Welcome And Guest Introduction

Rayna Neises 0:02

Welcome. I'm Rayna Neises, your host of A Season of Caring Podcast, where we share stories of hope for family caregivers, pushing past the busyness and loneliness of caregiving to see God even in this season. Today, I'm excited to introduce you to our guest, Sharon Faye Lennox. Sharon holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from Talbot Seminary and a Master's of Arts in Counseling. She's a caregiver advocate and a ministry leader whose work grows out of the personal experience walking alongside suffering loved ones. Her heart is to equip Christians to care with courage, tenderness, and hope. Her new book, Before It's Too Late, is her invitation to practice presence, speak blessings, and leave nothing important unsaid. Welcome, Sharon. Thank you so much for joining us today

Sharon Faye Lennox 0:54

oh, I'm so honored to be your guest, Rayna. Thank you for having me. Looking forward to it

Hurricane Katrina And Sudden Caregiving

Rayna Neises 0:58

All right. Share with us a little bit about your caregiving season, what that looked like and, just how long it lasted, those kind of fun things

Sharon Faye Lennox 1:05

Okay. My caregiving season began, with Hurricane Katrina. I am a native of New Orleans but had moved to California, but my mom was still living in New Orleans, and she was in a senior community on Magazine Street, kinda right downtown Katrina hit. Now

Rayna Neises 1:24

Mm-hmm.

Sharon Faye Lennox 1:25

grew up in this hurricane territory, and we were very used to hurricanes. Usually, we would put a few things in the car for a weekend. We would go typically to Jackson, Mississippi, weather the storm in a motel, and then go home. Of course with Katrina, this was completely different, and she was in a senior community where, they didn't make any plans for them, and I was in California,

Rayna Neises 1:47

Wow

Sharon Faye Lennox 1:48

I had a friend go and pick her up, take her to Mississippi for a few days, and of course in the course of that, we found out that she could never go back home.

Rayna Neises 1:57

Hmm.

Sharon Faye Lennox 1:58

So my mother was about 84 years old when that happened,

Rayna Neises 2:02

Okay

Sharon Faye Lennox 2:02

know that she could never see her things again,

Rayna Neises 2:05

Hmm

Sharon Faye Lennox 2:06

goodbye to her friends. She had enough of her medication for maybe two or three days and just an overnight bag, with a few things in

Rayna Neises 2:14

Wow.

Sharon Faye Lennox 2:15

pretty devastating to

Rayna Neises 2:16

Yeah

Sharon Faye Lennox 2:17

So from, Mississippi because she couldn't go back, I have a brother in Georgia who's not really set up to take care of her, but she went there for about a month while we could make arrangements to bring her to California. I was engaged at the time, my fiancé at that time, it's the man I married, helped me get her to California and get her situated in an Atria care facility. But my mom just was never really able to overcome the trauma of the separation from her life there. So, What we did was I saw her every day for lunch, did the best I could to care for her. She was not sick at that time. She was pretty independent. But she kind of went downhill. You know,

Rayna Neises 3:03

Hmm.

Sharon Faye Lennox 3:03

nine months died.

Rayna Neises 3:06

Wow

Sharon Faye Lennox 3:06

that time she, My mother, by the way, was a nurse in World War II.

Rayna Neises 3:12

Oh my gosh

Sharon Faye Lennox 3:12

a large VA facility, where I was living at the time in Palo Alto. So when she needed hospice care, was about four months after she had moved to California, she was happy to go to the hospice ward in the VA hospital, and she was, like, the only woman on the ward. Uh, not many, many veterans left.

Rayna Neises 3:32

Yeah

Sharon Faye Lennox 3:33

And, she got a lot of attention there, but, she couldn't understand with her Southern accent. My mother is a Mississippi Baptist, you know? And she was used to, the vernacular of caregivers in the South.

Rayna Neises 3:46

Mm-hmm.

Sharon Faye Lennox 3:46

When she got to the Filipino caregivers here in California, she couldn't understand them and they couldn't understand her. So I think that made it harder. So my presence became more important. And truly, during that time, I was not walking closely with the Lord. am certainly not proud of that. My Christianity had become very cultural. Jesus was my savior, but, you know, I was walking closer with Oprah and Deepak Chopra, and I had kind of drifted. And I use the word drifted because I was so un-self-aware into

Rayna Neises 4:22

Mm-hmm.

