Wounded And Weary

This is the show for you as a family caregiver. How are you doing? How are you holding up? What's going on with you? We're glad to have you as part of this program. There's nothing like this program in total delbudendo in all the world. 888-589-8840.

888-589-8840. Sorry about that. It's a little early in the morning where I am. We've got a little snow on the ground in Montana and I'm glad it's a beautiful day. It's shaping up to be, if you like snow on the ground and I do. Let me just warn you up front, we're going into a difficult time of year for family caregivers.

It is sometimes called the Bermuda Triangle. The holidays can be a very tough time for caregivers. So brace yourself. Let's get a little stronger and healthier together and let's get anchored as we go through the journey of Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, all of the above. It's just a difficult time. There's a lot of tradition and sentiment and nostalgia and pressure to do this and recreate this and you feel guilty and all those kinds of things. I just want to give you a heads up.

That's coming and let's stay anchored. That's why I do a lot of the things that I do on this program, the hymns and so forth because those little tunes help us remember what is important, what is solid ground, if you will. Family caregivers take the brunt of a lot of things. By the way, I also have a new article out of the Chicago Tribune and I think it's going to be in some other papers as well and it's titled, it's not, I'll give you the actual title here, The Menu or Venue Shouldn't Define Thanksgiving for Caregivers. The menu or venue should not define Thanksgiving.

So it doesn't matter where you are. You may be spending Thanksgiving in a hospital. I've done that. You may be just one or two of you.

It may just be you. You may put all this pressure on yourself to go and have this elaborate Thanksgiving meal or you can just go to Waffle House. You could be thankful no matter what and no matter where. It's really important to remember that for us. We don't have to allow the sentiment and the holiday season to dictate how we're going to respond. That we have to have this, this and this and this before we can be grateful. We can be grateful in the middle of the world.

Scripture tells us this. And so if you want to go check that article out it's at the Chicago Tribune and their commentaries, their op-eds and I appreciate them running this piece and you know that this is something that a lot of caregivers are going to struggle with. And it's when dealing with, I'll give you a quote from it, when dealing with impairments like Alzheimer's, traumatic brain injuries, mental illness or addictions, countless caregivers push themselves to extremes to appease a disease. Words that erupt from an impaired mind can leave devastating wounds on those who serve.

Feelings get hurt when disease-affected nostalgia collides with the caregiver's fear and guilt. Regardless of what others demand, dressing can come from a box. Cranberry sauce out of a can is still tasty. Lumps and mashed potatoes are not cardinal sins. Gratitude defines the Thanksgiving holiday, not the menu, not the venue. So check that out and we'll try to link to that later on on our website at HopeForTheCaregiver.com. Alright, let's go over to the caregiver keyboard. The caregiver keyboard and I'm going to play a hymn for you. It's probably going to be very familiar, but there's a line in the third stanza that's going to apply to us as caregivers. See if you know this hymn.

Good. Do you know that hymn, 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840, and the scripture that this comes from is Jeremiah 18, 1-6, and the lady that wrote this, her name is Adelaide Pollard, and she desperately wanted to go to Africa on a mission trip, and she was struggling with this and she went to a prayer meeting that night, as the story goes, and she was having a hard time raising the funds for it and so forth. And somebody mentioned what later became the title of this hymn that has been around since the early 1900s and really touched a lot of lives. But it says, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, and a lot of things that you and I are going to deal with as caregivers, you're going to find the heart cry that we deal with as caregivers is going to be in Jeremiah, in Lamentations, and in the book of Jeremiah, I mean, he was often called the weeping prophet. And so you're going to find a lot of these things, but he says the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, and he said, arise, go down to the potter's house, and there I will make you hear my words. Then I went down to the potter's house and saw that he was working at the wheel, but the vessel that he was making from clay was spoiled by the potter's hand.

So he made it over, reworking it, and make it into another pot that seemed good to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me, oh, house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does? Says the Lord, look carefully, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are you in my hands.

