"I'll Get Help When It's Beyond My Control"

Live on American Family Radio, this is Peter Rosenberg and this is Hope for the Caregiver. This is the show for you as a family caregiver. Are you one of the more than 65 million Americans right now who are putting yourself between a vulnerable loved one and even worse disaster? Are you the one that is driving them back and forth to doctor's offices, rehab centers? Are you the one that is back and forth to pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies and so forth? Are you the one that is staying up late at night doing lots of laundry and then getting up the next day and going to work and all the things that you do, plan meals, everything else, checking on folks? Are you the one that is having the late night conversation with the ceiling fan and weeping and nobody sees it?

Well, guess what? God sees it and He knows it and He understands it and there are things in His Word that speak to you today as a caregiver and that is the reason that we do this show and I am grateful to have you with us. We are also streaming live on Facebook but I have no idea if it will work. I do this every week. I get up on Saturday mornings and optimistically think that Facebook will spend time making it easier to live stream a video like this instead of censoring our beliefs and opinions and so forth but evidently not.

That is just all consuming with them. So if you go to Hope for the Caregiver on our Facebook page and it works, great. If it doesn't, go out and post something that proclaims God's truth and see if they censor that.

So anyway, that is enough of that nonsense. 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840 if you want to be a part of the show, we would love to have you with us. I am going to start off with, we do a hymn every week. For those of you just now joining the show, for the first time you just happened to flip the dial and we show up. We get that a lot by the way. We are used to that.

Hey, I found you by accident. Yeah, I am familiar with that phrase. But if you are just now tuning in and you have never heard this show at all, what I like to do is I like to introduce a hymn. Some type of hymn that we have grown up singing or maybe you have never heard before and introduce this to you, play it for you. See, if you know it, and if you know it, I like to have folks call in and tell me why they know it, what it is about to them, how much it is meant to them. Sometimes I get folks who have played the piano at church and they recognize that they played this hymn and it means something to them.

But I am going to talk about why it connects to the family caregiver. And I think that we have missed a great opportunity in our modern church. We have put a bunch of songs up on the wall with the projector, but we are not going back into this tremendous resource of the hymnal and seeing what people before us wrote and what sustained them and so many others until about 1982. Ever since then we have just gotten away from this and I don't know what it is going to take to help us get back to some of these things in these prayers. That doesn't mean you can't put the lyrics of a hymn up on the wall, that is fine, but there is something about holding the hymnal and flipping through it and seeing these great, great songs that people before us who have gone through tremendous challenges and wrote great theology with it.

And this is one of those today. So if you know this hymn, feel free to call it. I am going to step over here to the caregiver keyboard. Alright, now I am at the caregiver keyboard.

Alright, here we go, ready? In all fairness, this hymn has been used, this tune has been used for many different hymns. There is one particular one that I am looking for today, but I will accept all of them. It is what is used for, the tune is called Heiferdahl, and it is a Welsh tune written by this fellow named Roland Pritchard. He wrote it when he was 19, I believe. But the text is what I am looking for that goes with this. And there are several, but hopefully you will connect with this one.

Alright. All right, do you know that particular hymn? The tune is called Heiferdahl, and I'm looking for a text, particular text, I'll even give you a hint. His name was Wilbur Chapman that wrote the lyrics, and he was a pastor, a well-educated man, and he wrote an amazing text for this that will mean something to us today as caregivers that we can hang on to.

I was talking to two different guys this week, in this last week, both of them in their 80s, both of them taking care of their wives. And I introduced the concept of asking them, I asked them, I said, look, have you thought about bringing somebody in to help you? And the both of them gave the same response. I got it under control now, I'll bring it in, I'll bring somebody in when I don't have it under control.

Oh, by the way, if you know that song, 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840. But these two guys, both said the same thing. Totally unrelated fellows, they don't even know each other, but I just happened to be talking to them, and they said, you know, when it's out of my control, I'll bring somebody in. Well, I asked a very simple question to each of them. And I said, what shape will you or your loved one be in at that point, when it's beyond your control? And they both gave the same response, which was silence. They didn't have anything to say, they didn't know what to say. You know, and I got to tell you that many caregivers competently and admirably handle enormous challenges.