Sharon Faye Lennox 4:22

this kind of universalist mentality. My fiancé at that time, his first marriage broke up partly because his mother-in-law, meddled too much, and his,

Rayna Neises 4:32

Mm-hmm.

Sharon Faye Lennox 4:33

Wife then was too attached to her. She would call during dinner, and she would get up and go talk to her mother and leave him at the table. He had a lot of triggers about mother-in-laws, and that added to my, my,

Rayna Neises 4:45

It's hard.

Sharon Faye Lennox 4:46

stress

Rayna Neises 4:47

Yeah

Sharon Faye Lennox 4:47

And I was working. I needed to make money. I was torn between work, caring for Ed, trying not to displease him, and taking care of my mom.

Rayna Neises 4:56

Yeah

Sharon Faye Lennox 4:56

struggle for me. And in that time, I didn't know how to talk to her about what she was going through. I didn't even know how to talk to myself about what I was going through. My lack of self-awareness, my lack of engagement with the Lord, all led to my being an extraordinary physical caregiver for her, but not a very good emotional or spiritual one.

Rayna Neises 5:23

Thank you for saying that. I think, I think we expect ourselves to just naturally know how to do this, right? And we don't. And where we are in our life impacts the kind of caregiver that we are. And I look back at my mom's illness, I was only 16 when she was first diagnosed, and so she lived 12 years. So over that period of time, I was in a really different place in my life than I was when my dad was diagnosed and caregiving called on me at that point. I took care of my mom, but I didn't really know how to talk to her. She was non-verbal, so she didn't talk back. I knew what things stressed her out, so I knew how to avoid those things. But like you said, it just takes growth. It takes, awareness on ourselves and where we are emotionally, and that awareness of their emotions. And it is learned. It's not natural. Some people

Regret After Loss And Redemption

Rayna Neises 6:18

feel like having a baby, instantly you know how to be a mom, right? I don't think it's any different than that. There are some instincts that are there, but there's a lot that's not.

Sharon Faye Lennox 6:27

And it was my first rodeo. You know, I'd never been through it before. And I'm not making excuses for myself, but, after it was over, I went into the R-word, you know, the regret. It's the most human thing in the world. And I know your tagline is no regrets.

Rayna Neises 6:43

Yes

Sharon Faye Lennox 6:44

And I'd like that to be mine. But it's the most human thing in the world to have a regret when you can look back and see so clearly where things went wrong. But, what happened after my mother passed surprised me because I didn't-- it came unbidden. I didn't, think of all the things I'd done wrong and was really sorry for them. It didn't happen like that. I was, just a few weeks after she passed, I was on a business trip with my, fiancé at the time, and in the middle of the night, I was awakened with, like, this spiritual download. And I don't know how else to explain it. I didn't hear a verbal voice, but something came to me and through me that had to get down on paper. And I got a notebook and a pencil, and I crept into the bathroom, turned the light on in the middle of the night, and just started writing. And the Lord showed me through this download where I went, what I could have done better.

Rayna Neises 7:41

Mm-hmm.

Sharon Faye Lennox 7:42

First of all- How I could have taken care of her better, but that was only a symptom of the problem. The real problem was if I'd taken care of myself better, care of her would've been the fruit of that, you know, rather than... And it's so easy if we don't process that regret to kind of get below it and find out what led to that and, to forgive ourselves, because I didn't knowingly

Rayna Neises 8:07

Right.

Sharon Faye Lennox 8:08

I didn't knowingly or intentionally not take care of myself, so that I could take care of her better. we have such a great God. He is such a redeemer, and He buries gifts and pain in the most amazing ways and brings beauty out of ashes. And after that night that, I decided that I needed to get this down on paper, and I had a book project after that that came out of it, but not for 25 years.

Rayna Neises 8:36

Mm-hmm.