Are you familiar with that passage? It's pretty descriptive, and it's interesting how God uses sometimes the regular, the mundane, the common, to drive home an uncommon truth and principle in a picture of what he's doing in our lives. The vessel that he was making from clay was spoiled by the potter's hands, but basically the potter looked at it, didn't like it, and busted it back up, reshaped it, and started over again, and redid it. You ever watch somebody working at a potter's wheel, it's fascinating. It's truly fascinating. It's the same thing of watching somebody blow glass when they're doing it.

Every time the show's on, like on the Discovery Channel or something like that, and you see these guys making glass and these works of art and how they do this, it's really astonishing. Is it any less astonishing to think about your own life and what's going on with you as a caregiver, as an individual, that these things, that the fire that you're in right now is shaping you, that the centrifugal force of the wheel is spinning you around, and it's causing you to feel disoriented and all kinds of things, but did you ever think that maybe there's something else going on that you just can't see? And it always comes down to trust, and that's what this particular hymn is about today, is trust. And there's a line in the third verse that is particularly meaningful to me as I journey along this thing, and I'll give you a taste of it. Wounded and weary, help me I pray.

Do you feel wounded and weary today? If you've been a caregiver for any period of time, you are, you do feel this way, but there is a path through this. There is strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. This is hope for the caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberg. This is the show for you as a family caregiver, 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840. If you know this hymn, if you just want to weigh in on anything else going on in your life, we'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver on American Family Radio.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the show for you as a family caregiver, and we're so glad that you are with us, 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840 if you want to be a part of the program. If you know the hymn that we did, just to remind you here. If you know that hymn, 888-589-8840, and I want to read to you the scripture where that hymn comes from, Jeremiah 8, I mean Jeremiah 18, one through six, and I'm going to read it out of the message. God told Jeremiah, up on your feet, go to the potter's house.

When you get there, I'll tell you what to say. So I went to the potter's house and sure enough, I love that, sure enough, the potter was there working away at his will. Whenever the pot the potter was working on turned out badly, as sometimes happens when you're working with clay, the potter would simply start over and use the same clay to make another pot. Then God's message came to me, can't I do just as the potter does, people of Israel? God's decree, watch this potter in the same way that this potter works his clay, I'll work on you, people of Israel, at any moment, I may decide to pull up a people or a country by the roots and get rid of them, but if they repent of their wicked lives, I will think twice and start over with them. And another time I might decide to plant a people or a country, but if they don't cooperate and won't listen to me, I'll think again and give up on the plans I had for them. So it was an interesting picture that God sent Jeremiah to do, to see and to experience and then to use that as a truth to communicate, what is God doing in this?

Who is God and what is he doing? And this is the principle that we can take in our own life as we are struggling along this journey as caregivers. And we somehow want to yell out from the potter's wheel, hey, we don't like this, we want to do this a different way. And what does that say about us? What does that say about our journey? Do we trust him?

Do we trust him? And that's what this hymn is all about. I love this hymn. And let's see, I want to go to Maryland and Illinois. I believe it's Maryland. Is that right?

Good morning, sir. Did I get that right? Is it Maryland? Yes.

You're correct. Well, good morning. How are you doing this morning, Maryland?

I'm fine. I've had my oatmeal and I've got my dishes washed and so the new day has started. Tell me about this hymn.

Do you know this hymn? Well, I think, have thine own way, Lord. Have thine own way, Lord. Have thine own way.

Is that it? Thou art the potter. I am the clay. Hold me after thy will while I am waiting, yielding and still. Did you grow up listening to this hymn or is it a new hymn to you or what? No, I think I've heard that hymn for many years. Hymns are precious and I'm sorry to say I feel like we're getting away from the hymns today with our music, but I love the hymn.

Well, I do too. And I talk about that a lot on this program because these hymns, like I can hear the story about Adelaide who wrote this. She was struggling. She wanted to go on a mission trip and she was struggling raising the funding and all these kinds of stuff and she went to this prayer meeting that night and she heard somebody say have thine own way, Lord. And she wrote that down and subsequently, how many millions of people have been strengthened and encouraged and redirected to Christ because of this hymn? And so it goes to the point of we can't script this out, but we can trust the one who is working through all these things with his sovereignty, with his plan, with his providence and that's the beauty of these hymns is they reflect lifestyles and journeys of people who have walked down this path.

