How Do You Hold On to Faith When Dementia Caregiving Feels Too Heavy?
You pray. You serve. You keep going. But still—your loved one falls again, the questions repeat, and your heart asks silently: Why, God?
If you’ve wondered whether it’s okay to wrestle with God in your caregiving season, you’re not alone—and you’re not faithless for asking.
This week, I sat down with a caregiver named Angela, who finally whispered what so many of us think: “I believe in God’s goodness. But right now? It just doesn’t feel fair.” She’s not rebellious. She’s real. And that’s where God meets us.
Let’s look together at what it means to wrestle faithfully—and how God uses these hard places to shape us, not shame us.
God Is Faithful… So Why Is There Dementia?
Angela had her Bible open. Her paperwork in order. Her prayers unceasing. But her mom was still declining—and she was exhausted.
Psalm 89 mirrors that tension. It begins with worship: “I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord forever.” But by the end, the psalmist asks: “Lord, where is Your steadfast love of old?”
If you’ve been asking, “Why is this happening if God is good?”—you’re in good company. David, Job, even Jesus cried out in lament. Asking honest questions doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human. And deeply faithful.
Yes, You Can Wrestle With God
Somewhere along the way, many Christian caregivers started believing that struggling meant failing. That questions were a sign of rebellion. But Scripture shows us the opposite.
- David asked: “How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?”
- Job lost everything and cried out—and God still called him blameless.
- Jesus Himself said: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?”
Struggling doesn’t mean you’ve lost your faith. It means you’re bringing your pain to the only place where it can be truly held—God Himself.
When You’re Weary, Anchor Yourself in What’s Still True
Here’s what I tell my coaching clients: don’t wait until you feel okay to turn to God. Turn to Him because you’re not okay.
If the caregiving season has left you spinning, start anchoring your days:
- Keep a jar of answered prayers, meaningful verses, or daily gratitudes
- Ask a friend to add a note or Scripture when you can’t do it yourself
- On hard days, pull one out and remember: God remembers, even when your loved one cannot
Hebrews reminds us, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.”
Therapeutic Truth-Telling™ Starts With Telling the Truth to God
What if your next breakthrough didn’t come from pretending—but from being brutally honest before the Lord?
Angela shared, “Once I told God out loud that I was angry and tired… it was like something released in me. Not fixed. But lighter.”
That’s Therapeutic Truth-Telling™ in action. You don’t have to spiritualize your exhaustion. You just need to speak the truth in God’s direction.
Growth Doesn’t Mean It Gets Easier—But It Does Get Clearer
You don’t grow as a Christian caregiver by doing everything “right.” You grow by walking faithfully through what’s hard.
James says, “Count it all joy… when you meet trials… for the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.”
Your grief, your exhaustion, your decision fatigue—it’s not wasted. It’s part of the sanctifying work God is doing in you. Angela didn’t feel more “spiritual” after her mom’s last ER visit. But she did feel steadier. That’s what clarity, not chaos, looks like.
Where Are You Turning in Trouble?
Be honest: where do you go when caregiving feels like too much?
- Social media scrolling?
- Over-functioning and task-hoarding?
- Numbing with food, wine, or work?
Now ask: what if you turned to God instead? Psalm 73 says, “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
When you run to Him—not the world—you’ll find not just relief, but rest.
One Question to Take With You
Are you just trying to get through your dementia caregiving season… or are you allowing God to grow you through it?
If that question stirred something in you, I’d love to hear from you. Email me at lizette@dignicarebydesign.com. I actually read—and respond—to every message.
Caregiving isn’t a detour from your life. It’s part of your discipleship journey. It didn’t happen to you—it’s happening for you.
And even if you’re wrestling right now, you’re not wrestling alone.
Feeling Stuck or Overwhelmed? Let’s Talk
Join our Ask the Dementia Coach Q&A Saturday, July 26 at 10 a.m. Eastern
Live. Free. Practical. Biblically grounded.
