Grateful And Growing: One Year Of Supporting Christian Caregivers
Have you ever wondered how faith can reshape your caregiving journey?
This episode marks the one-year anniversary of the podcast and serves as a heartfelt reflection on its growth, mission, and vision for the future.
Rooted in Ecclesiastes 3, we are reminded that there is a time for everything, including the sanctifying journey of caregiving.
A Year of Growth and Change
This podcast began with a broad focus under the name Dementia Caregiving for Families but evolved into Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians as the mission became clearer.
This change reflects the goal of serving Bible-believing Christians who are navigating the challenges of dementia caregiving while striving to balance practical needs with a Kingdom-focused perspective.
Over the past year, the podcast has reached listeners in over 15 countries and achieved more than 13,000 downloads. This incredible growth highlights the hunger for a faith-driven approach to caregiving.
The Core of the Podcast’s Mission
1) Practical Support
The podcast provides caregivers with essential tools and resources to make dementia caregiving easier. This includes actionable tips, routines, and strategies tailored to meet the day-to-day challenges of caregiving.
2) Kingdom-Focused Perspective
Beyond the daily struggles, caregivers are encouraged to look ahead with a Kingdom mindset. By keeping an eternal perspective, caregivers can find meaning and purpose even in the hardest moments.
3) Emotional Resilience
Research shows that 60% of caregiver burnout stems from emotional burden, not physical tasks. The podcast emphasizes the importance of emotional resilience, offering insights into how faith can anchor caregivers through storms.
Sanctification Through Caregiving
One of the most powerful themes in this episode is the idea that dementia caregiving is part of a caregiver’s sanctification. While the journey is difficult, it is also an opportunity for spiritual growth.
By seeing caregiving as a calling rather than a burden, caregivers can approach their role with gratitude and purpose.
Looking Ahead: Workshops and Collaboration
Lizette invites listeners to join free monthly workshops for hands-on support and practical advice.
These workshops are designed to equip caregivers with the tools they need to navigate their journey effectively while fostering a community of faith and encouragement.
A Call to Action
Are you ready to embrace caregiving as a sanctifying journey?
Whether you’re just beginning or well into the process, this podcast serves as a beacon of hope, reminding caregivers that they are never alone.
With faith, practical tools, and emotional resilience, caregiving can become a deeply meaningful journey for God’s glory and our good.
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Transcript
[0:00] Hey Christian caregiver, welcome to Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians, the podcast where I teach Bible-believing Christians how to make their dementia
Introduction and Reflection
[0:11] caregiving easier today while also helping you focus on a brighter tomorrow. Today’s episode is going to be a reflection on the podcast’s journey over this past year, And it has had a couple of iterations as I have learned and grown through this process. But in preparation for this particular episode, I want to read you Ecclesiastes 3 because it really reminds us that there is a time for everything.
[0:48] So Ecclesiastes 3 and the Bible that I’m using is the New American Standard Bible. So, a time for everything. There is an appointed time for everything, and there is a time for every matter under heaven. A time to give birth and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.
[1:37] A time to search and a time to give up as lost. A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear apart and a time to sew together. A time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and and a time for peace. What benefit is there for the worker from that in which he labors? I have seen the task which God has given the sons of mankind with which to occupy themselves. He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart without the possibility that mankind will find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. So I love that particular passage in Ecclesiastes, and it just reminds me frequently that there is a time and a season for everything.
[2:40] I started this podcast on November the 20th, 2023, with a big hope and dream and desire in my heart for the podcast. If you’ve been with me on this journey, you know that the podcast has changed significantly over the last year as I have been figuring out what the Lord has really placed on my heart to talk about. When the podcast started a year ago, it was called Dementia Caregiving for Families.
[3:12] And the reason I called it Dementia Caregiving for Families at the beginning was because I wanted to be able to reach as many people as I could because I’ve always answered all of my dementia caregiving questions over the years from a biblical perspective.
[3:32] And so I wanted to be able to reach unbelieving families all over the world with this podcast. I had told myself that the podcast was faith-informed, not faith-forward, and I noticed that in this journey, the faith-informed messaging did not resonate necessarily with the people that I presented. And most suited to work with. And so that precipitated me changing the name of the podcast in about April this year from Dementia Caregiving for Families to Christian Dementia Caregiving. And it was the best thing I could have done. I am very glad that I really started to listen to what the Holy Spirit had put on my heart, which was to serve Christian families of people living with dementia, people who are Bible-believing Christians, who really are struggling to combine
Name Change and New Direction
[4:38] the information from the world with a biblical worldview of dementia and dementia caregiving. What happened though was with the name change to be the first word Christian is that it wasn’t necessarily the best name for the podcast.
[4:58] It is a good name. Trust me, I really believe that it is a good name for the podcast. But in reflection, I really worked through the fact that I needed to be able to tell people a little bit more in the name what this podcast is about.