We're not having to kind of forage by ourselves for this. So I love that. And I love that third verse. It says, have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way, wounded and weary. Help me, I pray. You ever felt wounded and weary, Marilyn?

Yes, I have. I lost my husband almost a year ago and I was a short time caregiver for him and he did get wounded and weary. When did he leave? When did he pass away? 22nd of December of last year. What are you preparing to do for Thanksgiving and then for Christmas? This year? Yes, ma'am.

You know, I'm not really sure. I've been invited to my family for Thanksgiving. I called the Senior Center and they're going to deliver me a meal for Thanksgiving. I'm getting more comfortable being out and about by myself. But it's still lonesome to be alone. And we got blessed with family, so we don't have any grandkids, children coming in and out.

But I do have family that's close. And they, I mean, our parents raised us to be good, long, good, long, good, long. So I think we are blessed and kind of a unique family. We did good, long. And so when I can reach the end of my rope as a caregiver, they came to my rescue.

So God bless them. That's meaningful to hear. And I'm glad that they're reaching out and inviting you to come over. And I know this is going to be a very difficult season for you.

There's no way around it. It is going to be difficult for you. And I appreciate you sharing that because you're not alone on this.

A lot of people are going into this season. I've had, as callers, come in and share loved ones they've lost over the last many months and so forth. And these dates of Thanksgiving come up or the anniversary of their husband's passing or their wife's passing or child or so forth. And I try to write these things down so that on that day I get a note and remember to lift you guys in prayer.

And I'm asking for others to do the same thing. So on December 22nd, let's make a note of it. And let's lift up Marilyn in prayer as that's going to be a hard day.

These things are hard to remember and commemorate. And yet we also rejoice that she is trusting Christ with this and that His hand is on her. In this, the fourth verse says, Have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way, hold over my being absolute sway, fill with thy spirit till all shall see Christ only always living in me. That's a great verse to hang on to during these times, isn't it, Marilyn?

Yes. And, you know, my husband said, I am dying on it. I'm not sure how the conversation went, but I said, yes, but you know, we have to because God has promised us that because of our sinful nature. That is a lot of good promise we have after that is that we're going to get a new body and a new home. We get to see Jesus every day. So He will be okay and I will too. So I look forward to the day when I can go and meet Him again.

So I'm, you know, I'm okay. I have full trust, I have full faith that God is good, and if He has perfect timing, then all things take place. So I mean, I don't have any, I have no regrets except I just miss Him. You know, it says, blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. We have a hard time understanding the concept of mourning. We're so busy demanding that God do something to make us feel better. We rage out or we despair.

But there's a point where we get to, well, and that's, that's my point. There's a point we get to where you just remarked where we just grieve over it, but we're not grieving as those who have no hope, but we are grieving. We are mourning. And it's in that mourning that you, that the comfort is there. It doesn't, it's almost counterintuitive because we want to feel better in our society. Everything is about feeling better. And as we see the brokenness and the, the, the woundedness of this world, we recognize that we're not going to feel better about these things, but we can be stronger and we can be better in it as we trust God with it, that He's redeeming His scriptures as all of creation is groaning.

And I look out where I live up here in the Rockies in Montana, we got a new snowfall and it's absolutely exquisite. I mean, it's so beautiful. And as I look at all that pristine beauty, I also recognize that every bit of that is groaning for the redemption that's waiting, that Christ is going to do when He redeems all of this. It's all groaning and the Holy Spirit groans on our behalf and, and it's okay to grieve. It's okay to mourn. In fact, it's, it, we're called to do these things, to mourn over the brokenness of this, but it's in that that we're comforted, knowing that He who began a good work is faithful to complete it to the day of Christ Jesus. And it sounds like that's exactly where you stand, Marilyn, this morning. That you're grieving, but not like those who have no hope. And that is such a great model for, for the rest of us.

Right. I, I mean, I know that that's the curse of sin and death, and we all will face that one day. I don't think it's too soon for some and not soon enough for others, but it's in God's perfect timing. And my husband was blessed with health all those years. He was 86 when he left, he was blessed with more years than what God has promised us. And so, you know, we were blessed beyond understanding. And so I'm, I'm just thankful for every day that we had together. And so, um, I know that there'll be a new day for me also.