Transcript
Wrestling with God
[0:01] Have you ever wondered if it’s okay to wrestle with God? To ask Him, why me? Why now? I have. And if you’re in the middle of your dementia caregiving journey, the chances are you have asked yourself this too, even if only in your head. Maybe you’ve tried to do everything right. You have been praying. You serve. You keep going. But things just keep getting harder. and you find yourself thinking, is it okay to feel this way? What does this actually mean about my faith? In today’s episode, I want to talk honestly from one caregiver to another about what it’s like to wrestle with God in this season, not in theory, but in real moments. When our prayers are raw, when our questions are loud, when nothing makes sense. We’re going to look a little bit at Psalm 89 and also at some people in scripture who have asked the same kinds of questions.
[1:09] David, Job, and even Jesus, because you are not the only one. And just because you’re struggling does not mean that you’re not faithful. Hey Christian Care Companion, welcome to Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians, the podcast that helps you honor your parent or your spouse while deepening your faith and staying steady in the middle of this very real caregiving season. So if you’re carrying quiet frustration or questions you just don’t know how to say out loud, this episode is for you. Let’s talk about how to bring your whole self to God and not lose your faith in the process. But before we start, just a quick reminder.
[1:57] Tomorrow is our Ask the Dementia Coach. That is Saturday, July the 26th at 10 a.m. Eastern. This is for you if you’re stuck in decision fatigue, unsure of what to do next, or just want a clear biblical way to think through your daily challenges of caregiving. It is live, it is free, and it is designed to help you connect the dots between faith and caregiving. You can grab your spot at thinkdifferentdementia.com forward slash ask. All right, let’s get into today’s episode.
The Pain of Caregiving
[2:43] Now, many, many times when I prepare for the podcast, I honestly don’t know what’s going to come out of my mouth. And yesterday, as I was in our church service, my husband and I attend a small Spanish-English church, and we are working through the book of Psalms this year in that congregation, and we had a sermon on Psalm 89, and it really struck me because it’s a psalm that comes in the book of Psalms, and in it he is lamenting. And it made me remember, and it made me pause.
[3:28] And it made me think of so many caregivers that I have worked with over the years that feel the exact same way as what the psalmist described in this particular psalm. And so I thought I would just use the psalm as a basis for us to talk about how to actually wrestle with God and to ask the question, is that wrong? And so we’re going to look today at wrestling with God. And we’re going to look at it through the following five points. We’re going to look at it through if God is faithful and merciful, why is there dementia? And then is it okay to wrestle with God? And the answer is yes, and you’re not the first. And then we’re also going to say when you’re wrestling, where do we anchor ourselves? And then how do we grow throughout this caregiving season? And then lastly, where do you go when you have moments of trouble?
[4:39] So I am not a pastor. I am a pastor’s wife, but I love the Lord and I love being able to walk my faith out in the world. And it’s ironic because when I started this journey, I came into it kicking and screaming. I came into this space kicking and screaming. And the more I do it, the more I love it. The more I do it, the more I know and I realize that the Lord has gifted me with a unique perspective and ability to be able to bring this information to the world.
[5:20] And so, I want you to know and understand that this is not a sermon, and at the same time, the Lord opens our mouths and gives us the words to speak. Every single day when I prepare for a podcast episode, I ask the Lord that may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in his sight. Oh my Lord, my rock, and my redeemer. So take these episodes with the intent that they are given to you as a fellow believer, not as a pastor, as a pastor’s wife, not as a sermon, but as this is practical theology, this is where the rubber meets the road. So the first thing we’re going to look at today, if God is faithful and merciful, Why is there a dementia? And let’s be honest, this is a question everybody asks. Most of us think this at some point or another, and very, very few people actually say it out loud.
[6:25] And Psalm 89 starts with, I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord forever. And by the end of Psalm 89, it says, Lord, where is your steadfast love of old? The psalmist, who was Ethan, was struggling with this. He was struggling with finding the steadfast love of God.
