It’s a bitter 3am. The fan is humming a little ditty. The light outside the window is flickering, and the clock is ticking loud thuds of agitation as it reminds my patience and my heart that I have exactly 240 minutes before I have to be bright eyed and bushy tailed for work. 240 minutes till I get to help other people make sense of the hard and challenging things in their lives, while mine feels too hard for me to function. 240 minutes until I have to get up and face the world. And here I sit, at 3am. Unable to sleep. Not for lack of ability, want or willingness. But, truly not able to sleep. My eyes hurt. My mind is racing and I just want to cry.

I’m a caregiver. I don’t know if you know this. I’ve been a caregiver for decades. Yep, plural. Decades. I’m probably more surprised by that than you are. I’ve been a caregiver longer than I’ve been anything else. Longer than I’ve been in ministry, and over half of what feels like a very long and hard life. I can’t give you any nuggets of wisdom or heartfelt lessons learned in the trenches of mandatory selflessness. Definitely not right now at a bitter 3am. But I can share the cold hard truth we don’t often say. The cold hard exhaustion of baby struggles when there’s vomit at 2am. The cold hard tears of frustration and secondary trauma when they’re teething with a high fever and in miserable pain you cannot heal. The cold hard fear and panic when your 80 yr old demented father escapes the house at midnight and you have no clue how to find him. I cannot give you nuggets of wisdom. Especially now at this bitter 3am. But I can tell you this.

Caregiving.

Is.

Hard.

One of the people I care for is really sick. I graduated High School a year early to take care of them and I guess you can say the rest is history. Nights like these, where my spirit and my flesh are in a bloody boxing match that does not end, that stupid pity party wants to rear it’s ugly head. That voice of temptation, condemnation, accusation begins, Women my age have their own families, their own children to care for, their own problems to deal with. But instead I sit here on stove watch because my person is a danger to themselves and others. I watch the madness of disease dance it’s way through their mind. Thirteen strokes and still alive. It’s a genuine wonder.

210 minutes and counting. 210 minutes until I have to pretend I’m okay when my whole body is crying about the unfairness of it all.

You ever catch yourself saying that? “It’s unfair!” I thought I would have outgrown that silly phrase by now. But I’m almost ashamed to admit that I still think it. And I know what you’re thinking. I have heard it nearly my whole life. It’s easy to look at my situation and think that I have a choice in the matter. It’s easy to be on the outside looking in and thinking that I’m a grown woman who can get out. It’s easy to look at the situation and offer advice about putting them “somewhere.” And I agree. Those things are the easy things. The hard thing is to die. To myself.

There’s a common phrase used in Christian circles. “Already, not yet.” It’s a phrase meant to convey the tension of living in a world where the Kingdom of God is already initiated (The first coming of Jesus) yet, it is not fully consummated (The second coming of Jesus). This is a very general and simple summary of a deeper eschatological idea that has been pondered and explained by greater theological minds. Nevertheless at this bitter hour, its on my mind and it’s a great thought. Depending on what you do with it, of course. Like most thoughts. Yet here, at 4 am (now), and pretty much always, this thought is where so much of my own frustration lives.

I am so thankful for what Jesus did on the cross. So thankful! Yet, I’m also incredibly burdened by the weight of this skin. I live in the tension of this already not yet. A phrase I like to call, “Nowventually.” I am free from sin already and also not fully yet. I live in the nowventual reality of sanctification. I am free from the eternal weight of physical death and I already can taste some glory, though I also cannot fully receive it, yet. I carry the nowventual foretaste of eternal rest.

Here, with 180 minutes till my alarm yells at me to suck it up, I live in the nowventual fray of restoration. My person’s existence didn’t always look this way. They once had a life, a spouse, an apartment and health. They once knew the joys of independence and the freedom of self-sufficiency. But the curse of decay and the work of the thief has taken its toll on their body. They lost their home, their spouse, their independence and health. They’ve been confined to four tiny walls and a TV set that never gets a reprieve. They live with chronic pain, chronic need, and chronic sleepless nights.