Indeed. Mold me and make me after that will, while I am waiting, yielded and still. That sounds like you, that sounds like your prayer, Marilyn, I want you to know how much I appreciate this. I've marked this down December 22nd, tell me your husband's name, Lloyd Lloyd, correct.

One of my, one of my favorite people in the entire world was a man named Lloyd. And, um, I will, uh, I will put this down here and Marilyn happy Thanksgiving. You have a lot to be grateful for. I know you're grieving, but, uh, happy Thanksgiving to you and thank you for calling and thank you for sharing your heart. Pardon? Thank you. God bless. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Thank you so much.

This is Peter Rosenberg. This is hope for the caregiver. This is the show for you as a family caregiver, healthy caregivers, make better caregivers.

That's what this show is all about. How do we stay healthy? How do we, how do our hearts stay healthy on our spirits? Stay healthy.

How do our bodies stay healthy? We got more to go and your calls 8 8 8 5 8 9 88 40. We'll be right back.

There are some times when I doubt, but you always find me out loving my heart. Welcome back to hope for the caregiver here on American family radio. This is Peter Rosenberg. This is the show for you as a family caregiver, healthy caregivers, make better caregivers. It's all about helping caregivers stay healthy and strong as you take care of someone who is not 8 8 8 5 8 9 88 40 8 8 8 5 8 9 88 40.

Hey, I got to ask you something here. If you don't mind, you've heard about all these shipments that are the block, the, the, the backlog of, of everything going on with the ships and so forth. So we've had a bit of a challenge with that as well with the prosthetic limb outreach. We found it many years ago when Gracie lost her legs, she wanted to be able to help her fellow amputees.

And we've had a, a pile of supplies, um, liner, sleeves, feet, knees, pylons, adapters, connectors, all this kind of stuff. And we've been struggling to get this out. There's been all kinds of drama getting this on, and we finally had been able to work this out, but we're sending it by air, not by sea, because the ports are so backlogged with everything and they need it now.

So it's a little bit more expensive. If you want to help us be a part of that, I'm not going to tell you the number. I'm just going to just trust the Lord will bring it in. We went ahead and made the decision to go ahead and just do it because we need to get this to them. And you can go out to, um, hopeforthecaregiver.com slash giving, it'll take you to the standing with hope page standing with hope is the presenting sponsor of everything we do.

And you could go out and be a part of that standingwithhope.com or hopeforthecaregiver.com, whichever one. And just click on the giving tab and you can designate that to go to shipping these supplies over there. They need them. Liners and sleeves particularly. And these are things that you would, when an amputee has a prosthesis, they wear a liner over the residual limb of the amputated limb. And then that fits into the socket that is made onsite. You supply resin for them to make the socket over there in West Africa. And then you have a sleeve, it's called a suspension sleeve, and it connects the limb to the person's leg.

It goes over the liner, it creates that suction so you don't have to wear belts and things such as that. So if you want to be a part of that, go out to standingwithhope.com. You can see the devices we make and then we have a prosthetic limb recycling program we do with inmates at prison. And they volunteer to do this and we'll take used limbs that come from all over the country. They go to a local prison in Arizona where, it used to be in Tennessee where we lived, but we moved it out to Arizona as part of a group of prisons run by CoreCivic. And they, these inmates will volunteer to disassemble them for us so we can recycle the various parts, the feet, the knees, the pylons and so forth. And Gracie has given some of her own limbs that she's, because amputees go through a lot of different limbs over the course of their life, particularly children. And so we're always needing pediatric components, but you could help us ship that over there today.

And I would ask for your help on that. And I also wanted to, before we get back to the phone lines, I wanted to say something that struck me. I was listening to a lot of the commentary going on about the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. And I'm not going to go down the path that a lot of people do, but I heard one commentator, Jonathan Turley, I believe it was said this, he's a constitutional lawyer, professor at Georgetown. And he was talking about the jury and what the purpose of the jury is. And I believe that it was, he referenced a Supreme Court justice who many, many years ago talked about the jury and what they do and the importance of them.

