Vigilance, Grace, and a James Brown Moment

Hey, do you know a caregiver in your life who is struggling with something and you don't really know what to say?

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We're in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado in Aurora, Colorado at the University of Colorado Medical Center where Gracie has been now for quite some time and we're facing next week surgery number 98. We were hoping to do it this week and I'll give you an update on that and then we'll get on to the things of the program. Let me just stop right there, okay? You're going to love this. I use chat GPT a lot. AI, artificial intelligence for those of you in McDonough and I use it a lot to help me with research and all the things that I do, organizing, outlining, business plans, things such as that. I use it a lot. I don't write with it because I can't because the stuff I write is from my life so it's not like you can make up stuff. So I have to, but I do have to use it for research, editing, proofing, that kind of stuff.

So I use it a lot. And I wanted to do a count of how long we've been here and I didn't want to go through the calendar and just kind of count, okay, this day, this day, this day, this day, you know, and say because we got here on January 21st and so as of today, May 17th, we've been here 118 days and I had chat GPT count that up for me. I said, you know, we've been in the hospital for 118 days. And Gracie's had 10 surgeries during that time and the last one will be next week.

And chat GPT counted that up for me. You know, AI is a nice useful tool. And then it said this, that's a long time to be in the hospital. Tell Gracie we're praying for you.

I'm not kidding. AI said that to me. You know you're having a bad day when AI says, hey, we're praying for you. I don't know who we is. And I don't know to whom AI prays.

But I thought, okay, we're into extra innings of crazy here, aren't we? And I don't know where you stand on this. And I'm sure others have great thoughts on this. I think it's potentially very helpful tool. And I think it's also very dangerous. So I think it's a it's a crutch for a lot of people, because they're using it to write papers and so forth.

My brother's a professor and he said that this is a real problem in college kids and so forth. And I can understand that. In my case, it's incredibly helpful because I do I use tons of things with it.

I mean, I'm laying out enormous outlines of plans and structures and organizational stuff. I do a lot of research and the things that I write and so it's been very helpful. I've gotten to know it pretty well. I guess, evidently, it's gotten to know me. I just thought, wow, that's kind of weird.

AI is praying for me. I thought, okay. Now some of you are thinking, well, that's just spooky. Well, maybe it is. I'm too tired to be freaked out about it. I was just, you know, a little bit.

Wow, that's kind of different. And but we have been here a very long time and we were we would have had the final surgery. We hope it'll be the final surgery this week. But the surgeon that the only one that can do this is out of the country and won't be back till next week.

So we'll do it on hopefully Wednesday. It's I was talking to her ortho surgeon. This is now gone into the plastic surgery team and the plastic surgery team has taken over.

They have to do a reconstruction where they fix the orthopedic problem she had, but it created a secondary problem and of which I called four years ago when I started this process talking with them. I said, look, if things can go wrong, it will with her. You need to be prepared. And I don't know that they took me as seriously as they should have. What do you think?

But they do now. And she's been in the right place. She's doing remarkably well considering what she deals with. And she's kept up a pretty good sense of humor. In fact, we were I noticed when they moved her from a cat's to get a CT scan that the bed she'd been in for all this time and it has a trapeze bar and an orthopedic bed support.

They have these inflatable mattresses that are heavy duty that keep you from getting bed sores and keep you, you know, better position in bed and that kind of thing. But hers was defective. I saw some problems with it and it prevailed upon the nurses to swap it out for another one, to pilfer it from another room, of which we did. And they got her squared away in there.

And I was very glad they did it. And it was much more comfortable for her. And the nurse came in and said, look, how's it feel?

You happy with it? And Gracie said, Mama got a brand new bed. And I thought, if your brain goes to James Brown, when you've been in the hospital for all this time and all these surgeries and you're facing your 98th surgery, you know, that's not a bad place, is it?

I think that if she could laugh and and cut up still, then that's a good thing. And I am when people ask me how I'm doing, I think back to while we're on the subject of James Brown. I think back to my friend Hank, who met him several times, and he had not seen him in years. And I saw him coming out of a place, an office there in Atlanta area. This is many years ago. But he said, James, I haven't seen you in 20 years.

You haven't changed a bit. And James Brown said, well, if you got your hair and you got your teeth, you got it all. And so according to James Brown, I'm doing okay because I got hair and I got my teeth. So I got it all.

