Easter Show for Caregivers

Woodrow Crowell here. When you train one pastor in Ecuador, some donor friends are standing by to train a second pastor. Call 833-443-5467 or go online at trainaposter.com.

Every gift counts and now every gift is doubled. trainaposter.com This is Hope for the Caregiver. This is the show for you as a family caregiver for those of you who are up late at night pushing the wheelchair, doing laundry, getting things cleaned up, planning meals, all the things that go on with a family caregiver back and forth to doctor's offices, back and forth to rehab centers, back and forth to pharmacists on the phone with insurance companies and then just sometimes laying there and having a late night conversation with the ceiling fan. This is the show for you as a family caregiver. It's hosted by a caregiver. It's for caregivers. It's about caregivers.

It's all things caregiver and we're glad that you're with us. It's a tough journey being a caregiver, taking care of somebody who has a chronic impairment. That could be you're taking care of an elderly loved one or somebody who has Alzheimer's, dementia. Maybe it's a special needs child. Maybe it's somebody who has had a terrible accident or some type of trauma. As in my case, my wife was hurt 38 years ago and it's cost her 80 surgeries that I can count and both of her legs amputated.

A hundred plus doctors have treated her and it's still ongoing. Maybe you're taking care of somebody who has an impairment such as alcoholism or addiction. Those are chronic impairments. Wherever there's a chronic impairment, there is a caregiver. I've decided on this show that we're going to speak to the heart of a caregiver to help share things in a way that's going to make sense to that caregiver. I speak fluent caregiver.

The better news is that it's our Savior's native tongue and He understands the journey in ways that we can never ever imagine. And He cares for us and for you. And particularly on this weekend, on this Easter weekend, we wanted to focus on that message and offer this in a way that makes sense to you as a caregiver in your journey to strengthen you along the way. I want to start off with this story of a pastor friend of mine and he called me after he was going through the excruciating process of burying his dog. Beloved dog.

How many of you all have done that? You had to lose a pet that you loved dearly. The animals that we have in our lives can become incredibly dear to us. And so we all know the pain of that. And he called me after doing this and while digging the hole, he said he was just weeping and he was angrily reflecting on how much he hated death. And in our conversation, it turned to the countless funerals that he's presided over as a pastor. And I've played for a lot of those for him on the piano. My dad is a pastor and I've played for many of the funerals that he presided over. Sometimes when you're the piano player and your dad's a pastor, you get pressed into cheap labor. But I played for many funerals growing up and then I ended up doing this for my pastor in Nashville for many years who I'm talking about now. And I always looked at it as a ministry opportunity at funerals. I won't play for weddings. I hate playing for weddings.

There's too much drama. But at funerals, that's a time for ministry and reflection and so I welcome the opportunity to play for folks as a way of comforting them. And we talked about all those funerals that we've done together. And we both shared our anger at death.

And then he said something that never left me, still with me today. He said, do you know who hates death more? And I just waited quietly and he said, God hates death. He hates death.

Then he added, he hates it so much that he took it upon himself to provide a way to defeat death. For many of us as caregivers, we spend a lot of time in what I call the long valley of the shadow of death. And it's a painful place.

It's a hard place. Can you imagine that Saturday between what we call Good Friday and Easter Sunday? Can you imagine what was going through the disciples' minds? And all the folks who had followed Jesus through that. The gut punch that it was to them. They had no idea what was about to come.

They just knew that everything they had staked their lives on had been just absolutely ripped apart. Let's go back a couple weeks before the crucifixion. And Jesus was standing at Lazarus' grave.

You remember the story? In John 11 38, it shares that Jesus was deeply moved. He was deeply moved. Some translations, they state that anger welled up at Jesus. Anger at death.

Go look it up. And I remember what my pastor said, you know, God hates death. And you could see that in Jesus. He knew he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. He knew he was the resurrection. He had already told Mary that.

So why was he feeling this way? Because I think he, I don't know, I don't like to speculate scripture, but evidently there's enough evidence there to say that Jesus saw this and it just, it just, it angered him. He hates death more than we do.

And then just weeks later after being at Lazarus' tomb, Jesus indeed conquered death, but at great cost to himself. You ever read the Chronicles of Narnia? And the line, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S.

