Gratitude Is The Antidote to The Poison of Resentment

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How are you doing? More than 65 million Americans right now serve as a family caregiver. I bet you're kind of tired, too, because Thanksgiving, guess who does a lot of the work?

The caregiver. Are you tired? It's okay.

It's all right if you're tired. You've probably been working very hard. Holidays are kind of hard for us as caregivers because a little bit of extra duty to create an environment where everybody can dissipate in the holiday, but not everybody can work to create the environment. And that's where caregivers come in. How many meals have you prepared?

How much cleaning have you done? All the decorations and so forth. These are things that we as caregivers do.

I've been doing it myself for some time. Now, Gracie and I've had Thanksgiving at times in the hospital, and staff does try to help make that great at the hospital, but I mean, let's face it. You're in the hospital. It's Thanksgiving.

That's not where you want to be. But we've done it. And I've often said that my favorite holiday is Arbor Day because you plant a tree, you water it, and you say a prayer to God of thanks and commit this tree to God. If you move on, there's no parade, there's no gifts, there's no decoration, there's no meal.

You just plant a tree. But Thanksgiving is a unique holiday. It's a unique holiday to America. There's a lot of misinformation, if you will, about Thanksgiving, that somehow the Native Americans bailed out the pilgrims and saved the wretched lives of the interlopers.

The first year was pretty hard. Part of that was because William Bradford, and this is in his journal, his diary, William Bradford and those pilgrims that came over to escape the tyrannical rule of church and state being levied on everyone by King James, they had to sign a contract while on the Mayflower with the corporate sponsors, if you will, that were helping underwrite the cost of getting there, that when they got there, everybody would share in everything. There would be equal ownership for all the stuff. And it was a disaster because there was no incentive for lazy people to work and there was no incentive for industrial people to work because everybody was, it doesn't matter how old you work, you had to split it with people that, let me just say it, it was socialism.

So the next year they restructured it and everybody was able to produce on their own merit. And it did, it sparked the engine of free market and capitalism. And they had a bountiful harvest. They did share it with the Native Americans.

And there's, you go back, look at the story, just go back and research it. And they did share it with the Native Americans. But then down the road, George Washington ended up proclaiming this day that it was November 26, 1789. That was the same year that the constitution was ratified as a public day of Thanksgiving and prayer to be observed, I'm quoting here, by acknowledging with grateful hearts, the many and signal favors of almighty God and calling on Americans to unite in most our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and ruler of nations.

Are you ready for this? And beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions. That sounds an awful lot like 2nd Chronicles 7.14, doesn't it? Which states, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land. George Washington, in essence, gave a national proclamation appropriating the meaning of that scripture.

If my people who are called by my name, because here's what he said again, calling on all Americans to unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplication to the great Lord and ruler of nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions. This is what thanksgiving is rooted in. There's no other way it could be rooted in anything different because gratitude, thanksgiving, is, as Cicero said, the virtue from which all others spring. Because you're recognizing that you are receiving something that is beyond you. In order to receive something like that, there has to be humility to recognize there is a giver and there is a receiver. And the giver has something that the receiver does not.

And that gratitude erupts from that place. That is in itself an anathema towards sin. Sin is never grateful. Sin is always resentful.

The fruits of sin, of course, the wages of sin are death, but all the fruits of sin are that bitterness, the rancor, the resentment, all those kinds of things. Gratitude cannot spring from sin. So it's a very special holiday, one that we do well as caregivers to remember with thanksgiving, with gratitude, the things in our lives bestowed upon us from Almighty God. That awareness alone always leads to humility and repentance, recognizing that in the presence of God, we come up short and we see the many blessings that He provides us despite coming up short. There's the common grace of this beautiful world and then there's the special grace, if you will, saving grace God extended to us through Christ for salvation. As believers, we of all people should be the most grateful. Gratitude should be ever present in our life, even in the hardships we carry as caregivers. And I never dispute that.

I carry them, you carry them. But there's a greater hardship that we have been saved from through Christ, a far greater hardship. There is something that transcends all of these things. And if that is ever present in our mind, it settles our hearts down, but we gratefully acknowledge that God has provided a way to redeem all of these broken things that plague us and so many others. And we trust Him in His time to reveal all that, to make all things new, to do all this. We trust Him in this time because we know His character, we know His goodness, and we trust it even though we don't understand it.

