I want to address “death anxiety” and caregivers. In particular, I wish to give you some tips for handling this anxiety when it rises up in your life.

First, let me give a disclaimer, I am not a psychologist or trained therapist so everything I share here is pastoral in intent. I am speaking as one caregiver to another caregiver. This is not medical advice or a mental health prescription.

When I speak of death anxiety I am not necessarily referring to extreme cases where your life may seem crippled by a threatening fear of dying. If that’s you, please seek help from a mental health professional.

Here, I am referring to the kind of death anxiety carried by healthcare caregivers who find themselves thinking about death daily, regularly, and what may seem like too often for normal people. You may find yourself thinking about your own death and the death of those close to you more often than what feels normal.

Anxiety regarding death may show up in your life when you kiss your spouse goodbye and you silently think, Could this be the last time?

Anxiety regarding death may show up in your life when your child is away at college or work or just living their own life and you silently think, What if I get that call?

Anxiety regarding death may show up in your life when you are working with a dying patient that triggers something in you to silently think, What if this was me?

As a caregiver in healthcare, hospitals, or hospice you see death and the dying, and a significant part of your working day is involved in thinking about it. It is not illogical that you would think of your own death or the death of a loved one more often than those who work in retail, restaurants, or an accounting office.

I suspect that personnel in the funeral industry are subject to the same anxiety and I suspect that caregivers at larger trauma hospitals in bigger cities may be more prone to it than those at small community hospitals. One thing that I carried away from my time at a trauma hospital was a longer list of things that can kill people.

However, the key to self-care in light of death anxiety is to not nurture it. The old adage that we become what we think about, is true. You hear yourself consider it, but then you must let it go. You let it go by not thinking about it more than you already are. How, you ask?

The answer is in this verse, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7 NIV). If you are still asking How?, it is prayer. You speak to the Lord in prayer (prayer is talking with God as you would a friend) and say something like this, Lord please take this anxiety from me so I don’t have to worry about something else. Amen.

Sometimes we have to take a cognitive pause and think, I’ve been in a situation like this before and nothing happened. Sometimes we have to step back and remind ourselves that We’ll cross that bridge when it gets here, but right now there is no bridge to cross. Sometimes we have to consider that whenever death comes calling we are confident that the Lord will help, because Psalm 46:1 says, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

1 Peter 5:7, the verse I referenced above, says we can give our anxiety to the Lord “because he cares for you.” Simply put, the Lord is the only One who will willingly remove our troubles from us. Others may be good listeners, a friend may offer good suggestions for dealing with them, but only the Lord Jesus Christ can take that troublesome anxiety from you.

On a final note for processing your death anxiety, settle in your heart what’s in store for you when death does strike. If it’s your death, know that your faith in Jesus Christ will place you in Heaven. If it’s the death of a loved one, know that the Lord will walk with you through that.

The Apostle Paul shared a perspective when he wrote about his own death as a win-win situation. He said, “to be absent from the body” is “to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8) and knowing that kept him from fearing dying.

Each day presents enough challenges to our well-being and none of us need to pile more anxiety onto our worry list. So I say to you, keep caring as do and keep casting your anxiety to the Lord.