How to Step Into Dementia Caregiving When You Didn’t Choose Caregiving
“I didn’t choose this—but I keep showing up. What now?”
If you’ve ever felt like the reluctant caregiver—the one who didn’t raise their hand but just… showed up—today’s episode of Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians is your invitation to stop surviving and start stewarding.
Lizette shares why so many overwhelmed spouses, adult children, and even grandkids stay emotionally stuck: not because they aren’t doing the work, but because they haven’t made the spiritual shift to owning the role God has already assigned.
When Reluctance Becomes Resentment
“I don’t have a choice.”
How many times have those words echoed in your heart?
Maybe you’re the one doing the driving, managing the medications, coordinating the appointments—but still telling yourself, “I’m just helping.” The problem? You’re functioning as a caregiver without calling yourself one. And that gap creates friction—spiritually and emotionally.
Lizette explains it simply: not choosing is still a choice. And the longer you stay undecided, the more likely you are to experience burnout, confusion, and guilt.
READ MORE: How to Make Hard Medical Decisions in Dementia Care
What Scripture Says About Seasons You Didn’t Choose
Ephesians 2:10 reminds us that “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
1 Corinthians 7:17 echoes this: “Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him.”
These verses don’t ask whether you like the assignment. They simply state the truth: God assigns roles with purpose. And sometimes, your most sanctifying work will come in the season you didn’t plan for.
Three Steps to Move from Overwhelmed to Anchored
Lizette offers a practical, gospel-rooted shift in three parts:
- Call It What It Is
Stop saying “I’m just helping.”
If you’re managing care—even emotionally—you are a caregiver. Naming it is the first step toward clarity. - Choose It—Even If You Didn’t Want It
Reluctance keeps you in survival mode. Choosing the role (even begrudgingly) unlocks clarity, peace, and spiritual agency. It’s not about excitement—it’s about obedience. - Clarify What’s Yours—and What’s Not
When you own the role, you gain the right to set godly boundaries. Use Lizette’s “4D Method” to sort what you must Do, what you can Delegate, what to Delete, and what can Delay.
📝 Try this: Write down one caregiving decision you’ve been avoiding. Ask yourself: What would this look like if I fully chose to be a caregiver?
Read More: 256. How To Get Help When No One Else Really Understands Your Loved One With Dementia
A Calling, Not a Crisis
You may not feel equipped. But that doesn’t disqualify you. God equips those He calls—often in the walking, not just the waiting.
Caregiving doesn’t have to mean confusion. When you anchor your role in biblical truth, you stop reacting and start leading. That’s what the Think Different Dementia Method™ is all about.
Join our monthly free workshop!
“How To Immediately Reduce Dementia Caregiver Overwhelm and Stress In 3 Easy Steps”
Transcript
Introduction to Caregiving
[0:00] What if the one decision you keep avoiding is the one that would finally give you peace? Maybe you didn’t sign up for this. You didn’t raise your hand and say, I want to be the caregiver. You’re just the one who actually showed up again and again because somebody had to. But now you’re tired. You’re carrying the load and somewhere deep down you’re still thinking, I didn’t choose this. So why does it feel like it’s all on me? In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about what happens when you have been doing the work but haven’t actually claimed the role of caregiver, why staying reluctant will not protect your peace, and what to do when you feel stuck in a season you never wanted.
[0:45] Hey Christian Care Companion, welcome to Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians, the podcast where I equip Bible-believing Christians like you to navigate dementia with clarity, peace, and purpose. We don’t just talk about medication and memory loss here. We look at the bigger picture. We look at your God-given role, your loved one’s dignity, and the decisions that reflect your values in the middle of your real-life caregiving. If you are realizing that you’ve been reacting instead of leading and you want to get clear on what your role actually is, join me for our next free dementia care workshop on Saturday.
[1:28] June 14 at 12 p.m. Eastern. We walk through real-life caregiving scenarios using a biblical relationship-centered framework so you can stop second-guessing and move forward with peace as well as hope. You can sign up and reserve your spot now at thinkdifferentdementia.com forward slash WSL. You don’t have to figure this out on your own. Let’s think through it together. Today, we are going to have a conversation about decision-making and choosing whether or not to be a caregiver. Now, many people will tell me they don’t have a choice, and I’ll never forget this. I used to work in home health and one day I showed up at a patient’s house and when you are working in home health, you learn to be very patient. You knock on the door, you stand with your ear on the door and listen intently. You need to knock loud enough so the person can hear you, but you don’t want to knock too many times because you don’t want them to be rushing to come to the door because you never want to be standing on the outside of the door and you hear somebody falling on the inside. So this is the situation I pulled up at a client’s house one afternoon. It was a hot summer afternoon and I remember standing there knocking on the door and a gentleman finally opened the door. He wasn’t the patient.
