When Caregiving Exposes Our Minds and Mouths

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

Well, guess what? I do. So get them this book. It's called A Minute for Caregivers. When every day feels like Monday.

They're one minute chapters. And I'd love for you to put that in the hands of somebody who is struggling as they care for a chronically impaired loved one. And it could be somebody dealing with an aging parent or special needs child. Somebody that has an alcoholic or an addict in their family. Somebody who has a loved one who has had a traumatic experience, mental illness.

There's so many different kinds of impairments. There's always a caregiver. How do you help a caregiver?

How do you help somebody who helps somebody? That's where I come in. That's where this book comes in. And that's what I think you're going to find will be incredibly meaningful to them. And if you're going through that right now, they get a copy for you.

Friends don't let friends care give alone. I speak fluent caregiver for decades of this. This will help. I promise you it'll pull you back away from the cliff a little bit, point you to safety, give you something solid to stand on so that you or that caregiver you know can be a little healthier as they take care of somebody who is not healthy. Caregivers make better caregivers.

It's called a minute for caregivers when every day feels like Monday wherever books are sold. And for more information, go to PeterRosenberger.com. This is Peter Rosenberger and this is the program for you as a family caregiver.

More than 65 million Americans right now serve as a family caregiver. Are you one of them? If so, you're in the right place. If you're not doing that, you're still in the right place.

You know why? Because if you love somebody, you'll most likely be a caregiver. And if you live long enough, you're going to need one. So we all got a stake in this.

We all got skin in this game. And the question I ask myself and my fellow caregivers, how do we stay strong and healthy while taking care of someone who is not? It's just that simple. That is the goal for us as family caregivers. Not happy. Don't try to worry about being happy. Let's focus on being healthy. I have found the healthier I am, the more happiness chases me. And that's healthy spiritually, emotionally, physically, financially, all of the above.

Because healthy caregivers do make better caregivers. Listen, I'm going to ask you something. Genesis 3 17. Do you know what that says? We know this story, don't we? Does everybody know this story? Let me see your hands.

Everybody knows this story? Okay. So, why am I reading this today and what does this have to do with caregivers? Well, I'm going to ask you a question. We're going to reasonably deduce something from scripture.

Okay? If the very ground was cursed because of sin, what do you think it did to our thought process? Would it stand to reason, could we not reasonably deduce from everything we know from scripture that our thoughts are kind of messed up? The way we think, the way we process information. Bottom line is we don't think right, y'all. We just don't. And it's hard because we don't have any frame of reference because this is the only way we know how to think.

Just what they are. But scripture tells us that there's something more. Back to Genesis 6 5. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Now David understood this when you skip way ahead to Psalm 139, verse 23 and 24.

He's saying, no, no, no. I know it's there. Messed up thoughts are in the fabric of my being. And this is the dilemma we have. But we won't know that because at the end of the book of Judges you'll see, for example, that every man did what was right in his own eyes.

You know, it made sense to me that it's going to be right and I'm going to do it. This is where this, I think, despicable thought process we have in our culture says, well, speak your truth. Well, that's his truth. Well, this is your truth.

No, no. Speak the truth, not your truth. Truth is not subjective to our own understanding. Jesus said, I am the truth.

And I can't get past this concept of if the ground is cursed, how much more so are mines. And I think this is why, I heard a great teaching on this, why Jesus astonished the leaders when he was just a boy. And it was the way he processed, the sermon I heard of this is that Jesus' mind was unencumbered by sin, so therefore he could process thoughts in ways that are just alien to us.

His reasoning process, his ability to see and understand was not hampered by sin. Now we can have some of the greatest intellects in this world, but sin will always be the contaminant that disrupts our thinking. And so what does scripture say about that? And you see scripture after scripture where we're advised not to trust our own thoughts, but to trust his. Isaiah 55, 8 through 9, for my thoughts are not your thoughts.

Neither are your ways my ways declares the Lord, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Again, this identifying that God's thoughts are going to be different. Job 38, 36, who has put wisdom in the inward parts or given understanding to the mind? Where does our understanding come from? We have an IQ. We have IQ and intellect. But would it not be reasonable, I mean would you agree with me on this, tell me if I'm wrong, but that IQ and understanding are two different things. Wisdom and intelligence can be vastly different. I know some very intelligent people who are not wise. They have the ability to grasp complex circumstances, problems, mathematics and so forth, but they don't have wisdom. You can see wisdom in him and he has Down syndrome. Now what's the difference? Well, one of them is spirit-led and the other one is intellect-led. And I can tell you this, this young man, I mean he spends an enormous amount of time praying and thinking on the things of God and studying.

And it shows. And he has this ability to express wisdom and yet he has Down syndrome. And I can go through more and more scriptures. Paul, Romans 12, 2. Do not be conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the what?

Renewal of your mind. That by testing you may discern what is the will of God and what is good and acceptable and perfect. Philippians 4, 7. And the peace of God which surpasses how much understanding? All understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. God is guarding your minds. Colossians 3, 2. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

And there are many more and I'll probably reference them as we go into the program today. But I wanted to start with the premise that the very ground is cursed because of sin. How much so our abilities to reason. And once we agree on that, and if you don't agree, that's okay.

Well, we can have that conversation too. But if you don't agree, I think we can reasonably deduce that if the very ground is cursed, making it hard to farm, how much so are minds? How much so is our ability to think properly, clearly, with understanding?

Now, why do I say that to you as a caregiver on a show for family caregivers? Because we deal with high stress situations. And our thinking is encumbered enough already by sin.

And you throw us into the pressure cooker of caregiving. And we're not going to think clearly at times. I can't be the only one who hasn't thought clearly at times. I can't be the only one who has allowed my thinking to create more stinking.