I'm one of them. The issue, however, is not how competent the caregiver is today, okay? Caregiving takes a huge toll on us physically, emotionally, fiscally, and spiritually. And the time to ask for help is not when we're overwhelmed, but to seek it in stages long before it gets to that point. If my 35 years now of caregiving has taught me anything, and this has been through a medical nightmare, it's that I needed help from day one. Now, I didn't always need full-time care, and that's not always the solution. But phasing in care, seeking counsel, attending support groups are all encouraged from the onset of caregiving, from day one.

In addition, regular conversations with accountants, your own physician, and clergy are also critical to the well-being of the caregiver. You know, if we wait until it's beyond our control, I got to tell you, that's an illusion. It was never within our control. And those of you who are in the throes of this now understand that it is not in your control.

You have no control over this. So if you're waiting till it's beyond your control, quote, unquote, before you start getting help, you are putting yourself and your loved one at risk. Today is the day to start asking for help.

Today is the day. Now, again, it doesn't mean you've got to go get 24-7 care, but it is critical for you as a caregiver to raise your hand and say, you know what? I need help. I need help. This is beyond me. It will only get more challenging.

And from what I've seen, growing older is not an antidote to dealing with stress. So that is our opening monologue today. We've got our hymn. We've got your calls, 888-589-8840, and so much more to talk about.

We'll be right back. Do you see, do you see all the people sinking down? Don't you care, don't you care, are you going to let them drown? How can you be so numb not to care if they come?

You close your eyes and pretend the job's done. Oh, I love that tune. That is Keith Green. It's just an extraordinary body of work that he left us. And if you don't know who he is, please go out and take a moment to investigate his music, his life, and what he left us here on this planet to be able to hang on to. He didn't pull any punches. Do you see? Do you see? And there's one line in that song that says, Jesus rose from the dead, and you, you can't even get out of bed.

I mean, he didn't pull any punches, but that is a great tune. This is Peter Roensberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. This is the show for you as a family caregiver. 888-589-8840. 888-589-8840 if you want to be a part of the show. And we have several callers we're going to get to here on the phone that want to weigh in on our song that we have today. And I do these things for a reason, all these hymns, because they have an enormous value to us right now as caregivers to hang on to in the moments when the bullets are flying and it's just all falling apart for us.

Something that grounds us in reality. So we're going to, let's just go to Dan in West Virginia. Good morning, Dan. How are you feeling? How are you feeling, Dan? I'm fine, Peter. Thank you.

How are you? You know, for the shape I'm in, I'm in pretty good shape, Dan. I love the show.

I listen to it often on Saturday mornings, and I just appreciate it very much. My mother and father have both been in long-term care for a couple of years, so I'm kind of a secondary caregiver, not a primary one, but I do have charge-over-their care. And Mom passed away just about three months ago at 91. Dad is a 100-year-old World War II vet. He still gets around on his walker, and he's doing very well. I can take him to church with me on many occasions, and get him out sometimes just for lunch and a little time to get him outside, and he's a joy in my life, a real blessing.

But yeah, there is a toll of watching your parents go through the long-term stuff, and so I appreciate that you try to build into us some encouragement along the way. Oh, by the way, the song is Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus, Come and Set Thy People Free. Is that the one you were looking for? Well, that is one of the texts that they use. They use several with this, and that is one of them, and I'm willing to accept that. I don't have a ding button.

I'm willing to accept that. I'm looking for one other one. When I first started playing this tune, that's the text that I learned my first time out, and then I started seeing all these other texts that people put through it, and I love that. It's Come-Expected Jesus, and we used to sing that—my dad's a Christian minister—and we would sing that at Advent time as we went into the Christmas season, and I love that text, and it's a good one, and I will accept it today, but there's one more I'm looking for that applies where we are today as caregivers, and this is the one that is written by J. Wilbur Chapman, and he was an extraordinarily educated man, and he got his doctorate of divinity, I think, and then he also got an LLD doctorate of law from Heidelberg, I believe, and he was a very, very educated man, but he had a lot of sadness in his life as well, and he wrote this amazing text. But listen, you nailed it on Come-Thou-Long-Expected Jesus, because that is a great hymn as well.

