven’t yet joined me for one of our monthly workshops, they’re free. And the next one is tomorrow, Saturday, August the 9th at 12 p.m. Eastern. We’ll spend about two hours together in the messy middle. We will look at three unusual mistakes Christian caregivers make in their caregiving season and how to navigate the caregiving season with peace and clarity. You can register at thinkdifferentdementia.com forward slash WSL.
Understanding Your Calling
I would love to see you there.
Now let us get right into episode 275, how to know whether you are being called to be a dementia caregiver. Many people understand a calling in terms of a sacred call versus the thought of a secular call. So many people understand calling in terms of pastoral ministry or perhaps mission work in general. You’ll often hear people say things like, we’ve been called to the mission field, or I feel an internal call to be a pastor or a ministering.
But a calling is not just in terms of ministerial work or sacred work. It can be and should be considered in terms of all of our different stations and places in our life. In today’s episode, we’re going to unpack what it is and whether or not you should consider whether you’re being called to be a caregiver for somebody living with dementia. Martin Luther said, there is no work, however vile or sordid, that does not glisten before God. And I believe it was Calvin that said, and I could be wrong, but if you are going to be a street sweeper.
Be the best street sweeper that you can be to the glory of God. And so we’re going to look at this today in terms of four different points. You know I love my points, right? The first thing we’re going to look at is, what is a calling? The second thing is, we’re going to look at callings having two dimensions, an internal call and an external call. The third thing we’re going to look at is, you can be placed in a position or role without feeling called.
Yet. And please note the yet. And then lastly, biblical principles help you to be discerning and not just make a decision, right? So those are the four things that we’re going to look at today. Like I mentioned in the introduction, right now I am living in the messy middle. And this episode may actually be reflective of the messy middle because I have tried four times this afternoon to record this episode. I try to record my episodes a week or two in advance. It is Wednesday afternoon at 5 p.m. And this episode will go out on Friday. And because my environment is messy, because I’m living between three, in essence, different places and trying to consolidate and make thousands of micro decisions all the time. Do I keep this? Do I throw this away? Consolidating my household with my dad’s household. I literally am living in the messy middle and I’ve switched topics this week. I’ve thought of different things I wanted to bring to you.
And this one, the Lord really put on my heart earlier to talk about whether or not, or how to see, or how to even think about your caregiving journey in terms of being called. And we don’t We don’t think about being called to be a caregiver. We think about caregiving as a job or a duty or a responsibility or things that we need to do, tasks on a checklist, all of these different things.
But what I’d love to propose to you today is that If you have a person that you love who needs help in any shape or form, that we are being called to be their caregiver. Now, what that looks like practically may be a lot of different things,
Conversations That Transform
and that is not what this conversation is about. This conversation, today’s episode came about because of two recent conversations that I’ve had with two separate people. Well, the first conversation that I had, which actually preceded and prompted my husband and I making the decision to actually move in with my dad was because I had a conversation with a local one-on-one client.
Who is supporting her husband, who lives with dementia, and he is 58 years old, and she is 58, and she wants to work. And she has two goals. The first goal is she wants to be able to work as long as she possibly can. And the second thing is she wants to be with her husband. And she’s been struggling with paid caregivers not being reliable and calling out in all of this different drama, which is another conversation. However, in my conversation with her, I asked her, I said, what are you willing to give up or do in order to achieve your goal of being able to continue to work and stay with your husband? What are you willing to do? Because we can come up with a solution for that. And the solution I proposed was way out of the box thinking. And it was enough of a pause for me to stop and say to myself.
Lizette, what are you willing to do? What are you willing to quote unquote sacrifice in order to meet and or achieve your long-term goal your husband and your long-term goal of when your caregiving season is completed to be able to do foreign mission work what are you willing to do.
