What Is Sustaining You As You Look at Hearbreaking Realities?

Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on Family Talk Channel, Sirius XM 131. I am Peter Rosenberger.

I am your host, and I'm glad to have you with us today. Is the joy of the Lord your strength? There's a very specific reason I picked that song when I asked Gracie to consider singing that with Russ Taft.

That's from her new record that's called Resilient. Because that's how we do it. That's how we do it. That's how we anchor ourselves in this.

And as we were listening to Joni Eareckson Tada and Ken Tada in the first hour, talk about this. What an amazing sign it is to people around us and in our culture that we are not miserable as we are going through some of these things. One of the things I admire about Gracie the most is that she belly laughs like a drunk Viking. And she has this infectious laughter and zest for life. She really loves to live life. And even though right now she's still dealing with the tail end of the COVID virus, she's got it, but she's moving through it and she's going to be okay. But she is not willing to be sidelined to do the best of her abilities. And I know a lot of people that are.

A lot of people are willing to just kind of like, I don't want to be a part of this. Why would God do this? But when you see the implications of the resurrection and what that means to us as believers, and as she and Joni saying on the same record, because he lives, we can face tomorrow. Because I know, I know, I know he holds the future. Do you know that? And it's really important for us to be able to articulate this to people around us.

This is something you know, can you say it to someone else? Because where are they going to look to for hope? What's out there? What's going to sustain you through what Joni lives with? What's going to sustain you through what Gracie lives with? Or us as caregivers, watching somebody suffer like this. I've watched Gracie suffer for 34 years. What sustains you in that? Sex, drugs, alcohol, what?

None of those things work. And as you heard from Gary, that he's anchored himself with Gary Chapman here just on the last segment, anchored himself in that knowledge. And that's why we do what we do now, because we have seen these things. And if we allow ourselves to get freaked out by these crises that come our way, and they will come our way, you can't sustain freak out for that long. You know, after a couple of decades, you have to figure out something else, because you can't just stay freaked out all the time. And I look at, I want to read something to you from C.S. Lewis wrote a essay about living in the atomic age. And I put this on my blog at hopeforthecaregiver.com.

You just go to hopeforthecaregiver.com slash blog. And it's one of the first ones out there. And I just replaced atomic age with the COVID-19 age. And people say, how do you live like this? And here's what he said. Excuse me, that's not the virus.

That's just hay fever. And people say, how are we to do this? He said, I am tempted to reply, why as you would have lived in the 16th century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from a Scandinavia country make land and cut your throat any night, or indeed as you are already living in an age of cancer, syphilis, paralysis, air raids, age of railway accidents or motor accidents. In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death long before the COVID-19. And quite a high percentage of us are going to die in unpleasant ways.

We had indeed one great advantage over our ancestors and aesthetics, but we have that still. It's perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of a painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty. This is the first point to be made. And the first action is to pull ourselves together. Louis says, if we are going to be destroyed by this, then let it, when it comes, find us doing sensible and human things, praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts. I don't think we can do that right now with the government saying that, but not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about a virus.

My wife has this virus. It may break our bodies, but it doesn't have to dominate our minds. And this is from CS Lewis back in 1948. This is the message that I want us to hang on to as we deal with these challenging times that we're dealing with.

Okay. I just, just wanted you to hang on and I'm bringing these guests on the show because I want you to hear from lots of different voices from lots of different walks of life who, who have wrestled with these things with tough, tough circumstances and are anchored more and more in their faith. Standing with Hope is the presenting sponsor of the show. And when Gracie and I founded that organization Standing with Hope, we named it specifically for that reason that we are standing, literally standing. She is literally standing on two prosthetic legs with hope, knowing that this is not, not wish, hope, that conviction. And part of that is, is we have this show and then we have the prosthetic limb outreach and you've heard her story and we have inmates that work with us at a prison in Tennessee run by CoreCivic and it's one of their many faith-based programs because they know that faith-based programs also anchor people who are in a prison and point them to a place of safety where they can rebuild their lives. And they help us recycle prosthetic limbs, broken items from broken people. And we were working with broken people to do it and then we're going to go help more broken people.

And we're all pointing to the one who was broken for us. Why don't you be a part of that? Anchor yourself in that, of knowing that, you know what, he who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it.

If he's Lord at all, he's Lord of all. Do you believe that? If not, today is the great day to start doing that, to believe that. Just ask.

Let him hold your scared hand with his scarred hand. Go to HopeForTheCaregiver.com for more. Our blog is free. Our podcast is free. All these things are out there for you. Take advantage of it.

Healthy caregivers make better caregivers. I'm Peter Rosenberger. We'll see you next week. Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you? I'm Gracie Rosenberger. And in 1983, I experienced a horrific car accident leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated. I questioned why God allowed something so brutal to happen to me.

But over time, my questions changed and I discovered courage to trust God. That understanding along with an appreciation for quality prosthetic limbs led me to establish Standing With Hope. For more than a dozen years, we've been working with the government of Ghana and West Africa, equipping and training local workers to build and maintain quality prosthetic limbs for their own people. On a regular basis, we purchase and ship equipment and supplies.

And with the help of inmates in a Tennessee prison, we also recycle parts from donated limbs. All of this is to point others to Christ, the source of my hope and strength. Please visit standingwithhope.com to learn more and participate in lifting others up. That's standingwithhope.com. I'm Gracie Rosenberger, and I am standing with hope.