"We"?

A lot of times I'll talk about how "we" are going through this. That may sound kind of strange. After all, Shannon is the one with the disease. I can't feel the pain she's experiencing, but I do feel pain. It just hurts in a different way. The emotional strain is the most challenging and from time to time that spills over into some physical pain. It's not really "sympathy pains" like a husband gets during his wife's labor. It's real pain. Casting this stress on God in prayer as He invites us to in I Peter 5:7 is my outlet for relief. When one is caring for a spouse with an illness, he or she needs to acknowledge the strain and take the necessary actions to deal with it so that they can have the physical strength to be there when their spouse needs them.