And I prayed about it. I went to sleep that night. I woke up the next morning. I said to my husband, what are you willing to do in order for us to be able to achieve our long-term goal, recognizing that caregiving is a season. It’s going to end at some point. And my husband and I want to go into foreign mission work. And everything we are doing is to set us up for success to be able to do foreign mission work in the future. And so that was the one conversation. The second conversation was with a person who came on to the Ask the Dementia coach a couple of months ago. And something she said really struck me related to calling because she mentioned that she felt resentful. She felt very resentful of the fact that she was her mom’s caregiver. She’s an only child. Her episode aired this week, episode 274, and it really made me stop and reflect on whether, you know.
Is it always wrong for your external call and your internal call to not align? And then I’ve had another client over the years who is a wife who obviously says, I don’t want to be the caregiver.
And her actions follow. And so it’s been this mess in my mind related to this
What is a Calling?
and related to calling as a Christian, as a caregiver. So, what is calling? A calling is a providential placement in your life for God’s purposes, and it has an internal and an external component. It is where your life and your responsibilities and your purpose meet.
And it is where we stay faithful to where God has placed us. That is what a calling in essence is. 1 Corinthians 7 verse 17 says, Only as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called Eve, in this way let him walk. So, a calling is not just, you know, in the pastoral ministry or a sacred thing. There’s not a sacred-secular divide in calling. It is something that we all are. We are called to certain roles, tasks, and assignments.
And your calling can change over time. I’ll use two very specific examples in my life. I am 100% sure that my 30 years as an occupational therapist, I was called to be an occupational therapist. And I was extremely gifted and good at what I do. And I loved my calling as an occupational therapist, 100%. I can also 100% say with a hundred percent conviction that i have been called to be a pastor’s wife.
And i can also tell you there was a time in a season where i flat out said i didn’t marry a pastor i don’t want to go to seminary and the lord is good and kind and we’ll bring it up again And the third point, where we talk about sometimes we haven’t grown into that particular calling, that the Lord does call us to something, but that we aren’t there yet and that we have to grow into it. And so without a shadow of a doubt, I know now that my internal and my external call for certain things do meck, right? And I also a hundred percent know that I wasn’t called to certain places and stations in my life that were possible and available because they’re not there. I’m not in those positions. So.
That’s the first thing. We briefly looked at what it is, what a calling is.
Internal vs External Call
It’s a providential situation that God pleases us in. And the second thing we’re going to look at is callings are to be understood in two specific dimensions. We have an internal call and an external call. And it’s been very interesting because I’ve been thinking through this a lot over the last couple of weeks.
An internal calling is oftentimes the thing that we see and understand when we have an internal desire.
An internal sense that we are called to be something, that we are called to do something. So very specific examples of that might be a man who believes he is being called has an internal desire or an internal call to be a pastor. For example, a single woman or a single man who has an internal call or desire to be married and or a woman who has a desire.
An internal call to be a parent, a mom. And then there’s an external call. An external call is an external validation of an internal feeling. And so the external call for these specific examples are a pastor, a man who has gone through seminary training, who is now being called by a particular church to serve in a particular geographic location. Or if you have been praying for a godly spouse and you are desiring with an internal call to be married that God provides you with a spouse or a woman who is desiring to be a mom who becomes pregnant. There is an external validation of an internal feeling and that’s one way that callings play out. But there is also a second way that callings play And the second way that a calling plays out is one of the ways that it plays out in caregiving.
There is an external call due to a situation or a circumstance that God has providentially placed you in that makes you a caregiver. Mine happened at 19 when my mom had a humdinger of a stroke. I came home from going out. I was 19, went out for dinner with my friends, and I came around the corner and pulled into the driveway to see the ambulance outside and my mom on the way to the hospital with a hemorrhagic stroke. Hindsight’s 20-20. We were blessed with 30 plus more years of my mom. She never should have survived her original stroke, but she did. And for that, I am eternally grateful.
