DEMENTIA CAREGIVER GRIEF SUPPORT
First Presbyterian Church of Tuscaloosa, Alabama
"Tracing Faith: New Perspectives on Caregiver Grief and the Gospel" 

I often share with caregivers and persons I counsel - know matter what position we have, no matter how strong we feel, no matter how equipped we may be, God never intended us to be Him. Restoration is built into the fabric of how to live an abundant life in Christ. It means one must develop an intention toward clarity, connection, and formation (i.e. maturity and alignment). One of the many things the Lord gives to assist in grounding the soul (our hidden places) is His creat

Grieving the death of someone you love is not something to move past or get over. Each day God gives me an opportunity to speak on the subject, I do my best to express the truest essence of what mourning a loved one feels like. Last week I spoke in a community grief group as one of the members desperately grasped for the words to explain how life has changed for them. One person said, “I hate it when people say things like, you are moving into a new life.” We all agreed, then

Recently I was talking to someone about purpose explaining to them about what it really looks like. We can market to death almost anything these days but the truth is purpose is not merely a destination. It is true that the Lord will often have very specific things He calls us to; it is also true that He may reveal a particular something He has purposed you to build and implement. While those things are all true we miss the real movement of God, and the essence of how God wor

My grandmother Cosey used to tell me this thing “Baby, God writes straight with crooked lines”. It took me decades to truly understand what that meant, and how that applied to my life. In essence what it really means is God’s pathway is not straight, it is filled with twists and turns. (Romans 8:28) Along with good times and clean outcomes, life is also filled with wrong turns, detours, conflicting choices, unexpected crisis, and heart-wrenching disappointments. The challenge

When Alzheimer’s interrupted our lives, I was petrified. I remember being in my home in Charlotte weeping. My mom was scared and trying to ignore very early warning signs, and I was scared trying not to ignore them. At that time in 2010 I knew nothing. Perhaps my healthcare background gave me a slight edge in some things, but when it came to Alzheimer’s I had no idea what to expect. What I only shared with a few close friends and surrogates during the next four years was how

Some things in our spiritual walk are not attached to our behaviors – God’s love is promised regardless of our actions or inaction. At the same time, other things we desire of God must be accessed. The gas in a gas station is waiting, but we can’t access it until we pull the car up and pump it. This is what spiritual practices/disciplines do in our lives – they become the pump to us receiving tangible sources to access crucial parts of the abundant life God promises. Here ar

One of the greatest blessings of my life was my parents. Of my fondest memories were my mom and dad’s love for fashion, jewelry, and travel. After my dad died, and mom and I began re-imagining our lives she began to fill my life with a greater love for jewelry. She began recreating pieces that belonged to my dad, and privately cultivating beautiful collections of her own. After hurricane Katrina wiped away some of her collections, she got busy working on new ones. She began b

There’s a cliché we’ve all heard at some point in our lives: “beneath every cloud is a silver lining.” I used to hear that as a child and even young adult, and it didn’t mean anything to me. I think the first time in my life I connected with that saying was years after the death of my dad. His death was unexpected and I suffered great shock before I could ever begin my grief journey. I spent years unraveling and deconstructing the impact his death had on my twenty-seven year

Watching the attack on the Ukrainian people has been difficult for me. I have spent time in intercession for the Ukrainian people, and all innocently standing in the line of fire emotionally, economically, relationally, mentally, spiritually. The situation brought me to a spiritual truth God has been cultivating in my own life for decades – courage under fire. We get to hide ourselves more, I think. With social media, online dating, and all the wonderful evolutions of technol