38 Years Is a Long Time

Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you? I'm Gracie Rosenberger, and in 1983, I experienced a horrific car accident, leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated.

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

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

That's standingwithhope.com. I'm Gracie, and I am standing with hope. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the show for you as a family caregiver. We're so glad that you're with us. And that is, again, Gracie singing a powerful message to give you hope for your sorrow, hope for tomorrow, joy for your sorrow. I love that song, and I love listening to her sing it. I told you when she sings, something just, something happens. Our phone lines were down today, so you had to listen to me carry the whole program by myself.

I hope I didn't send you screaming into the night. But I love being able just to kick around some of these ideas, but I wanted to end on something else today, and you'll have to, pardon me, because it's real up close and personal. There's a scripture in the Gospel of John, and it's in John 5, and I think most of us know it. And Jesus goes to that pool where all these different people with infirmities are there.

Well, let me read it. Now a man was there who had been ill for 38 years. Jesus, upon seeing this man lying there and knowing that he had already been in that condition for a long time, and I just want to stop with that. Now a man was there who had been ill for 38 years. Jesus, upon seeing this man lying there and knowing that he'd already been in that condition for a long time.

We all are familiar with this, or a lot of us are. But this month, next week, this particular verse has a great significance to me and to Gracie. Scripture records that this man's plight lasted 38 years. And in the following sentence, if you see that, it validates that 38 years is a long time. November 18th, 1983, Gracie had this horrific act that happened on the highway when she wrecked 38 years ago. And it continues to reach through the decades to cause a great deal of heartache for her. She's not known on a day without pain, real serious pain, in 38 years. That's a long time.

Scripture says it's a long time. Just in September, she had a significant fall and broke her femur, a spiral break, and it was an ugly break. And she's starting to put weight down and be able to walk on her prosthetic limb with that broken leg. She's got a lot of hardware in her leg.

She causes a great deal of stress for the TSA when she goes to the airport. And she's reminded daily, moment to moment, that 38 years is indeed a long time. Now why is this important?

Why am I doing this and why am I struggling to even say these things? There are numerous passages in Scripture that remind us that God sees us in our affliction. But when I see the Gospel of John say 38 years and then turn right around and say it's a long time. 38 years, it's a long time. When he doubles down on it, 38 years, he knew it had been there a long time. And you cannot help but see the juxtaposition of an eternal God, an infinite God, recognizing that a finite period of affliction was a long time.

Now think about that. What is a long time to an infinite God? And yet he sees 38 years as a long time. Scripture didn't round the number up. It didn't say almost 40 or, you know, a while, a couple of decades or whatever.

It was very specific, 38 years. The prophet Isaiah foretold the Messiah in Isaiah 53, as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. And then you go back and you look, there was a time when Jesus, in Matthew 9, and he saw the crowds and they were so helpless.

And he felt compassion for them, he said in Scripture, because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd. All of this points to a Savior who is acquainted with grief, but also acquainted with our grief, with Gracie's grief, with your grief. I've been spending a lot of time thinking about one of the Beatitudes where he says, blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. That Scripture implies that the mourning must occur before the comfort can come. There has to be mourning. You're not going to get comfort before you mourn. You're going to mourn and then you'll be comforted.

That's what it says. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. You can't mourn if you're too busy raging and despairing over afflictions, but you mourn when you accept the brokenness for what it is. As Jesus did when he saw the crowds, he saw the brokenness and he mourned over it. He was at Lazarus tomb and he mourned over it. He wept. You remember when he looked out at Jerusalem and he said, Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, I'd love to be able to just grab you like a hen grabs her chicks. And he mourned over those things.

He saw it for what it is. Looking at our own brokenness, we also mourn. But sometimes we have to go through these periods of flailing around before we look at it and accept it for what it is. And here's what I just the last minute or two that I have with you here today.

Here's what I'd like to leave with you. When our hearts falter while waiting on the comfort and the healing. And sometimes we have to wait. Most times we have to wait. And our hearts falter when they do, when we do wait. Our resolve is strengthened. When we remember that God sees the days, the weeks, the months, the years, and even the decades of our affliction.

38 years is a long time. He sees all of this and he's very specific about it. He counts all of that. And he even counts the tears. Psalm 56 eight says, you have taken account of my wanderings. Put my tears in your bottle.

Are they not in your book? I don't know how long you've been a caregiver. I don't know how long you've had to watch brokenness. I don't have to. He knows.

It's not important that I know. It's not important about anything else other than the fact that your God knows this. He sees this and he is ever present in your sorrow. And sometimes our flailing around and sometimes our anger and our despair and our rage hides that from us. But there is a place of quiet rest near to the heart of God, a place where sin cannot molest near to the heart of God as the old hymn writer says. And in those moments when we mourn and we see the brokenness for what it is, we step into a different walk with God than we had before. We play hymns a little slower.

We stand, however feebly, a little more at attention to recognize that there is something else going on. You know the old song, Holy Ground, where the Lord is present? Where he is, is holy. When we start to understand that he is present in our suffering, it's a holy moment and you will never be the same again. He sees it. He is there.

38 years is a long time and he recognizes that. Hope for the Caregiver is that conviction that we are not alone in this. He strengthens us each and every day. Hopeforthecaregiver.com.

We'll see you next week. 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 envisioned 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 what it is to be like 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 man 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 the air.

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.

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 limb, whether from a loved one who passed away or somebody who outgrew them, you've donated some of your own for them to do. How do they do that? Where do they find them? Please go to standingwithhope.com slash recycle. Standingwithhope.com slash recycle. Thanks Gracie.