Sharon Faye Lennox 8:37

I did all that writing. I had the idea of how to process it. a Stephen Minister shortly after that, and so I got to actually help people with my sorrow But I didn't get to, tangibly work on a project that would hopefully, help people down the road. So that was my kind of thing about caregiving. over time, between the stress of my relationship and money problems and a whole lot of other things, Lord just met me in a powerful way. I remember one day sitting out in my garden and just crying out to God, and from that day forward, His presence was more real to me than my earthly life was. It was a strange existence, and it lasted about three years just feeling the presence of God in my very cells and in my body in a way that I never had before. And I've never been the same since, and it started, I think, with my mom, the sadness and regret, processing that regret,

Rayna Neises 9:42

Yeah

Sharon Faye Lennox 9:42

to the Lord for my redemption, and looking for the gifts in it.

Rayna Neises 9:47

Yeah, he's so faithful with where we are. He's not shoving us somewhere that we're not ready for, that we're not capable of being able to meet him there and get what we need from him. In caregiving, you can feel so exhausted and so unable to do that. But I think that's where I really have the message of no regrets because I want it to be ongoing throughout. I don't want it to be a process once it's over, which I'm glad it was for you. I'm glad that you had that time. But especially those that are in long-term caregiving situation, we've got to be willing to process those feelings and be aware of them, and it really is a process of becoming aware that deeper than this frustration, there's something else there. There's something more that he wants to heal and something we need to be aware of so that we can, let go of that frustration and make the best of what we have in that time. So it's his faithfulness. We're just thankful for it, for sure.

Why End Of Life Care Is Holy

Sharon Faye Lennox 10:44

And it's such a holy calling to walk up with someone through their suffering and the end of their life. And if we really realize what holy ground that is, it does make it easier to carry. And I think that was one of the messages that came through to me after the fact, was how holy that time is. Because, it's easy to think of that time as hard, just hard, and you want it to be over, especially when they're no longer the person that you loved and cared for before. They're non-verbal or whatever. You just want their suffering to end and, you know, I just wish that I had more awareness at that time. But, the Lord used it, used my pain to hopefully heal others, even as He's done for you, Rayna

Rayna Neises 11:24

And I also think the thing that we have to keep in mind is that as he's been there for us, he was there for the person we were caring for. And so sometimes looking back we can think, "I didn't do this, I didn't do this, I didn't do this," but we can know that he was faithful to them, too. That what they needed, he was able to give them, whether it be through us or through others, he was able to meet those needs, too. It's not all on our shoulders

Sharon Faye Lennox 11:50

My mother actually went to heaven and back, several times before she made that final journey. That was a real wake-up call for me that, even when I fail, God is there

Rayna Neises 12:01

Yes. I love that he wants us to be a part of it, but our failures can't, can't make it.

Sharon Faye Lennox 12:07

Yeah.

Rayna Neises 12:08

exactly. It is so important to remember.

Sharon Faye Lennox 12:11

Yeah.

Rayna Neises 12:12

So what would be one thing that surprised you most about caregiving?

Sharon Faye Lennox 12:17

How torn I was, and the shame I felt about just wanting it to be over. Her suffering was so hard to watch. She died of cancer, and, it was just so hard to watch, that I just wanted it to be over, and then when it was over, I was just so sad that it was over. I was surprised at how inept I was at handling it. I thought I was so capable, I was so good at work and so good at other things that I did, and I had to really process how I dropped the ball, or how I felt like I dropped the ball. Like you said, there's all kinds of people and God Himself who steps in the gaps. But, yeah, I did feel a lot of shame about not being able to talk to her about what she was going through 'cause it was just-- I was processing my own grief.

Rayna Neises 13:04

Mm-hmm.

Sharon Faye Lennox 13:04

called anticipatory grief. You know, when we're so busy processing our own, we can't really connect with that other person, and that was one thing the Lord showed me after the fact was, if you have the right tools, you can do that, and you can do that well. I didn't have those tools. The internet wasn't even available

Rayna Neises 13:20

Yes.

Sharon Faye Lennox 13:20

I had a hospital chaplain who was pretty useless, to tell you the truth.

Rayna Neises 13:24

Yeah

Sharon Faye Lennox 13:25

he didn't know how to be with her.