And so externally, the Lord placed me in a position to become a family caregiver from that moment on. However, ironically, because I haven’t understood and I haven’t been looking at caregiving through a biblical model, through a biblical perspective, because I got sucked into the medical model, sucked into the medical world, I never had an internal recognition or an internal awareness of being called to be a caregiver. You may not be called initially to be a caregiver.
Growing Into Your Role
And so my dad was my mom’s caregiver. And providentially in a caregiving situation, sometimes the circumstance is there first, and then the internal call develops later. Or Lord willing, the internal call should develop later. And so thirdly, what we’re going to look at is you can be placed in a role without feeling called to do it yet. But if you are called to do that role, the Lord is good and kind and gracious and patient.
Patient with us to let us grow into a specific role over time. I’ll go back to my example of being a pastor’s wife. I will never forget. My husband wanted to go to seminary to become a pastor years, I kid you not, years before I was willing. Our conversations went on round and round. He’s like, I want to go to seminary. I’m like, I didn’t marry a pastor. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go, right? And the Lord was kind and gracious and gave me time.
To catch up to the internal call. And so guess what? The external call was there. My husband is a pastor and I am now a pastor’s wife. And the same thing has happened with my business, with the podcast, with everything that I am growing into. I wanted to start a business and I wanted to serve family caregivers of people living with dementia.
And when I was thinking through this podcast, I came up with all sorts of names. And at the beginning, it was going to be Dementia Caregiving for Families and then Dementia Caregiving for Christians. And I flip-flopped back and forth. And I did not, I could not, and I didn’t want to step into this space as a Christian. So I went with Dementia Caregiving for Families, and eventually the Lord changed my heart and made me realize and grew me into the internal awareness that my role is supposed to be to serve Christian family caregivers. And so you can be placed in a role without feeling called to it yet and then grow into it. So particularly this can happen in caregiving. So the external call sometimes comes first, right? And so you can, for example, the person could have a stroke like my mom, right? The diagnosis of dementia, the person can fall, whatever happens, the thing, right?
And so Proverbs 16, verse 9 says, the mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. So I can’t tell you how many people have told me. I have no choice, right? And your station and place matters, right? If you’re a spouse, if you’re a sibling, if you’re the adult child, those things matter. You have been providentially placed in those specific roles. But the Lord gives us agency, always, always gives us agency to make a choice. We have a choice in how we respond. And when we don’t, when we don’t make an active choice to respond, that is where resentment lives. That is where our thoughts come out. But I deserve better. I don’t know about you, but I have often felt, but I deserve better than that.
Agency and Responsibility
No, I don’t. I deserve the wages of sin, which is death, right?
But being called to be the caregiver doesn’t mean necessarily that you’re being called to be the hands-on caregiver. It doesn’t mean necessarily that you need to stop working and move in. But what it does mean is taking ownership and making active decisions. And so in my situation, I felt when my dad got sick a few years ago, I did feel the internal call to be a caregiver, but not as the hands-on caregiver, not as the caregiver living with my dad. I literally, I kid you not, I have said for years, I will not live with my dad.
I will not live with my dad. Well, guess what? The Lord overnight changed my heart and aligned the external call with the internal call. He had already given me that external call of being the caregiver. And now the Lord and only the Lord and the Lord’s spirit could change my heart overnight. I have no shadow of a doubt that we are doing the right thing and that we are being called to be the live-in caregivers to my dad.
Philippians 2 verse 13 says, For it is God who is at work in you, both to desire and to work for his good pleasure. I’m not doing this for me i’m not doing this for accolades i’m doing this because number one it is the right thing to do number two the external and the internal call align number three there is a part of this season that will end and it puts us in the position to be able to do the thing in the future that we feel being called internally to do which is foreign mission work and it is a good part of our stewardship on this journey so that was the third thing the third point and now lastly we’re going to look at biblical principles will help you discern because this is a part of being discerning wisdom wisdom biblical principles help you discern not just decide the bible will give you structure for the right discernment and i’m going to look at three underneath this three things that you can work through on your own.
