"But We Want To Get Back to Normal."

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I am Peter Rosenberger, and I'm glad you're with us. Let me tell you about this show a little bit. If you're just now joining the show, what we do here is we speak to the heart, the train wreck, the frustration of the family caregiver. Because if a family caregiver is in a bad place, guess what happens to the person they're caring for? If the family caregiver's heart is a squirrel cage, guess what's going to happen to their wallet? What's going to happen to their body? What's going to happen to their relationships?

What's going to happen to the job? All those kinds of things start in the heart of a caregiver, and the heart of the caregiver is often a very troubled place filled with anxiety, fear, depression, rage, resentment, despair, all of the above. And so what we've done on this show is we have targeted that heart to speak with clarity and just-in-time information and concepts and precepts that will help a caregiver today, right now, in the place they're in. Not something that happens six months from now, but today.

What can you do today to start on a path towards healthiness? And we don't try to promote this whole thing of getting you happy. Because I think happiness is a foolish goal. I think we will be happy. I think that we will have happiness on us, and we will live in it, and we can choose happiness in this. But that can't be our goal, because it's too nebulous, it's too elusive, it's too difficult to approach and to find. But what we can do is pursue healthiness, and along the way, we'll be surprised by joy. 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840, if you want to be a part of the show, if you've got something on your mind that you're struggling with as a caregiver, this is your time. This is for you. I don't have the answers, but I do have a lot of experience, 34 years now, of dealing with a medical nightmare that is ongoing.

It doesn't show any signs of slowing up. My wife had a car accident before I met her. I was doing an interview this week, and they said, how did you become a caregiver?

And I said, well, I was at the altar, and I said I do, and then I did. And that's been my journey. For you as a caregiver, maybe it was a child born with special needs. Maybe it's a parent that's aging. Maybe you've got an alcoholic in your family, and you're wrestling with their out-of-control behavior or an addict dealing with some type of substance abuse. Maybe you've got somebody in your family who has mental illness, and their erratic behavior has caused untold carnage in your life and in your family's life. Maybe you live with someone who has chronic pain. There are so many different scenarios as a caregiver. There's just so many.

But there's only so much that a caregiver can draw upon from themselves before they deplete themselves. How do you navigate through this? What does that look like? What does that feel like? And then when you call the show, the first question I ask is always, how are you feeling? Because that's our starting point.

And I'm amazed on how many caregivers are unable to answer that. I've been there, done that myself. Where we speak in third-person singular or in first-person plural.

Now let me explain. So if I ask you, how are you feeling? You say, well, he had a bad night or she's not doing real well or we're struggling with this or our situation is this or my mother-in-law is this. I want to back up all the way back and say, okay, how are you doing? How are you feeling? And I really don't care what comes after the word I.

Excuse me, that's not Corona. I really don't care what comes after the word I. You can say I'm angry, I'm resentful, I'm just depressed, I'm struggling. Whatever is on your mind doesn't matter because whatever comes after the word I, now we can have a real conversation.

And our feelings don't get to dictate how we apply scripture or anything else in this manner. But it's a starting point for having a real conversation. And usually when a caregiver starts speaking in first-person singular, when they're saying I'm hurting, I'm struggling, I'm depressed, I'm angry, that's when the tears come, that's when the stammering comes because it's hard for us to speak that way. People aren't normally asking you how you are doing as a caregiver and those of you who have any kind of longevity as a caregiver understand that. But I'm asking.

This show is asking. And for this time, this is your time to express that and to let your heart get some air, some much needed oxygen so that we can have a real conversation so that we can better sort through some of the craziness that's going on and help direct to a path to safety. People have done that for me, not with the precision that we do on this show, but I've aggregated a lifetime of that to come at this with clarity, with understanding of what is going on and I speak fluent caregiver.

Here's better news. It's our Savior's native tongue. Okay, I've learned to speak caregiver, but this is his native tongue. All right, I start off with Scripture. Jeremiah 29. You know, a lot of people know Jeremiah 29, 11. For I know the plans I have for you. My wife does a song about that.

It's a wonderful song written by Martha Manizzi and it's on her new record that you can get a copy of at HopeForTheCaregiver.com. We may even play it on the bumper music here. We all know that one, but back it up a little bit in that same chapter in Jeremiah 29, verse 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. And listen to this.

I want you to just listen for a minute. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. This is God speaking through the prophet Jeremiah.