And you keep a sense of humor with this. You know we got more than that. We got the hope of the gospel. And that's what sustains us in this, knowing that this is not the end of the story. This is not outside of the purview of God. This is not something that caught God by surprise and that he is here with us in it.

In fact, he was waiting for us here. And I don't particularly like it. And Gracie certainly doesn't enjoy it. And I have strong opinions on why God should do something different here. But so far, he has not been inclined to acquiesce to my opinions.

He does not pay me a consulting fee. And I don't know that he's all that interested in my opinion at all. But he is interested in his purposes, his glory, his will being done. And the question is, will I be as well? And that has been the invitation for Gracie and me both to say, okay, are we going to trust him in this?

And again, 118 days or however many. I mean, it's just we're going into extra innings of this. And even by our standards, and we're no stranger to this sort of thing, even by our standards, this has been a brutal journey. And yet we've got great care. She's in the right place. This is a fabulous hospital. Great minds that work here. But I appreciated her orthosurgeon saying, look, I can't bring anybody else in here to do this. We have to have this guy.

We cannot subcontract this out to a resident or somebody, a partner or somebody. It has to be this guy. He's the head guy that does this.

He's a very smart doctor. And the way they have to reconstruct this, it's not a cosmetic thing. It is a reconstruction thing. And there's a lot of delicate work. And we think we feel a measure of confidence that we'll be able to go home after this.

She may have to go home with some drains and there'll be some home care involved, but we can't go home with a wound vac system. We've got to go home, make sure this thing is not going to open up again like it did before and cause problems. So that's kind of where our headspace is. And I think we've got a good working plan. And I've got all my hair and all my teeth.

And according to James Brown, I'm doing OK. Listen, this is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver.

We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the program for you as a family caregiver. And I am America's caregiver.

That is Rob Galbraith and the Not Ready for First Service players thrilled to be a part of your day to day as we talk all things caregiver related. I want to switch gears a little bit to a tip that I'd like to pass on to you all. OK, now I've been here in beautiful downtown Aurora, Colorado, staying in a hotel on a very challenging part of town.

This street here is not known for nice stroller friendly family neighborhoods. It's a little bit dicey out here and it's driven home the point of a couple of things. Now, several weeks ago, if not several months ago, I talked about elevator etiquette. And that's still a big topic with me because I spend every single day going up and down that elevator to see Gracie.

She's up on the eighth floor. And so I'm I'm back and forth to the hospital walking across the street and I go into the elevator and I'm still amazed on how many people don't know how to function around an elevator. As soon as the doors open, they want to leap off. But there are people standing right in front of the door so you can't get off.

OK. And that's frustrating. Always when I'm waiting for an elevator, I've always kind of peek. I'll stand to the side of it and peek around to make sure nobody's coming out so I don't get in their way. I hold the doors for people, particularly with if they're moving slow or they have some kind of mobility impairment. And I'll hold the door to allow them to go in first. I'm amazed how many young men, not really older men, but young men will go in first ahead of a lady. And when I hold the doors, I'm also amazed at how the number of people who say thank you.

And when they do, I say benefits of being raised in the south. And then one time I was holding the door and a couple of ladies were going on and they were doctors or whatever. And sometimes I got to say this, I'm sorry, but there are more than a few doctors and it's always the young ones who will cut off somebody with who had been waiting there, mobility impairment or something. But they just they're clueless.

And most people are on their phones and they're not paying attention. But I will I will say that every time I hold the door and somebody goes, I'll say benefits of being raised in the south. And there are a couple of times I'll hold the door and a guy will try to go in after I've held the door for ladies and he'll try to get ahead of them. And I'll say, wait, or I'll cut in front of him. And I said, I wasn't holding it for you and teaching these young men some manners. I never have to do that for somebody at my age level. You know, there's a certain age where you just don't have to do that. But a lot of this younger generation, the males, I'm not going to call the men just yet, don't know how to properly show some etiquette and some manners and hold the door. I trained our sons this way.

My sons probably don't remember a time where they did not open the door for their mother or for a woman, any woman to help do this, particularly with their mother. And, you know, manners always mean something. And we've lost that, a lot of that in our culture.

Have you seen the same thing? Now, those of you living in the deep south may feel differently. And you say, no, Peter, we say that all the time. But that's the way I was raised.