Sometimes they take these hymns, these wonderful tunes, and then they'll put several hymns with it, several texts with it. I know that Wesley and some of these others did that, but that is a very acceptable answer today, Dad. Thank you, brother, and thank you very much for what you do.

Well, thank you. Thank you for being a part of this, and you know what, next time you take your dad to church, I hope that they stand when he walks in, because a 100-year-old World War II veteran has earned that honor and privilege, and for folks to be able to pay respects to what he's accomplished in his life, and that's an extraordinary thing, a 100 years old. So I hope the Church honors and respects him on that. They love him. In fact, when he comes to church, he's a rock star. Everybody wants to talk to him. As well he should be. He's got to give him a lot of attention, and it makes him feel so good.

Well, and it is well-deserved, so thank you for sharing that with us, and thank you for just the passion you have for these hymns and for this ministry. And also, are you writing down a lot of the things that your dad has to say? Is he still able to have those kinds of conversations? Actually, I have written down pretty much his life history, and he shares it.

He gives copies of it to people at the care home with whom he comes in contact, but I worked on that for a period of about six months or seven months, and now, as he's starting to lose some of his memory, it's really coming in handy. Good. So yeah, thank you for that suggestion. I think that's good for all of us. In our culture that is trying to rewrite history, it's nice to hear it from those who are actually there. Yes.

So yeah, I would highly recommend as much of that as possible so you can capture, because what a gift. So thank you for sharing all that with us today, Dan, and I do appreciate that, okay? Okay. Let's go to Troy in Texas. Troy, good morning. Hey, good morning.

Thanks for taking my shot. Well, how are you feeling today, Troy? I'm a little tired, but otherwise doing well, thank you very much.

Troy, it's early in the morning, why are you tired? Well, you know, I'm not a caregiver, but I work with a lot of families that either are caregivers or need outside help, and so it's really kind of more of a, I'm going to call it an emotional strain than it certainly is both physical and emotional as a caregiver. And I've seen caregivers at work, my mom was my best caregiver for 33 years as a quadriplegic.

Well, you have, yeah, you've seen it, and you've witnessed it. Yeah, I have, yep, I have, and she learned to get help early. That was really, you know, uh, that's called a blessing at that point for her. It took a couple of years to kind of figure all that out and, and they were, and they were both young. He was 39 and so she, I would have made her 37, so, you know, so, uh, physically a bit easier if you will, for her, but still that's a ton of work, but, um, you know, the work that I do just getting to interface and help families, uh, there's a, you've mentioned that common thread of waiting too long to get help because you think you've got it under control. And that's a, that's a big, big challenge, I think, to get past that. It is. And we're not going to listen to other people tell us that unless we're able, you know, that person's able to punch through the fog of caregivers and say it in a way that fellow caregivers will say, okay, maybe I need to pay attention because it's one thing for somebody else to say it, it's another thing for, you know, when I say it after 35 years of this, you know, it's, it's hopefully going to carry a little bit more weight to it, say this is, this is the way it is. You can't argue with this.

My experience trumps your opinion. And so, well, do you know the answer? Do you know what this hymn is?

You know what I'm looking for? Well, the previous caller, uh, used the same answer, so come that long and expect that Jesus is what I recall it to be, but that's, uh, I don't have the other. Well that's, that's okay.

That's still acceptable. That's still acceptable, Troy, but, but there's one more that I'm looking for that may not be quite as well known as folks, but it is such a great text and we're going to continue on. I'll give you a hint. I'll give you a hint and it's, um, Jesus. What a help and sorrow. This is one of the verses. Jesus, what a help and sorrow while the billows over me roll. Even when my heart is breaking, he, my comfort helps my soul. And that's, that's one of the ones I'm looking for.

And um, so I'll give you a hint on that one. But Troy, I do very much appreciate you calling and thank you for your insights about this thing with your mom. And does your mom still living? Yes, she is. And your dad's still living? Dad is not.

No, he passed away in 2014. How's your mom doing? She is doing pretty well. It took her, you know, to get kind of back into a rhythm of, you know, not being a caregiver for 33 years.

