The Path to Peace

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

What does that look like? I'm Peter Rosenberg, and I want to tell you about a program I've been a part of now for almost 10 years, and that's Legal Shield. For less than $30 a month, I have access to a full law firm that can handle all kinds of things.

If I get a contract put in front of me, if I got a dispute with something, doesn't matter. I've got a full law firm that can help me navigate through all the sticky wickets that we as caregivers have to deal with. Power of attorney, medical power of attorney, I will.

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It turns purple. It says, pick a plan. It'll give you some options.

If you don't need any of those, don't select them. Check out and be protected starting today. That's caregiverlegal.com. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberg. Glad to have you with us. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. I am joined by a wonderful friend of this program and of mine and a fellow South Carolinian, Mary Tutterow, and she is joining us from way down in the low country of South Carolina. She is the author of The Heart of a Caregiver, and also that is her website, The Heart of the Caregiver.com. Longtime caregiver for over 30 years now for her daughter, Mary Addison, with special needs. Mary is not only a prolific author, but she has a great outreach to fellow caregivers, including me. I really enjoy listening to what she has to say, and thank you for being back on this program with me, Mary.

I appreciate you being here. Last time we tried to connect, and we had some difficulties. Here I am way out in the hinterlands of Montana, and I was able to connect, but you weren't able to there in the chic urban setting that you live in. I won't mention your internet provider, but I'm glad to have you with us today. Tell me how you're doing.

We're doing great. It's a rainy day in the low country, and whenever that happens, who knows what's going to happen to technology. We hadn't figured it out down near, Peter.

You're right. I mean, if a bird flies over North Dakota, my internet goes out, so I don't know. We have an unobstructed view of the sky out here, and it's a big sky in Montana. At night, you could actually see the satellite. I'm on Starlink, and so I can look up and just wave to Elon Musk.

No, seriously? You can see the satellite? No, you can see some satellites. I don't know if it's the satellite, but you could see some. I have a big sky out there.

It is indeed, and it is on a cold night, which of late, we've had some very cold nights. The sky is particularly clear, and so my niece works for NASA, and she gives us a lot of low downs on all things going on in the cosmos, and I'm always thrilled to hear what she has to say. She goes to a church where half the folks there are NASA engineers. She's like so many people there working at NASA, and it's fascinating to listen to them talk about the word of God in the context of the heavens declare the glory of God and so forth. She's a fascinating person to talk to and a lot smarter than I am.

She grew up in South Carolina. She's up there in the upstate where I'm from, but she is an astrophysicist, and I love to listen to her describe the heavens declaring the glory of God. It's wonderful to hear that from an astrophysicist. What does an astrophysicist do, Peter?

I don't know. I graduated, thank you, Lottie, from high school. How come so lousy? I digress, though, and I'm glad to have you with us. Sorry, it's a rainy day there, but it's always beautiful where you are. That is one of the most beautiful areas of the country, and I'm thrilled to have you here. Tell me what's going on in your life, and then we're going to get into some things that you want to talk about today.

So I have got myself a nice, big, fancy hot spot so that I don't have to rely on Comcast, and I'm connected to my hot spot thinking there'd be no flaws, but anyway. That's all right. Well, tell me how you're doing and what's going on in your life. Well, we're doing great.

Life is good in the sunny south. It's 70 degrees, but just raining, and Mary Addison has been a little under the weather, but that's what we do, and she's still the bright spot in our life, and we've started master classes online, and we've got a couple of those going to master classes where I actually lead the small groups online, and I love it, love it, love it. It's such a gift to me, just like I enjoy talking to you. It's such a gift to connect to other people who get it. What goes on in those classes?

Well, we go through the workbooks chapter by chapter and just discuss each chapter, but I think the thing that happens the most is people breathe a deep sigh of relief going, oh, I'm not the only one that feels that way. People express a lot of really hard emotions about caregiving and how they feel, and these are people... Peter, you and I talk about there's those who've only been doing it for a year or so, but then I get a lot of folks in my groups who've been doing it 10, 15, 20 years, and they just need a leg up again. Well, I have extras. That's just wrong. That's wrong. That's just wrong right there.

