Incompetence As Carers: Stepping Away From Shame

Caring for others is hard. I guarantee you, if you decide to show up for someone and assist them through whatever it is that they need assistance with, you will feel a sense of impotence. You will possibly feel a sense of shame from your inability to "fix" them.
I felt this with my mum. So keen to see her health flourish. To see her hair and a real smile return. So compassionately keen to see her come to complete healing, the SOZO kind. During her treatment, I would often query whether there was something I was doing wrong. Whether the food or the care I was extending to her was impacting her health journey negatively. Whether I was "enough" for her as a carer.

I could have run. We had some really tough exchanges and interactions. Both intimidated by the reality that she wasn't getting better. Both shaken by the possible of loss of life: her own life, and the promising future she yearned for, and the loss of her life within my own. There were times that I felt entirely incompetent, not just as a carer but as a daughter. "I might as well back away," I'd think to myself. And sometimes I would blame her for these feelings. Like she was being unreasonable and therefore I had the right to create space.

But instead, I leaned in. We both did, in our own ways. When I moved out of her home to create some boundaries, and would visit her daily, it was perhaps a weird thing from the outside for some - perhaps it looked selfish. But really, authentically, it gave me the capacity to love her more effectively. And I leaned in. Our interactions and times together were more authentic. They were more intimate. We did not forsake the beautiful calling that God had put on as as mother and daughter.

Why do I tell you all this? (Some people might be asking "why does she always bring up her mother?")

It is simply this: that if you decide to do life with people that you will have to care for in some capacity, if you announce that you will be there for someone, sure it may look different from day to day, but we all need to remember that in moments of realisation that we can't be a saviour, we are not called to retreat with seeming indifference, either. God will work through you in the smallest of ways, and you will experience Him showing up for you in the process.

And if, for whatever reason, you're creating space or walking away from a relationship or friendship, a partnership or a job, do not forget the following: that you're called, as a follower of Jesus to continue in prayer for this person, for the connection you have, and the leading of God in both of your lives.

Do not dismiss the fact that God wants you, on that day when we all get to heaven, to be able to look across a sea of people and smile at another, knowing that you both persevered through the shame that comes with doing life together, and sometimes "apart." If your intention is to have hatred and frustration remain in your heart as you step away, then you are possibly worse off than the person who needs your care, and perhaps the "remaining" may be the remedy and care that your heart needs.

November 2018, an unexpected hospital visit.