And he said, 12 people stood between Kyle Rittenhouse and the government, 12 people stood between Kyle Rittenhouse and the media and the mob and everything else. And that's what juries do. They stand between the mob so that there's not mob justice.

They stand between the government so the government just doesn't get heavy handed. And they deliberate the evidence and look at it and arrive at a conclusion. And then the conclusion is the law, where it goes. As far as this person's fate, they may choose to allow this person to go on and receive the punishment that is recommended by the government or whatever. But in this particular case, when the jury spoke, when he said 12 people stood between that individual, between Kyle Rittenhouse and the mob and the media and the government and everything else and evaluated the case on its merits. When he said that phrase, I couldn't, excuse me, I couldn't help but think about, we have one man who stands between us and the eternal fires of hell. But in our case, we plead guilty.

There is no courtroom drama going on. If you want to somehow argue your case before the almighty, that is a very dangerous place to go. But because of what Christ has done, we plead guilty.

We go straight to execution and we trust His execution on our behalf. One man, Christ, stands between us and an eternity in hell. And it was just such a picture as I saw that, I was like, I just, I don't know, I just couldn't help but think about that picture of the gospel of that we have one man who does this. That we are not left to have to plead our case before the almighty because if I had to plead my case before, of my merits before God, I'm in real trouble, I'm in real trouble. And I don't know anyone else who wouldn't be. And so that's the gospel.

That has nothing to do with anything else we were talking about but I wanted to just share that observation. 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840. And I'm not sure the name here of who it is that this is but good morning, this is Peter. Is this Isla?

Yes it is. Isla, okay, sorry. I want you to know, this program has blessed my life today. Well thank you, Isla. By the way, do you have a radio on? Well yes, but I'm in another room. Okay, we just got a little bit of an echo but that's okay. That's okay. Don't worry about it. I'll get rid of it.

We'll punch through it. How are you doing this morning, Isla? I'm kind of hard hearing and I turned up pretty loud.

That's okay, it happens. How are you doing today? Well I'm doing good and I woke up to your program and it has just been a blessing to me to know that somebody, and that song has been one of my favorites all of my life. I'm 92 and I live by myself except God is with me every day. And I want you to know that just because you live by yourself you can't witness for God that people that come here, I've had a blessing with all kinds of people sharing with them their love for you and the Lord.

So I'm blessed in so many ways. I don't know how much longer God has for me but I want him to walk through me the rest of my life. How has this song been meaningful to you over the years? Well I wanted him to, at one time in my life I was going my way and the church that I go to we sing this song a lot of times and then one day I realized that I wanted his way. And I didn't realize exactly what was going to come about because I thought that I had loved a young man and was going to marry him and God intervened in my life and put me with a young man that I didn't even know and I married him and he was a preacher of God for 40 years before he went on to hell and to be with him. And what God did for me and having his own way and not my way has been a blessing all the rest of my life. And this song just says everything that she felt, you know, because I thought, you know, I had to, I didn't know what was going on in my life, the changes that took place but he had his way with my life because at eight years old I gave myself to the Lord but then I didn't grow. I just was still alone with my own way even though I had him in my heart but God has been so good to me and blessed me in so many ways and I just want you to know that your program this morning has blessed me beyond words.

Well, that's very, very gracious of you to say, Isla, and I love doing this. You know, when you put it out there over the airwaves, you never know who's listening. We have listeners in prisons, we have listeners in hospitals and hospice and living alone like you are and you never know and you just put it out there but there's something that happens when you play one of these old familiar hymns and I remember last week I had a lady call in who was 30 who did not know the hymn, did not grow up listening to it and she's being introduced to these hymns for the first time on this program and that's what breaks my heart but I'm grateful that we're able to do that but it shows that we've really done a disservice to a lot of people in this country that we have not reminded of them past these things along on why this is important. Why is this hymn important? I mean, I can just play just those, that's just one and a half measures and it takes them back to their childhood, it takes them back to when you were struggling with, you thought you loved this one fella and this wasn't working out and the Lord just shows you this. I mean, there's so many different things that connect our lives. This is a soundtrack to so many of our lives and we can remember where we were when this particular hymn was played or whatever and I want to continue doing this so I thank you that you validate that and that you love these things and what do you got planned for Thanksgiving, Ila?

