SPCK - Dorothy M Stewart
Still Caring - Join the club
Still Caring - Join the club
by SPCK - Dorothy M Stewart
4 Join the club The truth will set you free……………………………………………. (John 8.32) Let’s get this absolutely clear. The only carers – spouses, parents, sons or daughters – who do not feel guilt when they first seriously consider their loved one moving into residential care are few and far…
Still Caring - But they're my responsibility
Still Caring - But they're my responsibility
by SPCK - Dorothy M Stewart
3 But they’re my responsibility Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. (Exodus 20.12) Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. (Ephesians 5.33) Whoever w…
Still Caring - Introduction
Still Caring - Introduction
by SPCK - Dorothy M Stewart
Introduction I wrote One Day at a Time when I was relatively new to the business of caring at home for someone with dementia. Unable to find any Christian material to help me, I found myself writing my own and it seems to have helped others in the same position...
Still Caring - Acknowledgments
Still Caring - Acknowledgments
by SPCK - Dorothy M Stewart
Acknowledgements Still Caring Christian meditations and prayers One evening at church, I noticed that a friend was weeping. She had been having a really rough time trying to care at home for her husband after a spell in hospital. Now she was at the end of her tether and strugglin…
Still Caring - About the author
Still Caring - About the author
by SPCK - Dorothy M Stewart
About the author Still Caring Christian meditations and prayers When Dorothy M. Stewart’s husband was diagnosed with frontal lobe dementia in 2007, she became his sole full-time carer. Her book, One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers, published by SPCK in 2010, is the fruit of…
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 40. You need love too
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 40. You need love too
by SPCK - Dorothy M Stewart
ONE DAY AT A TIME Meditations for Carers 40. You need love too Galatians 5.14 Yes, of course that’s what it’s about. You’re the carer because you do care. It is love that prompts you, motivates you, keeps you going. But sometimes it can feel like all that love has been used up an…
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 39. Whose life is it anyway?
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 39. Whose life is it anyway?
by SPCK - Dorothy M Stewart
ONE DAY AT A TIME Meditations for Carers 39. Whose life is it anyway? Isaiah 41.13 Becoming a 24/7 at-home carer involves a lot of changes. Life gets to be pretty well unrecognizable, and as for us – our very identities may be changed. Once we may have been well-paid and valued…
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 38. Valley walking
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 38. Valley walking
by SPCK - Dorothy M Stewart
ONE DAY AT A TIME Meditations for Carers 38. Valley walking Psalm 23.4 I’d been feeling really down for days. Even though he seemed not too bad. Then I realized that what I was doing was grieving. Dementia takes your loved one away from you as truly as divorce or death. The onl…
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 37. Unwelcome visitors
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 37. Unwelcome visitors
by SPCK - Dorothy M Stewart
ONE DAY AT A TIME Meditations for Carers 37. Unwelcome visitors Proverbs 3.24, 26a I worry. I wake in the middle of the night in a panic. All sorts of things rush into my barely awake brain, one after another, till there’s a flood of them and I can’t get back to sleep. Then I s…
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 36. Time out means time out!
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 36. Time out means time out!
by SPCK - Dorothy M Stewart
ONE DAY AT A TIME Meditations for Carers 36. Time out means time out! Luke 10.41–42 You know the feeling: you want to take some time out. You need to take some time out. But when you get a few moments alone and you try just to sit quietly and rest, all the things you haven’t do…
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 35. Time off
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 35. Time off
by SPCK - Dorothy M Stewart
ONE DAY AT A TIME Meditations for Carers 35. Time off TMatthew 14.22–23, GNB I’m starting the week refreshed. I’m feeling much calmer and more able to cope because I took the whole of yesterday ‘off ’ – just like people who have salaried jobs and get a day off! It was wonderful…
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 34. Thorns and thistles
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 34. Thorns and thistles
by SPCK - Dorothy M Stewart
ONE DAY AT A TIME Meditations for Carers 34. Thorns and thistles Ezekiel 2.6b Life seems to sprout thorns and thistles when you’re responsible for caring for someone else, especially if it wasn’t originally your role to deal with money matters and the like. If you now have to f…
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 33. The messy stuff
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 33. The messy stuff
by SPCK - Dorothy M Stewart
ONE DAY AT A TIME Meditations for Carers 33. The messy stuff John 13.4–5 Unless you are very fortunate, you’ll have to deal with the messy stuff sooner or later. We’re talking incontinence here. (Is this the only ‘religious’ book to deal with such basics?) Paid carers seem to m…
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 32. The key to getting help
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 32. The key to getting help
by SPCK - Dorothy M Stewart
ONE DAY AT A TIME Meditations for Carers 32. The key to getting help James 4.2b, GNB When I was young, clamouring for something that took my fancy, my grandmother used to say: ‘Wants never gets.’ That effectively silenced those demands! In our situation as carers, though, I thi…
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 31. The evolving carer
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 31. The evolving carer
by SPCK - Dorothy M Stewart
ONE DAY AT A TIME Meditations for Carers 31. The evolving carer Isaiah 58.11 Some professionals refer to the experience of caring as a journey – and it is; it is a journey with your loved one as their illness or disability progresses, and they need more or less care. But it is …
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 30. That's not way to speak to yourself!
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 30. That's not way to speak to yourself!
by SPCK - Dorothy M Stewart
ONE DAY AT A TIME Meditations for Carers 30 That’s no way to speak to yourself! Romans 8.1 Guilt. It lurks, waiting for the inevitable: you get exhausted and say something less than kind, do something unfriendly. You find yourself blaming your loved one for your feeling of bein…
One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers - 29. Telling it how it is