DARIN MICHAEL SHAW

In my years of ministry and collaborative research, I have encountered an incredibly heartbreaking phenomenon in our faith communities: the invisible caregiver. These are the mothers, fathers, spouses, and friends who act as the primary support systems for individuals struggling with severe mental health challenges. They are the ones managing medication schedules, navigating doctor appointments, and staying awake until 3:00 AM to talk a loved one through a trauma trigger.

Yet, because the spotlight of crisis is naturally on the person who is visibly suffering, the caregiver quietly recedes into the background. And in many church circles, caregivers are subtly expected to be untouchable statues of perfection—spiritual superheroes who never run on fumes, never complain, and never fall apart.

I know what it feels like to live with that terrifying isolation. I spent more than two decades in pastoral ministry feeling as though I had to remain completely “whole” for everyone else. There was an unspoken pressure to have the answers, to keep it together, to project strength even during seasons when I was carrying my own burdens. Some struggles felt too risky to share. The fear wasn’t simply being misunderstood; it was the possibility that ordinary human battles—marital difficulties, concerns about a child, anxiety, depression, exhaustion, or discouragement—might become subjects of speculation, gossip, or questions about one’s fitness for ministry. So, like many pastors I know, I learned to keep much of my inner world carefully guarded, and that kind of loneliness can take a toll.

It is a devastating way to live. When you are constantly pouring out care, strength, and theological reassurance to everyone around you, your own soul begins to experience a desperate, hollow emptiness.

To every caregiver reading this I ask: Who is caring for you?

When we look at the history of the Church—the true Church with a capital C—we find an entire company of saints who knew exactly what it felt like to be overwhelmed by the burdens of this life. Giants of the faith like Charles Spurgeon, Henri Nouwen, and Mother Teresa were not immune to deep emotional distress or spiritual dryness. They wrestled to find God within a twisted, painful world, and they frequently reached points of total, absolute exhaustion.

If these spiritual giants needed to step away, to weep, and to be cared for, why do we think we can run on empty forever?

Jesus never commanded us to love our neighbors instead of ourselves; the baseline of the gospel is receiving the radical, unconditional love of the Father so completely that it naturally overflows to those around us. When Jesus saw His disciples exhausted from the relentless demands of ministry and the crushing needs of the crowds, He didn’t tell them to pray harder or push through the fatigue. He gently said, “Come away with me to a quiet place and get some rest.”

He offers that exact same gentle invitation to you today.

If you are a caregiver running on fumes, please hear me: taking care of your own mental, emotional, and spiritual health is not a betrayal of the person you are supporting. It is not selfish. In fact, it is an act of profound stewardship and faith.

David Hoskins and I compiled a 365-day, morning and evening devotional precisely because we realized that both the hurting and the caregiver need a predictable, guilt-free daily rhythm of grace. We designed a simple, four-fold rhythm—In Word, In Thought, In Reflection, and In Deed—to help ground your spirit in just a few minutes every morning and evening. It’s a space where you don’t have to be the expert, the savior, or the strong one. You can simply be a child of God resting at the Father’s side. You cannot carry someone else out of a valley if you are collapsing from starvation yourself. Allow yourself the grace to be human. Let go of the religious expectation that you must be unbreakable. Step into the sanctuary of God’s love today and let the Father care for you for a while.

In our book, Sanctuary Devotional: A Mental Health Journey Towards Hope & Healing due out this fall, David Hoskins and I hoped to create a literal sanctuary for both the person who is struggling and the one who is walking beside them. You do not have to pretend to be whole while your internal world is fracturing under the weight of suffering. I hope you’ll order a copy for yourself and as a blessing for others.

