Would You Stay?

I recently found the below picture and inscription on my Facebook page.  I copy/pasted it here.  I hope you can see it on your screen like I can on mine.  It is a picture of a wheelchair and says, "If your spouse became permanently disabled would you stay with them?"

My answer to that question for me is that through the grace of God I did do that very thing.  My husband was diagnosed with a neurological disease in 2006 which became progressively worse until his death in early 2011.  In the end we had to use a lift with him, and he was confined to a wheelchair.  He was indeed permanently disabled during the last part of his life.

It would not have occurred to me to do anything else but stay with him and care for him.  He had been my loving and faithful husband for many years.  He was the love of my life.  Also I had promised when I married him to be faithful to him and love him including "in sickness and in health." The challenges were difficult and heartbreaking during those last years of his life, but I would do it again.

Many of you are also caring for spouses or other loved ones either in your home or through a nursing home facility.  If you are a spouse you are fulfilling your promise to God and your spouse that you made on your wedding day.  You are also doing it because of the love in your heart. Many of you are also caring for loved ones who are not your spouses.  You made no wedding vows to this person, but you are giving sacrificially of yourself for this person.  Thank you, dear caregiver, for all that you do.  It is not an easy road that you have chosen to tread, but it is a noble one.  May the Lord bless, strengthen, and encourage you in the days ahead.  For those who are not caregivers have you encouraged a caregiver recently?