That's a big change. And so it probably took her a good two years to kind of find her new normal. And other than, uh, other than COVID kind of protocols and the fear of that, uh, kind of isolating her, uh, she chose to do that. She didn't have to, but she did, uh, I think kind of slowed down her progress. You know, uh, for really redeveloping kind of who she is and what her life is supposed to look like now. So, but she's working on it really well and it's actually, she's got some really good friends in her neighborhood, uh, hasn't connected to church as well as I would like to interview that. And, you know, get into a ministry perhaps or, or even let others serve her. Well it'll, it'll take a while to kind of detox this out of her, um, and for her to find, you know, kind of that, that solid ground, that lane that she can be in. And that's okay. And, and, and, and respect and, and tell her, I said, look, you know, mom, it's okay.

Take as much time. You need to respect the trauma of what's been done to you. Um, because when you take care of somebody with quadriplegia for 30 plus years, you, you have to respect the toll that that took on her and she has, she has to respect it herself. I mean, you know, because it is a massive toll and it may take her a little while to get solid footing underneath her, but that's, you know, that, that's, that's your opportunity then to just keep caring for and loving her and understand, um, as she's, you know, trying to figure this out herself. But again, there is help and let's not, even after you're, now that your father's gone, she can, she still needs help. She needs help to process a lot of these things. And um, and so it's, that's going to, you know, it's going to take, you have to ease her into that, what that looks like for her. But I appreciate you sharing her story with us, Troy, and I thank you for listening to the show and calling in and listen, pace yourself too.

If you're tired early on Saturday morning, you're, you're pushing yourself, so pace yourself and get some rest. All right. I appreciate that. All right, buddy.

Appreciate the call. The point of all of this is for us to understand that, that what we go through as caregivers is no easy thing. It takes a toll and just because the loved one has passed away, doesn't mean, well, okay, I just go live my life and, and I'm good. No, this thing takes a toll on you and it's respecting the trauma, respect the trauma that you're living with. Okay. This is Peter Rosenberg.

This is hope for the caregiver 888-589-8840. If you know him or if you've got something else you want to weigh in with, we'll be right back. Well, there's a treasure at the end of this narrow road I'm traveling and it gives me a purpose for my life. Jesus is my treasure. That's one of my favorite songs of all time, it's Gary Chapman, Treasure, and I love that song. It is, I remember the first time I heard him perform it and it was, it was just an extraordinary moment and I fell in love with that song almost, almost 40 years ago, a long time ago, and it was just, and I've, I've, I've loved it ever since. So I'm grateful that that's in the bumper lineup here at the show. Welcome back to hope for the caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the show for you as a family caregiver, and we are so glad that you are here. We've got several folks waiting in to say they know the song, but first I want to go to Terry in South Carolina, Terry. Good morning. How are you feeling?

Well, I'm feeling pretty good. I am a new caregiver, less than a year now. My wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer's early onset, we were both pretty young, mid sixties.

It's getting younger every day, by the way, Terry, it was quite a shock, but things have progressed rather quickly over the last 10 months since a major episode occurred last fall. But, um, my, what I'm looking for is a resource. I I'm part of the Alzheimer's association.

I attend support groups. Um, what I'm looking for is how to find like a caregiver that would possibly want to live in the home. Um, but you just don't want anybody. You don't want somebody who's going to be a slacker.

You want somebody that's going to be a friend. We have a very, we have a good size home, uh, buried in 25 acres of forest. So nobody receives us. Um, do you guys have resources or have contacts with people that I will, no, there's, there's too big of a, a net to be able to pull from.

So I wouldn't be able to, uh, aggregate all that information. I would, by the way, we're, we're bouncing South Carolina. I'm from, I'm from South Carolina. Where are you? What part of South Carolina are you living in? The upstate area, Spartanburg, Greenville area.

I was born and raised in Anderson and my folks, my folks still live there and that's a great area of the country. I tell you what I would recommend starting with is, is finding a good service first because they're responsible for weeding out folks that, you know, you want to get the right person and if you get, if you hire the wrong person and they come into your home and then you got to get them out of your home, um, it would, to me, it would make more sense to find a service that already does all your background checks, all that kind of stuff. So you don't have to and start with that before you start bringing someone into your home because extricating them from your home may be a bit of a challenge if it's the wrong match. And uh, so I think you'd start with that and then maybe even work with a service, um, a separate service to do some background check on somebody and give yourself time to find that right person. You're, it's going to take some time to find somebody you would want to bring into your home to live there. You really need to filter that person out strongly because you know, they're going to promise you the moon when they, they first show up and the first couple of weeks it'll be great.