I buy eggs from a local farmer rancher down the road here, and you go in and you put your money in a jar and you get however many eggs you need. She's got goat milk, cow milk, everything else, but the price of eggs would go up, and I told her, I said, if it costs an arm and a leg, will you take two legs? That's just wrong, Mary. That's wrong.

It is either. Hey, but it's your life. It is my life. Well, do you find... One of the things I find when I talk to caregivers is that they are relieved to hear things in their own language, because I really believe that caregivers... We know the words that everybody's saying to us, but it doesn't really penetrate down to our heart. That is the whole focus of what you do.

Is that what you see? Do you see eyes widen when you're doing these small groups? They're like, oh, you understand me.

You understand the words I'm saying, right? They understand you kind of thing. And it's a super aha, but even more exciting, Peter, is when they hear the Word of God fall afresh on them in a new way, and they have a huge God aha, because I think that's the other thing is people have had faith, but they're in the trenches and they are looking for results. They're looking for the reality of God's promises in their life.

They're clinging to that. And when you clear away the cobwebs and help them see things that they hadn't seen before or help them understand a whole new way to look at things, it's just incredible. And when one gets it, they all get it.

That's the other thing. It's so great to do it in a group with other people. What's the biggest, I don't want to say stumbling, but what's the biggest topic that you find yourself addressing and readdressing? Is there something that comes back to you that you circle back to a lot of this group of what the common struggle?

Absolutely. And that is when you are taking care of someone who is suffering or struggling, it triggers all the work that you need to do. Because it's like, if somebody else is having a problem, but suddenly you're the hot mess, it's triggering something that you haven't done the work on.

And so we work on that a whole lot. And the whole image of there's this voice that we've been listening to our whole lives. It's the father of lies.

It's our ego. It's our flesh. And like in Romans 8, 6, if you listen to this, it's heading for death. But if you listen for this, which is the spirit of God, and you let it tell that to be quiet.

All right. For those of you listening on the podcast, on radio, Mary's using hand signals. At first, I thought she was waving somebody into third base. I didn't know what was going on there, but she's holding her head above her head. So you're listening to one voice over here, but when you hear the voice straight down, that's when your heart gets settled. So I just, sorry about that, Mary. I had to translate for the visually unengaged here.

They can't see what we see. But I mean, that's a huge aha. And when people realize that what's making them so upset with their life in taking care of a loved one, it's one thing to tell them it's the very calling of Jesus. You've been chosen.

You're equipped. This is what Jesus did, blah, blah, blah. But when you explain to them why they get ripped out of the frame so easily, why they get irritated, why they feel inadequate, then suddenly they realize, I have a choice. That's what the peaceful caregiver was all about. God worked with me on peace for two years about, are you going to be able to do this about, are you going to be able to do this without exploding and being irritated and having patience and not throwing a pity party only once a month?

How about never? How about learn to see this as it's just bringing up the worst in you so that you can get the worst of you out. And people really start having an aha moment when they realize that's what's going on.

It's not Mary Addison that's doing it. It's my unfinished business that I haven't worked out. Well, I agree.

And I share that same belief system. I've often said that if you have cracks, which we all do, caregiving is only going to amplify those things. And it's going to expose rapidly things that may have normally taken a lifetime to unpack. But in the crucible of caregiving, the pressure is so intense, things just erupt out. My new book comes out in the spring, but then I'm gonna start on my next book, which is called Cringe, my life as a caregiver, because I just cringe over everything. I look at it and I think, ah. And somebody said this the other day, and I'm glad that you've got all this stuff going on here because I feel a little bit better about it because your pace is about the same as mine. And I remember talking to an agent and he said, well, you need to be writing a book every year. And I'm thinking, you show me somebody who's writing a book every year for caregivers. I'll show you somebody who's not caregiving. Because you and I, we write about the same pace. And that's okay because it takes...