My father was very insistent upon this. And he, there are certain things that he did not tolerate. One of them was slouching or scuffing your feet when you walked, shuffling your feet or things like that. He was, you know, a Navy man for many, many, many years, an officer.

And he spent a lot of time around the military and Marines and Navy. And let me tell you something, I could still recall a finger pop to my ear if he saw me slouching and scuffling my feet as I walked. And I'm stunned by how many people do that now, particularly young men who could benefit from having a little bit more posture, stand up straight, walk properly and hold the door for women, particularly and certainly for anybody who is infirmed. And I can't tell you how many times I went to a place where there was a line to wait for dinner.

And this is many years ago. And I got there with Gracie and she's got crutches or canes and they're young men sitting there. And they just sit there and I looked at them and I said, which one of you going to stand up and be a gentleman and offer a seat to a woman with a disability?

And they were all immediately embarrassed and rightly so because that was the intent. Stand up, young men. And I remember Tyrus, I don't know if you all know who Tyrus is, he's on Fox News a lot, a big wrestler and really a fascinating individual. Came from a horrific background. And I read his book and he was a wrestler, football player, big guys, like six, seven or eight or something like that, 300 something pounds. I mean, he's huge. And he made a statement one time, he said, young men will behave badly until a bigger, more powerful man tells them to stop and makes them stop.

That is a powerful axiom, isn't it? And it doesn't have to be a taller or more imposing individual, it has to be somebody with authority that will boldly say, stop doing this. And so when I see these young males in our society who behave so poorly, and sadly, evidently, nobody told them any different, nobody made them stop. And I'm not here to fix society's woes and maladies, I'm simply just making observations as I walk back and forth in a very crowded, busy hospital where there are a lot of young males who don't know how to act like men.

Who don't know how to use proper decorum. I am stunned by when I hold the door, how many women will light up and smile and say thank you, of all ages. And it tells me that they're not used to that kind of thing.

That needs to change. Women should expect that from the men in our culture. They should expect a man to stand up to greet them. When any time one of Gracie's nurses and doctors come in and so forth, I stand to greet them. You know where I learned that?

From my father. And I remember when I was at Columbia Bible College, it's now Columbia International University, if a woman came to our table, we all had to stand and seat her. That was just part of it. So that's why a bunch of guys would all grab the same table and fill all the seats so we wouldn't have to keep standing and greet the women when they would come and sit with us. So we could get busy eating.

We were hungry. But the decorum was important. And it shows respect. And it shows deference. And it shows manners. And cordiality and civility. And these are things that are important in a culture. That you treat people properly. And I think you're seeing in our culture so much of what's going on is that we have this lackadaisical approach to everything.

The way we walk, the way we speak, the way we treat one another. Everybody's buried in their phones. And that's something I wanted to bring to your attention is to have situational awareness. Because I'm seeing this a lot. That there is such a lack of situational awareness of what's going on around you. And we get lost sometimes in our own stuff and our own drama and things like that. But I keep my head on a swivel here.

I'm not in the best part of town. If I'm standing in a light waiting to cross the street, which by the way takes me 21 seconds to cross the street, if I'm doing that and somebody is approaching on my left or my right, I am never allowing my back to these people. And I don't know who it is. I don't care. I'm always paying attention. I'm always vigilant. Things happen in this culture. Things happen today.

You see it all the time. And as somebody who is dealing with a health issue and certainly somebody with an impairment, we have it on us to be able to make sure we're vigilant. That we're not putting ourselves in a position where these particularly young males who are not properly instructed on decorum. There's a time in this country where women could walk alone in a city and have no fear of being in any way attacked or treated poorly and so forth. Do you think that we still live in that time?

Well, why not? What's changed? And so we have to be vigilant until there's some type of return back to proper manners and people are standing up and saying, no, we're not going to tolerate this kind of thing. And I'm looking at everything from all the way to the highest offices of the land and everything else is the vulgarity, the commonness, the lack of decorum and respect and civility.

Where do you think that comes from? And I'm not here to fix this because I can't. But I am saying it's there. And we are at a particular disadvantage if we're pushing somebody in a wheelchair. We have to be vigilant. We are at a particular disadvantage if we're so preoccupied with whatever crisis we're dealing with as caregivers.