Then after a while you realize that, Oh man, I'm stuck with this. Then you got to, then you got a victim and that can become a sticky wicket and you don't need that nightmare. Uh, I would, I would highly recommend finding a reputable service, a home care service that does this and then that's their responsibility to weed those people out and you don't have to deal with that kind of drama. They cost you a little bit more, but you know, what is the old saying that if you, you know, you think it's expensive hiring a professional, try hiring an amateur and it just, you just don't want that drama. Uh, you, you don't know who you're going to bring into your home that way.

And it would be better if you had a third party service that can make sure that they've had proper background checks, drug screenings, they vetted them, they've, they're responsible for moving them out if they show up, if they call in sick and they live in your home, then what are you going to do? You know? Yeah. So those are, those are things you want to give some.

Yeah. We have used some services, but the, my wife loves, we love this last caregiver that we have and she was with us for two weeks and got in a horrible car accident two nights ago and is hospitalized and may not be back for another three months. We just don't know. So now we're back to square one and this person didn't live with us, but you know, I, I'm just trying to figure out what are my options as a caregiver that will, you know, that I can bring somebody in. It'll be a friend to my wife that, you know, I'm just trying to find the right match. Well I think the fact that what you've been through with this most recent one with the car wreck drives by point home, because if that person had lived with you, then you would have somebody who was recuperating from a car wreck living at your home and you would still need a caregiver.

Yes. You track it with me? So that's the kind of thing you want to avoid if at all possible and hiring a service, like I said, it may stretch you a little bit financially, but imagine how you'd be stretched right now if you had somebody recuperating however much you liked them. If they were recuperating at your home and now you have a wife with Alzheimer's and somebody's recuperating for three months from a car wreck, you don't need that drama in your life. You just don't. And so the service, working with the service who can, that's their job is to find the qualified workers and to make sure, and then you meet with them regularly until you get into a good rhythm to make sure that this is a good match. Because here's the deal Terry, I mean this, you and I both know this, this is not going to get easier for you.

Okay? So you're assembling your team right now for what's coming and you've got X amount of time to prepare for that, to get your home, to get your set up, your team around you. Because right now you're functioning, you're doing okay, but this is only going to get more challenging. And the sooner you have a solid team around you, the better that you're going to be able to navigate those choppy waters when you get to them, because there's some rough rapids coming your way.

Get that team together and having some professionals in there, as opposed to you trying to somehow figure this out yourself, it's going to make your life a lot easier. Yeah, I can sure, I see the wisdom in that, you know, it's like, yeah, but you know, where wisdom comes from, you know, good judgment, good judgment comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgment. And you were talking to a guy who's made a lot of bad judgment calls and I've gone out there and tried to find somebody, brought some people into my home to help with my wife over the years.

And then that was just, you know, I had some successes and I had some dismal failures. And ultimately when I went to a service that came in and I worked with them, I found the value of this. And there's a wonderful service in Nashville that I were great friends with, and they have resources on their website. Now, they're not going to be able to serve people in your area, but they got resource they put out there on their website of just stuff you can read and, you know, educate yourself on. And that's Caregivers by Whole Care, Caregivers by Whole Care in Nashville, Tennessee. Yeah, they're not in your area. It's a local company, but I was so into the lady that owns that runs it as a nurse and I've been friends with them for a very long time and they have a wealth of information that you can just educate yourself with and what you're looking for, help you drill this thing down so that you find that right partner and try not to contract with anyone else in your area that doesn't bring the level of what they do at this company I just sent you to. Just look and see what they offer and then try to find something that's similar to that in your area because I think they're a gold standard for it. And that's Caregivers by Whole Care, W-H-O-L-E. Yeah, W-H-O-L-E and they are in Nashville, Tennessee. So when we lived in Nashville, I've been friends with those folks for a long time and they helped me through some very difficult times and I think, but I've watched how they set up their structure.