And I certainly don't understand a lot of these things. But here's what Scripture says, and I can anchor my life in it. And I know from my own personal experience that the more gratitude I express and embrace, the less angst, bitter, straining, striving that I exhibit and feel, and that I calm myself down and think of all the things that I have to be grateful for. I am grateful to this network, American Family Radio, and all the affiliates that carry this program, the Truth Network, and so many others that carry, His radio, and so many others that carry this program. I'm so grateful. There wasn't anything like this for caregivers until American Family Radio took a chance on me to do this. There was nothing like this.

There's still nothing like this. And so I'm very grateful that there's a platform now where caregivers can come and be built up and engage and hear things in the way that caregivers can understand, in our own language, if you will. There are so many things that we have to be grateful for in this country, despite all the angst that you see on the news and all the turmoil. This is a free society where we can worship God as we please. I am saying these things on a public airway where anyone can hear about the great redemptive work of God through Christ Jesus. There is no restraint on me whatsoever to say these things. I am free to express whatever I wish to say about God's work and His salvation through Christ.

And I can say it to my fellow caregivers. Is that not something to be exuberantly grateful? Think of all the societies in this world where one is not free to say this. China does not offer this type of liberty. Many Middle Eastern countries do not offer this type of liberty. Countries around the world are not like what we are here.

America remains an anomaly, not just in our current world, but in history, of a country that allows such a thing. And we have this one day that is set aside by the first president of the United States, the President of the United States of America, that called for people to be grateful before God and repent of our transgressions. That is worthy of our gratitude of thanksgiving. This is Peter Rosenberg and this is Hope for the Caregiver. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio.

I'm so glad that you are with us. I am Peter Rosenberg, Hopeforthecaregiver.com. Also, I would like to invite you again to please go out and take advantage of our Facebook group, Hope for the Caregiver.

It's the group. I have a page, Hope for the Caregiver. The podcast is called Hope for the Caregiver. The website is called Hope for the Caregiver. The show is called Hope for the Caregiver.

The book is called Hope for the Caregiver. The Facebook group is called Hope for the Caregiver group. I administer that group, so I keep all the conversations from going off the rails. I put a lot of stuff out there. We have people that post questions and comments.

You know what? Today would be a great day to go out there, join it, and express some things that you're grateful for. What are you thankful for?

We have a lot to be thankful for. I tell you, it is the best antidote towards resentment. One of the issues that we face as caregivers is resentment at friends and family that don't help the way we would like them to. We get upset because of a medical diagnosis.

A doctor did such and such wrong or a drunk driver or whatever. There's so many things. And I've got an article, by the way, you can go out to my website and see this in the Washington Times about Trump and just about this issue of resentment and what it takes to push back on that. Invariably, it requires gratitude. It is hard to be resentful when you're grateful. Try it.

You can't do it. It is the antidote to the poison of resentment. Many of you heard me say this often on this program on a tip that I use when your mind is racing and you can't go to sleep. They want to give you every kind of chemical in the world today to help you go to sleep. But I have found this, and this requires no prescription.

It requires no money. It requires nothing other than your own heart being willing to be grateful. And you go through the alphabet. If you can't sleep at night, go through the alphabet. And for the first letter is A. So what is something that starts with A that you're grateful for? Okay. What's something B that you're grateful for? A, American Family Radio. Okay.

We'll start with that. B, what are you grateful for? That starts with a B. Do you have somebody in your life whose name starts with a B that you could be grateful for? And C, you know, something you'd be grateful for? Be grateful for Christ.

Be grateful for church. Just go through the alphabet and just keep going. Now, when you get to Q and to Z and to X, it can get a little challenging at times, I admit.

So be creative. But don't let that be a deterrent. This is not meant to be an exact science. It's just meant to engage us in gratitude. The more we engage in gratitude, the less time we're going to have to be resentful.

And I am convinced of this. If you're a nurse or doctor, back me up. But I am convinced that nobody gets high blood pressure from gratitude. Nobody gets an ulcer from gratitude. Nobody struggles with, you know, anger and despair with gratitude.

It is one of the best health things that you could do. Nothing treats your body and your soul better than gratitude. Do you sabotage that gratitude?

I know I do. I have many times because people will come up to me sometimes and they'll say things that are extremely complimentary. How much my program meant to me or the way I played the piano or did such and such. And they were, you know, it made me feel a little awkward.