Rayna Neises 13:27

And I think sometimes we also expect those deep conversations to be with us as family, and sometimes the other person isn't ready to bare their soul in that way in that relationship either. And so that's, again, where we can trust that there's someone, whether it be just the Lord himself, that they can... I had a lot of those conversations with the Lord, not other people. Sometimes our relationship isn't the one to be able to have those hard conversations either, with our parents. So it's interesting. So what would be one thing that you wish you knew, in the beginning?

Sharon Faye Lennox 14:03

How holy the work is,

Rayna Neises 14:04

Mm-hmm.

Sharon Faye Lennox 14:05

It wasn't just a duty or an obligation or a sadness. It was holy. I recently completed my doctorate at seminary, and my dissertation was on caring for the caregiver. So for a year, I was immersed in that, and the thing that I came away with more than anything is that what holy work it is to be present with someone as they are processing their fears and getting ready to meet their maker. that part was completely wasted on me. And if I had known that, I could have prayed over my mother, I could have prayed with her. I could have held her in a more holy way rather than just in a loving daughter way. I'm so much more able to do that now. So I didn't know that then. I didn't. I just thought it was a matter of physical care making sure she didn't suffer any more than she had to and letting her know that I was there, once a day and that I cared. But I think I missed the whole holiness part.

Rayna Neises 15:09

And that can be challenging. I think that's a good reminder for all of us in caregiving to really ask the Lord what does that look like? What does the holiness part look like for your relationship with that person? And, what do they need, and how do we do that with that person? Because in each person, each relationship, each situation, it might look a little different

Sharon Faye Lennox 15:30

Yeah.

Abide Daily To Avoid Burnout

Rayna Neises 15:32

What's one thing that you feel like you do to live content, love well, and care without regrets?

Sharon Faye Lennox 15:38

What is one thing I do?

Rayna Neises 15:40

Yeah

Sharon Faye Lennox 15:41

stay connected to my source,

Rayna Neises 15:43

Yeah

Sharon Faye Lennox 15:44

Lord. I can say that, my spiritual life, I think if we're honest, most of us would say, ebbs and flows with the feeling of God's presence. The emotional awareness of His presence. And after a season of being so close to Him, He was just in my cells, and I took Him for granted, and I think, I constantly have to go back to basics. I constantly need to engage in actual abiding in Him. And I actually use that word abide, because that kind of sums it up for me. When I'm in a parking lot and I'm cursing, the ins and outs of California traffic, and I just have to stop and say, "Abide, abide," because it's so easy to forget that God is there and that he does care about the details of our life.

Rayna Neises 16:38

Mm-hmm.

Sharon Faye Lennox 16:39

convinced of that, I kinda took the wheel back. You know what I mean?

Rayna Neises 16:43

Mm-hmm.

Sharon Faye Lennox 16:43

subconsciously told myself, loves me. He's got me. Now I just gotta get on with it." And that's a slippery slope, He does want that conversation. He wants that constant connection. even though I may not always get the feeling, I often do when I remember to abide and to stay engaged in conversationally with the Lord. I Now, I pray out loud. I used to pray more quietly,

Rayna Neises 17:12

Mm-hmm.

Sharon Faye Lennox 17:13

but I find that my mind drifts, you know? And if I pray out loud, I stay very focused, and it does not become self-talk. Then I remember that I am talking to the God of the universe, and that is a holy place. So I would say my daily walk with the Lord is, constantly re-engaging, re-engaging, reminding myself to abide and not take Him for granted and not think that, "I've got this. He loves me. I've got this," but to stay humble and engaged And in His holiness. You know, just to remember that He is the God of the universe. He's not there just for my benefit. He's there for relationship

Rayna Neises 17:54

I think that's so important too is you said the ebb and flow. And I do think we almost in our being, we just want things to be the same. We just don't want anything to change ever. And so when we do find ourselves in those places that we are just really, really close to Him and know His presence, we just wanna stay there forever. But I'm not sure that that's, in this world, I'm not sure that that's possible.

Sharon Faye Lennox 18:20

that's

Rayna Neises 18:20

think-

Sharon Faye Lennox 18:20

what He wants for us.

Rayna Neises 18:21

Yeah

Sharon Faye Lennox 18:22

John talked about... st. John of something, talks about the dark night of the soul, how it's necessary that we don't cling to God just for His benefits,

Rayna Neises 18:30

Yes

Sharon Faye Lennox 18:31

But we cling to Him because He deserves to be glorified and loved. And when He withdraws His presence, then our faith has to step in 'cause there's no real felt benefit from it.