This is in the text. Okay, because there's a lot of people that want to say, thus saith the Lord to you, but they better have chapter and verse because this is what God is saying. Build houses and live in them and plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and become the fathers of sons and daughters and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands that they may bear sons and daughters and multiply there and do not decrease. Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf.

For in its welfare, you will have welfare. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, do not let your prophets who are in your midst or your diviners deceive you and do not listen to the dreams which they dream. For they prophesy falsely to you in my name. I have not sent them, declares the Lord. Now what is Jeremiah saying there?

He's saying to the people of Israel who are in captivity and they are longing to go back to Israel. They want to be delivered of this. They do not like this. This is unpleasant. This is heartbreaking to them. And the Lord sends his prophet Jeremiah and he gives them a word that is contrary to what all these other prophets in their midst are saying. And the Lord says don't listen to them. You're not going home. So go ahead and plant your gardens, build your houses, take your wife, have sons, have daughters, give them away in marriage and find them spouses. You're not going anywhere. You're staying put.

Until I've accomplished what I've accomplished, he goes on to say. Now how in the world does that mean something to a caregiver? That's what we're going to talk about today. 888-589-8840. 888-589-8840. I'd love to hear from you. Whatever's on your heart, how are you feeling? I'm Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. I am Peter Rosenberger. We're so glad to have you with us. That is my wife Gracie with Russ Taff singing from her new CD Resilient.

And you can get a copy of that. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. Hopeforthecaregiver.com if you want to hear more about it. She's a no kidding singer. And that's after 80 surgeries in both of her legs amputated, 37 years of chronic pain, 100 doctors, 12 hospitals, 7 insurance companies, well now over $10 million. And it just keeps growing. And yet she's singing the joy of the Lord. I love hearing her sing. 888-589-8840.

888-589-8840 if you want to be a part of the show. And I left you on a little bit of a cliffhanger with Jeremiah speaking to the people of Israel who were in captivity in Babylon. And they've been driven off. Now you have to understand Israel had this horrific slide. This was actually, it was over a period of really hundreds of years.

And they just kept declining. The nation split into two nations. You had the northern nation Israel of 10 tribes and southern tribe of Judah. And two tribes down in the south. And both kingdoms had just kept going, plummeting down.

And the southern tribe had moments where they would kind of have a little bit of revival in the country, but they overall just kept plummeting down. And finally they were just hauled off. God had a hauled off in two different captivities.

And this is one that was in Babylon from the southern kingdom. And Jeremiah said to them, said, look, and they kept saying, you know, we're going to, we want to go back, we want to go back. Oh Lord, deliver us from this, deliver us from this, deliver us. And finally Jeremiah wrote this down, the Lord under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit of Scripture. And he said, you're not going anywhere. You need to settle down. This is where you're going to be.

I sent you here and I will bring you back in my time. The providence of God, the sovereignty of God, the purpose of God is a hard thing to wrap our minds around. Because He allows and even purposes very painful things. And as caregivers, I can tell you from experience, a lot of experience, I have prayed to have this thing removed from Gracie and me.

For healing, for something, just to deliver us from this, Lord, get us out of this. But here we are, 30, she's 37 years into this. That's a long time.

You know, when Jesus went to the pool there and the man was crippled and he couldn't get into the pool where the legend would say the angel would come and stir the water, whoever got it first got healed. And he said about this guy, he said he'd been there 38 years. And Scripture went on to reiterate, that's a long time. He'd been there a long time.

And Gracie's been hurt for a long time. But here's a point in Scripture where Jeremiah is saying against the conventional wisdom, against what these prophets and these diviners they had in the midst of these things. Oh, the Lord's going to do this, the Lord's going to do this. And the Lord's saying to Jeremiah, don't you listen to these people. I will pull you out when I'm going to pull you out. In the meantime, you need to build your house.

Plant your vineyards. In other words, live in this. And as a caregiver, I think that is a powerful message to us. There are some things that we're not going to get pulled out of. Some things aren't going to get fixed or restored this side of heaven. And if we sit there and just pine away to be delivered, be delivered, be delivered, we're not living. And I've come to understand in my many years of experience that I could not put living on hold while I just kept pining away for God to fix this. That Gracie and I had to live. This wasn't going anywhere.

And we weren't either. That's not a message that a lot of people want to hear. But that's reality and reality is at least an honest friend. And accepting that reality is part of our journey as caregivers of understanding this is the way it is. It is what it is. We don't have to like it.