Lewis. And many of you have read this. Edmund, his life, one of the children, his life was forfeit because he had betrayed them with the white witch. And Lucy looked at Aslan, who was really the Christ figure in this, the great lion. She said, please Aslan, can anything be done to save Edmund? And Aslan said, all should be done, but it may be harder than you think.

It was done. All shall be done, but it may be harder than you think. Sometimes as caregivers, it's easy for us to get pulled into the drama of what we're doing. But if we could step back and see the greater story of what's going on in scripture as we see God make a way, God who hates death made a way to take it all on himself. And when we grasp that concept, we can look at our loved ones who are struggling. We can look at ourselves.

We can look at the world around us that is often in disarray and feels like it's spinning out of control. And we can be anchored in knowing that he has made a way. It's more painful, and it's harder than we thought.

But there is a way. All shall be done, but it may be harder than you think. And that's why you see all these scriptures talking about fortitude and endurance and strength. And don't be afraid. You know, I've often said on this show the most repeated commandment in scripture is to fear not. Don't be afraid. God knows we're afraid.

That's why he says it so many times. Don't be afraid. He knows we're afraid. So how do we function in this thing when we're looking at such heartbreaking loss?

We go back to the fundamentals. There's a lot of things we don't know, and a lot of people try to speculate. Well, why would God do this? I don't know a lot of these things. But here's what I do know. That he stretched out his arms, gave his life for us on the cross.

He hates death far more than we do, and he made a way to conquer it. That's the gospel. This is Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberg. This is the show for you as a family caregiver. Do you know this gospel?

Does it just permeate in you? We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio.

We're glad to have you with us. I am Peter Rosenberg, and this is the show for you as a family caregiver. That is my wife Gracie and Johnny Eric-Santana singing Through It All. Isn't that a great statement of faith by these two women? Gracie, of course, you know her story with her 80-plus surgeries and both of her legs gone.

Johnny, of course, you know her story, 50-plus years in a wheelchair with quadriplegia. And together these two women are planting their flag in that statement. Through it all, I've come to learn about the faithfulness of God. I've come to understand His provision in the midst of these things. And they're speaking words of life to themselves.

And then the rest of us get to listen to it, which is extraordinary. You know, it seems an increasing trend in our society to want to remove anything or anyone that makes us feel uncomfortable. I'm not just talking about the cancel culture. This inclination extends into the fabric of existence, whether the unborn or those facing end of life through age, disability, or disease. The pressure remains enormous to consider death as a preferred, even quote-unquote dignified, alternative to enduring the challenges. God's Word, however, strengthens and equips us to endure the unimaginable. As believers, we rejoice with and must care for those choosing life while we mourn those who don't. May we mourn in such a way that those individuals see Christ's compassion reflected in our tears. In their distress, we can gently speak words of life like Gracie and Johnny are doing in this song.

Through it all, I've learned to depend upon His Word. Yet addressing those sorrows of others flows from the life we regularly hear and speak to ourselves in our own heartaches. Are you speaking life to yourself? You've heard me often on this show play that great hymn by Philip Bliss. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Are you speaking those words of life to yourself today?

This is a great week to remind us of that, that there is a place where we can go to and anchor ourselves in the Word of God. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Do you know that hymn?

I'll step over to the caregiver keyboard. Sing them over again to me. Wonderful words of life.

Let me more of their beauty sing. Wonderful words of life. Words of life and beauty.

Teach me faith and duty. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. This is why we do the show. Because if we don't say these words to ourselves.

I did that note. If we don't say these words to ourselves, if we're not listening to them on a regular basis, then what are we doing? What are we listening to?

What are we hearing? And what do we have to offer? You see, you and I both as caregivers have people that are counting on us. Now they may not be able to articulate that very well. Maybe they're bitter or resentful or whatever, but they're still counting on you.

Maybe they're impaired. They don't know what's going on, but they're still counting on you. What are you offering? Where are you drawing your strength from? Where are you drawing your encouragement from? Where are you drawing your ability to love from? Where's the spigot that we draw from? You remember when Jesus told the woman at the well in John 4, drink from me and you're never going to go thirsty again. We're all thirsty for life. We're all thirsty for love. We're all thirsty to be cared for.

We're all thirsty for that source of life. And Jesus steps into that and says, here I am. This is where the fount is. This is where the source is. You know that old hymn, come thou fount of every blessing.

