If God Is Good, Why Is There Dementia?
“Sometimes caregiving doesn’t feel like a calling. It feels like punishment.”
If that line hit you in the gut, you were probably nodding along with Episode 265. Meds, meals, appointments, phone silent, siblings missing—while your own life feels like it’s unraveling. The psalmist in Psalm 73 knew that ache, and today we trace his journey so you can trace yours.
God Is Good—Even When Caregiving Is Brutal
“Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.” (Ps 73:1). God’s goodness is part of His character; dementia cannot revoke it. As Lizette reminds us, “Our circumstances do not determine His character.” Your exhaustion, doubts, or limitations never nullify His kindness—even when “it feels like the help never comes.”
Expect Suffering in a Sin-Cursed World
We ask, “Why me? Why now? Why them?” because suffering feels unfair. Yet Scripture answers: the fall ushered in death, decline, and—yes—dementia. “We live in a broken world… that broken world includes dementia, death, decline, and struggle.” Romans 6:23 says the wages of sin is death. Knowing that does not remove grief, but it explains why life under the curse hurts.
When Pain Births a Crisis of Faith
The psalmist confesses envy of the carefree: “For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” (Ps 73:3). Caregivers do the same—scrolling photos of friends on vacation while you cancel another girls’ night to refill pillboxes. Lizette names the hidden question: “Did I keep my heart clean in vain?” (see Ps 73:13). A crisis of faith often sprouts where self-pity meets relentless duty.
Communion with God Changes Everything
Nothing shifts until verse 17—“until I went into the sanctuary of God.” Lizette’s application is piercing:
- Five minutes alone with Scripture is non-negotiable.
- Corporate worship must stay on the calendar—even if it means tag-teaming, hiring respite care, or streaming in the hospital room.
True North in the Think Different Dementia Method™ is relationship-centered care that starts not with the person you’re helping but with the Lord you’re following.
Repentance Opens the Gate to Freedom
Hidden sins—unbelief, envy, discontent—tighten chains around weary hearts. Lizette prays, “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief,” echoing Mark 9:24. Freedom doesn’t require changed circumstances; it requires a changed posture. When the psalmist repents, he moves from “Why me?” to “Whom have I in heaven but You?” (Ps 73:25).
True Freedom = Walking Humbly With Your God
Psalm 73 ends in worship: “Nevertheless, I am continually with You; You hold my right hand.” (vv. 23-24). Freedom is not autonomy; it is belonging. Lizette states it plainly: “You can be in prison and be free.” Dementia may lock schedules and limit vacations, but it cannot imprison the soul redeemed by Christ.
How These Six Moves Play Out in Real Life
- Acknowledge God’s Character Daily
Tape Psalm 73:1 on the medicine cabinet. Read it while crushing morning pills. - Stop Expecting Ease
Expect repetition, falls, bad lab results. Set surprise to zero; set grace to maximum. - Name the Crisis Out Loud
Journaling or a short voice memo: “Lord, I’m jealous of my sister’s carefree life.” Hidden thoughts lose power when exposed. - Re-enter the Sanctuary
Download a five-minute audio Bible. If Sunday worship feels impossible, schedule a friend or paid caregiver—stewardship, not guilt. - Pray the Repentance Prayer
“Father, forgive my envy and strengthen my trust.” Simple, honest, liberating. - Walk Humbly, Not Heroically
Use the Contented Caregiver Blueprint™ to reorder tasks with the Do-Delay-Delete-Delegate grid. Humility admits you can’t do it all; freedom follows.
An Invitation to Practical Freedom
If Psalm 73 describes your heart, join Lizette’s free workshop on Saturday, July 12 at 12 p.m. ET: “Three Ways to Reduce Your Overwhelm and Stress as a Christian Caregiver.”
Register at thinkdifferentdementia.com/wsl.
You’ll discover how Therapeutic Truth-Telling™ de-escalates repetitive questions, why the Contented Caregiver Blueprint™ protects both your health and your loved one’s dignity, and how the Think Different Dementia Method™ anchors every decision in God’s unchanging order.
Caregiving may feel like punishment, but Psalm 73 proves otherwise. You are held by the One who counts every tear and promises,
“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Ps 73:26).
May the Lord bless you and keep you as you steward this journey—eyes on His goodness, heart free in His Son, steps humble with your God.
Transcript
Caregiving: A Heavy Burden
[0:00] Let’s be very honest. Sometimes caregiving doesn’t feel like a calling. It feels like punishment.
