Walking by Faith, Not by Sight
Janet Perez Eckles
Reblogged 10/13/17
Continuing on in our special October filled with guest bloggers, I invite you to enjoy a writing from Dr. Linda Cobourn. It will stir your heart, bring fresh inspiration to your day.
Forgiveness is a sticky subject. Letting go is a difficult thing. And forgiving oneself seems nearly impossible. But Linda gives a fresh perspective of the pain of self-condemnation compared to the freedom that forgiveness brings.
“I’m rubber, you’re glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.”
My father-in-law blamed me. It was unreasonable, hurled out of frustration while we stood in the trauma unit, waiting to see if my husband would survive. I was thirty miles away in a graduate class when the driver of the pick-up truck broadsided Ron’s Taurus, but the reproach stayed with me for seventeen years.
I’m a walking glue stick.
Guilt is a common emotion for those who find themselves in the position of caregiver. The 2015 State of Caregiving Report noted that 81% of spousal caregivers feel guilty, making guilt the #1 emotional trap. We think we should do it all without complaint and we become frustrated with ourselves because we can’t. We self-punish for simply being human. I beat myself up for an accident I did not cause, questioning every decision I made concerning my husband’s care. Yes, I agreed to the emergency surgery and it damaged his heart. My fault. Yes, I let him be put into the rehab unit where his slippers were misplaced and he caught pneumonia. My fault. I even had occasional thoughts that it might have been better if Ron had not survived the accident.
That thought stuck on with Gorilla Glue.
But God is a solvent to even the strongest of adhesives. I began to search the Scriptures for a way to dislodge my self-reproach. One day, I wa
Source: Caregiver Guilt: Confessions of a Walking Glue Stick ~ Janet Perez Eckles
Old Things R New 