The first thing is the fifth commandment, right? Exodus 20 verse 12, in essence, talks about honoring your father and your mother, right? And so it is good and right for us to honor our parents when we are adult children. Yes, we are to honor our parents. It gives us, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we need to live with them. It means that we need to honor them. It means that if you were abused by your parent as a child, you do not necessarily become the hands-on caregiver, but you honor them by helping make good and wise decisions with and for them. The second thing that the Bible teaches us that gives us structure for discernment related to caregiving is leaving and cleaving. Genesis 2 verse 24 says, For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife.
And so if you are married, you are now a unit. And if you are a husband caring for a wife, you are still a unit. And that means that the Lord has provided, given you an external call through your circumstances to be the caregiver to your spouse. And my dad has a lot of faults, but I will tell you one thing I will never fault him for. My mom had a stroke when she was 42.
My dad will be 80. And for 55 years, he was her primary caregiver. And he did a good job of physically and financially taking care of her. And so we have to factor that in if you’re the married adult daughter or the married adult son being a caregiver to your parents, you do have to honor them, but you’ve left and cleaved. And so we’ll use this as an example. There’s a couple of family that I met with a few months back, probably over a year ago. And the husband told me my wife and my mom do not get along and did not hire me and did not ask my advice but then moved his mom in well guess what it didn’t work because they left and cleaved and yes he was trying to honor his mother by bringing her into the house but the secondary Every relationship of leaving and cleaving, not the I was born into this family relationship.
Actually supersedes your relationship with your parent. And it did not work out well for them.
Biblical Principles for Caregiving
His mom ended up being placed in a facility. they declared bankruptcy because they made unwise decisions because they did not use a biblical structure for discernment when they were making this decision and so the last one we’re going to look at here is station and providence because yet again when first corinthian 7 verse 17 says only as the lord has assigned to each one the lord puts us in stations and his providence is your external call. It is up to us to follow in obedience. It doesn’t mean that we do not think these things through, but we have to factor in exactly where we are. And if you are the adult daughter who is the caregiver of a parent and your husband isn’t 100% on board, You cannot.
Cannot move your parents in with you. You cannot move in with your parents. Your spouse supersedes your responsibility and your relationship with your parents. And so these are biblical principles that will help you be discerning when you make your decision. And so if you’re struggling with this type of decision, I invite you to come to the free workshop I have this weekend. We talk about a lot of these different kinds of situations. And help build it out in a practical theological perspective. This is where the rubber meets the road, right? Yes, the Bible doesn’t tell us exactly step-by-step what to do. And the Bible tells us exactly what to do step-by-step in a caregiving journey.
Embracing Your Caregiving Journey
And so I hope today’s episode was encouraging to you. I really do hope it was encouraging. I want you to think about your caregiving through the lens of whether you’re being called. Because if God has placed this particular situation in your life, then he has given you an external call to this particular station.
And we will never, ever, ever be fully aligned until we can work on our hearts, right? So your caregiving journey is not a detour.
Through your life. You’re not being taken off track. The woman who said that she has some resentment related to being the primary caregiver of her mom, one of the things that sticks out in my mind is that the statement that they make, that she made that said, we got married young, We had kids, and we were kind of waiting for all of that to be done so that we could get on, you know, so we could have this time together because we didn’t have it at the beginning of our marriage. Caregiving is not a detour off of your life. It is forming you into the person you are supposed to be in God’s eyes. We are kingdom focused. We are focused on where we are going in eternity. And the Lord doesn’t make mistakes. He has put this particular situation in your life at this particular season for a specific reason. And so with great excitement, I have moved in with my dad. I don’t harbor any resentment. I’m not angry about it. I’m in the middle of the messy middle. it’s not fun being in the middle of the messy middle I can’t find anything I’m making thousands of decisions about stuff.