[6:51] This particular psalm talks of the steadfast love of God, and it talks of the faithfulness of God, right? And asking that question, why is there dementia if God is faithful and if God has steadfast love to us? It is not us being rebellious. It is us going to the place that we should be going to because we do know that God is faithful. But we also know we live in a sin-cursed world, and we know that when we’re living in a sin-cursed world, it is hard for us sometimes to reconcile the goodness of God with the reality of what we’re living with. My mom recently passed away, and it’s very interesting. It’s in the time between being awake and falling asleep, that I wrestle with her death, that I wrestle with how it happened, how I wrestle with my own faith in trusting that the Lord is good and kind, even in that circumstance.
[8:00] And this is because we live in a fallen world. And as a Christian, we’re allowed to ask that, because God is our Father, and He commands us, because He is our Father, to speak to Him, to bring our frustrations and our hurts and our pains and our suffering.
[8:22] Our suffering to Him. Genesis 3 talks about that. Um.
[8:30] That we live in a fallen world. And it is not because God has failed. It is because of sin entering the world. So if you have ever said it doesn’t feel fair or it’s too much,
Struggling with Faith
[8:45] you’re not weak. You’re just human. And you are in good company because many, many people, and the Bible is full of examples of people who have wrestled with God. The second thing we’re going to look at, is it okay to wrestle with God? And if it’s okay, how do we do it the right way, right? And so yes, it is okay to wrestle with God. The Bible is full of people who wrestled with God, and they were not condemned for it. David asked, how long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? Job, in the book of Job, literally lost everything and cried out, and God still called him blameless. And then Jesus, when he was on the cross, asked, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And that is a quote from Psalm 22.
[9:49] So when you as a caregiver or a person living with dementia are wrestling with dementia, with the hard providences of God, when dementia forces you to your knees,
Finding Our Anchor
[10:04] you should be praying but not in despair. And it doesn’t mean that you are failing in your faith. You are wrestling with God because, yes, it is a hard providence. It sucks. Death sucks. I miss my mom. And the reason that dementia is in the world is because Adam first sinned, and we have to remember that.
[10:30] So struggling with God, wrestling with God does not mean that you lack faith. It means that you are going to the one place that you can get resolution for that struggle, which is to God himself. So maybe it might be the third fall this week, or maybe there is another call from the memory care.
[10:56] Maybe you are struggling because you don’t know how much longer you can do this. It’s interesting. I’m working with a young lady who is in the middle of a caregiving crisis. And my experience, my 30 years of experience as an occupational therapist and in working with family caregivers in this capacity over the last two years, I now can tell you pretty definitively that the crisis, the fall, whatever, you know, the broken hip, the whatever tumbles us into that crisis lasts about four months if nothing else goes wrong. And when we are wrestling with the Lord, sometimes it’s because we don’t know how much longer we need to be wrestling, get through it easier. And so we struggle often because we don’t know how long it’s going to take. And even just me saying to her, this process, this crisis will likely be about four months before we can get some stability back in your life.
[12:19] Is able to give her a way of making it through, even just being able to tell her that a crisis situation lasts typically about four months, has given her more bandwidth. It’s that time between guessing or not knowing how long it can last until, you know, hindsight’s 20-20, that makes it hard. So when we don’t know how much longer we have to do things, it is hard. But take it to the Lord. Take it to God. Tell Him out loud. He already knows that you’re struggling. It’s just sometimes we’re not honest with ourselves that God is in this too. We sometimes feel or we sometimes believe that he is not in this journey with us, but he is. And that brings us to when you’re struggling or wrestling with God.
[13:26] Anchor yourself in what is true. Psalm 89 doesn’t skip over pain. It remembers God’s promises. It literally goes into the promises of God, where he says, I have made a covenant with my chosen one. I have sworn to David my servant.
