This blog, Loving Someone With Mental Illness, contains years worth of teaching about caregiving. I’ve stopped posting in the last year because I have had physical health challenges: a failed spinal fusion and the resulting chronic pain. What I experienced reinforced the way to stay OK while caregiving.

What I discovered is that Christian mindfulness … practicing the presence of God in the present moment … is getting me through that chronic pain. It also gets me through the emotional and spiritual pain of loving someone with mental illness.

It is simple and massively effective.

• Take a deep breath and concentrate entirely on this moment. God is here in the now.
• Ask the Holy Spirit to join you, to walk with you. Say “Come, Holy Spirit.”
• Ask God to bless the situation you are in.
• Love the person in front of you. Give them your entire attention. Listen.
• Thank God for the experience and move on to the next moment.
• If your mind runs to the worries of the future or the fears of the past, stop. Take a breath. Start again. This will happen many, many times a day. That’s normal in any Christian mindfulness practice.

Doing this step by step, moment by moment, all day long creates an empowering walk with Jesus through life. Even the terrible parts of it. Only the Lord can give us the strength and endurance to practice this way of living.

If you are reading this, you have a hard life. Mindful Christian Year, my other blog, contains ideas and inspiration for practicing the presence of God. It will help. I plan to resume working on this blog as well. So how have you been?