He's the fount for this. And the reason I play these hymns a lot, those of you who are regular listeners of the show know this, is because it's very hard to memorize all the things that we're talking about on this show. There's so many things that fly by, but if you can just hear one melody, one song, one phrase, stanza or chorus, that you can just kind of hum throughout the day. And I'm hoping that one of these hymns that we play, one of these songs we play, will stick with you in moments of distress and grief and sorrow and frustration and anger and that you'll be able to recall these things in a way that's meaningful to you. And maybe you'll just hum that phrase.

Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. And remind yourself that you've got to hear this repeatedly over and over and over. You've got to go back to the source.

You've got to go back to the fount. Mighty hard to do this on your own strength. Mighty hard to do this. And I would say that if you do this long enough, you'll find that it's impossible to do this on your own strength.

You may get by with it for a while. We can stand on our heads sometimes for three months, but when this thing starts stretching into years, in my case now, three and a half decades, you've got to have something greater than yourself to pull on. And what's greater than the grace of God?

You know that old hymn, grace, grace, God's grace, grace that is greater than all my sin. And so that's why I talk about this a lot on the show. I don't really get into the nuances of caregiving, because I can't tell you how to take care of your loved one any more than you can tell me how to take care of mine. You know, we can all kick around a few things about doctors and insurance companies and tips we've learned along the way. I mean, that's fine. But that's not really the core issue, because once you figure out how to deal with an insurance company, you don't have to have somebody remind you of this on a regular basis.

You got it. How many of you all have given an injection? You know, the first time you did it, you were probably pretty nervous. I was.

I don't know who Gracie was, because I was giving it to her. And yeah, that was a little bit dicey. They didn't teach me how to handle syringes in music school. And I got pretty steady hands, but still that's good for the piano, but not necessarily with a syringe and a sharp needle. And I felt kind of weird doing it. But after a while you've done enough of these things, you're just like, you know, no big deal. I don't have to be trained on it.

I don't have to hold my breath and wonder if I'm going to get it right every single time. That's not where the battle is for us as caregivers, in the task of caregiving. That's not where the battle is. Yeah, we got to learn some stuff.

I've changed some complicated dressings with her that I had to gown up with and glove up with and mask up with long before coronavirus. And that was a little bit tense. But that's not really where the battle is. The battle for us is in the heart. The battle is where we live in those dark moments, those isolation moments. When there's fear, when there's sorrow and angst and grief and rage and resentment and all those kinds of things. That's where we have to be reassured, reminded and revisit these issues in the light of scripture. What does God say about these things? You know, you can look throughout all of scripture and you won't find anything about giving an injection. I've looked.

There's nothing there. But you're going to find a whole lot of stuff about fear, about rage, about resentment, about bitterness, about sorrow, grief and loss. That's the human condition. That's where we live. So this is where we take this show. To speak to those things in a way that caregivers can understand. So that we can better navigate these difficult, difficult waters. But we can do this. Scripture says we can. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Not I can do all things through spite. I can do all things through Christ. Sometimes we get our backs up and we try to do it all through spite.

Well, I'll show them. No, that's not what this is about. What we're doing here as caregivers is putting ourselves between a vulnerable loved one and even worse, disaster. But it doesn't mean our life, our joy, our peace is to be sacrificed in this. It doesn't have to be. Did you know that you can be joyful? Did you know that you can be peaceful in this?

And did you know that when you're not those things, you can get back on the highway and reclaim that? There's a path for that. We're going to fail at it.

Pretty regularly. But the goal is not to be perfect in it. The goal is to make progress in it. Perfection will come through Christ. He will perfect all these things. And it's His perfection we're counting on, not ours.

Seeing them over and over again. Wonderful words of life. Christ the Blessed One gives to all wonderful words of life. Sinner, list to the loving call, wonderful words of life, all so freely given, wooing us to heaven. These are songs, these are messages, these are thoughts, these are words that as caregivers are going to carry us through these very, very painful places. Hang on to those things as you get through the day as a caregiver, as you get through the next hour as a caregiver. Listen, we're up against the clock.

I've got to take a quick break. When we come back, I've got a special song that I'm going to play from Gracie and Johnny Erickson. It's the perfect song for Easter and I think you're going to find it very meaningful. It's one of my favorites and I bet it's one of yours as well. I love the arrangement these two women did of this and I think you're going to find it to help drive home all of these points that we've been talking about. This is Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger.

We'll be right back. Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you? I have. 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 and I am standing with hope. Welcome back to the show for caregivers about caregivers hosted by a caregiver.