Well, a nephew has invited me but I'm like the other lady. I'm at home most of the time by myself and I don't know whether I'll feel like going and have a Thanksgiving with a family there or whether I'll stay here and my children live a long way off and not are able to come but whatever I do, the Lord will be with me and I'll be happy. I'm happy here by myself and like that hymn, many times I just go and I don't have the voice to sing like some of you but I can read the words in that third verse and that song is really meaningful to me. Wounded and weary, help me I pray, power all power surely is thine, touch me and heal me Savior divine.

That's that third verse and I love that. Ila, thank you for being such an encouragement to me this morning. I appreciate this and I want you to have a fabulous day. Thank you for just being a blessing to me. I appreciate your call very much.

We got to go to a break. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. This is the show for you as a family caregiver. We'll 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 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 could designate a limb. There's all kinds of ways that you could be a part of giving the gift that keeps on walking at standingwithhope.com. Would you take a moment to go out to standingwithhope.com and see how you can give? They go walking and leaping and praising God. You could be a part of that at standingwithhope.com. 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. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the program for you as a family caregiver, 888-589-8840. Hey listen, I love that song from Keith Green, do you see, do you see, Isla is very blessed to have folks that check on her as a shut-in, as a widow. Are there folks around you that you can check in on? Just to let them know that you're there. And you may not be a caregiver anymore, but you find this show meaningful.

I'm not asking you to take on someone else's journey. I'm just simply asking you to check on them and let them know that they're seen and they're loved and they're cared for. We can all be a source of great blessing to many people.

I've found that one of the best ways for us as caregivers is to stay strong and healthy for ourselves, is to express and share the things that we're learning with others and be a source of comfort to others. You don't have to take on their responsibility, but it costs you very little to just ask somebody how are they doing and listen to them and ask how they're feeling. So check on them and it's a wonderful opportunity to do that here at Thanksgiving. So thank you for that. All right, let's go to one of my long-time listeners and callers here that I just am grateful for, Homer in Oklahoma. Homer, good morning, how are you feeling?

Good morning, Peter. Well I'm wounded and weary, but I'm dotted and I have to say thank you for what you're doing and Marilyn's earlier callers' words really resonated. They did, isn't that a great hymn though? Wounded and weary, help me I pray. Power all power, surely is thine.

Touch me and heal me, Savior divine. Isn't that a great lyric? How important has this song been to you over your life, Homer?

No, very important. It's among the many greats and Pollard certainly among the greatest hymn writers, demonstrating God's mercies, being present in pain, and I apply that understanding with helping many as best I can while recognizing my own weaknesses. Well, you know, it's interesting, the back story of this is that she was struggling because she was trying to raise money to go to Africa on the mission field, but this hymn has done more to point people to Christ than anything she could have ever done and she wrote this out of that struggle and I think, gosh, what a teachable moment that is, that we are, it's hard to, it's really hard to wrap your mind around how God can take these moments where we think are so filled with confusion or frustration or everything else and then flip it in such a powerful way that the impact will be felt for who knows how long and for who knows how many millions of people, including you and me, and Homer, I thank you for that, I thank you for that encouragement and that you listened, I know that you're out there and it means a lot. Sometimes, Homer, when I'm doing the program, because I just look at a wall, I'm not looking at an audience, I'm just looking at a wall, and so I visualize all the folks that are out there that regularly call in that I know that are listening and it means a lot that you're there, Homer, it really does. Well, I appreciate that and without walls we could not have acoustics and let me just share real quick, Jeremiah 33.3, I'm sure Pollard the Hambrighter understood that God does reveal wondrous things and oftentimes born out of pain, so anyway, as with Marilyn, I look forward to one day seeing my loved ones, rejoining them. Indeed, and I'm sorry about the cough there, I've got a bit of seasonal dysfunction when it comes to this, so I apologize for that, I can't quite get to the cough button in time, but thank you for calling on that, Homer, and I'm gonna try to squeeze in a little bit more here, this is Theresa in Kansas, Theresa, good morning Theresa, how are you feeling? Good morning, Peter, I'm feeling really well and I just want to tell you, first off, I started my Christian life on key screen, so when I hear that, I just get so excited, I still have several of his tapes and just, we were baptized in the summer of 82 and I think he had just passed away about that time, but called requesting prayer for my friend Nikki, I had called you I think early, early in the spring this last year, and she was taking care of her mother-in-law with Alzheimer's and she has a son with cerebral palsy, and at that time, her husband had been diagnosed with cancer, and he's since passed away in July, but anyway, she decided to go to Bible school and was working really hard taking care of her son and doing that, and went in for a checkup, they found cancer on her thyroid, and she had surgery Thursday, and they weren't able to get it all, it was kind of entangled around some nerves and things, but I just... Do you know what the prognosis, do you know what the prognosis of the plan is for her?