[2:57] And this was while I was still working as an occupational therapist, but he was the patient’s son-in-law. And so we started a conversation in the hallway waiting on his wife, who was the patient’s daughter, to come let me into the house. And I’ll never forget when I first met this client, her daughter, what she looked at me and she said. And her exact words were, I don’t have a choice. And I remember standing there and this sentence hit me like a brick wall because I’ve heard so many people over the years tell me this. And I know she believed it. I know she believed that she didn’t have a choice. But I looked at her and I said, you do. You do have a choice. I told her, you might not like the options, but you still have a choice. You may have limited choices, but you still have a choice. And you have to make a decision. Because here is what I have learned over the years. When you do not choose to be the caregiver, you still are choosing something.
[4:00] Not making a decision is, in essence, making a decision. And when you don’t choose to actively be the caregiver, you choose to stay stuck. You choose to live in reaction mode. You choose to carry the weight of caregiving without actually owning the task of caregiving. And caregiving without an actual commitment, that is what burns people out. It’s not necessarily the activities of caregiving that does play a role. I’m not minimizing that. But carrying the weight of caregiving because you are reluctant to be a caregiver is what burns people out. I know you didn’t sign up for this. Nobody signs up for caregiving. Nobody chooses the circumstances that they live in. We are sometimes given these circumstances by a good and holy God because it’s for His glory and our good, and we don’t necessarily stand there and say, I want to be a caregiver. I’d love to be a caregiver. But when When the Lord puts these particular situations in our life and in our world, we do have to make a choice. And the choice we have to make is, am I going to choose to be a caregiver or am I not going to actively choose to be a caregiver?
[5:26] Both of these people might be the caregiver. They may be the person who is actually providing the care. The difference between these two postures is when you choose to assume the role of the caregiver, when you sit and actually make a conscious decision to be the caregiver, it radically changes the outcome of your caregiving journey. When a person does not out loud say they choose to be the caregiver, they may by default still be the caregiver because they are the spouse and they are living with the person. But what that ends up resulting in for many, many people is resentment and apathy and hatred. Sometimes I’ve actually seen this with clients that when they do not out loud actually take on and assume the role of caregiver, it radically changes the journey. So that is where a lot of overwhelm lives. That is where a lot of guilt lives. And that is sometimes why things don’t feel clear because you are maybe doing the role of a caregiver. You may not have
The Weight of Reluctance
[6:33] the authority. You might not have peace because you’re not committed to it. And that is what we’re going to talk about today.
[6:40] Many, many caregivers don’t realize that they are stuck in this in-between role, just not actually deciding and trying to pretend like it isn’t really real. They say to themselves, I’m his wife, or this is what good daughters do, and I’m just doing things the best that I can. And maybe they’ve never said these things out loud, but the way they live, it becomes evident.
[7:08] They make their decisions without the filter of having chosen to be a caregiver. These reluctant caregivers frequently, constantly second-guess themselves because they don’t have a clear role. They don’t have a clear purpose. So they stay stuck in this emotional in-between without clear boundaries, without confidence, without peace. And they don’t do this because they’re necessarily doing things wrong. It’s just because they haven’t shifted from reluctantly doing the work to actually out loud admitting and claiming the role of a caregiver. And that one shift can radically change everything.
[7:53] Scripture never tells us that we get to choose the seasons of life we walk through, but it does tell us that God will assign us certain roles and that every circumstance and every assignment and everything that we do has purpose, even when it’s hard. Ephesians 2 verse 10 says, we are his workmanship. We are created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared beforehand so we would walk in them. And 1 Corinthians 7 verse 17 in essence says, each person will walk in the situation that the Lord has assigned to them and to which the Lord has actually called us. This means that sometimes we don’t have to love the role that we are placed in. We don’t even have to always feel ready for it. But you can and should choose to commit to it because God is in control and God has assigned this role to us because what is our choice? Chief end. It is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, even in caregiving.
[9:04] Even particularly, I believe, in dementia caregiving. So it is our obligation to step into this particular calling that the Lord has given us as caregivers. I know without a shadow of a doubt that on the day that my mom had her massive aneurysm in April of 1989. I would have been 19 years old in September, so I was 18, that my dad did not actively choose at that time to become a caregiver. It was his wife who had a massive stroke. And I will say a lot of things about my dad, but he took very good care of my mom over the years. But he never actively ever, at least to my knowledge, stepped into it and said, I am a caregiver.