I am Peter Rosenberger. This is hope for the caregiver here on American Family Radio. We're glad to have you with us. We want to give a big shout out to all of our affiliates as well that carry this show.

The Truth Network, His Radio Network and several other affiliates all across the country. And we are so grateful that you see value in the show that you carry it. And to you who are listening to this show, if you see value in this show, if you see something that is stirring your heart, would you take a moment to go to hopeforthecaregiver.com? Hopeforthecaregiver.com and be a part of supporting what we're doing. You can just click on the donate button right there on the front page. We'll send you a copy of Gracie's CD as a thank you for that. You hear her music all the time and bumpers and so forth and we'd love to be able to send that to you and for you to enjoy that all the time because she is such an amazing singer.

And we are thrilled to be able to do this show. One of my greatest passions is to be able to reach out to my fellow caregivers and offer the same hope that I depend upon as a caregiver. And I didn't have this kind of information. There wasn't a radio show when I was struggling along with this thing for decades.

Most people didn't know what to say to me. And I struggled along and every now and then I'd find a nugget here, a nugget there, but I kept all these things and I've aggregated it so that it makes sense to you now as my fellow caregiver of what this looks like to trust God in this. How do we navigate to a place of safety? Where do we go from here?

What do we do this afternoon? What do we do right now to get through these things? And if you see value in all that we're doing, I'm asking you to go out to HopeForTheCaregiver.com and be a part of supporting it.

Whatever's on your heart, we'll send you a copy of Gracie's CD. HopeForTheCaregiver.com Alright, let me go to the Gospel of Mark. Mark 16. Now this is a very familiar passage, but there's something in this that I want to specifically drill down on for you and me, for us as caregivers, that I think will be very, very meaningful to us.

Let me read it first. When the Sabbath was past, this is verse 1, Mark 16. I'm reading in the English Standard Version. When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought spices so that they might go and anoint Him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. And they were saying to one another, Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb? And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back.

It was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe. And they were alarmed. And He said to them, Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who is crucified. He is risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His disciples and Peter that He is going before you to Galilee, that you will see Him just as He told you. And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. Now we've all heard this Easter story. But why am I reading this specifically on a show for caregivers, even though it is Easter weekend? There is a great deal of thought out there that the author of the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel according to Mark, was actually Peter, dictating it to Mark. I don't know.

You have to talk to scholars about that. It doesn't surprise me, though. The Gospel of Mark has a lot of action in it. A lot of people refer to it as the action gospel. And then Jesus did this, and then Jesus did this, and then He did this, and then He did this. And there is that repetitive action. It sounds a lot like Peter's characteristics that we have come to know from history and from scripture.

Regardless of which, there is a line in that phrase I just read when the angel is saying to the women, Now look, you go back and tell His disciples, and tell Peter, and Peter. Now why is that important to us as a caregiver? Hear my thoughts on this. We caregivers berate ourselves without mercy on any given day. We are so hard on ourselves. We see our failures. They are right up in our business. They are right up in our faces. And we look at these things and we are just like, ugh.

And I get that. Imagine the apostle Peter, right after Jesus had looked at him, after the rooster had crowed and Peter had denied him three times. And Peter went out and wept bitterly. He just wept bitterly. Can you imagine what he was feeling following the crucifixion?

Try to put yourself in his place. Imagine how he was tormenting himself. And here we are on Easter morning with this proclamation from this angel saying to these women, Now go tell his disciples, he's going to meet you there, but go tell his disciples, and Peter. He singled Peter out. The angel of the Lord singled Peter out to communicate to him specifically. I would suggest to you that that is the heart of God. That he sees us in our failures. He sees us in our bitter weeping. He sees us in our heartache. And knows us by name in it. And would meet us in that heartache.

To assure us that we have not been cast off, that we are not somehow just thrown to the side. He knows our failures. He knows my failures. And when you've had that kind of encounter with Christ, where in your failures you experience the great grace and mercy of God. It is like nothing else.

You can't describe it. Other than, you know, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. Or that other hymn, how shall my tongue describe it? Where shall its praise begin? You know, wonderful grace of Jesus, greater than all my sin.

These hymns mean something different in that context. Because you've experienced the healing and restoring hand of God himself in your life. Now as a caregiver, I know that you have a complete inventory of your failures. I know you do.