I mean, I could easily be distracted as I'm walking every day to the hospital. You know, they pulled a body out of the pond over here. I walk by the pond every day. There's a lot of geese out there. They're beautiful Canadian geese.

They're so beautiful. Elon, we got some tariffs for the Canadian geese. But we got a little pond out here and they pulled a body out of it since I've been here.

It's not exactly the best environment. And then one day there was trans visibility day. And I was driving over because a friend of mine let me borrow his car for a while here.

And it was on cold days. I would take the car and if, you know, just for whatever reason, particularly if it was dark at night. Gracie didn't want me walking past. Now that the days are longer, she didn't want me walking past a certain time of day.

But anyway, I was driving back. It was trans visibility and they they all all the trans visibility enthusiasts were parked right across the street from the hotel at this little park. And they were getting ready to march and have some type of thing. And they're blocking the street and everything else. When I see a mass of strangely garbed and odd looking people with purple hair and everything else and bullhorns and they're screaming and yelling and they look very angry. And they are in proximity to me. Do you think that I'm on high alert? Well, I am.

Do you feel that you should be as well? They were blocking the road. I was right there at the intersection. So as I was in the car that they were blocking and they were right on me and they were, as you can imagine, wildly garbed. As I said, we've got a lot of males who aren't men. We've got a lot of males who think they are women.

We've got crazy people in this world and they're blocking the road. What do you think? Should we be vigilant? Was I?

Yes, I was. I'll talk about that more when we come back. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. And healthy caregivers and vigilant caregivers make better caregivers.

We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio. This is Peter Rosenberger and this is the program for you as a family caregiver.

Healthy caregivers make better caregivers and we're talking about vigilant caregivers. Are you vigilant? Are you watching? Are you paying attention? Is your head on a swivel? Are you looking around? Do you know where you are? Do you know where the exits are? I get laughed at by people.

Gracie is used to this, but other people when they go to meet with me at a restaurant or coffee shop or something, I'm always facing the door. And I took martial arts for years. I'm a second degree black belt. I haven't been able to train very much because in Montana I didn't have anybody that did my art anywhere around us.

So when I left Nashville, I should be like a fourth degree by now working on my master fifth degree. Oh well. C'est la vie.

Here it is. But you've heard of Shogun? Well, I'm Shonuff. You know, but one of the things we train in there is to be aware of what's going on. Be aware of what's going on.

Where are the exits? Where are the bumps in the road or the passageway or the hallway when you're pushing a wheelchair, for example? I'm constantly making sure that I'm not running Gracie into something with a pebble on the road that can catch her wheel and things like that. Just little things like that.

Just clear the road for her and be aware of my surroundings, of what's going on, fall risk, all those kinds of things. These are hardwired into me now. I've been doing this for so long.

As long as I've known Gracie, she's had a mobility impairment. Okay, so that kind of reframes your mind. It retrains your mind, if you will.

And guess what? That is the perfect lead-in to what I'd like to spend some more time with is retraining our mind to be aware of what's going on in human beings around us. There's an old saying, and I wrote about this in my book, if it's hysterical, it's historical. If it's hysterical, it's historical. There's always a story. Every therapist will tell you when you see an adult acting out like a child, there's a history to this.

There's a story behind this. They didn't just decide to wake up one day and be like this. You go back to these young men who don't know how to properly carry themselves and walk and interact with society. They're glued to their phones and then they go home and play video games and they don't carry themselves in a manner that shows that they're purposeful.

They may be, but they're not presenting that way. And you see people that are slovenly, that they are acting out, they get angry. You can do a two-second search on any search engine and you'll see videos of people at places, Disney World, at Mother's Day. I just saw one on Mother's Day. A big fight broke out at a restaurant.

I think it was at a Golden Corral or something. People asked me, said, would you like to go on a cruise? I said, are you out of your mind? By the way, have you seen the fights breaking out on the cruise ships? If I'm ever affected poorly in my judgment and decide I'm going to go on a cruise, I think I'd rather just put on a Hawaiian shirt, some flip-flops and shorts and go to the Golden Corral.

It's the same experience without the life jacket. But people are crazy. Look around you. There's all kinds of drama going on. Now, I want us to be safe because usually if you're listening to this program, you're a caregiver, most likely, and you've got somebody in your life that has some type of impairment. So be aware physically of what's going on, but are we aware spiritually? Are we aware of when we see somebody acting hysterically that there's some type of story behind this?