I was telling this on my program the other day, and you as a low country South Carolinian would appreciate this. I cook almost exclusively with iron. I love my iron pans. And iron has to season. You can't put that in the dishwasher.

You don't wash it. There's the way you deal with iron and it's seasoned. It takes time to really get that great iron skillet that makes great fried... I made some iron skillet fried chicken the other day.

I had no complaints from my wife. But it takes a while for an iron skillet to do that. Well, it takes a while for a caregiver to do that too. These are seasoning things that it takes. Well, and it takes the whole second part of the peaceful caregiver is, it's one thing to have these aha moments, but if you don't put them into practice, if you don't put these ahas into practice and say, well, it doesn't make sense, but this is what your words said and I'm going to give it a go and actually do it. That's the other part that like with the seasoning, I mean, then it's just words. Well, that's what I love about the small groups. I think that's where you do such a great service to your group that comes in there because you're keeping that top of mind awareness with them.

And you keep talking about that. And I want to unpack that a little bit more, particularly in your five steps on the path to peace. This is Peter Rosenberg. We're talking with Mary Tutterow down in the low country of South Carolina, where I am from South Carolina.

So I like to say low country. And she is the author of the heart of the caregiver, the heart of the caregiver.com. This is Peter Rosenberg. We'll be right back. Welcome back to hope for the caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberg. Glad to have you with us. Hope for the caregiver.com. I'm joined by a wonderful friend of this program and of mine and a fellow South Carolinian, Mary Tutterow.

And she is joining us from way down in the low country of South Carolina. She is the author of the heart of a caregiver. And also that is her website, the heart of the caregiver.com. Longtime caregiver for over 30 years now for her daughter, Mary Addison with special needs. Mary is not only a prolific author, but she has a great outreach to fellow caregivers, including me. I really enjoy listening to what she has to say. And thank you for being back on this program with me, Mary. I appreciate you being here. Last time we tried to connect and we had some difficulties here. I am way out in the hinterlands of Montana and I was able to connect, but you weren't able to there in the chic urban setting that you live in.

I won't mention your internet provider, not Comcast, but I, no. But I'm glad to have you with us today. Tell me how you're doing. We're doing great.

It's a rainy day in the low country. And whenever that happens, who knows what's going to happen to technology. We hadn't figured it out down here, Peter. You're right. I mean, if a bird flies over North Dakota, my internet goes out.

So I don't know. Well, we have an unobstructed view of the sky out here and it's a big sky in Montana. So we have, at night, you could actually see the satellite.

I'm on Starlink. And so I can look up and just wave to Elon Musk. No, seriously? You can see the satellite?

No, no. You can see some satellites. I don't know if it's the satellite, but you could see some. I have a big sky out there. It is indeed. And it is on a cold night, which of late, we've had some very cold nights.

The sky is particularly clear. And so my niece works for NASA and she gives us a lot of lowdowns on all things going on in the cosmos. And I'm always thrilled to hear what she has to say. And she goes to a church where half the folks there are NASA engineers. She said, I mean, she's like so many people there working at NASA and it's fascinating to listen to them talk about the word of God in the context of the heavens declare the glory of God and so forth. And I just, she's a fascinating person to talk to and a lot smarter than I am. She grew up in South Carolina.

She's up there, the upstate where I'm from. But she is astrophysicist and I love to listen to her describe the heavens declaring the glory of God. It's just, it's wonderful to hear that from an astrophysicist. And so anyway. What does an astrophysicist do, Peter?

I don't know. I graduated, thank you, Lottie, from high school. I mean, I don't know how come so lousy, you know, but it's, she's a wonderful guy.

I digress though. And I'm glad to have you with her. Sorry, it's a rainy day there and the local, but it's always beautiful where you are.

That is one of the most beautiful areas of the country. And I, I'm thrilled to have you here. Tell me what's going on in your life. And then we're going to get into some things that you want to talk about today. So I have got myself a nice, big, fancy hotspot so that I don't have to rely on Comcast.

