Caretakers & Caregivers

At first look at these two words, or dictionary definitions would be that they have basically the same meaning. After all, if you "take care" of a garden or an estate, you are a "caretaker." If you "take care" of a patient or parent, you are a caregiver.

However if you take the "care" away from the words, you have takers and givers. So what do we call someone who receives the care someone else gives? Since we don't have a word "carereceiver," as evidenced by the fact my spellchecker just unlined that word in red, are not those receiving the care, caretakers?

There is much give and take in this world. I, like many others who call themselves by the name of Christ, strive to be one of the givers, not a taker. Servants struggle with old age and disease because they have always given, but in their reduced abilities, they have become receivers. I often point out to them that God needs to train givers and servants, and in order to do so he has appointed former servants to become the served. I notice that while it soothes, it really doesn't change the attitude of the one who is now being served.

In the past two months, God has taken this pastor and his "servant's heart," and reduced him to a taker. This so goes against the grain of my heart that I will often tell my caregivers that I can do it myself. I'm not a good receiver. But God has provided for me some wonderful caregivers, the most faithful of which has been my blessed wife. She doesn't get the kind of appreciation from me which she deserves. So for her and all the other caregivers who truly have the more difficult position of the two. let's pray for them, and thank them for their service, because even though the caretakers may not want to be takers, we would be nowhere without our wonderful caregivers.