[0:09] You’re the one who stays. You’re the one who shows up every day. You’re the one doing the meds, the meals, the appointments, all the hard conversations. You’re serving faithfully, maybe even sacrificially, and yet somehow your life is the one that feels like it is falling apart. Meantime, your siblings might disappear. The phone stays quiet.
[0:38] Nobody is asking you how you are doing, and it feels like the help never comes. The ones who are doing less, even in your own family seem to go on with their lives like nothing is going on and it doesn’t feel fair. And in the quiet, when no one is watching, that question starts to bubble up. Where is God in dementia? Why me? Why now? Why them? If that is you, you’re in the right place. If you’re the daughter holding everything together, or the wife who feels like she doesn’t have one more day left to be a caregiver, I want you to know something. Just because it feels like God is far away, it does not mean that he is. And just because your family has perhaps failed you, it does not mean that God has.
[1:39] Hey, Christian Care Companion. Welcome to Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians. I’m Lizette Klute, occupational therapist, caregiver, and fellow believer and pastor’s wife. This podcast is for you if you were doing the work, carrying the weight, and trying to stay faithful in a season that feels anything but easy. If you have been wondering where God is in the middle of this dementia journey, you are not alone and you are in the right place. Every week, I’ll help you make sense of the struggle, giving you strategy and support so you can walk out this journey with purpose and not burn out. And if you’re tired of doing more and still feeling like you’re barely keeping your head above water, I want to invite you to a free workshop on Saturday, July the 12th at 12 p.m. Eastern. In this workshop, we talk about three ways to reduce your overwhelm and stress as a Christian caregiver. This is not about hustling or quick fixes. It is a clear path forward that brings peace, purpose, and hope, even when your life feels completely upside down.
[3:05] You can register and save your seat at thinkdifferentdementia.com forward slash WSL. Come, take a deep breath, and exhale.
Exploring Freedom in Christ
[3:18] You do not need to navigate this journey alone. Now, today’s episode is going to be a little different. I say that a lot, I know. But I have been pondering this question for a while. And recently, in a worship service at church, the pastor was preaching on Psalm 73. Now, Psalm 73 is a pretty long psalm, so I’m not going to read the whole psalm today. But I do invite you to go back to it later after you listen to today’s episode and read the psalm. The psalm comes in a section of the Bible where it is the end of a book, if I remember correctly. But what struck me about the psalm as the pastor was preaching was the flow of it, and it really made me stop and think and reflect.
[4:24] Now, today’s episode is coming out on the 4th of July, which is in the United States Independence Day, which in essence talks about our freedom, our freedom of living here in the United States and all of the benefits that brings to us. And so instead of doing a typical holiday, 4th of July type of episode, I thought I would talk about this particular topic of freedom. And hopefully by the end of this episode, you’ll be able to see how our freedom in Christ is.
[5:06] Is evident in this psalm, as well as how this all relates to being a dementia caregiver.
God’s Goodness in Hard Times
[5:14] So we’re going to look at this today in six easy points, right? The first one is God is good, even when things are hard. The second one we’re going to look at is suffering is expected, innocent, cursed world. The third thing we’re going to look at is suffering can actually lead to a crisis of faith. Fourth, the turning point is communion with God changes your perspective. The fifth is we as believers are called to repent, especially when we have hidden sins like unbelief or discontentment. And lastly, we’re going to look at true freedom is walking humbly with your God. So a little bit different of an outline, and we’re going to knock it out real quick. So if God is good, why is there dementia? So that presupposes that question bubbles up for people.
[6:15] When they are struggling to see the goodness of God through adversity, right? So the first thing that we are going to look at is God is good, even when things in our life are hard, because God’s character is good, and our circumstances do not determine his character. For example, Psalm 73 verse 1 starts, Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. And we know that the Psalms, the Bible, all over Scripture talks about God being good, right? But when we’re in the middle of struggles, when we’re in the middle of adversity, it is easy to start to believe in your heart and to start to believe in your mind that he has left us, right? And in caregiving, we frequently feel like God has left us, but he hasn’t. Because it also says in Psalm 73 verse 2, as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, My steps had nearly slipped.
[7:36] But during this time, God takes care of you. So God’s goodness, it’s part of his character, and it is not changed or invalidated because we are struggling, because we are tired, because we have doubts, or because we have limitations.
The Reality of Suffering
[7:56] So the Bible is very clear that God is good. The second thing that we’re going to look at is that suffering is to be expected in a sin-cursed world. We live in a broken world. We live in a sin-cursed world. God created the world and man to be good, and we, through Adam.