And I'm connected to my hotspot thinking there'd be no flaws, but anyway. That's all right. Well, tell me how you're doing and what's going on in your life. Well, we're doing great.

Life is good in the sunny South at 70 degrees, but just raining. And Mary Addison has been a little under the weather, but that's what we do. And she's, she's still the bright spot in our life. And we've started masterclasses online and we've got a couple of those going to masterclasses and where I actually lead the small groups online. And I love it, love it, love it. It's such a gift to me, just like I enjoy talking to you. It's such a gift to connect to other people who get it. What goes on in those classes?

Well, we go through the workbooks chapter by chapter and just discuss each chapter. But I think the thing that happens the most is people breathe a deep sigh of relief going, Oh, I'm not the only one that feels that way. People express a lot of really hard emotions about caregiving and how they feel.

And these are people, Peter, you and I talk about, there's those who've only been doing it for a year or so, but then I get a lot of folks in my groups who've been doing it 10, 15, 20 years, and they just need a leg up again. Well, I have extras. That's just wrong. That's wrong.

That's just wrong right there. I buy eggs from a local farmer, rancher down the road here. And you go in and you put your money in a jar and you get however many eggs you need. She's got goat milk, cow milk, everything else. But the price of eggs are going up. And I told her, I said, if it costs an arm and a leg, will you take two legs? That's just wrong, Mary.

That's wrong. Hey, but it's your life. It is my life. One of the things I find when I talk to caregivers is that they are relieved to hear things in their own language, because I really believe that caregivers, we know the words that everybody's saying to us, but it doesn't really penetrate down to our heart. That is the whole focus of what you do. Is that what you see? Do you see eyes widen when you're doing these small groups? And they're like, oh, you understand me.

You understand the words I'm saying, right? They understand you kind of thing. And it's a super aha, but even more exciting, Peter, is when they hear the word of God fall afresh on them in a new way. And they have a huge God aha because, you know, I think that's the other thing is people have had faith, but they're in the trenches and they are looking for results. They're looking for the reality of God's promises in their life.

They're clinging to that. And when you clear away the cobwebs and help them see things that they hadn't seen before, or help them understand a whole new way to look at things, it's, it's just incredible. And when one gets it, they all get it.

That's the other thing. It's so great to do it in a group with other people. What's the biggest, I don't want to say stumbling, but what's the biggest topic that you find yourself addressing and readdressing? What if there's, is there something that comes back to you that you circle back to a lot of this group of what the common struggle?

Absolutely. And that is when you are taking care of someone who is suffering or struggling, it triggers all the work that you need to do. Because it's like, if somebody else is having a problem, but suddenly you're the hot mess, it's triggering something that you haven't done the work on. And so we, we work on that a whole lot and the whole image of there's this voice that we've been listening to our whole lives. It's the father of lies.

It's our ego. It's our flesh. And like in Romans 8, 6, if you listen to this, it's heading for death. But if you listen for this, which is the spirit of God, and you let it tell that to be quiet.

All right. For those of you listening on the podcast on radio, Mary's using hand signals. At first I thought she, she was, she was waving somebody into third base. I didn't know what was going on there, but she's holding her head above her head. So you're listening to one voice over here, but you're, when you hear the voice, you're when you hear the voice straight down, that's when it's your heart gets settled. So I just, sorry about that, Mary. I had to translate for the visually unengaged here.

They can't see what we see, but I mean, that's a huge aha. And when people realize that what's making them so upset with their life in taking care of for a loved one, it's one thing to tell them it's the very calling of Jesus. You've been chosen.

You're equipped. This is what Jesus did, blah, blah, blah. But when you explain to them why they get ripped out of the frame so easily, why they get irritated, why they feel inadequate, you know, then suddenly they realize I have a choice. I don't, you know, that's what the peaceful caregiver was all about. God worked with me on peace for two years about, are you going to be able to do this without exploding and being irritated and having patience and not throwing a pity party, you know, only once a month, how about never, how about, how about learn to see this as it's just bringing up the worst in you so that you can get the worst of you out. And people really start having an aha moment when they realize that's what's going on.