They're not a fly by night. There's a lot of companies out there that are, you know, throwing business models together pretty quick for this big need and you don't want that. You really want to have people that have some seasoning to them that have thought through these things and they've looked at all the contingencies that you haven't. And they've looked at all the things that you have not done and so, and this applies across the board, not just dealing with Alzheimer's, dealing with specialties, children, whatever. It's across the board, but you know, yeah, financially it may stretch you a bit, but in the long run, it's a better investment in you and in your wife as well. So we have LTC insurance and that has helped considerably. We have a very good LTC policy, so that will take us many years into this. That is indeed a great blessing to have so, but use that wisely. Use it very wisely.

Do your due diligence, seek out people that are doing this and have been doing it for a while. What are they doing right? How does that work for your family? And really try to avoid bringing someone into your home until you have vetted them.

Like they were auditioning, I mean, you know, they were applying to be on the national security council kind of thing. Okay. Right.

Vet, vet, vet. I mean, that's, that's the, that's the key. And the point is you're doing this now and not doing it a place of desperation. This is the whole point of the show today of the, of the, well, we started off because if you start, if you say, I'll wait till this gets out of my control, well then you're scrambling. Don't scramble, plan, you know, and, and start strategically thinking ahead. That's how you do it. If you wait to the last moment and you're freaking out, you're liable to get somebody in there and then it'll end up being a disaster for you.

How do I know this? Well, I've done that, so take my advice. I'm not using it. No, I've, I've done this and, and, and so it's, it's super important that you spend the time on the front end vetting this, this person out, whoever, or people out there may be more than one, because if somebody gets sick, causing sick, your wife's Alzheimer's not going to take a sick day. Okay.

So you gotta have, you gotta have backups for your backups when this thing starts getting into, into some steam under it. So I appreciate the call. I hope that, does that track with you Terry? It does.

It does. You know, and like I said, we're early on to this, but you know, I'm trying just to find the right mix, but thank you so much. You are quite welcome and I appreciate very much the call. Appreciate you listening. It's always good to talk to South Carolina folks.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. We are glad that you are with us. 888-589-8840. We're going to take more of your calls when we come back.

We still haven't identified the song. I bet you we will in this next segment, 888-589-8840 will be right back. Hey this is Peter Rosenberger. Have you ever helped somebody walk for the first time? I've had that privilege many times through our organization, Standing with Hope, when my wife Gracie gave up both of her legs following this horrible wreck that she had as a teenager, and she tried to save them for years, and it just wouldn't work out, and finally she relinquished them and thought, wow, this is it. I mean, I don't have any legs anymore.

What can God do with that? And then she had this vision for using prosthetic limbs as a means of sharing the gospel, to put legs on her fellow amputees, and that's what we've been doing now since 2005 with Standing with Hope. We work in the West African country of Ghana, and you can be a part of that through supplies, through supporting team members, through supporting the work that we're doing over there.

You can designate a limb. There's all kinds of ways that you can be a part of giving the gift that keeps on walking at standingwithhope.com. Would you take a moment and go out to standingwithhope.com and see how you can give?

They go walking and leaping and praising God. You can be a part of that at standingwithhope.com. Welcome back to Hope with a Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberg. This is the show for you as a family caregiver. How are you doing?

How are you doing? Here's the joy of the Lord, your strength. That is Gracie, my wife, with Russ Taft, and we are glad to have you with us.

A little quick programming note on some things, a couple things. Go out to our website, hopeforthecaregiver.com, hopeforthecaregiver.com, and you can see from our podcast, we put out not only this show, but we have other interviews that we do and various things we put out, and I just did a recent interview with Kathie Lee Gifford that I think you'll find very, very moving, and also with Joni Eareckson-Tada, and another one with William Golden of the Oak Ridge Boys. Just wonderful interviews of people that are sharing from their hearts, and I hope you'll take advantage of that and go out and listen to it, and while you're there, you'll see a donate button, which you get involved in what we're doing here, and there's two things specifically I want to ask you about. You've heard our story. You've heard Gracie's story. You've heard what we do with our prosthetic limbs. We've got a young girl named Dorcas. Let me tell you about Dorcas. I met her when she was five years old. She is a Symes amputee. Gracie, for those of you who don't know, my wife is a double amputee, and when she lost her leg, she wanted to do something that would reflect what God was doing in her life, and she wanted to provide quality prosthetic limbs as a way of sharing the gospel, so we've been doing that in Ghana since 2005.