I’m composing a series of posts for my author/writing website that will, through the course of the series, tell the story of my wife’s and my relationship–and how it somewhat paralleled that of my parents’ relationship. The notes on my parents’ relationship come from my mom’s handwritten story of her life, marriage and family that I came into possession of after she died (at 86). We lost my dad many years earlier (when he was only 54 and she was 52). I am hopeful this series will especially be a blessing to my children and my siblings (and extended family and friends). I’m calling the series The Ties That Bind and I’m going to call this first entry ...

The Roughneck & The Valedictorian

Let me tell you a story.

Long ago, there was a beautiful young girl of 16, devoted to her studies, on her way to becoming Valedictorian, busy with extracurricular activities—captain of the cheerleading squad, student-government treasurer, class activities planner, chorus, and so on—she also worked part-time in a lakeside diner to help out her family.

There was this hot-rodding, roughneck character who started hanging out down by the lake. Like Jungleland’s Magic Rat, he “drove his sleek machine” (an immaculate, souped-up ‘47 Ford pickup truck, banana yellow with polished chrome,), “over the [town] line,” revving its loud engine and making a scene.

Once he’d laid eyes on the girl, everywhere she went he’d show up, revving his engine when he saw her. If she looked, he flashed a smile. If she didn’t, he’d rev the engine again. He’d strut into the crowded diner like he owned the place and try to scheme his way into her section. He’d position himself to flirtatiously block her path as she served, forcing her to step around him, smiling as they made eye-contact. He was annoying. “A real pain in the ass.”

But charming.

One day the girl came home from school and her mother met her at the door. “A boy named George called. He wants to stop by,” she said. The girl was thrilled. She thought George Hintzman, the captain of the basketball team, was coming over to ask her out on a date.

Then she heard the roughneck’s loud hot-rod pulling in.

The girl’s mother was very strict. ‘This guy has no idea what he is walking into,’ she thought, certain that once her mother saw that this boy was actually a smart-ass young man from Libertyville, and heard that his plan was to drive her daughter, in that hot-rod, far away from Grayslake where they lived and into downtown Chicago to see the Harlem Globetrotters, she just knew his plan would be dead in the water and that he’d be “out on his ear.” She sat in mouth-wide-open-shock when her mother said yes. He’d pick her up Saturday.

Saturday, she slid into that hot-rod next to him … and never left his side.

I got a ’69 Chevy with a three-ninety-six, Fuellie heads and a Hurst on the floor,
She’s waiting tonight down in the parking lot, outside the Seven-Eleven store;
Me and my partner Sonny built her straight out of scratch, 
and he rides with me from town to town,
We only run for the money, got no strings attached,
We shut ‘em up and then we shut ‘em down.
Tonight, tonight the strip's just right, I wanna blow 'em off in my first heat,
Summer's here and the time is right, for racing in the street.

_{[Bruce Springsteen, "Racing in the Street," track 5, Darkness on the Edge of Town, 1978]}

Working on the car with Dad was a right of passage in the Shaw family—each of the five of us Shaw kids had our turn. The stories are legendary in family lore. Cherished memories.

So many invaluable life lessons Dad taught me along the way … like how to turn a can of WD40 and a lit cigarette into a flame thrower! No kidding, as we were working on the car one night, I watched the old man take out a nuisance flying hornet, mid-flight. He pulled the lit cigarette from his lip, lined it up with a can of WD40 … Aim. Fire! POOF! Torched!

Hornet ash rained down. The, without missing a beat, like a gunfighter holstering his smoking side-iron, Dad twirled that cigarette right back onto his lip, took a deep drag, and went on working like nothing happened.

Each of us siblings have stories of working on our first car with Dad. Mine was the cream-colored, classic ’65 Mustang Dad brought home when I was 14, giving us plenty of time to “tinker on it,” as he liked to say.

That whole “she slid into the seat next to him …” thing, you could say the beginnings of Shari’s and my story was written in my DNA.

To be continued …

DARIN MICHAEL SHAW

Caregivers Need Care Too

The Ties That Bind: Stories of Love, Family, & the Legacy We Leave

The Roughneck & The Valedictorian