Probably radiation and chemo and then go from there. Do you know who's going to be there for her to help with her mother and or her son? There is a couple that she lived with while she was in high school for a while, that they are taking care of her son while she's in the hospital, and I'm not sure after that, not sure how things are going to go. Her dad is supposed to be coming to help her too some. What city does she live in? Manhattan.

That's in Kansas. Well, I appreciate you letting us know, and I put that on the list right here as we lift her up in prayer. This is a young woman who's got a young child, and she is, would you say she's in her 30s? She had her 30th birthday two weeks ago. That's an awful lot on a young woman, and we certainly recognize how massive this journey is.

I'm glad her father's coming and that this other couple is joining in with them, around them, and they've got a special needs child. She's got a mother with Alzheimer's. She's got a heavy, heavy journey ahead of her, and I don't understand these things, and I will never make any pretense of doing it. I just, sometimes you see these things, and Theresa, and you just groan, and you think, Lord.

And here she is, a widow at 30, with a special needs child, and the Lord clearly commands us with widows and orphans, and this is our journey as believers, and so I'm hoping that there's a local church and a community around there that will take this on as she goes through this difficult period of taking care of her son while recuperating herself and dealing with this, the radiation and so forth is going to be very difficult, or chemo, whatever plan they have, and so I groan over this as she's wounded and weary, as the hymn says, Touch me and heal me, Savior divine. And I don't understand this. I don't understand why God does what He does in these things. And not only do I not understand it, I don't know that I can understand it.

And I don't know that I even have the, I mean, I'm confident, I don't even have the capabilities to understand it, even if He told me why He was doing it. And so we trust Him, and I don't know any other path but that, but to trust Him and say, you know, Lord, you know, have thine own way, thou art the potter, I am the clay, mold me and make me, after thy will, why I am waiting, yielded and still. But would you let Nikki know that we as a collective group, in fact, you know, I've only got about a minute left here, Lord, we don't understand, and we hear this heartbreaking story of this young woman who is caring for her special needs son, she's caring for her mother with Alzheimer's, her husband just passed away, she's only 30, and now she's dealing with this very difficult challenge of cancer. It says, you're near to the broken hearted, and Father, this woman is broken hearted, and I would ask for comfort for her, strength for her, clarity of direction, for assistance around her, for healing for her, for all of these things.

We don't understand, may Theresa be a source, a conduit to that, that she can communicate this back to Nikki and to her family, pray for her father as he's coming in after going through this issue with Theresa's mother of Alzheimer's. This family is hurting, Father, and we lift them up, and I know that there are people all over this listening audience who are joining their voices with me on this, and we're asking you for mercy, and we're asking you for comfort, and strength, and perseverance, and healing. We do all this not because of our own merits, but we do this, Father, because there is one man who stands between us and disaster, and that is Christ Jesus, and we do it on His merits, not ours, and we thank you for that. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Theresa, thank you so much for letting us know this, and thank you for the call, and I appreciate that very much. This is Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberg, and this is the show for you as a family caregiver, healthy caregivers. Make better caregivers. Let's stay healthy together.

Hopeforthecaregiver.com. 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 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, Sue. And arms.

Everything. 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. 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? Go to standingwithhope.com-slash-recycle, standingwithhope.com-slash-recycle. Thanks, Gracie.