How Would You Respond?

As caregivers, we have so many things that hit us all the time, and we can't always nail these things down by ourselves. Who helps you?

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I am Peter Rosenberg. This is the program for you as a family caregiver. How are you doing? How are you holding up? What's going on with you as you care for your loved one? You know, healthy caregivers make better caregivers. How would you rate your health today? Physical, emotional, spiritual, financial?

How are all those things working? If you feel like you're struggling, you're in the right place. Recently, Gracie and I had a lunch with a woman who was really struggling. Her 20, 21-year-old son has now decided he's a woman and wants to live accordingly. And she was wrestling with this issue mildly, as you can imagine. She went on to add that her son had recently gotten mad at her and said, you know, you've got pictures of me as a boy all around the house and I don't want them there. And I watched her struggle to remind herself to call him she, as she referred to him. And it was very difficult for her. She was stammering through it and trying to find solid ground here. And she said, but he wants me to take all the pictures down of him when he was a boy because now he wants to identify as a woman.

She said, what do I do? Well, first off, I am no trained counselor. I'm no mental health expert. I am a caregiver. And I am somebody who has watched suffering for a very long time.

And the only thing I knew were my own experiences and how it relates in the context of the word of God. But I asked her, I said, well, whose house is it? She said, well, it's my house. And I said, well, it seems that you can mourn the loss of your son, however you choose to.

She seemed very surprised by the answer and kind of took a deep breath and said, yeah, you're right, I can. Now, I don't know how that situation has, resolved itself. And I don't know that it will resolve itself.

I think that is a troubling set of circumstances that seem to be gripping a lot of people in our society and certainly is a hot button issue in our culture. Again, I'm no trained mental health expert. I'm not clergy. I'm not any of those things.

But let me throw this out at you and see what you think. You know, most of you that listen to this program regularly know that my wife is a bilateral amputee. Both of her legs below the knee are amputated.

This was an extremely difficult choice for her. Her legs were so damaged that it was killing her to keep them. And it was a very painful decision that she spent a good bit of time with on removing those legs. The wreck that she had back in 1983, in a sense, amputated both of them. Surgically, they were repaired by the sense amputated both of them. Surgically, they were repaired, but never able to function normally.

And sometimes parts of our body are broken and they're so broken that they're hurting the body. Well, imagine if you would, if somebody wanted to amputate a fully functional part of their body, just because they wanted to scratch an emotional itch or identify as something else. And there are people out there who have done that, that have had amputation done to their body. Some of them, I know, have sawed their own fingers off so they could identify as an amputee. I know of these, I've met these people.

What would you say about them? It's a fully functional, healthy part of their body. Just because they have an emotional itch, they want to do it. Gracie had to have her legs removed because they were broken and damaged. The limb was damaged.

It was not functioning. It was creating so much pain for her and so much distress. And after many years of trying to save it, she finally sat down with her surgeon and made the call.

And she's gone on to live a much better life with prosthetic limbs than she had with her real limbs. But it was not done to scratch an emotional itch or a mental state of mind. There are people out there now who are advocating that we put chemicals into children's bodies, puberty blockers, because of an emotional plight.

That the kids may or may not find themselves in. They're advocating that they perform surgery on minors to remove and mutilate healthy functioning parts of their body. All because of an ideology that is sweeping certain parts of our culture. Gracie's amputations were not done because of an emotional need to identify as something different. Her legs were broken beyond repair.

They tried to repair them. It was prohibiting her from being able to function. Her gallbladder burst. They had to remove that. If somebody came to the surgeon said, take out my gallbladder. I can live without it.

Take it out. Well, is there something wrong with it? Well, no, I just don't want to have it. I just like to identify as somebody without a gallbladder.

You see the correlation. You see what's going on in the Hippocratic oath that says, I will do no harm or injustice to them. Meaning my patients. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly, I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause an abortion, but I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art.

I will not use the knife, not even, verily, on sufferers from stone, meaning kidney stones. In other words, the knife is the last thing, the last course of action. And yet we have people rushing now to mutilate minors.

We have people rushing to do things that are just horrific. The Hippocratic oath goes on to say, in whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick and I will abstain from all intentional wrongdoing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free. And it goes on at the end of it. He says, now, if I carry out this oath and break it not, may I gain forever reputation among all men for my life and for my art. But if I break it and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me. Now that's the Hippocratic oath that has stood for eons.

And yet now look at where we are as a society. We're having these conversations. Why? Again, I'm going to ask you, if somebody came to you and said, I want to amputate my left hand so that I could identify as a right-handed person, is there something wrong with your left hand? No, I don't like it. I don't like the way it makes me feel.

Well, then let's go see a surgeon right away. This is, in a sense, what is happening. And so I ask you, what are we to do about this? Do we just go along with this woke culture? Do we just go ahead and say, well, sure, whatever, go ahead. Here's a surgeon down the road down there.

Go down and do that. Or do we recognize that there is a greater issue going on? And we address it accordingly with the word of God. Romans 12, two, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. And I ask you, does this sound like the will of God?