And you berate yourself and beat yourself up relentlessly about them. I know that. But do you also have an inventory list of his great mercies toward you? Do you also carry with you an account of God's faithfulness to you? Are you aware of his great love for you? Are you just as aware of his mercy as you are aware of your failure? If not, why not?

Why not start today? And that's what this particular passage in scripture means. That's what this whole weekend of celebration of the resurrection of Christ means. And then here this angel of the Lord is sitting there and these women come in and they're stunned. It's an empty tomb.

What's going on here? He's risen. Now you go back and tell these guys and tell Peter. He singled Peter out because he knew, he knew, that angel knew the bitter tears that Peter had wept. God sent that angel to communicate that. And Jesus encountered Peter later when he asked him about, Peter, do you love me?

Do you love me? And he restored Peter in that journey. And then of course it was Peter after Pentecost that stood up in such power and such clarity and purpose and everything else and led thousands to the Lord at Pentecost. But he couldn't do those things until he was restored. Until he was able to reconcile with the mercy of God that covered his denial of him.

That covered his failure. And I would say to you and myself as caregivers that it's very difficult for us to extend grace to others if we ourselves have not embraced that grace and been captured by it and been restored by it and have that as our clinging lifeline in the midst of the craziness that we deal with. We will fail. We will make mistakes. And I have forgotten more mistakes than most are going to ever make as a caregiver. I've had three and a half decades of this.

I've made every kind of mistake you can make. But I've also been able to witness firsthand the mercy of God. The grasping grace of God that envelops us and lets us know that he knows us by name. And he does. He knows you by name.

He knows me by name. And so I'm asking you for a leap of faith today to trust that that mercy is available to you right now. Right this moment. Just receive it. Just ask. Lord, okay, if Peter is saying this and it's true, Father, let it fall on me. It's his word, not mine.

And I'm asking you to be willing to consider that for that leap of faith as you struggle with very, very difficult realities. And I know they're painful. And I know that you're weeping bitter tears. But as much as I know it, it's more important that he knows it. And he does.

And he knows you by name. We're going to go to a break and come back and play the song that I promised you I would for the last segment here of Gracie. And I want you to just hopefully just stew on these words throughout this weekend and what this really means for the resurrection of Christ. What this means to you specifically as a family caregiver, as somebody who has to watch heartache and somebody who takes an inventory of your own mistakes. Would you be willing to take a new inventory of his mercies that are new every single year?

Would you be willing to do that? This is Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberg. We'll be right back.

He's faithful and he's true to complete the work. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. I am Peter Rosenberg bringing you a lifetime of experience to offer a lifeline to you as a fellow caregiver. How are you feeling?

How are you holding up? We're glad that you're with us. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver for the 65 million Americans serving as a family caregiver.

For those of you who are putting yourself between a vulnerable loved one and even worse, disaster. This show is specifically designed to help strengthen and encourage you today and we're glad you're with us. If you want to send us some information about you or questions that you might have or tell your story or anything that's on your heart, just go out to Hope for the Caregiver dot com. I read every one of those notes and I answer them. They're precious to me. They're treasured notes and I'd love to hear from you if you have something that's on your mind and your heart that you'd like to share. We keep those things confidential.

It's just you and me. See, that's the whole point of all of this is to have a safe place where caregivers can go and share their heart. And this show and our website and everything that we do is designed to help strengthen and protect that caregiver's heart. Healthy caregivers make better caregivers.

And today's a great day to start being healthy. As I promised, I wanted to play this song for you. This is Gracie and Johnny Eric Santana singing Because He Lives. And I remember going to both of them and saying, look, I'd like to do this arrangement of it.

And I worked it out on the keyboard. I made them both work at it a lot because it's a little slower than what you're probably used to hearing. But I felt like these words would be more weighty coming from these two women than just if other folks maybe just got in the studio and sang it.

There's something about their journey that brings more gravitas, if you will, to the lyrics of this amazing song. Now, for those who don't know Gracie or Johnny's story, they were both hurt when they were 17 years old. Johnny dove off a dock in the Chesapeake Bay, 17 year old girl, and broke her neck. She's been paralyzed since 1967 with quadriplegia. And her story has touched millions upon millions around the world. She's also survived two difficult bouts of breast cancer.