And Dorcas, we met her a couple years after we'd been there. We take teams over there, and we send supplies regularly and so forth, and she's a Symes amputee. That means when she was little, a scorpion bit her foot, and they took off the foot but left the heel.

That's what a Symes is, and it's very difficult to fit. You've got to have special things that you do with it to make it fit, and when we first saw her, it was dangerous. She had gotten ahold of a leg somewhere that somebody had provided, but she wasn't fitting in it properly, and I'm surprised it didn't snap her leg. And we've been treating her ever since as she's grown up, and now she's 20, and just a beautiful young lady, but we're working with her right now, this week. Joseph Thompson, a wonderful young prosthetist over in Ghana that we've worked with for many years has been treating her this week, and you can be a part of helping sponsor that leg for her if you wish.

As you grow, you need more legs, and she'll always need different things for it, and just a beautiful young lady. We did our first patient in Kenya. We've been working in Ghana all this time. We've had patients come to the clinic there from Nigeria and other places, but this is time we had a patient in Kenya, and we worked with a prosthetic outfit in Kenya to help a man named Godfrey, and you can see his story out there as well. This is just all in the last 10 days, Godfrey, his wife, passed away in February 2020, then he lost his leg in May of 2020.

So it was a tough year for him, for a lot of people, and Godfrey had a particularly tough year, and we're putting an above D leg on him, and you can be a part of that as well. If you like what you're hearing on the show, you can help sponsor this show. We can go get on more radio stations and so forth, but we ask for your help. This is an amazing work that's going on. Our mission at Standing With Hope is for the wounded and those who care for them. We have a shipment that is leaving that we've already got everything, the bill of lading neighbors, it's ready to go. It's being picked up of prosthetic supplies that come from a prison in Arizona, run by an outfit out of Tennessee.

This is a company called CoreCivic that runs these. They have a lot of faith-based programs, and this is one of them. Our ministry, Standing With Hope, inmates disassemble the legs that come in from all over the country, use prosthetic limbs, and we can recycle the foot, the knee, the pylon, the screws, adapters, all that kind of stuff, and that's all heading over to West Africa. And so it's an extraordinary work launched when Gracie said, you know what, I want something positive to happen out of all this stuff that has happened to me, and I want to use what I have to equip others to literally stand with hope, and that's what we're doing, and you could be a part of that today. So go out to HopeForTheCaregiver.com, look at all the resources we have, and then get involved today. Whatever's on your heart, just get involved today and help us do it more and help us do it more effectively.

So thank you so much for that. Let's go to Sheila in Arkansas, who says she knows the song, and so Sheila, good morning. How are you feeling?

I'm feeling pretty good. Do you know the hymn? Jesus Lover of My Soul. Jesus Lover of My Soul, not quite. It's close, very close, but not quite. And if you don't, for those who just now joined, we do a hymn each week.

Do it. And this one is a little bit different. Jesus Lover of My Soul may have been put to this, a lot of people have used this, but that's not the one I'm looking for today. But you're close.

Oh, you're so close, Sheila. I appreciate it. Jesus, what a friend for sinners.

There you go. Jesus, what a friend for sinners. Hallelujah, what a savior.

Hallelujah, what a friend. Saving, helping, keeping, loving, he is with me to the end. Jesus, what a strength and weakness. Let me hide myself in him, tempted, tried, and sometimes failing.

Heed my strength, my victory wins. And this is the verse that I was looking for. It's actually, the first verse is Jesus, what a friend for sinners, Jesus, lover of my soul. That was, you had the text in there, but it was Jesus, what a friend for sinner. But the verse that I love right here, listen to this, Jesus, what a help and sorrow while the billows over me roll, even when my heart is breaking, he, my comfort helps my soul. And then listen to verse four, Jesus, what a guide and keeper while the tempest still is high, storms about me, night or takes me, he, my pilot, hears my cry. Isn't that a great text? Oh, it is.