[8:23] Sinned, and the direct result of that is that we now live in a broken world. And that broken world includes dementia, death, decline, and struggle. So it does feel cruel and difficult when we are watching a loved person decline, and then we watch other people in the world, oftentimes, sometimes even unbelievers, who appear to be unscathed, who appear to never have anything happen. I’ll use my daughter as an example.
[9:07] She became a young adult caregiver six weeks after she and her husband, Caleb, got married. And they have struggled for the first five years of their marriage in trying to get their feet under them, right? And it is very difficult sometimes for her to see other friends of theirs who are their age, having children, going on vacations.
[9:37] Doing all the normal things young adults should be doing, and not wonder why your own life might be so difficult. But watching and seeing somebody decline presupposes this principle that we believe that we deserve better, right? And scripture in Psalm 73, verse 3 says, For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. Even caregivers can feel that way. We can feel envious of other people who seem like their life is better. But the reality is that Romans 6 verse 23 says, the wages of sin is death, right? But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And so we know that suffering is to be expected in a sin-cursed world. And because of that, death and destruction and dementia has entered this world. And we all deserve death. We all deserve, from God’s view, from God’s lens, we deserve this.
[10:59] We deserve nothing better. We deserve death. And that is why death is so hard for us because we know and we recognize it is the final separation between us and the person we care for.
[11:12] And so suffering is to be expected in a sin-cursed world. And it is difficult and hard to watch someone you love.
[11:21] Change and struggle through their dementia journey. And sometimes we have to pause and we have to tell ourselves and remind ourselves. And please, dear Christian, hear me clearly. You, if you are living with dementia, your person who is living with dementia, their value does not rest in their thinking processes.
[11:47] Their value is in their inherent worth as being created in the image of God. And because of that, and that only do they have value and worth. The world has taught us to think that our thinking ability is what makes us valuable. If you’re super, super wicked smart, then you are more valuable than somebody who is not. And that is an absolute lie.
Crisis of Faith in Suffering
[12:17] And so I just want to show that lie out to you here today.
[12:21] The third thing we’re going to look at is suffering. When we are struggling and suffering can legitimately sometimes lead us to a crisis in our faith. And this happens, yet again, like I said, when we as a human feel or believe that we actually deserve better in life. This presupposes that we are good, but the Bible teaches us that we were created good, but in the fall, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So the question that we often have, this why me, why my loved one, can sometimes make us start to think, why did you do this to me? What did I do to deserve this? And I want us to remember that all of us, sometimes larger or shorter extent.
[13:21] At different varying times in our life.
[13:24] Do struggle with our faith. And what we need to do is turn to God when that happens, right? So Psalm 73 verse 13 says, all in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. So in this particular Psalm, the psalmist was saying that because he saw the envy, you know, he was envious of the arrogant and saw the prosperity of the wicked, it was easy for him to believe that in vain he kept his heart clean and washed his hands in innocent. But when we really stop and become honest with ourself as well as with the Lord, that is when we start actually having freedom. Freedom is when we stop pretending and tell the Lord we’re struggling. We’re struggling with our faith. We’re struggling to believe, and it’s not wrong to feel that way, but what is wrong is to stay there. It is up to us when we have these feelings of why me.
[14:36] Why did you do this to me, why my person, is to start to be honest with God
The Power of Communion with God
[14:43] and say to him, help me help my unbelief. And so the fourth thing that we’re going to look at is communion with God changes your perspective.
[14:55] And freedom, true freedom, doesn’t come from changing your circumstances. You can be in prison and be free. I have known godly pastors who are imprisoned for their faith, and they are 100% free because their freedom does not come from their circumstances. Their freedom comes from their understanding, their changed understanding, right? And so the psalmist in this particular psalm did not get any answers until he entered the sanctuary. And so in Psalm 73, verse 17, it says, until I went into the sanctuary of God, then I discerned their end. And what was super fun in this sermon that the pastor did on that particular Sunday was the application of this, right? Communion with God, communing with your God is what makes you free. And so what is frequently one of the things that go by the wayside when we’re a caregiver or a dementia caregiver in specific is your personal time with God.
[16:10] Even just spending five minutes every single day in the Word. And the second application is you cannot isolate yourself. You still need to be in corporate worship. Yes, might that look different? Absolutely. Might that mean that we need to take turns? Absolutely.
[16:31] Might that mean we need to have a paid caregiver so that you can go to worship on a Sunday? For sure. All of these are solutions. But what I’m proposing to you is that your freedom in this journey comes from your communing with God, your communing, and your personal time with the Lord. And the longer I have been going and navigating this journey on my own, the more I recognize that we are in this as a relationship-centered caregiving model. And it does not start with my relationship with the person that I am caring for. It starts with my relationship with the Lord. And if I keep that as my true north star, as it should be for every single one
The Call to Repentance
[17:25] of us as believers, then I know that all of the rest of this is going to be okay. Okay, so the fifth thing that we’re going to look at is that we, when we are aware of these things, are called to repent of our sins, especially when we have these hidden sins like unbelief or discontentment, right? So freedom in Christ requires us to repent.