Because I know me and I see all my character flaws and I see all my failures and I can't accept that. A very close friend of mine told me one time, he said, the words you're looking for are thank you. Just say thank you.

You don't need to explain it away. They're giving you something. They're expressing something of value about you and to you. It's okay to say thank you. Do you have trouble saying thank you? Why? I know why I do. Why do you have trouble saying thank you? What goes on in your head space that says I must filter any compliment I get through my own wretchedness? Is that what you do?

That's what I've done. And I think it's a lousy way to live. I don't want to do that anymore. And so, you know what, if I did a good job playing the piano, I say thank you. I don't have to be, you know, egotistic about it. I just say thank you. I'm glad it meant something to you. Thank you. You know, when people say thank you, I'm glad it meant something to you.

Thank you. You know, when people say and do things for you, it's okay to receive it. You are an extraordinary individual. It's, and you do good things. And you, you are, you are behaving in a way that other people notice and they want to say something about it. So say thank you. You don't have to make any kind of weird issue about it. Just say thank you. When I make a nice meal for Gracie, and I put a lot of thought in, sometimes I get kind of creative.

I do, I do cheat on a few things because I've pulled in some ringers. And I was making something the other day and I used a little bit of a tweak that I gleaned from Graham Care. Graham Care used to be known as the Galloping Gourmet. And his family of mine have been friends for many, many, many years. And he gave me a couple of tips on some cooking.

When you get tips from cooking, by the way, from Graham Care, you've got some tips. And so I made something for Gracie this night. It was really good. And you know what she said? Thank you.

And you know what I said? You're welcome. And then I said, thank you to Graham Care too. So thank you, Graham. And Graham starts with G. So I'm thankful to Graham. If we are appreciative, we don't have time for the entitlement nonsense that we see permeating our society.

We don't have time for that rancor. Give me something, give me something. I would rather be known as an appreciative person. I'm not going to tell you that I'm not going to be known as an appreciative person. I'm not there yet, but I'd like to be. And I think that's a goal worthy of all of us. And so I would suggest to you as a caregiver, you do something extraordinary every day.

And it's amazing what you accomplish. What would you say to somebody who does what you do? Would you affirm them? Would you compliment them? Would you express them? Well, of course you would. So what would you want them to say back to you?

Thank you. Or you would want them to express how much that meant to them, that they were noticed, that you saw them. Well, guess what? Somebody sees you. Somebody notices you. I notice you. You're part of this audience. You're part of this family of caregivers.

This program is designed for you. Hey, thank you. You're doing a great job. You're doing something amazing. You show up every day.

I don't care if you feel like you're showing up all beat up and bloodied, maybe even swearing under your breath. I don't care. You're showing up.

Good job. Now, what do you say? You say, Peter, thank you.

That's it. Don't be weird about it. Just learn to say, thank you. You are worthy of being appreciated. You are worthy of being affirmed. You are worthy of being noticed. Your efforts are important. Now, what is our response to God who says all of that and more?

All of that and more. He has determined your worth so much so that look what he did on the cross. So your worth is found in Christ. And our response to him is, thank you. Thank you.

You know that little old course, let me go to the caregiver keyboard. Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul. Thank you, Lord, for making me whole. Thank you, Lord, for giving to me thy great salvation, so rich and free. Sing that with me. Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul. Thank you, Lord, for making me whole.

Thank you, Lord, for giving to me thy great salvation, so rich and free. You know how hard it is to be miserable while you're singing that song? This time of year is so hard for so many of us as human beings, not just caregivers as human beings. The days are darker.

The weather is a little bit more chilly. We get the doldrums a bit. We push back against that by being grateful. We push back against that by expressing gratitude. We learn to say thank you to each other and more importantly to God. If you are distressed about the direction of this country and the things that we see with all the entitlement, all the rage, all the rancor and everything else, if that troubles you, what are you doing to push back against it? And I suggest to you the only way we can is to start being a grateful people.

And it maybe just starts with you and me and then goes into other areas. The church should be leading this. Of all people, the church should be the most grateful because we know more of the depths of what God has done for us because of His Spirit, He has allowed us to see our hopeless estate and what He's done to redeem that.

And it should erupt from us. Go back to 1 Chronicles 16 when they brought the ark of the ark of the Lord and they put it in the tent. Now that had been disastrous prior to that because David had not done it according to the procedure but he did it right this time. They put it in the tent and that day David delivered this song to thank the Lord into the hand of Asaph and his brethren. Give thanks unto the Lord, call upon His name, make known His deeds among the people.