Conclusion and Reflection
And having said that, I 100% know it is my calling. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is I have total alignment between the two dimensions, the internal and the external. And I know that sometimes we are placed in a role that we don’t feel called to yet and that it is part of your sanctification and your growth to grow into it, particularly in relation to caregiving.
And then lastly, the Bible does teach you principles in how to be discerning when you’re making these decisions. And yet again, if you’re struggling with this, hop on my calendar. I will take 20 minutes and have a conversation and see if it’s the right fit for you and I to work together. If you’re looking for some free coaching, hop onto the next Ask the Dementia Coach. that is an opportunity for you to receive some free help from me. And as I try to remember in the messy middle to end all of my podcasts, may the Lord bless you and keep you. And I pray for you every single day that the Lord prepare and provide the right help for you at the right time. And so I look forward to seeing you in our next episode where we are going to talk about another coaching style episode. I’ll see you next week.
She was literally in the store, her groceries in the cart, many questions in her heart. And like so many Christian caregivers, Lisa didn’t even realize how exhausted she was until she started talking in this real-time coaching conversation recorded during one of our free monthly Ask the Dementia Coach sessions. Lisa, an only child caring for her mother, finally said out loud what so many of us are feeling. I’m doing everything, and I don’t feel gentle anymore.
Maybe you have been there too, trying to love well, trying to do the right thing, but wondering why it still feels so heavy and so lonely. Hey, Christian Care Companion. Welcome to Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians. I’m your host, Lizette Klute, and today you’ll hear what it looks like when a caregiver, just like you, steps into a safe space, asks her real question, and walks away with biblical and practical support, all in under 30 minutes.
In this episode, we’ll talk about what to do when you’re the only one showing up in dementia care.
Why feeling overwhelmed doesn’t mean that you’re unfaithful, and how to finally start inviting help from your church, your doctor, and maybe even from your own expectations. Because this is what happens when caregivers stop suffering in silence and start receiving support. And if you’re ready for your moment, just like Lisa’s, I want to personally invite you to join me this Saturday, August the 9th at 12 p.m. Eastern for our next free online workshop. It is called The Three Unusual Mistakes That Keep Christian Dementia Caregivers Overwhelmed, and how to step into peace, clarity, and confidence without waiting for anyone else to change. So if you’re ready to stop going it alone, go
Support for the Lonely Journey
ahead and save your seat at thinkdifferentdementia.com forward slash WSL. Now let’s dive into today’s episode 274 when you are the only one.
How to avoid exhaustion in dementia caregiving, where we walk with Lisa on her journey. And well, welcome, Lisa. I’m so excited that you’re here. You’re also a new face. You look like you’re in the store, though. I am. I am. You know, caregivers, we try to get out and do what we can when we can. I absolutely understand that. So, Miss Lisa, I’m going to ask you a series of questions like I ask everybody. Let’s say it’s six months from today and things are easier in your caregiving journey. What would that look like for you? It would look like I’m more peaceful inside, mentally especially. I do this by myself as far as being an only child. I would have some time for me to do things where my mind is not thinking about, is my mom eating? Has she taken her medicine? Is she out of the bed? Is she Just anything dealing with my mom, I would have time with my husband and just, yeah, I would know that she’s cared for.
And so therefore, I have peace of mind and I’m more gentle with her. That’s the thing that I’m really lacking is being gentle. Well, that is definitely a lot on your plate, young lady. So what would you say right now is stopping you from getting there? Because I’m the only one doing it. meaning my husband’s there you know like if i need to say hey will you go check on my mom if he’s you know if he’s not at work will you go check on my mom and just make sure she does such and such but i need this time during the day so when i’m at work a couple of days a week i have someone that comes in and just takes the load off and i don’t have to think i just want to think because i don’t have that i i feel like i’m always telling her what to do you need to do this mom make sure you do this so i want to so i just want to have a relationship with her sometimes but i can’t because I’m doing everything. I’m watching cameras if I’m at work. I totally get that. So may I ask a couple of clarification questions based off of what you just shared? Yes.