[17:58] It does not guarantee us relief. It does require our repentance. And so it becomes very easy when we live in a free country like the United States.
[18:11] And I am a naturalized citizen that has lived in multiple different countries all over the world. We have it good in the United States. It becomes very easy for us to idolize the ease, the comfort, the outcomes that we have, the houses, the cars, the freedom of being free from struggle, right? And we are called, when we do have this thought or these things come up, like Psalm 73 verse 21 says, When my soul was embittered, I was brutish and ignorant. Unbelief tells us God is not in this. God is in this. and our repentance tells us, yes, God, you are with me. So.
[19:09] If you are struggling with your faith and struggling to see whether God is good in this dementia caregiving journey, I want you to be like the person in the Bible, and I am terrible with where things are in the Bible, but where he stood and said to Jesus.
[19:29] Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. That is the best prayer you can say. And so if you are struggling, if you do feel discontented, if you think you deserve more, if you think that you should deserve better, I want you to turn to the Lord and say, forgive me for thinking that, for feeling that. I know that I deserve death. And thank you for being with me through this journey. That’s a hard prayer. When my mom passed away, and she was in the hospital and they called the code blue. It was automatic and instinctive. When I heard that, I started praying, Lord, give her a good death. And yes, I miss my mother terribly. Was thinking about her this morning. It’s just been about four months since she passed. And I’m so grateful to the Lord for the way that she died because it was a good death for my mom. It was hard for me, but it was a good death for my mom, right? And so when we have these thoughts of unbelief or discontentment or I deserve better, turn to the Lord. That’s my prayer for you. Turn to the Lord. See the goodness of God in your caregiving. I want you to imagine that.
[20:55] Going through dementia as an unbeliever, like truly, truly, truly. The longer I do this, the more I see this and I recognize this. There are four different dyads in the caregiving journey. You have two unbelievers together, an unbelieving caregiver and an unbelieving care receiver. And then on the opposite end of the spectrum, you have two believing caregiver and care receiver. I guarantee you, I have seen it. Their journey is different than two unbelievers. This is one of the reasons I believe that these huge big Facebook groups are so toxic because people who are in there, the way they speak about the person they love, the way they speak about their frustrations, you can tell to a large extent where a person’s heart is. And so if you’re not in my Facebook group, please join it. It’s called Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians.
True Freedom in Humility
[21:59] I curate it so that it is not a negative experience, and I would love to have you there. And then lastly, true freedom is walking humbly with your God. So freedom is not that we are autonomous. We are not. We are not autonomous. Freedom comes through Christ. That is the only way you and I are free. We are free because he paid the sin. He paid for our sins because the wages of sin is death. And because of that, we now have access to God.
[22:39] So Psalm 73 says in verse 23, Nevertheless, I am continually with you. You hold my right hand. you guide me with your counsel and afterwards you will receive me to glory.
[22:57] So ultimate freedom is knowing who you belong to and not whether or not we struggle and suffer here on earth.
Key Takeaways for Caregivers
[23:06] We should expect to struggle and suffer here on earth, right? So key takeaways for today. Like I said, this is a very different episode. But the key takeaways for you is God is good, even when caregiving is difficult. Struggling doesn’t mean that you’re failing, that you need to consider shifting your perspective from me-centered to God-centered, that when we repent, it brings us clarity and true freedom, true, true freedom here on this 4th of July, Independence Day, is walking humbly with your God. So where, dear Christian, might you be finding or trying to find your freedom in this journey? Where might you be needing to do some soul searching, sitting with the Lord and asking him to show you where your heart is related to this journey. So now, if you are still feeling spiritually stuck or dry or emotionally distant.
[24:15] Do come join me for the next free monthly workshop at thinkdifferentdementia.com forward slash L. And then let’s really look at these three ways that we can ease your stress. And if you’re struggling with God’s providence and sovereignty after this episode, particularly, please schedule a call. I’d be happy to talk to you and help you through this specific time in your life. And just remember that, yes, God is good. And yes, he is with you. And there is dementia, there is death, there is disease, there is destruction, because Adam fell and we are sinners. But that does not take away the goodness of God. So like I end all of my episodes, may the Lord bless you and keep you. And please share these episodes with other Christians, because I really do want to impact your day-to-day living and journey as a family caregiver.