If it's hysterical, it's historical. Are we aware of this? Do we know how to speak to this? If you have a loved one that's freaking out, think about that for a moment. Do you know how to speak with calm authority into this?

Do you know how to apply scripture to it? These are all things that are worthy of our time as caregivers to consider because we're going to be dealing with drama. And if there's one thing I've seen in this hundred plus day odyssey that we've had, is there's so much drama. I encounter it just daily.

I can't even get past breakfast at the hotel without seeing drama. And where I live in Montana now, I just don't see that very much. I mean, you see a cow, an elk, a deer, a moose, and I once saw a wolf, and we've seen bear, but there's not a lot of drama. I don't see that kind of thing going on, and we don't have that many people around us. And if I go into town, yeah, there's some times there, but, you know, not really for the most part. But here?

All day long. I see it in the faces of the people that come into Gracie's room that are treating her, and they're dealing with their own stuff. Are we vigilant? Are we prepared at a moment's notice to speak into that with clarity? Maybe we don't have to say much at all. Maybe it's just the calmness that we bring. The sense of decorum, the sense of respect.

Maybe it's something as simple as holding the door. I am stunned again. I don't mean to belabor this, but I'm truly stunned by how disrespectful we treat one another in this culture, and the lack of manners. I'm not talking about just getting into political arguments and things like that. That's a separate conversation. I'm just talking about the general lack of respect, standing when a woman comes to the table.

Do you know what a difference that makes? I have never, never seen a woman, ever, who looked at me and said, don't you dare hold that door for me. I have never had a woman come to the table, and I stood up to greet them, and they said, sit back down. Now, Jerry Clara tells a hilarious story about that when he met, it was evidently, Gloria Steinem, and he was in the green room going on television, and he said, the she-coon of women libbers walked in. He called her the she-coon of women libbers, and he stood up to greet her. She said, you sit back down.

He said, no ma'am, I will not, because he was raised again in the south. When you treat people with respect, there are always those ones out there who are going to be militant about stuff. I haven't run into those yet.

I'm sure I will before my life is over, but I have not yet run into those. I think people genuinely respond well when they're treated kindly and with respect. I know so many of the housekeeping staff over here that helped come into Gracie's room.

One of them's from the Congo, the other one's from Haiti. I know a little bit of French, so I always speak to her in her language. I know a little bit of a few Arabic phrases my brother taught me to be able to speak to people from different parts of the Middle East who are working here. I know enough working Spanish that I could actually have conversation with people who speak Spanish. I get to know people, and I thank them for doing their job.

Gracie does that. And it sends a huge message because so many of them are carrying great sadness. You'd see it on their faces. One of the things I've learned about living with somebody who suffers all the time is that you recognize what pain looks like on a human being.

And it's burned into my brain. I mean, I know what pain looks like when somebody carries a lot of pain, and I see it everywhere. And are we prepared to be able to speak into that? I know we all carry stuff.

That's why you listen to this program, and I understand that. We all carry stuff, but I don't see anywhere in Scripture where we're given a free pass to deal with our stuff first and then go and care for someone else. We're pouring as we drink. Okay? As we drink from the inexhaustible source of God, we're pouring that out to others.

That is the crux of what Paul talks about in Corinthians when he says, Comfort one another with the same comfort that you yourself have received. And I'm going to ask you, have you ever been hysterical? Have you ever acted hysterical? Have you ever just gone on a tear? Have you ever just acted out? Well, of course we have.

We're human beings, and we've lost it many times. At least I have. Maybe you haven't. Maybe you all are just awesome and don't need to worry about that sort of thing.

I have. What comforted me? What strengthened me? What equipped me? What calmed me down? What gave me a new way of addressing the angst in my heart? The things of God. As Christians, we should be able to walk into virtually any situation with clarity and calmness and focus and authority based on the Word of God.

Not brashly, not swagger, but with confidence. Have you ever watched a paramedic team, emergency team deal with trauma? I've dealt with this many times over the years, and particularly in this last go around with Gracie here, particularly when that wound de-hissed and it just opened up, and it was just, you know, ugh.

It made me remember why I didn't go to med school. But I watched. I called the nurses in there.

I got them in there. They came in, and everybody functioned as a team. They all knew what to do.