Navigating Complex Diagnoses
Okay. You are an only child. You are married. I work part-time. I work about 25 hours a week. Okay. But you’re working or checking on your mom, which to me says that your mom is not living with you. She does live with you. She lives with you? Okay. Yes. She had a heart surgery a few years ago, which caused a stroke. And so she’s been with me ever since she’s been out of the hospital. Plus I have two college age kids and I have a granddaughter that’s here with me now for the summer, but she used to live with me during this whole thing that she just did. Anyway, sorry. Okay. So your mom lives with you and your husband. You work 25 hours a week. When you say you ask your husband to check on your mom, is that, does he work from home or he has to leave work? Not anymore.
Since the first few years, since our new administration, my husband had to go back on base to work. He was at home and that was such a beautiful thing. But now he don’t have to. So that’s where the care is needed. So if he happens to be at home in the evening time and I’ve had to go do something or I’m working late, I can say, will you please go make sure my mom is up out of the bed? She’s, you know, whatever it is, you know, or if he goes home for lunch, I’ll say, will you please just make sure she took her medicine to get her started on eating. Okay.
So does your mom have a definitive diagnosis of dementia? The neurologist said it’s Parkinsonism. Have you ever heard of that? Parkinsonism? Mm-hmm. Yes. So she has a history of a stroke, and now she has what they have termed Parkinsonism. Is she on medication for Parkinson’s disease? Is she on Sinemet or any of those medications? No, because she doesn’t have the Parkinson’s disease, but she’s on Carbolebo for movement. Carbo-lebo is cinnamon. That is genetic. Brand. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And the reason I’m asking that is the way, and this is just by way of education, the way that they determine whether or not a person has what’s called idiopathic Parkinson’s disease versus Parkinsonism or Parkinson-like symptoms or syndromes is whether or not a person is responding to the carpeidopa levodopa.
Replacement, because in essence, Parkinson’s, idiopathic Parkinson’s, means that the person’s brain, the synapses, the neurotransmitter dopamine is not being, doesn’t go through.
So if a person is taking Sinemet or Carpidopa, Levodopa, the drug, and it is helping the symptoms of Parkinson’s, which is tremors, difficulty getting moving, stopping moving, rigidity, all of those five cardinal Parkinson’s symptoms, then it can be determined or said that they have Parkinson’s, idiopathic Parkinson’s. But that still has to do with dementia? Sometimes. Yes, ma’am. So let me explain it this way. About 80% of people who have Parkinson’s, idiopathic Parkinson’s, will over time, if they live with it long enough, develop Parkinson’s disease dementia this way. Think about an umbrella. The umbrella, the top, the umbrella is dementia. It’s just a category.
And underneath that umbrella, you have lots of little umbrellas. There are 19 primary little umbrellas underneath that. One is Alzheimer’s. One is the Parkinson’s bucket of dementias. They’re actually Lewy body dementias, right? Or dementias with Lewy bodies. Underneath that, you have Lewy body dementia, which is what Robin Williams had Lewy body dementia. And then the other one underneath that is Parkinson’s disease dementia. The difference between those two is the following. With Parkinson’s disease dementia, a person first has the signs and symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. So think back to the future Michael J. Fox, right? He’s had Parkinson’s disease for decades. He has the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Later over time, if that person develops dementia, it could be Parkinson’s disease dementia. Lewy body dementia, they have the cognitive stuff first.
And then later over time, they develop the Parkinson-type symptoms. But they all fall under the same umbrella. So with the fact that they said Parkinsonism, but they’ve given her medication for Parkinson’s disease, you might want to clarify with the doctor either does she have Parkinson’s or why is he giving her medication for Parkinson’s if she doesn’t. Okay, it’s something else since we’re on the call and maybe other people will know at some point to tell me My mother wears a bipap machine and I didn’t I discovered that something was where I used to tell them After she had a stroke when she was in the hospital and when she was in the still care when she lays down, To sleep for a nap or to go to bed at night when she wakes up and she is.