It's not Mary Addison that's doing it. It's my unfinished business that I haven't worked out. Well, I agree.

And I, I, I share that same belief system. I have often said that if you have cracks, which we all do, caregiving is only going to amplify those and it's going to expose rapidly things that may have normally taken a lifetime to unpack, but in the crucible of caregiving, the pressure so intense things just erupt out. And, and I am, uh, uh, my new book comes out in the spring, but then I'm gonna start on my next book, which is called Cringe, my life as a caregiver, because I just cringe over everything. I mean, I, I look at, I think, uh, you know, and, and then somebody said this the other day, uh, and I'm glad that you've got all this stuff going on here because, you know, it makes it, I feel a little bit better about it because your, your pace is about the same as mine. And they were, and I remember talking to, uh, uh, an agent and he said, well, you need to be writing a book every year. And I'm thinking you show me somebody who's writing a book every year for caregivers.

And I'll show you somebody who's not caregiving because you and I, we write about the same pace, you know, and, and that's okay because it takes, I was told this on my program the other day and you as a low country, South Carolina would appreciate this. I cook almost exclusively with iron. I love my, my iron pans and iron has to season. You can't put that in the dishwasher.

You don't wash it. You, you there's the way you deal with iron and it's seasoned. It takes time to really get that great iron skillet. That makes great.

I made some Irish get a fried chicken the other day. I had no complaints from my wife, but you don't, you, it takes a while for an iron skillet to do that. Well, it takes a while for a caregiver to do that too. I mean, it just, these are seasoning things that it takes. Well, and you know, it takes the whole second part of the peaceful caregiver is it's one thing to have these aha moments, but if you don't put them into practice, if you don't put these ahas into practice and say, well, it doesn't make sense, but this is what your words said, and I'm going to give it a go and actually do it. That's the other part that like with the seasoning, I mean, then it it's just words. Well, that's what I love about the small groups. And I think that's where you ha you do such a great service to your group that comes in there because you're keeping that top of mind awareness with them.

And you keep talking about that. And I, I want to unpack that a little bit more, particularly in your five steps on the path to peace. This is Peter Rosenberg. We're talking with Mary Tuttero down in the low country of South Carolina, where I am from South Carolina.

So I like to say low country. And she is the author of the heart of the caregiver, the heart of the caregiver.com. This is Peter Rosenberger. We'll be right back. Welcome back to hope for the caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger hope for the caregiver.com. We're talking with Mary Tuttero down in the low country of South Carolina, where I am from that state, but I'm from the upstate of South Carolina.

I think that most people just look at it. If you're from South Carolina, they don't really care what part of the state you're from. You're from South Carolina and I'm Carolina born Carolina bread. When I die, I'll be Carolina. Did you ever heard that very, that was actually the battle cry for Newberry college.

Uh, just let you know that, uh, Mary Tuttero, the heart of the caregiver.com. We're talking about the path to peace, learning to be peaceful while you're in the middle of this thing, you don't have to have everything all worked out. Uh, everything in scripture says that we're not going to have everything settled. Paul learned this from prison after being beaten. He and Paul and Paul and Silas were, were, um, singing around midnight. It says in acts, uh, after being beaten and they were in stocks that they were in the middle of the prison.

So they were in prison, in prison, in prison at times three. And they were singing hymns around midnight. I don't know how many of us as caregivers sing hymns around midnight. Mary, do you sing hymns around midnight?

Yes. I'm up wandering the house. Mary Anderson doesn't sleep. What else am I going to do?

Social media reruns of Matlock. No, no, I won't do it. Yeah. Sometimes I do, but I'm not, I I'm a morning person now.