How about it? Let's commit to giving thanks to the Lord, calling upon His name and making His deeds known to the people. This is Peter Rosenberg and this is Hope for the Caregiver. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. I am Peter Rosenberg. Glad to have you with us.

Hopeforthecaregiver.com. That is the incomparable Mylon LeFevre. I still think that's one of the best arrangements of that song ever. Gracie and I have copied a lot of that.

We've performed that I don't know how many times since we first heard that way back in 1992. Give thanks with a grateful heart and I want to just continue with that theme here for us today. Give thanks and this is the invitation we have to be able to be a grateful people, to be a people that is focused on what God has done, what can be, all the possibilities, the potential, not the grievances that were done. And I wrote about this in a recent article when it comes to President Trump. I don't normally do what I'm about to do here, but I've gotten a lot of feedback on this from quite a few people. It's in the Washington Times, washingtontimes.com.

I write quite a bit for them and some others. The original title of this piece was called The Invitation to Nobleness. Now, when you pitch it to media outlets, Fox News, Washington Times, Chicago Tribune, whatever, as I've done, they will change the title, whatever suits their needs oftentimes and that's okay. But originally the title of this was The Invitation to Nobleness and I don't normally read my stuff. I'm rarely scripted and so it's a novelty for me to read something, but with the amount of feedback that I got on this commentary, this op-ed that I wrote, I thought I'd share it with you.

Now, the context of this is in the political world and referencing Trump, but I want you all to understand as caregivers, this is where we live too, okay? This is the temptation that is common to man. So I just want to read this to you and see what you think. The original title was called The Invitation to Nobleness. The Washington Times changed it to In Search of Humility for Donald Trump.

I didn't come up with that title, that's what they did, but when I wrote this originally, I wanted to call it The Invitation to Nobleness and here it is. Resentment can lead even the best of hearts into poor judgment, malice, and even self-destruction. While life provides ample opportunities to hold a grudge, the resistance to do so remains a triumph of the human soul. Sadly, that triumph can be elusive and seems to be the plight of the 45th president. From barbed comments against those in his party and the pulpit pounding of outrage, Trump's resentment oozes through each insult since the 2020 election and prior.

Although an honest media and an objective law enforcement might possibly prove his election misconduct claims, Trump's well-being still remains in his hands, not theirs. In the play The Morning Bride, 1697, William Congreve penned the immortal phrase heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned. Clearly, Congreve had yet to meet a spurned politician when writing that line. Artists possess a rare gift that turned personal misery into gold. People such as Sam Kennison, Denis Leary, Lewis Black, and others proved that with solid material, rancor and bitterness could even launch stellar comedy careers. With politicians, however, the audience needs more. Wit, comedy, and talent help, but the oratory must primarily raise, not descend to vindictiveness. Outrage motivates, but fails to inspire.

Although living with quadriplegia for more than 55 years, Johnny Erickson Todd estates life becomes inspiring, not in spite of the problems and the hard hits, but because of them. The ability to see beyond the injuries and even injustices elevates one to greatness. Trump's accomplishments will speak for generations, maybe further. His policies of America first, a secure border, firm boundaries with trade partners, and economic growth for the American people created a prosperous and healthy America in record time. Those things deserve recognition and should echo through the corridors of time. Due largely to Trump, the Supreme Court finally rectified a national disgrace and reversed Roe versus Wade. While the political capital spent proved costly in the midterm elections, what better way to expend that capital than promoting life? These accomplishments and more serve as towering achievements for Trump that eclipse many other presidents. All of these things and more certainly qualify him for another term.

Yet while wrecking balls are essential, in tearing down the dilapidated, they make poor tools to erect new construction. Can Trump pivot to a kinder, gentler candidate? Should he? Despite exposing the media's bias and the extensive dysfunction in Washington DC, the transition to Uniter has remained outside Trump's grasp. Relentless fighting on multiple fronts allows little time for building, and turning adversaries into allies requires a graciousness that is rare with the bloody sword of warfare. As the nation enters this uniquely American holiday of Thanksgiving, President Trump would not only serve himself, the country, and even the world better by using his platform to promote personal and national gratitude to the exclusion of grievances. In doing so, he and others would discover that under quality leadership, mistakes, even misdeeds by others become opportunities for growth and improvement. America does not crave a monarchy, but most cry for nobility. The invitation to nobleness bids takers to step into the rare air of authentic leadership and greatness that can heal a nation and inspire beyond its flaws and limitations. If as Trump states in every rally, we are a nation that only bows to God, then modeling that humility before God becomes paramount and presidential. Are the gains for one man, for the nation, or for God?