[5:18] Which is why the name turned into Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians, because the support that you will get from listening to this podcast is threefold. You will get the practical tips and tricks and tools that you need for dementia caregiving, But we also work on a future-oriented caregiving perspective related to a kingdom-focused mindset. I want us as dementia caregivers to understand. Always have our eye on the ultimate future for all of us and not necessarily focus on the struggles of the day-to-day, which we know as believers is true that we do struggle on the day-to-day. It is called our sanctification, but that our focus should be on when we are in glory with Jesus, when we are in glory with Christ. And so I wanted this podcast to reflect a kingdom focus, looking at caregiving from a kingdom perspective, and not just from the world’s perspective.
[6:37] I recognize that a lot of people do not think about their own personal growth throughout their lives. Many people are just doing the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. But the reality is that we are on a journey of personal growth, and that is our sanctification. And dementia and dementia caregiving is a beautiful part of our sanctification process, if we are willing to see it for the blessing and the growth that it will provide us in our journey as a believer. And so that’s the second part that I really wanted us to focus on in this podcast.
[7:27] Is having a kingdom focus. And then the last part of it, because I do also recognize that caregiving can be very emotionally difficult. A lot of the research on caregivers state that 60% of the burden of caregiving is based on the emotional burden that we carry, not as much the physical burden of caregiving. Yes, the physical burden of caregiving is a reality, but that is not what actually results in people burning out. What results in people burning out is the inability to have emotional resilience.
Growth and Community Engagement
[8:08] And so in the third part, we really look at a caregiver’s emotional resilience as well as our faith. So that is how the podcast has changed and grown over this past year. The podcast went from no subscribers, there was nobody who knew about this podcast at the beginning, to earlier this week when I checked these stats on the downloads, to having 13,000, over 13,000 downloads in a year. We have people listening from the United States, from Canada, from the Philippines, Australia.
[8:52] The United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland, Russia, Hong Kong, South Africa, Belgium, Colombia, Greece, Israel. And Latvia. So for people who are listening to me from all of these different countries, I am so grateful to every single person who is here. I truly am here to serve you. And I want so much for you to be a collaborator with me, for you to communicate with me, for you to let me know what we could be doing better or different, which kinds of episodes you really enjoy, which kinds of episodes you really do not enjoy, anything. I am here to serve. I pray every day for the family caregivers of people living with dementia, and I pray every day that the Lord will prepare and provide each of us for the work that we have to do as a caregiver. I recognize every single day that the Lord has been so kind to me, and I am so grateful to Him for the growth.
[10:14] Of this podcast, for my personal growth this year in serving you. And I pray diligently that the Lord will see fit to bless this podcast over
Vision for the Future
[10:29] the next year and double or triple its growth. But I cannot do it without your help. I need you, if you are a listener and you enjoy this podcast, to share it with people. I really would love for you to write a review on Apple Podcasts or your podcast player app so that I can truly communicate with you and serve you in this capacity. I have a tremendously huge vision, and that is to reach the ends of the earth with a different message than what the normal message is related to dementia and dementia caregiving. And the essence of that message is, I serve a holy God who holds everything in his hands. And dementia is not the worst thing that can happen to you, because the Bible is clear that the wages of sin is death, and that if we die outside of Christ.
[11:36] That is a worse death than dying related to a dementia caregiving journey or dementia. I also believe that I serve a God of order and that dementia is not as confusing as people make it out to be. It follows is a very predictable path and that there are things that we can do to make this journey easier. And it starts with me as the caregiver.
[12:03] It starts with how I think about dementia, how I think about being a caregiver, how I think about the burden that God has providentially placed on me in this caregiving journey.
Invitation to Monthly Workshops
[12:19] And so I really want to encourage you today that we can do this. We can do this well. We can do this for God’s glory and for our good, we can do this in a posture of service, in a posture of gratitude, in a posture of growing us in our sanctification, and that you do not need to do it alone. And so my invitation to you today on this one-year anniversary of this podcast is that once a month, I do a free monthly workshop.
[12:59] And this month’s workshop is November the 23rd, which is this coming Saturday. If you haven’t signed up to join me in one of these free workshops, and next year, my goal for the workshops are that they be a different workshop every month. But for right now, this workshop really talks about some tools and resources that we need in our back pocket and what we need to believe in order to be an effective caregiver. So if you haven’t joined me yet, join me this coming Saturday. They are actually live. You will be able to meet with me. We can talk. I will answer your questions. It’s a wonderful time for you to get just a little bit more support for yourself in this dementia caregiving journey. Thank you for listening to these podcasts. I pray for you every single day. I hope you pray for me that the Lord will bless the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart in order for them to be effective to send out his message into the world. And I usually try to end all of my episodes with may the Lord bless you and keep you. Sign up for this Saturday’s workshop and I will see you in our next episode.