Rayna Neises 18:42

And it's not a failure. It's, it's part of the plan. It's part of living in this fallen world is having not being able to walk with him in the garden, but rather having to walk whether we sense him or not. And to build that muscle of trust that whether we sense him or not, he is here.

Sharon Faye Lennox 18:59

So true, Rayna. So true

Rayna Neises 19:01

And caregiving is full of that. Caregiving is full of needing to just,

Sharon Faye Lennox 19:05

you know, sometimes you run out of steam, for the Lord because we poured out so much to other people.

Rayna Neises 19:10

Yeah.

Sharon Faye Lennox 19:10

it's so important that we spend-- that He become our first and our first love, and even the person we're caring for, takes second place to our time with Him, 'cause we cannot give away something we don't have.

Rayna Neises 19:22

Mm-hmm.

Sharon Faye Lennox 19:22

If we don't have Him, we can't share Him, the comfort that those people need for our being connected to Him

A Guided Journal For Caregivers

Rayna Neises 19:32

Sharon, tell us about, I know from your dissertation and all the work that you did, you have created a journal. So share with us a little bit about that and where our listeners can find that

Sharon Faye Lennox 19:42

Thank you. it is more than a journal. The idea first came about as a journal, but then in my doctorate program, the book is an appendix to the dissertation. The dissertation is what is the theological basis for this book, and that's Caring for the Caregiver. But when it came to the book, they go, "Now you're going to have to do more than a journal." So I have seven chapters there on self-care, grieving, how to, be with someone that may not be a believer when you are, how to have hard conversations. There's a lot of resources in my book in addition to 30 so I had to change the name of it. It's, called Before It's Too Late: A Journal and Res- a Guided Journal and Resource for Christian Caregivers and Their Loved Ones. the journal part was the big download that I got, that it's two steps. It's not one step. It's not just taking how to take better care of your dying loved one, how to take care of yourself first so that you can take better care of your loved one. So the 30 journaling pages is two journaling pages a day or for whenever you need it. It does not have to be per day. The left-hand side of the page is called Reflect, and there are questions and some inspirational thoughts and scripture about how am I taking care of myself? How do I feel? what am I going through? Where is God in my life today? right-hand side of the page is how to have those hard conversations, how to stay connected, how to talk to your dying loved one so that they feel seen and heard in their suffering and you stay connected to them. 'Cause honestly, I did not even know what to say to my mother.

Rayna Neises 21:27

Mm-hmm.

Sharon Faye Lennox 21:28

There are 30 pages of reflect and remember. The page of staying connected is called Remember, along with seven chapters of other stuff. Caregiving organizations, other books that you might want to read. There are so many books on caregiving. And then also just what it's like to be a caregiver, how to stay grounded in the Lord and find joy in this sad season.

Speaker 2 21:55

And they can find that at itsnottoolatejournal.com. Is that right?

Sharon Faye Lennox 22:02

You can also find it by my name. I put my middle name in my author because, oddly, there is another author named Sharon Lennox and she wrote a book on grief.

Rayna Neises 22:12

Oh, really?

Sharon Faye Lennox 22:13

And so I thought that's just too close. So I put my middle name in there. But I do have a website called beforeitstoolatejournal.com.

Rayna Neises 22:22

Okay.

Sharon Faye Lennox 22:22

And you can buy it direct from there.

Closing Encouragement And Next Steps

Rayna Neises 22:25

All right. Thank you so much, Sharon, for being here today. We really appreciate you sharing your wisdom and your journey. And as I always say, there's nothing, simple or easy about caregiving, and no one is doing it perfectly. So I appreciate you just being honest and sharing what your journey was like

Sharon Faye Lennox 22:43

Thank you so much, Rayna. God bless you

Rayna Neises 22:45

Thank you so much for joining us today for Stories of Hope with Sharon on A Season of Caring podcast, where we share how to live content, love well, and care without regrets. If you have financial, legal, or medical questions, be sure to consult your local professionals and take heart in your season of caring

*Transcript is an actual recount of the live conversation