Catherine Lee Bates answered this when pinning that wonderful hymn, till all success be nobleness in every gain divine. And that is my commentary that is currently in the Washington Times, washingtontimes.com. And you're welcome to go out to my website and Facebook group and so forth and take it, copy it, send it, whatever. I wrote it about Trump, but I could easily write it about us as caregivers.

Okay. And there's a line in there that I want to draw your attention to. We would discover that under quality leadership, mistakes, and even misdeeds by others become opportunities for growth and improvement. Do we see that in our life as a caregiver?

Do you see the mistakes by others or misdeeds by others can still work to your advantage because it leads to growth in who you are as a person, improvement of who you are as a person. It doesn't mean that it's not important and that it doesn't hurt, that it's not consequential. But what it does mean, particularly as believers, is that we are not held hostage to other people's misdeeds. For a season, it may seem that way.

And sometimes that can be a very long season. But do we believe the things of God or not? As I said in the article, Trump says every week we bow only to one God. Well, part of bowing to God is recognizing that he's sovereign over this, that he's Lord of this. If he is Lord at all, then he is Lord of all, including FBI malfeasance, including media bias, including election problems, for lack of a better word, including for us as caregivers, including when your loved one treats you poorly while you're in the office.

When your loved one treats you poorly while you pour out your life to try to help that person, including when family members don't help you the way you wish they would, or really the way they should help you. If he's Lord at all, he's Lord of all. Now, I'm not saying these things to in any way shame you or me when we get this wrong.

This is the standard. This is the invitation to nobleness. This is the invitation for you and I to transcend these things that were not mired in the resentment, but that we can give thanks, that we can see the bigger picture. The same spirit that equipped the apostle Paul to write, rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

That's 1 Thessalonians 5, 16 through 18. The same spirit that equipped Paul to write that equips you and me to do the same thing, to give thanks in all circumstances. And so I ask you, and I don't know if Trump will read that article, but wouldn't it be great if we had somebody running for president who did give thanks in all things? Wouldn't it be great if we had somebody running for president who saw the state of the world for what it is, but was able to see also God's provision, was also able to be anchored in the scriptures?

Are we going to wait for such a person to come on the scene or are we going to lift our voices up and help eliminate the standard for such a person to meet? I've got a theory that the church has all too long allowed a portion of the political world to dictate to us the direction. And while our values may intersect with one party more than another, make no mistake, neither party is interested in furthering the kingdom of God. That's the job of the church. That's us. And so we set that bar high because scripture sets that bar high, not because it's something that we want, it's something that God states.

He states it for us as human beings, as the church, as the apostle Peter said in 1 Peter 2.9, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. That's our job. That's our mission. That's our design. That's our invitation to nobleness. So when I write an article like that, it's coming from that foundational study I have in scripture of wondering what is the goal?

What is the bar? Where are we heading to? As a caregiver, I'm a royal priest in my own home. We are all called to this. And that is hope for the caregiver. And this is Peter Rosenberg and we'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberg. We're so glad to have you with us. I love that song. That's a fun song to play on the piano.

I love playing. You know, the text of that was written, I think I've told you guys this before, it was written back in like the 1700s. Then I think the Edwin Hawkins singers just turned this into a gospel standard. But the text goes back hundreds and hundreds of years. Great text. Oh, happy day. I hope you found this special Thanksgiving weekend program helpful to you and meaningful to you. The day to day task we do as caregivers are challenging and difficult and all that's involved. But it has been my experience that learning to cultivate that sense of gratitude, that sense of thanksgiving, that appreciation for what we have is what is the game changer for us, not just as caregivers, but as human beings. And this is something I'm going to need you all to repeat back to me on a regular basis. I suffer from gratitude amnesia, you know, and the more I'm grateful, the more settled my heart becomes.

It allows me to do the things that I need to do as a caregiver a bit better, a bit calmer, a bit healthier, and dare I say it, a bit more joyfully. I want to pivot just a bit. 20 years ago this fall, last month, Gracie and I founded a ministry. We set out to do something rather different and we called it Standing with Hope. This came from, and I can remember where she was when she had this conversation with me, she had just had her left leg amputated. This was back in 1995 and she was recovering from that surgery. She'd already lost her right leg four years earlier. And she looked at me, she came in and she said she had been watching television there in the hospital, laying there, both legs gone. And the documentary was about Princess Diana and the work she was doing with amputees.