They all knew what to do. I watched Gracie struggle to keep it together. Let's be frank, y'all. I was trying to keep it together too, but I held her hand, and she was holding my hand really tight, and I said, don't look down, baby. Don't look down. Just look at me.

Just look at me. And all these nurses and PAs and then the surgical team got there. They immediately knew what to do. She was on the verge of becoming a bit hysterical.

It was pretty graphic. But I knew the history. I knew the history of how she got here.

More importantly, I also knew the history of her walk with God, and that's where I pointed her, and that's why she was able to even start singing in the midst of that because of the great work of God in her life. And so much so that the nurses involved, and everybody, there was a room full of people there, and they were stunned because they saw calmness. They saw confidence. They saw clarity in the midst of what would send most people over the edge.

You've heard me talk about this over and over. The goal is not for us to survive as caregivers, to get through this and then we can get on with our life. The goal is for us to learn to be productive and to grow and to bear fruit in the midst of this so that the fruit of the Holy Spirit can be evident in us even when everybody else around us is on high anxiety and hysterical even. Is the fruit of the Holy Spirit showing in our lives? Not because the things that we struggle with as caregivers are behind us. We may be right in the midst of it.

I was. But because we have something that has delivered us from the bondage of being hysterical, that we can anchor ourselves in the things of God even in the most brutal circumstances to bear witness to the power of the redemptive work of Christ. That is Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberg and we'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio.

This is Peter Rosenberger. Glad that you are with us. Well, we're going into extra innings of crazy a little bit. And as we prepare for this week coming up, Gracie will now face her 98th surgery next Friday. Her 98th surgery, her 12th since she's been here. Actually, technically it could be their 13th because they did two surgeries in one swoop with her at one time during one of these events. But we're just going to call that one.

Why am I keeping track? Well, I think it's important on several reasons. Number one, just for the medical narrative and the history of it. But if you go back and look at the book of Deuteronomy, at the end there when Moses is given his final sermon and he kind of lays out what they'd all been through and what the journey had entailed. And then you'll see that in various places in Scripture. In fact, when Paul is making his presentation in Antioch at his big sermon and he gets up and he lays out all the history that came about to bring them to this point. Sometimes we have to go back and do an inventory of the many dangers, toils, and snares that we've already come through.

You know, as the hymn writer says, to reflect that God has sustained us through this journey. Ninety-eight surgeries in her life, starting when she was a little girl to now next Friday. She had six surgeries on her eyes because she was born with this eye defect that they were able to surgically correct. And then the rest of it has all been tied to her car accident in some manner.

But it's been quite a journey. And she is an amazingly strong individual. And if you've ever met her you would know this. She truly is. But she is tired. She is very tired. And we think this will do what it needs to do.

It's just, I don't want to bore you with all the details of how we got here, just to say it's just been a journey. And she is a very complex patient. I was talking to her surgeon this week and the reason we're having to wait, she could actually do it, have already done it yesterday for that matter, but the one surgeon that can do this here at this hospital is out of the country and he won't be back until next week. So we have to wait for him.

We didn't plan on being here for this length of time and this has just been on the books. And he's not, her orthopedic surgeon is not comfortable with anybody else doing this. And he told me, he said, Peter, quite frankly, nobody else wants to do it because they're a little bit afraid of her and we need to bring in the main guy. This is, he says she's an incredibly complex patient. And I told her ortho surgeon, I said, well, one of us in this conversation called this four years ago when we started this process, didn't I? And he kind of laughed about that because he said, well, you did.

You said that we need to be ready for things to go south and they did. And the ortho part of this really worked very well. She's able to walk straighter. She's going to be fine.

But the wound part of this, closing that wound and the healing process of the things that had to be done to move this hip flexor around on both legs, it's just not healed properly. And so it's been quite a journey to get her to this point. And she's tired, she's weak, but her spirit is strong.

And we're going to get through this. But this whole program today, I've been talking about vigilance, our personal vigilance, situational awareness, seeing what's going on around us, treating people with courtesy, but constantly being aware. I'll give you a scripture on that that drives that point home. Be sober-minded, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour, 1 Peter 5, 8. Be sober-minded, be watchful. And then the vigilance for the people that are in our charge, the ones that we are called upon to look after. Here's Hebrews 11, 7. By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household.

He looked after his household. And you can see scripture after scripture after scripture of looking after one's household. And we need to be vigilant about that, about where they are in space and time. There are crazy people out there.