[9:54] He was her husband and he did take good care of her physically and financially and all of those kinds of things. But I distinctly remember the day that I out loud chose to become the caregiver for my mom and chose to become the caregiver to my dad. And that is part of my journey that you can listen to if you haven’t yet listened to episode 243, where I talk about how to shift from the medical model to a relationship-centered model. That’s really my journey going from the medical model to a caregiver-centric model, which was my middle phase, to really recognizing that what we are in essence doing is relationship-centered care. And so one of the things that I really want to impress on you today as we really go through this shift I want you to make is that when you commit to actually being a caregiver, it will radically change your life. I’ll never forget, I worked with a client of mine, Pam, shout out Pam, because she sometimes listens to these episodes where we were working through her frustration with her brothers because her brothers had never stepped into the caregiving role.
[11:08] And because of that, they were hands-on, right? And so we had to manage the frustration with that. But that’s not what today’s episode is about. Today’s episode is to encourage you if you have been reluctant in your caregiving journey. If this is something that you feel like you’re struggling with, to really sit and reflect how radically different your caregiving journey will be when you can commit to yourself to actually being the caregiver.
Claiming Your Caregiver Role
[11:35] It makes a radical, radical difference. So we’re going to look at this in three brief little sections. We’re going to shift your thinking today and committing to becoming a caregiver, to being the caregiver. And it actually changes your entire journey. The first thing is we’re going to call it what it is. We’re going to call it caregiving. Secondly, I’m going to encourage you to choose it, even if you didn’t want it. And thirdly, I’m going to encourage you to clarify what is yours and what is not. And so those are the three things that we’re going to look at. So the first thing is we are going to call it what it is. We’re not going to call it, I’m just helping. We’re not going to call it, I’m just filling in. Or we’re not going to say things like, well, I just help with the medication or, you know, I called to check on them or I’m having, you know, or you call them once a week for companionship. If you are doing any of those kinds of things, you are a caregiver. Caregivers frequently do not even recognize that they’re caregivers.
[12:37] I’ll never forget, I presented for about a year. I would go to our local senior center and I would ask people to say, self-identify whether or not they were a caregiver. Now, this is a senior center, so there are people coming in there with their spouses and the spouse is on a walker. And I will say, how many of you guys are caregivers? And nobody will put up their hand. And I know that the person who is the spouse of the person using the walker has to be helping that person. They’re getting the walker in and out of the car. They’re maybe putting shoes and socks on. They’re maybe helping one another with mild things. For example, my husband for particular tasks can be designated as my caregiver if I can’t get a jar open. Now we don’t call one another caregivers in those roles, but what I’m trying to impress on us is that we need to really critically look at what we are doing to help someone else. If you are a daughter and you pop in to check on your parents, you’re a caregiver. So call it what it is. If you’re coordinating care, if you’re managing meds, if you’re running interference with doctors or other family members, or if you’re carrying the emotional weight of worrying about somebody who is living alone, you are a caregiver. Why does this matter? Because you cannot be an effective caregiver if you haven’t out loud said you are a caregiver.
[13:58] When you name the role, this is the first step towards clarity and peace, even if it is a role you didn’t necessarily want. So what would I want you to do today?
[14:09] I want you to say it out loud. And you can even make this a prayer. You can say, Lord, I didn’t ask for this, but I will walk it. I want you to help me own this role that you have given me as a caregiver.
[14:23] B, naming, call it what it is. Call it what it is. If you are helping somebody, you are a caregiver. Yes, you’re a spouse. Yes, you’re a child, adult child. Yes, you might be the grandchild. But if you have chosen to actively respond in this way, then you are a caregiver. So name it. Secondly, choose it. Actively choose it. When you’re saying yes, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re super excited about it. I get that. It’s not always fun to be a caregiver, but it does radically change how you respond.
Choosing Caregiving Actively
[14:55] Reluctance will result in you just being in survival mode. When you actively commit to being a caregiver, it will give you direction. It’ll give you the direction you need to take, right? Why does this matter? You do not get clear by just waiting. You get clear by taking action, by choosing, by taking the next step. When you choose, this gives you permission to start to make decisions and take active role in this and not just respond to everything happening.
[15:28] So what I’d love you to do today is just write down one caregiving decision or one decision you’ve been avoiding. And what would it look like if you were to face this as someone who has chosen to walk this role, not to avoid it? So for example, for me, my husband and I actively chose to be the caregivers to my parents. It has changed some of how we choose right now because it is an act of choice. We actively choose and we constantly are having this conversation. We actively choose this particular role at this particular time. But it does not mean that we are going to be the physical hands-on caregiver to my dad. It just means that we have planned ahead with contingencies as to what that’s going to look like. But I want you to ask yourself, what would things look like if you were acting as somebody who has chosen to take on this role and not just avoid it? So first thing is, claim it. Second thing is, choose it, even if you don’t want it. If you make that active shift in your mind, it will make a significant difference in your journey.