I think this was in Southeast Asia. And Gracie saw people who she now looked just like. And she said, I want to reach these people with not only prosthetics, but with the message of the gospel. And she held onto that vision. And I was puzzled and thought, is this really where we need to be going? What do we need to be doing?

And she was relentless. She said, I believe this is what I'm supposed to do. We talked about it. We prayed about it. We spent a lot of time with this and we found it Standing with Hope. And we went over to Ghana on our first trip.

Johnny Erickson taught us, people mentored us through this. And they said, here's, we got some people in Ghana that you can work with and get this thing going. We're not a huge organization. We're very small.

In fact, it's just me and Gracie really, mostly me because Gracie right now is dealing with a lot of health challenges. But we started doing this on a shoestring budget, went over on our first trip, we took Gracie's prosthetist with us that was building her legs. And we spent some time training, brought equipment, started getting a field, went back again, went back again, started taking more people, went back again, back again, and back again, sending more supplies. And almost a dozen years ago, an organization in Tennessee that manages prisons across the country called Core Civic partnered with us for the inmates to have a faith-based program to work in because we needed some help recycling the limbs. We collect limbs from all over the country and they go to a prison and inmates volunteer to disassemble them for us so we can reuse the parts.

And then we buy more parts and more materials that can't be recycled. And we continue doing this. It's been an extraordinary ministry of changing lives one leg at a time. Then about 11 years ago, our board of directors had a conversation with me and they said, we've been thinking about you and the things that you do for Gracie and the insights that you've had.

People have been coming up to ask me tips for things and to learn how I was navigating through stuff. And they said, we think you have a very powerful message for family caregivers. And we want you to write a book. We want you to do a show.

We want you to start addressing this vast population who is struggling while caring for somebody with chronic impairments. And it was my friend, Sam, on our board still. And we've known him for a lifetime.

And he is a wonderful pastor in the Nashville area, in Franklin, Tennessee. And I can remember him looking at me. We were in our dining room in Nashville and he looked at me and he calls me Pedro. And he said, Pedro, you got to do this. And I said, sure, Sam, I got nothing else to do. What nobody knew at that time is that I had been thinking about this. I remember a counselor during the pandemic. And he said, I've been thinking about this for a long time.

And the counselor, during a particularly low period of my life, told me, she said, I'd recommend a book for you to read, but you're the guy to write it. And when Sam said this, it just, things started clicking. And we launched this whole caregiver outreach. And so the mission of Standing with Hope became for the wounded and those who care for them. And this is what we do. And we've been doing this for a very long time. And the program has grown. The Prosthetic Limb Ministry has grown.

And we fine tune things. This program now airs on hundreds of stations. From what I understand, it's the largest broadcast for family caregivers in the world. The podcast has also grown. And it also is the largest podcast for family caregivers in the world. And what's the difference between what we do here and what other people are doing?

Because there's some wonderful people out there reaching family caregivers. And what I've committed to do out of my own journey is to share how I do it. Not to come up with some kind of series of tips and all those kinds of things. Those are great. Those are helpful. But that's really not the focus.

That is not what I spend with. I anchor myself in the principles, in the teachings, in the scriptures that God has laid out for us so that I can know Him better and thereby stand firm in the midst of all the things that I have to do as a family caregiver and in life. And this is the core of all that I do on this program. And I'm so grateful that American Family Radio took an interest in this. They took a chance on me. And please, please, if this show means something to you, let them know that. The Truth Network took a chance on me. If this show has value to you and you're listening to it on The Truth Network, let them know. And his radio and the other affiliates, let them know. Because there is no other radio program like this that is speaking to the needs of the family caregiver. Not like I do.

And not with the resume that I have. And the church should be out in front of this. Believers should be in front of this. We don't need to play defense on this issue.

We play offense by going to people who are lonely and struggling. And we don't need to listen. And wondering, does God even know who they are?

If we're not answering that with clarity as believers, then who are they going to listen to? So I am very grateful for all of these folks who have come alongside and seen value to what Gracie and I set out to do a long time ago. We have no fundraising budget at Standing With Hope. When I go out and speak, those honorariums go to Standing With Hope.