And, uh, and Gracie is not, but I am. Um, and, and so I don't do real well at night and I'm looking at her and said, okay, look, babe, I'm done for the night. Cause I'll have more done by, you know, nine 30 in the morning than most people get done all day. And, and by six in my past right here, they made me a deacon at this church out here where I go. And, and I, and I told him, I said, I was convinced I would never serve as a deacon at a church that would have me as a deacon. And, and so they, they, but he has these meetings that go on at night and he walked and I walk into these meetings and this, you know, six 30 at night and I'm bleary at, and he said, it's six 30. I said, my day starts different than yours and my day is different. So can we have these meetings at like, you know, eight o'clock and, uh, but I don't think they will in the morning, but I, I'm not, I'm not a, I'm not a guy that sings a lot of hymns at midnight and yet scripture says we can. Well, you know, um, it's when he, it's, it's when he speaks the most loudly to me at night.

Yeah. Like, well, the wee hours of the morning, I'm the person with the cell phone flashlight on running to find my pad and pen that I should have learned long time ago, just keep by the bed, but I don't want to wake up when, but I go running to my corner in the dark and just start writing like crazy. If I go running to the corner in the dark at night, I'm going to be hitting furniture and, uh, speaking in languages. I didn't know I could, I, uh, I always wear shoes by the way, always, I never go barefoot because of diehard. It ruined me for barefoot because that season he has to, when he has to run across all the broken glass and he's barefoot that ruined me because I have, I have stumbled into furniture in the middle of the night, barefoot, and I won't do that again.

So I always wear shoes. Well, I, and I appreciate that. I mean, you know, that Gracie is a night person.

She just, you know, she's up all that, but most of that because she struggles to be able to get to sleep. Um, but it's, uh, um, the, it's the quietness is where he gets our attention. And that's what it's quiet. Usually it's night in the morning times out here, it's quiet for me.

And, uh, I watched the sunrise, have a cup of coffee and chew on these things. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't leave. I want to throw this out to you. And then I want you to take this out. I think that there's this, um, pressure we put on ourselves or we've had again, these voices put on us, you know, about doing your Bible study and you're doing your day. And one guy said, you know, I'm reading a chapter a day or do this, this, and I want to suggest to my fellow caregivers and myself, we don't have to put these, um, chapters in number requirements on ourselves. Sometimes we can just chew on a verse all day long. Just there's some things about scripture. If we just take it slow, we don't, we could just savor, you know, these, these verses, like you had a minute ago with Romans and then in Galatians, I have been crucified with Christ. I no longer live the life I live in the body.

I live by faith in the son of God. I'm going to chew on that verse for the rest of my life. Yeah. Well, yes, I will give you a big, huge yes on that. I have a, however, something that when you start practicing this peace walk, okay.

So you're aware you have a choice that there are two voices. You decide, I'm going to take that deep breath and wait for a new, for a new something. I'm going to empty my old stories and recognize that's an old story. I, I'm not gonna fall for that again. Okay.

I'm going to empty it. But now you are free to listen like Mary did at the feet of Jesus. You're free to listen. And so instead of having, instead of sitting down and reading the Bible and having these wonderful verses that make sense.

Gosh, this is without having taught the whole class to you. We spent so much time. The ego tries to make God explain himself to our ego. When you've learned how to quiet your ego, you can listen and receive through the power of the Holy spirit.

And you don't have to argue with God's word anymore. It flows. I stand corrected. It does.

It's not me trying to meet a requirement. It's me just basking and see it. It does flow. And you're like, Oh, I never saw that before. And it just comes because you've quieted all that stuff that goes, yeah, but. Well, I, that, you know, how am I supposed you've quieted all that.

And you're just, you're, you're fine tuned antenna. You're just listening and you're listening all day long and all night long. It you've opened up this huge space within yourself to receive what God is sending all the time, you know, and then your prayer life, instead of it becoming and your quiet time with God and all those things, those practices, like you're talking about, Peter, instead of it becoming a list of all the problems and all the messed up people and all the difficult situations, your prayer life becomes this time of receiving the answers you've been looking for. It's you can pray without ceasing because you've opened this channel between you and God.