[13:50] So when you’re struggling, take it back to God because God is faithful. He hasn’t changed, even when it feels like everything has. Hebrews 10 verse 23 says, let us hold fast to the confession of our hope. Without wavering. For he who promised is faithful. God is faithful, even in dementia caregiving. Even when things feel like everything is slipping through your fingers, when routines are not routine.
[14:26] When questions keep coming day in, day out, the same thing, when the person’s memory is not there anymore, when they’re not remembering. Remember that they are created in the image of God and their identity is as someone who is created in the image of God. Not whether or not they remember. God remembers. God remembers and he is our anchor. He has not abandoned you. So how can we make this practical? Well, you can keep a jar on your table where you write down one thing every single day that you were grateful for, a verse in scripture, an answered prayer, a reminder to yourself of God’s character. Go back to that jar every day. If you are having a bad day, pull things out. Ask people to help you put good things in there, things that are happening.
[15:39] Find the good in the day. Create moments of joy with the person that you love and keep those somewhere that you can access.
Growth Through Adversity
[15:50] And when you’re struggling with that, then go and pull out one of those and read them to yourself. The fourth thing that we’re going to look at is growth in caregiving, growth as a Christian, comes when you keep walking with God through it. Psalm 89 doesn’t end with a specific answer to a specific question, even though the psalm very clearly points us to Christ. It actually returns with these words, blessed be the Lord forever. Amen and amen. It orients you back to God. First, it points you to Jesus. This psalm actually points you to Jesus.
[16:38] But then it ends with the fact that he has resolved by pointing it back to God. And we grow as a Christian when we wrestle with God by taking it still to God, even if the circumstances haven’t changed, even if nothing is different in your life. Just taking it back to God is where you need to go. We don’t grow in our faith through the good times. I reflect on my growth and my maturity as a Christian. I’m not saying I’m a mature Christian because I have a lot of faults, but I’m definitely more mature than I was when I was 21 or 25. And the growth that we make as a believer comes through adversity and you can say a lot of things about dementia and caregiving it does bring adversity into your life but God is faithful in the hard places and spaces James 1 verses 2 through 4 says count it all joy my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces.
[18:07] Steadfastness. And so our caregiving journey, your dementia caregiving journey, is not a detour. It is a part of your Christian life, and God is using it to grow you into the person he wants you to be. It is not punishment. It is not punishment for them. It is not punishment for you. Everything that you experience, your grief, your decision fatigue.
[18:36] Your frustration with the repetitive questioning, all of that is designed to make you more like Christ. And if what you believe is that God is growing you through this process, it helps you to walk more obediently. It is not just a hardship. It is a part of your spiritual maturity. So maybe you don’t feel patient this week. Maybe you are worn out. But if you bring your questions to God instead of hiding it, that is already growth. It’s not that we are improving ourselves. This is not self-improvement. This is God’s growing you through His Spirit. This is the fruit of the Spirit. And so growth isn’t about feeling better about ourselves. It is about becoming more like Christ, even when you don’t feel it is happening in real time. You can only see the growth when you reflect back on it over time.
[19:50] I’ve mentioned the story, not recently, but I mentioned the story a lot. I was in boarding school, and it was devastating. And my sister still struggles with the after effects of having been in boarding school.
[20:03] And at that time, I grieved like my parents had passed away because it was the only way that I knew how to get through that experience. And for years, I resented it. I resented it so badly. It consumed me. It consumed me. And it was only to the time that I was able to stop and reflect and say, how did that particular experience in my life make me the person that I am? And what did I learn from that experience? And how did I grow from that experience? And I can unequivocally tell you today that I believe that that particular experience brought me closer to the Lord. It took me out of an ungodly household and put me in a place where I was taken to church by my godly grandmother. I can trace my faith back to that hard providence, and it was a hard providence. And so I share that with you to show you that when you get through your dementia caregiving journey, even if you wrestle with God through this process, when you get through your dementia caregiving journey.