Moodless so over time I kept saying something’s wrong so i got her a sleep study found out she had severe sleep apnea when she wears her mask well, she does so well so it has something to do with that and i don’t know what to do but she takes it off during the night and i go back in and i’m not so gentle i’m like please put the mask on out of fear so what can you offer a couple a few things so would it be okay if i kind of unpack what I see with you. Please. Yes, I’ll leave.
Seeking Practical Help
No, please never leave. I love having people here. I’m just teasing. So you have a pretty complex situation in this sense. You do not have a clear definitive diagnosis of dementia, and you have indications that can definitely be things that can be contributing to cognitive loss that, if not addressed over time, can lead to permanent dementia. Well, she is diagnosed with dementia as well. But do you know what type? No, no. We go back to the neurologist again, so I will ask again. The neurologist has said Parkinsonism dementia. That’s all she said. Okay. So you need to have the clarification questions for you need to be. Does she have Parkinson’s disease? Yes or no? If it’s no, why is she on a medication for Parkinson’s disease? Because of her movements. I do know that. Because she started to stiffen up in the way she walked. Then they need to say whether or not she has Parkinson’s.
Right. As opposed to saying Parkinsonism. Parkinsonism is a, it’s like a catch-all. catch-all. It’s a catch-all. It’s not really a diagnosis. It’s kind of just saying, oh, well.
We don’t really want to say she has Parkinson’s because maybe she doesn’t have all of the signs of Parkinson’s. And that’s what they said. We’re treating her like she has Parkinson’s, but the fact of the matter is the medications are only effective if it’s Parkinson’s. So why give her medication for something that may not be effective? And if she’s showing signs of rigidity and those kinds of things, is it a different kind of a dementia like Lewy body dementia? Oh, okay. So really dig into the diagnosis with the doctor. Recognizing these kinds of diagnoses are diagnoses of exclusion. So that’s the first thing. Really work on the diagnosis. the second thing is maybe ask for another sleep study or a different type of like work with a respiratory therapist or a provider related to the BiPAP because they have multiple different types of masks yeah and I’ve done that I’ll try again we changed from the full her mouth and her nose to try to do this one but it because her mouth is open at night they said that’s It’s not going to work.
Okay, but I’ll see if there’s another place I can go perhaps under her insurance. And, you know, keep trying. Keep trying. So BiPAP and CPAP are two totally different. Yes, she’s BiPAP. Okay. All right. Good. So based on our conversation today, oh, and one more reflection, I would strongly encourage you to start to put together a group of people around you who can help give you some relief. And if they’re not family.
Then I need you to consider what your options are.
Building Your Support Network
I have craved, and I have craved God to send someone. Okay. The agencies don’t learn. They just don’t. I used to have a young lady who felt that this was her calling. She was with me for years. It was wonderful. She got married and she moved away. I just, yeah, prayer. I just appreciate any prayer for God to provide that. And the Lord will provide it. And now I’m going to give you some places I want you to go ask for help. Okay. Do you go to church? I do. Do you have deacons at your church? I have very trusted friends who are. We have one deacon. We have a small church. Okay. So one of the things that my experience has shown me is people like you in your particular situation are hiding in plain sight. Nobody who knows you, Lisa, looking at you knows what you’re struggling with. They do not know. And when they ask you how you’re doing, you’re saying, I’m fine. How do I know? Because I’ve been there. Okay?
What I need you to do is have a very frank conversation with your church leadership, pastor, elders, deacons, whatever they are in whatever setting that you are in. And say, I need help. I’m burning out. I know it’s a small congregation, but I need some help with some tangible diaconal things. Can you guys send, can you come up with a, think about a nursery schedule, right? Like when a woman has a baby. I don’t know about you all, but our church, like everybody sends meals. Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah. Right? What can we do functionally, practically to support you so that you have some bandwidth? Can you ask the church to set up a meal train for four months, once a week for four months, once a week for a year, twice a week for six weeks, whatever? Can you ask the church to see if they can find somebody who can come mow the lawn or come just sit with your mom for an hour so you can go on a date with your husband?