Does this in any way coincide with scripture? This move to mutilate minors and children, not to mention adults, but I mean, adults are adults, but they're doing it to children. And they're putting this pressure on us that we must accept this. And it's tearing families apart. It's tearing churches apart.

What are we to do about this? If you even cursory glance at the news, you'll see that there is this move to normalize mental illness in our society. And there are a lot of family members who are stuck in this. Caregivers of the mentally ill. We're going to talk about that some more when we come back. This is Peter Rosenberg. This is Hope for the caregiver.

We'll be right back. And this facility is run by a group out of Nashville called Core Civic. And we met them over 11 years ago and they stepped in to help us with this recycling program of taking prostheses and you disassemble them. You take the knee, the foot, the pylon, the tube clamps, the adapters, the screws, the liners, the prosthetic socks, all these things we can reuse and inmates help us do it. Before Core Civic came along, I was sitting on the floor at our house or out in the garage when we lived in Nashville and I had tools everywhere, limbs everywhere, and feet, boxes of them and so forth. And I was doing all this myself and I'd make the kids help me.

And it got to be too much for me. And so I was very grateful that Core Civic stepped up and said, look, we are always looking for faith-based programs that are interesting and that give inmates a sense of satisfaction. And we'd love to be a part of this.

And that's what they're doing. And you can see more about that at standingwithhope.com slash recycle. So please help us get the word out that we do recycle prosthetic limbs. We do arms as well, but the majority of amputations are lower limb.

And that's where the focus of Standing With Hope is. That's where Gracie's life is with her lower limb prostheses. And she's used some of her own limbs in this outreach that she's recycled. I mean, she's been an amputee for over 30 years.

So you go through a lot of legs and parts and other types of materials, and you can reuse prosthetic socks and liners if they're in good shape. All of this helps give the gift that keeps on walking. And it goes to this prison in Arizona, where it's such an extraordinary ministry.

Think with that. Inmates volunteering for this. They want to do it.

And they've had amazing times with it. And I've had very moving conversation with the inmates that work in this program. And you can see, again, all of that at standingwithhope.com slash recycle. They're putting together a big shipment right now for us to ship over. We do this pretty regularly throughout the year as inventory rises, and they need it badly in Ghana. So please go out to standingwithhope.com slash recycle and get the word out and help us do more. If you want to offset some of the shipping, you can always go to the giving page and be a part of what we're doing there.

We're purchasing material in Ghana that they have to use that can't be recycled. We're shipping over stuff that can be, and we're doing all of this to lift others up and to point them to a savior. And that's the whole point of all this, and that's why we are Standing with Hope.

Thanks so much. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio. That is Keith Green, and I love that hymn. I love playing that hymn. Every time I sit down on the piano and play that, I just love it. It's one of those 25 hymns I think every Christian ought to know. It's an extraordinary hymn, so if you don't know it, please take the time to go out and search it and learn it. We play it quite often on this program.

Probably need to play it more. The message of that hymn to me helps me keep a 30,000-foot view, even higher, of the bigger picture that there is a Redeemer. And all the things that we look at as caregivers are in the context of that great Redeemer who is working through all of this. It helps give me that assurance so that I can walk through the things that God has invited Gracie and I to walk through and trust Him with greater understanding.

And so that's why I love that hymn. Many years ago, I mean this has got to be, wow, well over 30 years ago, before Gracie gave up her legs, it was the right leg first. Both of her legs were basically mangled in the car wreck, and they surgically rebuilt them to the best they could. But the right one particularly, the right ankle, was so messed up, and she was hobbling around with a cane.

You know, she was 20, maybe 25, 24. It was a very difficult time for her. Her right foot was kind of pointed inward. She had a very noticeable limp and walking gait that was very impaired. And they had fused this ankle several times to no avail.

It was just continuing to decline. Most of the challenges that Gracie has today are as a result of so many surgeries trying to save her legs. This right leg was the main culprit. She went through a lot of heartache to save that right leg and ultimately had to give it up.

But she was still struggling in that manner, on that leg at this time. And there was a pastor at a church we attended there in Nashville. He was new there, and he saw her coming out. Now, you've got to see the picture with Gracie. I mean, Gracie, go back, don't take my word for it, Google her. I mean, she's an exquisitely beautiful woman. And here's this young woman, just so beautiful. And she just dressed impeccably, you know, just an extraordinarily beautiful woman. She's coming out of church and she's got this cane. It was a cane that her father made for her out of cedar from out here in this place in Montana. And she leaned on that cane and she was walking on it. And here she was walking.

Again, she wasn't even 25. And this pastor who had never met her looked at her and said, you know, if you ever get tired of using that, I've had some great experiences and gifting from the Lord on healing. Well, both of us were a bit taken aback.

You know, how did he respond? We were both just kids in our 20s and we'd been struggling with this. And I don't even remember how we got out of the conversation, but it stayed with me.

I can remember where we were. We said, it's one of those flashbulb moments in my mind. And I called him up later on that evening and I, you know, he didn't know us at all. And I said, I would love to talk with you more about this.