That's not making him have to explain himself to your ego. You're just ready to receive. It's, it's a whole different way. I see that it is contemplating and pondering. One of my favorite lines from a hymn is ponder a new with the almighty can do from praising the Lord. The almighty is one of my favorite hymns. I love the hymns.

And, and I think that's why I love them because they say these great theological truths in such a way that it's easy for me to remember. And I do, I do see that where we have to, we, we stop striving to make sense of this and just see what he says and let him make sense to us. He he'll make it. He'll make it make sense.

I don't have to make it since he will reveal it. Yes. And I think that's what I hear you say. And I, I, I, I stand clarified. Well, and I watched it in the people that do these groups.

I've just watched it. And I, I it's, it's a gift to me to have all these people in my life who then follow up and write me letters and tell me how God has done things in them. You know, once they've stopped listening to this voice, that is what is running the world. Now they're listening through their heart to truth that passes understanding. I mean, that's one big thing about peace is he says my peace, you know, and that it passes understanding. Hello. Doesn't need to be filtered through the ego.

Just receive it. You know, anybody else saying this and it would sound a little too simple, but when you understand the context from what Mary says, this, this is extraordinary because she's doing this after 30 plus years of caregiving through a very, very, very extreme situation with her daughter and, and her mother-in-law. These, the, the context makes the difference and the weight of her words. And I want you to check out her website, go to the heart of the caregiver.com. Look at her books, look at her materials that she has. She is taking a wealth of wisdom and insights and things she's learned the hard way. In fact, Mary, would it be fair to say you hadn't learned anything the easy way? Amen, bro.

I've never, I've never seen anybody go, I learned that the easy way. You know, this is, it's important for us all to listen to people who have fought in these trenches for as long as Mary has. And that's why I love to have her on the program. And we're going to have her on, on a regular basis.

I've already committed that. I will tell you why not only does she have great insights, but then she sent me some Southern biscuit stuff. And, um, so that that's always good. And I made those biscuits, my father-in-law in the summertime comes down and we have Saturday morning breakfasts where we cover a variety of, of topics and solve the problems of the world. And I served those biscuits one day and, uh, he, uh, he went to school for a while there in South Carolina. And, uh, but he's a child of the South too. And when he had those biscuits, Mary, he was, he was quite grateful.

He, he loved those biscuits. So, uh, we, we want to keep that channel, you know, keeping open channels. We want to keep that channel open for all those Southern, cause I can't get that stuff out here in Montana. You have no idea what I have to do just to get grits out here. And they look at grits. What do you mean grits? You know, figure out how to get you some fresh shrimp. Well, that's going to be a challenge and there's nothing like a good old shrimp boil. And, um, I, I, I am thinking about making some shrimp and grits, but I told you my sister for, uh, was out here and for Christmas brunch, she made a shrimp and grits and.

Oh, as Jerry Clauer would say, it'd make a puppy, pull a freight train. Listen, I have enjoyed this time and I appreciate you being here with us. We're going to have you on more the heart of the caregiver.com, the heart of the caregiver.com, Mary Totoro, go out and check out her site, look at what she has to offer.

Take advantage of the, the insights that she brings. And Mary, I want you to know how much I appreciate you being a part of the program today. Thank you so much, Peter.

You're quite welcome. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is hope for the caregiver, hopeforthecaregiver.com. 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. And we met them over 11 years ago, and they stepped in to help us with this recycling program of taking prostheses and you disassemble them. You take the knee, the foot, the pylon, the tube clamps, the adapters, the screws, the liners, the prosthetic socks, all these things we can reuse, and inmates help us do it. Before 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. And I was doing all this myself, and I'd make the kids help me.

And it got to be too much for me. And so I was very grateful that CoreCivic stepped up to say, 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. Obviously, she's been an amputee for over 30 years.

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

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

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

We're purchasing material in Ghana that they have to use that can't be recycled. We're shipping over stuff that can be. And we're doing all of this to lift others up and to point them to 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.