When we don't have a dinner, a banquet, we don't have a golf tournament, we don't have any of those things. We just committed and purposed a long time ago that we were going to be obedient and do what we believe God asked us to do. And trust Him for the provisions. And as my father used to say, where He leads, He feeds, where He guides, He provides. And He's done that. And it's important for me to tell you that He's done this so that you can know that it's okay to trust Him with whatever He's leading you to do. There may be some type of work that is heavy on your heart to do and you feel like you're not qualified.

Gracie has had 84 operations over these years, this massive medical journey, and I care for her full time. And yet here's what He is accomplishing through this. As you heard last week, when I gave the quote from my longtime friend and pastor in Nashville, Jim Bachman said, God says, I'll give you brokenness, I'll give you weakness, I'll give you emptiness. Then you'll be useful to me. You know, you're useful to God right now. You may not think you are, but that's the whole point. He doesn't need you to think you're useful. He doesn't need anything. He invites us to trust Him.

And He's done that with us. I look at friends of mine who have, you know, they run big ministries and things such as that, and it makes me tired to think about that. That's the last thing I want is to have this massive compound to all this stuff. I just want to talk to my fellow caregivers. So we keep everything very streamlined, very tight, very small, and focus exclusively on just doing the work. If you find this program meaningful, if you find what we do, that it connects with you, and you see value in this, we'd welcome your support. We'd welcome you to help be a part of this. Pray for us.

I see these notes that come in, and so many say thank you because you're speaking directly to me. Keep sending the notes. Keep the prayers.

You can go out to our website, and you can support it financially. You can tell other people about it. You can tell your church about it. You can tell people who have a loved one who passed away with a prosthetic leg, and they don't know what to do with it.

We could recycle that. There's so many ways that you could be a part, and we would welcome that at standingwithhope.com slash giving. Thank you for taking the time with this today. This is Peter Rosenberger.

Healthy caregivers make better caregivers. We'll see you next time. You've heard me talk about Standing With Hope over the years. This is the prosthetic limb ministry that Gracie envisioned after losing both of her legs. Part of that outreach is our prosthetic limb recycling program. Did you know that prosthetic limbs can be recycled?

No kidding. There is a correctional facility in Arizona that helps us recycle prosthetic limbs, and this facility is run by a group out of Nashville called CoreCivic. We met them over 11 years ago, and they stepped in to help us with this recycling program of taking prostheses, and you disassemble them. You take the knee, the foot, the pylon, the tube clamps, the adapters, the screws, the liners, the prosthetic socks, all these things we can reuse, and inmates help us do it. Before CoreCivic came along, I was sitting on the floor at our house or out in the garage when we lived in Nashville, and I had tools everywhere, limbs everywhere, and feet, boxes of them and so forth.

I was doing all this myself, and I'd make the kids help me, and it got to be too much for me. I was very grateful that CoreCivic stepped up and said, look, we are always looking for faith-based programs that are interesting and that give inmates a sense of satisfaction, and we'd love to be a part of this, and that's what they're doing. And you can see more about that at standingwithhope.com slash recycle. So please help us get the word out that we do recycle prosthetic limbs. We do arms as well, but the majority of amputations are lower limb, and that's where the focus of Standing with Hope is, and that's where Gracie's life is with her lower limb prostheses. And she's used some of her own limbs in this outreach that she's recycled. I mean, she's been an amputee for over 30 years, so you go through a lot of legs and parts and other types of materials, and you can reuse prosthetic socks and liners if they're in good shape. All of this helps give the gift that keeps on walking, and it goes to this prison in Arizona where it's such an extraordinary ministry.

Think with that. Inmates volunteering for this. They want to do it, and they've had amazing times with it, and I've had very moving conversations with the inmates that work in this program. And you can see, again, all of that at standingwithhope.com slash recycle. They're putting together a big shipment right now for us to ship over. We do this pretty regularly throughout the year as inventory rises, and they need it badly in Ghana. So please go out to standingwithhope.com slash recycle and get the word out and help us do more. If you want to offset some of the shipping, you can always go to the giving page and be a part of what we're doing there. We're purchasing material in Ghana that they have to use that can't be recycled. We're shipping over stuff that can be, and we're doing all of this to lift others up and to point them to Christ, and that's the whole purpose of everything that we do, and that is why Gracie and I continue to be standing with hope. Standingwithhope.com.