Defining Your Responsibilities
[16:39] And then thirdly, I want you to clarify what is actually yours and what is not. So you name it, you claim it, and now you have to actually define what is and what is not your role. And this is where things actually get very practical.
[16:54] Not everything is yours to carry alone. But if you haven’t actually stepped into the role, it’s very hard to put boundaries up because you don’t know where the boundaries are. So why, if you don’t clarify what is yours and what’s not yours, if you don’t clarify it, you’re not able to delegate it. If it’s not yours, you’re not allowed to say that’s not mine, right? If you don’t put up the, if you don’t claim it and say that this is what you are and are not willing to do, you cannot put up these boundaries. If you cannot put up boundaries, you cannot delegate. And if you don’t do that, you cannot then go back and say, this is not mine to carry, but you have to know what is yours to carry. So this goes back to my framework that I have. It’s called the FOR method, which is do, delegate, delete, and delay. So I want you to think of one thing that you have to do, one thing that you can delegate, one thing that you can delay, one thing that you can delete off of your caregiving plate. So choosing to be the caregiver makes caregiving a calling. And when you choose to be a caregiver, when you actively take on that role.
[18:07] This is how stewardship of your journey actually begins. And when you’re stewarding your caregiving journey, it looks very different to just responding to everything coming your way. So if you are realizing today that you have been functioning in the role of a caregiver, but haven’t actually committed to it, that isn’t a failure. It’s just a place to start. And clarity in your caregiving journey comes after you commit to being a caregiver. If you haven’t even committed to being a caregiver, how can you be clear about where you’re going? How can you know what steps you need to take if you as a person has not committed to being the caregiver? So clarity comes after we commit. You first have to commit. That’s the first
Committing to Your Calling
[18:57] step of the Think Different Dementia way. The first step is actively committing to the calling that God has given you to be a caregiver. And yes, it is a calling. And yes, callings can be hard. Ask any pastor who has been called to the pastoral ministry.
[19:16] Callings are hard. And God will equip you with what you need for this particular time in your journey. So clarity comes after committing. And when, if you’re ready to stop reacting and start actually caregiving with purpose, we’d love to walk with you. I would love for you to join our next free workshop on June the 14th, which is where I start taking Christian caregivers in particular through this journey because it is a step-by-step process. And that’s one of my biggest pet peeves is that the world tells us it’s confusing. It isn’t, it’s very, very clear when you know what to do. And we will start to look at things like your roles and boundaries and focus on what you can and cannot control Because even though this isn’t something that any of us actively stand and say, Lord, I really, you know, want to be a caregiver.
[20:13] None of us says, I want dementia in my life. Nobody I’ve known says, Lord, I want dementia in my life. But God has ordained these particular situations for your good and for his glory. And this is where he meets you. And you don’t have to walk it alone. So real quick, briefly, three things. Call caregiving exactly what it is. If you’re helping somebody, mow the lawn, pick up groceries, put on shoes, anything like that, you are a caregiver and call yourself a caregiver.
[20:45] The second thing is choose it. Actively choose to be a caregiver, even if you didn’t want it. When you actively choose and stop being reluctant in a caregiving role, it radically changes your entire journey. And then thirdly, you have to clarify what is your actual role. And we do this in the contented caregiver blueprint, which I’m working through a live cohort at this time. Hopefully it’ll be a course for you to be able to purchase later on, but I’m working through it in a live cohort fashion. If you’re interested in the Contented Caregiver Blueprint.
[21:23] Renamed from the Confident Caregiver Blueprint, because I recognize what we’re really working towards is being contented in our role in our life as a caregiver, so we want to be a contented caregiver, shoot me an email, lizette at thinkdifferentdementia.com, and I will let you know how you can sign up.
Conclusion and Next Steps
[21:41] But anyway, I hope you join me at the next free workshop, June 14th. Claim what’s yours. Claim it, choose it, and clarify what’s yours. Call it. Call it what it is, choose it, and clarify what’s yours. And as I tried to end all of my podcast episodes, may the Lord bless you and keep you. And thank you for being here. Please like, subscribe, and share these episodes with somebody you love who is also walking a caregiving journey because there is a Christian way to be a caregiver. And we are unpacking that live right here over the next several months. So hope you come back. Thank you for listening and may the Lord bless you and keep you.