Beautiful. I just, I love this, I love this hymn and I love playing it. Now I do put in some chords in it that are, uh, probably not what, uh, the hymn writer wrote for the, for this when he originally pinned it.

The guy was only 19 years old when he wrote it, but I, I doubt very seriously he was adding that flat nine chord. But I love this hymn and, uh, so Sheila, way to go, way to go, Sheila. I want to, I've got a couple more folks that are weighing in on it and I want to give them an opportunity to just talk about this hymn. But that is a great hymn for us as caregivers. Jesus, what a friend for sinners, Jesus, lover of my soul. Friends may fail me, foes assail me.

He my savior makes me whole. How about that, Sheila? That's beautiful. Thank you so much for calling and you know what, thank you so much for getting this and I appreciate that.

I want to, I was squeezing these last couple of calls if you don't mind. And I thank you very much for calling. Thank you very much, Sheila. Geneva in Kansas.

Geneva. Did you know this too? Bless you. Yes. The title I had for it was our great savior.

That is the title that people use for it. Our great savior. But it's, um, and the course is Hallelujah, what a savior, Hallelujah, what a friend. What a savior.

Yes. I've known it in that too. Um, that's such a beautiful, comforting ministering hymn. And I just came through with about 10 years working with my husband who has Alzheimer's and it started when we were in our eighties and I'm 94 now and he just went to be with the Lord and what a joy that was. But I was able to take God enabled me to take care of him all these years and he had prepared me earlier. It seemed like I was always caretaking somebody, but he was always there for me. But this song is such a blessing.

It is. Just a beautiful blessing. And you know, um, the fellow that wrote it, the lyrics, this lyrics, um, J. Wilbur Chapman, Dr. Chapman, he got married, they had a little girl and then four years after their little girl was born, his wife died, a couple of years later he remarried again and then this wife died. So he wrote this out of some experiential difficulties where he was trusting God with some very painful realities. And so when you hear that text, Jesus, what a help and sorrow while the billowed over me roll, even when my heart is breaking, he, my comfort helps my soul. Now you think about this man who wrote this, had to bury, he had to bury two wives and raise children by himself and so forth. So there was a very difficult time for him and yet this is what he wrote. And this is why I want to push people back to the hymnal as much as possible so that they can hang on to these great texts that were written by people who have gone through brutal reality. So well, Geneva, thank you for getting that and you are a treasure yourself and I thank you for that.

94 years old. That is, um, God has kept me going and still has something more for me to do and here I am, but I'm on my own doing and I've had blessings come into my life. He is so faithful. He is so faithful and these hymns are such a source of joy and you are, and I just am amazed. Well, God bless you.

We love you. God bless you too Geneva. I'm going to, I'm going to jump real quick and try to squeeze in one more call with Katie in West Virginia. Katie, good morning. How are you feeling?

I'm good. Thank you. Yes.

I knew the name of the song. Yes. Our great savior.

Yes. Our great savior. Hallelujah. What a friend. That's right.

That's right. And I think about the verse in Corinthians, how Paul wrote that he could comfort others with the suffering that he had and, um, and how great that is that that man could do that. I did not know the backstory and what a blessing it is that he took his sorrow and you know, was able to help others with that. Well, as Paul says in Corinthians, we comfort one another with the same comfort that we ourselves have received from the God of all comfort. And that's what that verse right there means. Jesus, what a help and sorrow while the bill is over me roll.

Even when my heart is breaking, he, my comfort helps my soul. And because J Wilbur Chapman put that down on pencil with pencil and paper, it's, it's sustained uncounted millions with just that text and Katie, I'm one of those and Katie, evidently you are as well, and it means a lot that you took the time to call the show and get that, get that song. We are out of time. We've got to go and we thank you very much. Go to hopeforthecaregiver.com for more. We'll see you next time. 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 CoreCivic 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 legs. 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. These men are so glad that they get to be doing, 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 of peg leg, I thought of wooden legs, I never thought of titanium and carbon legs and flex feet and sea 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 these 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.

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 other ones like it, but I know about this one, is just an amazingly low rate compared to those who don't have them.

And I think that that says so much. It 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.