Waiting for somebody to be sent is good asking for help with tangible things that you know that they can help with so what do we do we generate a list of things that people can do to help you, generate a list keep it in your in your wallet if somebody says um let me know what i can do to help pull it out of your wallet and say here this is what I need help with which one of these can you do for me.
Because what I’ve, my experience, and this has been vast over the years, people in church are willing to help. They do not know what to do. So what they’ll do, and it’s really interesting, I have a really good friend who’s a wonderful godly woman, who’s an occupational therapist by background in training, just like me. And I did a presentation at their church. And this strategy was what I said. And she came to me afterwards. words. She’s like, I never thought about telling my patients to do that, right? Because what will happen is somebody will come up to you and they’ll say these almost exact words. Let me know what I can do to help you. And we stand there with our mouth full of teeth because we are overwhelmed and it’s like, I’ve got 500 things going through my head, but it’s not systemized, so I say nothing. Whereas if I have a list in my purse and somebody comes up to me and says let me know what I can do to help you can say I really really could have somebody come sit with my mom for two hours once a month so my husband and I can go on a date.
Come up with a list of tangible things micro micro little things people can do to help you they are willing to help they don’t know how, and then the other part of that is we hide the fact that we’re going through these changes from people because we don’t want them to know that something is wrong with my mother, she’s not thinking as good as she used to whatever it is we try to protect that person, we try to protect their autonomy and what I’d love to propose to you is that, Your mother’s dignity and value does not lie in what she can do, what she cannot do, or what she is thinking or how she’s thinking. It’s in that she’s created in God’s image. And so now we need to find help for you.
Finding Gentleness in Caregiving
Okay was this helpful lisa it was i’m going to try to get on the call with you because i just want to be i listen to you and you i’m so thankful that you come from a christian perspective because it has been so helpful because what i hear you saying is that he’s saying to find me in the midst of this and her but my biggest problem is just treating her with gentleness i think it’s coming from a place of where’s my mom where she’s such a smart lady why are we doing this are you sometimes i go is she just doing this just because and i’m like mom you know that you you should do what are you doing that’s how i come across i don’t want to come across like that but i think i’m still stuck in the fact oh in the mom she was because this just happened so suddenly i’m still I’m still not there. I 100% get it. And I would love to have you schedule a call. Okay, I’ll do that. Schedule a call. We’ll take 20 minutes. We’ll have a conversation. And in that conversation, then if it makes sense for us to keep working together, I can tell you what that will look like. Thank you. Thank you for what you said earlier, too. Just your calmness. It’s good testimony to what she’s doing.
Schedule a call. You can find it on the website. Okay. Or it should just be thinkdifferentdementia.com forward slash call, C-A-L-L. And you should be able to schedule a 20-minute call. I promise you, I do not believe in strong-arming people. I will serve you where you are. And we can make this easier. I promise you. Thank you, guys. You’re welcome.
Community and Ongoing Support
Thank you so much. You are very welcome, Ms. Lisa. People who are really benefiting from the community are the people who joined earlier on, before they need it, and that have been active and are participating in the community because then they already know what questions to ask and they have a place to come and they’re not constantly wondering, what do I need to do? How do I need to do it? So people listening are interested in tapping into or learning about the community. I’d invite you to just go to the website, thinkdifferentdementia.com. There’s a link for you to schedule a 20-minute call. There’s no pressure. I’ll serve you regardless of whether you join the community or not. But it is a way for you to take this relationship a little deeper, a little bit more hands-on support because really the research also shows its longitudinal support over time. Yeah, for sure. I would highly recommend Lizette She’s awesome I appreciate that endorsement.