And she has journeyed in places of disability and sorrow and loss and struggle that few people can really appreciate being in that wheelchair now for over 50 years. Gracie, when she was 17, she was driving to meet a friend of hers, left Nashville, and was heading towards Little Rock, Arkansas, and never made it even as far as Memphis on I-40. She fell asleep at the wheel in the middle of the day, slammed into a concrete above it.

Car flipped multiple times and landed into a ravine and caught on fire. Gracie's body was completely broken. Later, a gentleman who was the resident surgeon when they brought her into the ER told her prosthetist, the guy that makes her prosthetic legs, told him that they stopped counting at 200 breaks.

It was a devastating car accident. And her body is just an orthopedic train wreck. She held onto her legs for a long time. They tried to, you know, surgically repair them and so forth, but eventually she had to give them up. And she became a double amputee in the 90s. To date that I can count, Gracie has endured now more than 80 surgeries and at least 150 smaller procedures and treated by over 100 doctors in 12 different hospitals. She lives with relentless pain.

When they combined their voices to sing this song, they brought all of their pain, all of their sorrow, all of their understanding of God's provision in that pain and sorrow to this song. And breathing is tough for both of them. Johnny, of course, is in the chair and she has to have kind of a corset to help her breathe. And Gracie can't stand up straight anymore. Her body is bent over.

There are a lot of architectural reasons why Gracie can't stand up straight anymore. It was very difficult for both of them. And I pushed them a little bit to make them work on this song.

But they delivered in spades. And as you listen to them sing this, this Easter weekend, I want to caution you at first. You might want to pull over if you're driving. Or just sit in a quiet place and let the faith and the experiences and the voices and the hearts of these two women inspire your heart today to give you a little bit more encouragement and hope that the same God that sustains them in their challenges is just as eager to sustain and equip and meet you in yours. Because he lives, Johnny and Gracie, and you and me, we can all face tomorrow. This is Johnny and Gracie.

And I did a little bit on the piano as well. Happy Resurrection Day. God sent his son. They called him Jesus. He came to love. He came to heal and forgive. He lived and he died.

And an empty grave is there to prove. My savior. I can face. Me. All fear is gone. And my life is. Just because.

Just because. And then one day, one day I'll cross the river. I'll fight life's final. Final war with me. I'll see.

I'll know. He. I can face. Because he lives. He. Because. He.

We can face. Because. He. Because. Our lives are worth the living.

Just because. He. Is. This is John Butler and I produce hope for the caregiver with Peter Rosenberger some of you know the remarkable story of Peter's wife Gracie and recently Peter talked to Gracie about all the wonderful things that have emerged from her difficult journey. Take a listen. Gracie when you envision doing a prosthetic limb outreach did you ever think that inmates would help you do that not in a million years when you go to the facility run by core civic and you see the faces of these inmates that are working on prosthetic limbs that you have helped collect from all over the country that you put out the plea for. And they're disassembling you see all these legs like what you have your own prosthetic and arms and arms when you see all this what does that do to you. Makes me cry. Because I see the smiles on their faces and I know. I know what it is to be locked someplace where you can't get out without somebody else allowing you to get out.

Of course being in the hospital so much and so long. And so these men are so glad that they get to be doing as as one band said something good finally with my hands. Did you know before you became an amputee that parts of prosthetic limbs could be recycled.

No I had no idea you know I thought a peg leg I thought of wooden legs I never thought of titanium and carbon legs and flex feet and see legs and all that I never thought about that. As you watch these inmates participate in something like this. Knowing that they're helping other people now walk they're providing the means for the supplies to get over there.

What does that do to you just on a heart level. I wish I could explain to the world what I see in there and I wish that I could be able to go and say this guy right here he needs to go to Africa with us. I never not feel that way out every time you know you always make me have to leave. I don't want to leave them. I feel like I'm at home with them and I feel like that we have a common bond that I would have never expected that only God could put together. Now that you've had an experience with it what do you think of the faith based programs that CoreCivic offers. I think they're just absolutely awesome and I think every prison out there should have faith based programs like this because. The return rate of the men that are involved in this particular faith based program and the other ones like it but I know about this one are just an amazingly low rate compared to those who don't have them.

And I think that that says so much that doesn't have anything to do with me. It just has something to do with God using somebody broken to help other broken people. If people want to donate a used prosthetic limbs whether from a loved one who passed away or you know somebody who outgrew them you've donated some of your own for them to do. How do they do that? Please go to standingwithhope.com slash recycle standingwithhope.com slash recycle. Thanks Gracie.