We're not called upon to be consultants. But rather we are invited by God to trust Him in this. Because two things are happening. Actually more than two things. But let's talk about the two primary things that are going on with you and your loved one. You are called into this situation to minister to that person.

Okay? But in the process this is exposing things in your life that God wants to deal with. And they're not pleasant, pretty things at times. But He's putting pressure in places so that He can reveal His presence, His purpose, His grace, His mercy, His faithfulness, His provision to you in those places. You will understand Him.

You will mirror Him more because you will be more like Him in this. And it's very difficult for us. These are not pleasant things.

But dealing with sin often isn't. It never is pleasant. Dealing with the brokenness of this world is not pleasant. Scripture says that all of creation is groaning. In this world you're going to have, finish it out, trials and tribulations.

It is unpleasant. But it's in that theater, if you will. It's in that place that God, for whatever reason, has chosen to reveal Himself in it. And to provide for you in it as He works things out in your life as you minister to a loved one who is in need. There are things that God wants to deal with you right now.

Otherwise, the moment we accept Christ as our Savior, then why not just catapult us to heaven and be done with it? But there's a purpose here. There's a purpose we have in this broken place.

And we're mirroring our teacher because this is what he did. He left perfection and came to brokenness. He left glory and came here. He left divinity and shelved that where He was Lord of all creation. And He limited Himself so that He was free. For example, like the woman who came up and touched the hem of His garment.

You remember that story? He was free to be amazed by that. Because He limited Himself to humanity and to time and space in order to bring healing, liberty, and freedom and ministry to this world. Now, if we're going to be like Him, guess what? We're going to be like Him.

And those are things that we're going to learn to experience on a level far less than what He did. But that's part of the journey. We're sitting around all the time, just deliver me, Lord, deliver me, Lord. Zephaniah, my mother quotes us a lot, and she listens to the show.

She's listening right now. But Zephaniah talks about the Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty. And we're so busy saying, God, get me out of this. And here's Jeremiah saying to the people of Israel, and they were saying this too.

They wanted out of this. And here's Jeremiah saying, no, you're not going anywhere. Be still. It's going to be okay. Go ahead and build your life, and I'll bring you out when it's time.

But you trust me. But it's time for you to live right now. And as a caregiver, we can live in this. Doesn't mean that we like it. Doesn't mean that we feel like we're home. It doesn't feel like we're all settled about this. But we can live, and we can live. We can have beautiful, joyful moments in the midst of this. How many people are telling you this on the airwaves?

How many sermons have you heard about this? It's not some great secret. It's just unpleasant to talk about because this doesn't fit our narrative of what we think we want for our lives. But this isn't about what we want. This is about what He wants and what He's doing. And He who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it to the day of Christ Jesus. And we trust Him in this.

How do we know we can trust Him? Because He stretched out His arms and gave His life for us on the cross. And once we start down that road of understanding how big the cross is, of what this cross really means, and I don't think we're ever going to fully know. But when we start on the journey, it's almost infantile. But once we start exploring that and going deeper and deeper and deeper, we see the magnificence of what He has done in His plan of redemption.

And that gives us the courage to trust Him. That gave Betsy Ten Moon the courage to trust Him in a concentration camp. And her sister Corrie was just aghast. You know, Betsy was over there thanking Him for the fleas because the guards left them alone. Left all these women alone.

They wouldn't molest them and disrupt them. And they were able to minister to their fellow inmates there at the concentration camp. And Corrie was like, what are you, how could you even be thankful for this? But Betsy was.

Betsy never left the concentration camp. She died there. Corrie did not.

And Corrie left. And all these lessons she learned became part of her story that changed so many lives around the world. She had no idea. She was in her 50s when she went to a concentration camp. But she learned to trust God there.

Her sister helped her do that. And we all want these happy endings. And we're going to have one. Just not on our schedule. On His schedule.

And are you willing to trust Him in it? That's the message that is woven throughout all of scripture. And there are people out there, and this is what Jeremiah is saying in the text. Don't let your prophets who are in the midst of you and your diviners deceive you. God says, I didn't send these people.

Here's what I'm doing. And the story is bigger than you could possibly imagine. By the way, many, many years later, Corrie met a little girl named Gracie. And led her to Jesus. That was my wife. This is Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberger. 888-589-8840. We'll take your calls when we come back. So glad that you're with us. Healthy caregivers make better caregivers. Let's get healthier together. We'll be right back.