You don't want to get stuck in a place when you're pushing a wheelchair in a bad neighborhood kind of thing. You don't want to be stuck in a place where things are going on. Just be alert. Be aware of what's going on.

Situational awareness again. And then the third one is be vigilant toward the wounded, to look for people who are struggling with stuff and comfort them with the same hope that we ourselves are comforted. Isaiah 50, verse 4. The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with the word him who is weary. Are we prepared as believers at a moment's notice that we know how to sustain with the word him who is weary? And I don't see how that's going to happen unless we are consuming ourselves with the things of God, that we are constantly aware that there are appointed times at that time, at that time.

Kairos moments, if you will. That's the Greek word for at that time, appointed time. But we're not going to be able to do that if we're not vigilant, if we're not watchful, that we are paying attention to what God is doing. We are charged to look after a loved one. That's what we are as caregivers. So therefore, by definition, we need to be vigilant. And healthy caregivers make better caregivers and part of that is we need to be safe. We need to be watchful of what's going on around us. And then lastly, pay attention. There are so many people around us who are struggling.

The cashier, the guy pushing a mop in a hospital corridor, the guy at the coffee shop. There are a ton of people around us at any given point who are carrying desperate things. Are we prepared to sustain with the word him who is weary? And it's not going to happen if we're not well versed in what scripture says. If we're not consuming ourselves with it, it's just not going to happen. You remember what Jesus said? Sick, naked, thirsty, hungry, prison, stranger. You're not going to see these people. Remember that He said that they'll answer in that day, Lord, when did we see you like this? The implication is, are we seeing? Are we seeing what's going on around us? We don't have to go look for it in a sense where we've got to go be a detective and dig it out.

I think we just be aware of our surroundings, situational awareness that we are light and salt in this world. Again, the purpose of this program is not to help you just get through being a caregiver. The purpose of this program is to equip you with what is necessary for you to live and live abundantly as a caregiver, not after being a caregiver, as a caregiver. And that's my message to myself. Clearly, I'm not putting my life on hold and stopping everything so I can be a caregiver. I'm doing this today knowing that in just a few moments I'll be back in the hospital room with Gracie and we've got this surgery for next week and I eventually am going to get her home. I'd hoped to be home by March, we're going to be home by June.

I didn't have a vote in this. However, it does not absolve me and quite frankly it does not absolve Gracie of fulfilling what these scriptures are commanding. These and so many other scriptures command us to be salt and light as we go, prepared at a moment's notice to speak into the life of another with a word that sustains him who is weary.

Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden back in 1854 wrote, the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. Everybody's carrying something. Way too many people have said to us over the years, well, you know, my stuff's nothing compared to yours. That's not really the right approach. Gracie and I both do not want people to say that to us.

Yes, what we carry is extreme, it is beyond the pale, it is very, very difficult. We get that, we know that, okay? But that doesn't mean yours is less significant. That doesn't mean someone else's is less significant. The only comparison I would welcome, if you're going to compare yourself to mine and Gracie, is to say this. If you have found God to be faithful in your circumstances, then that gives me more confidence to trust Him in mine.

Now, that's a legitimate comparison. I would welcome that because I want people to understand that we're pushing the depths of some very painful things in our life, and yet we find that He's already there waiting on us. And that's what gives me this confidence to talk about this today. I'm not here to say, oh, you know, we're going to get through it and it's going to be okay, it's tough right now, and we'll get back to doing it right. No, I'm doing the radio program while I'm doing all this because I'm confident of what God is doing.

I don't understand it, don't particularly like it at all times. I don't think He asked me to, but I am trusting Him with it. And I have situational awareness now because I'm not only looking to my own safety and seeing what's going on around me, being aware of things, even of people who don't thank you when you open the door, but being aware of things, being aware of what's going on with Gracie. I watch her like a hawk, and they all know I do. And let me tell you something, it makes a difference.

You've got to have an advocate in the hospital. That's another conversation for a whole show. And then lastly, being aware of what Thoreau said. The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

Everybody's carrying something. And am I watching and ready and taught? As Isaiah said, that I may know how to sustain with the Word him who is weary. This is what I'm learning in this journey, and this is what is also equipping me every day to have more hope for this caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger, Hope for the Caregiver, Hopeforthecaregiver.com. And we'll see you next time.