Navigating the Journey
[21:30] You will be able to reflect on that back and see how the Lord grew you in life. Your journey. And that is my prayer for you, that you use this experience for your good and for God’s glory, that you focus your eyes on Christ and that you don’t focus yourself on yourself and the struggles, the daily struggles, because there are daily struggles. I’m not mitigating that. I know that there are daily struggles. I get that. And I also know that it can be easier.
[22:10] And if you are willing or open and want to know how to make it easier, I invite you again to come to tomorrow’s Ask the Dementia Coach. It’s July the 26th at 10 a.m. This is an opportunity for you to actually speak to me live and I take you through a guided way of actually transforming your dementia caregiving journey. Me. And so if you’re ready, sign up for tomorrow’s Ask the Dementia Coach. I would love to have a conversation with you and help you transform this into a God-glorifying experience for you, as well as to show the world a different way of navigating dementia.
Turning to God
[22:58] That is what I am standing in the gap for. And then lastly, when you are struggling in your moments of trouble, where do you turn? Do you turn to the Lord? When you lament, it always goes somewhere. So do you run to God with your pain, or are you running away from Him? Psalm 73 verse 26 says, My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. The world says, vent, survive.
[23:39] I call it verbal vomit. This is one of the reasons I do not recommend that you should consider being in a worldly dementia caregiving Facebook group. They are vitriolic. That’s my big word for the day.
[23:56] Because that is where you hear the world’s view of dementia and dementia of caregiving, not God’s view, I hope that this gives you a little taste of God’s view of dementia. The gospel says, come to me, all you are weary, and I will give you rest. God will give you rest. So when you lament, are you lamenting in the way of the world, which is venting, or are you lamenting to God, which is where we should wrestle with God about what is, how is this forming us? What is the purpose of this in our life? So where are you turning right now? Are you doom scrolling on social media? Are you over-functioning and just doing all the tasks?
[24:52] Are you numbing yourself through food? Are you resentful? Are you trying to control? Are you like me a few months ago just trying to get through this with wine instead of with prayer? So where are you going in your moments of struggle? Are you running to the Lord? So let’s recap today’s episode briefly. It is consistent and emotionally honest for us to wrestle with God.
Lamenting with Purpose
[25:30] It is okay to wrestle with God. It is just not okay to stay there.
[25:37] Lamenting is not being rebellious. It is part of being faithful if you do it the right way, which is lament, take it to God, and then return to God because God is faithful and trustworthy. God’s promises will not erase our pain, but they will anchor you if you allow them to.
[26:03] And then you grow as a Christian caregiver, not through your own strength, but by walking with God day by day in obedience through the hard spaces and places in caregiving. And dementia caregiving is not an interruption of your life. It is not a mistake. It didn’t happen to you. It happened for you. It is God’s way of forming you day by day into his beloved son, into your savior.
Reflection and Growth
[26:43] If you are a Christian, if you are a believer, this is making and shaping you to be more like Christ. So, a reflection question for you today.
[26:57] Are you just trying to get through your dementia caregiving season, or are you allowing God to grow you through your dementia caregiving season? And I would love for you, if this episode resonates with you, to email me at Lizette at ThinkDifferentDementia.com. I want to have conversations with you. I’m not high and mighty and, you know, sitting on a pedestal here. I walk this walk. I try and I struggle too with the same things that you struggle with, dear faithful friend. I invite you to email me, Lizette at thinkdifferentdementia.com, and answer this question for me.
[27:51] Is this season of caregiving, are you just trying to get through it, or are you allowing God to grow you through it? And let me know. I really would love to hear and share this episode with someone if it resonates with you.
[28:11] Connect with me. Join the Ask the Dementia Coach. I’m very accessible. And yes, I actually do answer my own emails. So as I try to remember to end all of my episodes, may the Lord bless you and keep you. And thank you for sharing these. Thank you for being in my world, I do pray for family caregivers of people living with dementia every single day. I see you. I feel you. I am just like you. This is where the rubber meets the road. And you can wrestle with God without losing your faith in the process. I will see you in next week’s episode.