Do you know the history of how we got here? And he didn't know really anything about it. And I kind of gave him a big picture and he said, he'd like to come over to the house. And the next night or so, I think it was within 48 hours, he showed up, I heard the doorbell ring in our home, and he stood outside and he said, I can't come in here until I ask for your forgiveness.

He was almost at the point of tears. We welcomed him into the house and he sat down with us and he just apologized profusely for his insensitivity. At some point between my phone call and him showing up at the house, something changed and he was incredibly gracious and extremely sorrowful that he had overstepped and been so glib about it. I don't doubt that he had witnessed amazing healing events in his past. And he continued to pray for us regularly and stayed with Gracie through some very hard realities.

And I love him deeply to this day. It was just one of those kind of extraordinary moments. And we didn't talk a lot about faith healing and things such as that afterwards, even though neither of us, Gracie included, discounted that God could. I think there was just that general awareness that in this particular case God chose not to. And we accepted and trusted him in it. It was an extraordinary moment though to see him standing out on our doorstep like that.

I cannot come into your home until I ask for your forgiveness. And I thought how many of us weighed into people suffering with little or no understanding of how they got there, including things such as mental illness, including things with this gender issue that's affecting so many and is on the airwaves, everything else. How did we get here?

What's the backstory? Do we just, you know, walk in ham-fisted like a, you know, like a bunch of Clydesdale into people's heartache? Or can we step into it boldly but with great compassion? I have some friends of mine who adopted a baby. And this child has been through quite a bit. As she matured and got older, she went through all kinds of stuff.

And they did some work. They didn't know. She came into this world with so many things stacked against her. And they didn't know all the things that had gone on with her biological parents, you know, drugs, addiction, other things. And there was not that understanding of what this would mean to this child as it grew up. Some things get passed on from generation to generation to generation. And as this child was acting out and going through all this stuff, and these two people are the most loving, wonderful people you would ever hope to meet. And their heartache just grew and grew and grew and still persists to this day.

And all too many Christians wanted to parachute in and tell them what they ought to do. Tell them how to do this and this and so forth. You know, think about the reaction you felt when I described that pastor telling Gracie, well, if you ever get tired of using that cane, I've got some real healing gifts.

I mean, think about how aghast you felt to hear that because you've, as an audience member, you've gotten to know Gracie and you've known how difficult her heartache is. And yet how many people are doing this to parents of special needs children, of children with emotional turbulence in their life, children who are choosing to go into all types of things, whether it's addiction, whether it's gender issues, whether it's homosexuality, whether, whatever. And yet we leap to them and say, you know, hey, if you ever get tired of your kid acting this way, you know, I got some, really? I think we're called to have great humility in this area as believers and people who want to share the great redemption work of God. How could we redemption work of God? How could we say there is a redeemer to other people unless we first understand it ourselves and see that redemption in our own life? And that causes us to walk with great confidence, but with great humility and to other people's heartache.

The verse that is just heavy on my heart, and it has been since I've started doing this program, is what Paul said in Corinthians. You comfort one another with the same comfort that you yourself have received from the God of all comfort. Well, what comfort have I received through this now multi-decade journey I've had with Gracie?

If you had to speculate, particularly those of you listen to the program for a long time, what would you say? What kind of comfort do you think I've received from the God of all comfort? Well, I'll tell you, I have received the comfort of knowing that he who began a good work is faithful to complete it, as Paul says in Philippians. I received the comfort of knowing that he has not abandoned us, that our God is sovereign, and he is not caught unawares of all that is going on with Gracie in the suffering that I observe every day. I have the comfort of knowing that he accepts me because of what he did, the provisions he made on the cross, that I can boldly go to him.

And as Paul says, cry, Abba, Father, Daddy. I have the comfort of knowing that he's working all of these things to his glory for good, and I can trust it. I have the comfort of knowing that as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil because he's with me. And all these promises in scriptures and all these things that he says about himself, I've been comforted knowing that I can rely on that, that it is bedrock, that there is that assurance. You remember when I told you I named that surgery of Gracie's in Denver earlier this year?

I called it Operation Assurance, Aggressive Assurance, because all of us cry out for assurance. Is it going to be okay? Is it going to be okay? Is it going to be okay?

And I have that comfort of knowing that, yeah, it's going to be okay. For a season, it's going to be hard. It's going to be painful. It's going to be lonely. It's going to be distressing, wearisome, frustrating, and even vexing at times.

But it is going to be okay, and he's going to be with me through those times. So when we see others who are in peril, whatever the distress, even if it's self-inflicted, most things are. Do we go in heavy-handed? Do we go in with this growling, thus saith the Lord? Or do we go in weeping and sit with them and assure them?

Are we willing to stand at the doorway like that pastor said, I can't come in until I ask your forgiveness? That's my hope for myself, that I will emulate that, because I'm going to mess it up. What do I mean I'm going to mess it up? I have messed it up. You have no idea. But yet that is our hope, that he is that great Redeemer. There is a Redeemer, and that is hope for the caregiver. This is Peter Roseburger. We'll be right back.