The hand they were dealt holds not even a pair and yet they still, somehow have hope. See, my person knows Jesus. Even more so, I believe Jesus knows them. My person lives in the hope of restoration. The already not yet work of the Kingdom has begun in their lives. Their heart and soul has been restored to spiritual freedom by their belief and faith in King Jesus. Yet they live in the nowventual tension of true physical restoration. They’ve tasted and seen that the Lord is good and they hold on to the hope and promise of a future where they will not weep over their broken body. Their broken dreams. And a future with a glorified body that will not remember the burden of their physical pain. And here I sit. Bitter, party of one. With 165 minutes left to get my act together.

If my person, who endures great pain that leads to desperate mistakes in the name of relief, (that yes, are often inconvenient to me) can still hold onto hope, what’s wrong with my pathetic heart that all it can do is cry, “it’s not fair!” 148 minutes to go and still the tears fall. This is not fair. And the sad thing is, that that thought is true. It’s not fair that I have given up decades of my life to care for other people. Call it culture, call it gender, call it antiquated. But let’s call it what it is. Unfair.

Yea, I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask to be put in a situation where I’ve surrendered countless hours of sleep to take my person to the hospital for relief. I didn’t ask to spend my nights in the ER studying for midterms while my person gets poked and prodded. I didn’t ask to give up my youth to learn how to help manage chemo. I didn’t ask to care for people who were abandoned by earthly spouses. I didn’t ask to be forced to put myself last for the good of someone else. I didn’t ask to struggle with coping issues and to run to food to stuff my face in place of facing my stuff. I didn’t ask to live with the remnant brokenness of trauma in two other lives besides my own. No, I did not ask for this. This is unfair. It is indeed. Unfair. This is too hard. This. Is. Too. Hard!!!

But, God.

God, who calls me to hard things, has given this to me even though it is unfair. Because it is hard. Because the beauty of this nowventual momentary affliction is that I have seen the light of redemption in the sanctification of caregiving. God has transformed my evil heart that wants its own way, and has shown me the beauty of stepping into the remains of death, decay, abandonment and hurt and has shown me that these earthly realities have a nowventual expiration date. One day, they will fully be no more. Yes, I didn’t ask for this. It is unfair. But my good God has modeled for me what unfair looks like. And he spoke that message on an old rugged cross, alone. That was unfair in a worldly sense. But he chose to do that hard thing. On purpose. In so doing, he teaches us that we as children of God are called to hard things too.

I’ve been given this hard thing. As a gift. A blessing. A higher calling. As a way to remain dependent on him, because this hard thing for me is not hard for him. And this is how my Father refines me and chips away at my bitter, worldly ugliness that holds earthly treasures, earthly ideas and earthly wants closer than Him. This sanctifies me and transforms me from thinking about me to thinking about Him. This grows me in love, patience, kindness, gentleness, peace, long-suffering, goodness, love, joy, and self-control. The more I die to myself, the freer I become. The more I surrender to the sacrifice he calls me to, the more I taste holiness. Holiness that will nowventually be fully mine. Because of Him. For Him. With Him.

I have no scripture reference for you right now. I have no wisdom or poignant words to speak. Just these ramblings of pain and honesty. These bitter tears of unfairness. These words on a page and 120 minutes to repent of my bitterness and to love my person in spite of themselves, as my good King and Master has loved this wretched heart, in spite of all the evil, mistakes, and unfair choices she has made.

In all of this, I wonder what hard thing he’s calling you to. Parenting, marriage, caregiving, reconciliation. I wonder what you may be rebelling against. Remember that what the world values will pass away (1 John 2:15-17). The things of the world, the things society expects of us will one day prove futile. Holiness and the pursuit of the Lord is the only worth while pursuit. I wonder what would happen if you answered the call.

And just know, I’m not special. There is nothing special or unique about me. I’m just an already healed and yet still broken girl who answered the call of a King who brought and promises nowventual wholeness. And that’s all I got with 64 minutes left on this obnoxiously loud clock. Here I am Lord. Yours.

Let’s go, saints.

Let’s.

Do.

Hard.

Things.

More on that later…