Then turn off the show and let's go home. But I would imagine, and from what I've heard, many of you are in the same position where our minds just become besmirched. We're already starting with a faulty thinking process because of our sin nature. And then you throw us into high pressure situations. Where we're dealing with crisis after crisis after crisis. What do you think it does to our minds? And what is the antidote for this? How do we solve this problem?

What does that look like? How do we change the way we think? I'm going to write a song on the caregiver keyboard. How do we solve a problem like our thinking? No, can we? Can we? Can our thinking be changed?

And if so, how? What does that look like? I don't want to leave you on a cliffhanger, but it's only for just a moment on the brink. This is Peter Rosenberg and 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 Rosenberg and this is the program for you as a family caregiver. Thank you Rob Galbraith and the Not Ready for First Service players. We're talking about thinking. My best thinking got me into a lot of messes.

How about you? I come from the premise that because in Genesis we learn of the catastrophic consequences of sin that even the ground was cursed. How much more so our minds. And this is what you've heard the thing about total depravity. Well it's not utter depravity, it's total depravity. Everything is contaminated by this.

It's inseparable from us now. Let's go back to Proverbs 14, 12. There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.

We think this is the right way, but no, it's going to lead to death. There's a Latin term for this and it's called passe non peccare. Passe non peccare.

And it's easier to understand it quite frankly in the Latin than it is in the English because of the double negatives. But passe non peccare means able not to sin. When Adam was created, followed by Eve, they had passe non peccare. They were able not to sin. But they lost that. When they sinned, they lost that and now we have what is, that was before the fall, passe non peccare, and now we have what is called non passe non peccare.

And again with the double negatives it makes it very difficult to understand. Non passe non peccare, which means we are not able not to sin. We can't help it.

It's in our DNA now. We are not able not to sin. There's only one person since Adam who ever had passe non peccare, and that was Jesus, who lived a perfect righteous life. He did not sin. He had the ability not to sin. He was able not to sin. And that's the difference. And so when he's 12 years old and he's with these religious leaders, they're marveling because his mind is not clouded with this.

But ours is. And in fact during the Reformation, Luther talked about this with repentance, you know, and basically his thought process in his writings reflect that we have to repent of our repenting. We don't even know how to repent properly. This is what total depravity means.

It's not utter depravity, it's total depravity. It's infected us so completely that we cannot of our own right this ship. And we must do what? We must cry out to a savior. But it's hard to cry out to a savior that you don't think you need. And this is why pastors who preach grace all the time without first preaching the need for it. How can there be a gospel? How can there be good news unless you got the bad news?

And the bad news is we are all non passe non peccare. We are all not able not to sin. We cannot of our own achieve some level of righteousness that is acceptable to God.

It's not going to happen. Because we're not able to. And therefore we need a savior. But as long as we delude ourselves and think, well I've got this. Do we?

And this is where the crucible of caregiving comes in, in our particular case for us. Because we learn quickly that we are non passe non peccare. We are not able not to sin. Because we are faced with things all day long that require that which we do not want to do. Which is to die to ourselves. To die to our own will.

We don't want to do this. We want what we want and when we want it. We're all verruca salt from Willy Wonka.

I want it now. We're all that way. Every one of us. And anybody that tells you they're not will lie about other things too.

Because we are. We are all non passe non peccare. That's it. Period.

That's the bad news. The good news is our savior who lived a perfect life was passe non peccare. Able not to sin.

And he lived that life. That perfect righteousness. And see this is what, when Adam sinned, his sin was imputed to everything.

Even the ground. Everything had the imputation of and consequences of his sin. And all of his progeny, that's us, for in Adam all sinned.

It's imputed to us. But then Christ lived this perfect life. His death was the perfect atonement. And our unrighteousness was imputed to him. And his righteousness was imputed to us.

There are three imputations. Adam sinned to us. Our sin to Christ. Christ's righteousness to us. In Christ we gain passe non peccare. We gain the ability not to sin. Only in Christ.

Not of our own. If left up to us we would be non passe non peccare. But in Christ we are passe non peccare. Because his mind now is in us. Let this mind be in you which is also in Christ Jesus. Do you understand this? So that when you're faced with something as a caregiver, you are not doomed to fly into rages.

To start swearing and to start losing everything and to react violently or ugly or shamefully. You're not doomed to this because the mind of Christ permeates into you. And you are led by the Spirit now.

Not by your own fleshly desires. This is the promise we have as believers. Now we're going to be at war with this because our sin nature still exists.

And we will be at war with this. And Paul talks about this. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. But go back to Proverbs. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. But in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. Abandon the way you thought as a non-believer and take on Christ.

Colossians 3 2. Set your minds on things that are above not on things that are on earth. Now what does that mean to us as caregivers? Well let's go back to this event that I've had with Gracie here in the hospital.

We're still here by the way. Almost five months. And I was with her in the room when her wound on her leg opened up completely. I mean it's 12 inches by 4 inches. That's a pretty big wound. Now to you surgeons and so forth that doesn't mean anything. But to me and Gracie it meant a lot. And where did our minds go? She was glorifying God in this. She was singing in my leg Lord be glorified. The nurses were marveling.

The doctors were marveling. She didn't do it for them. This is where her mind, this is where my mind went. Why? Because we're not who we used to be. Because in Christ we have the ability to think differently. We have his passe non picare.

He is able not to sin and therefore even in our distress we're able to glorify him. I would love to tell you we do it right. I would love to tell you that we're the model for this but we're not. He is.

We're not. I've seen my work. Believe me I am no model for anything. I've seen my work.

I've seen my best efforts. But this is the model Christ is. That even in his suffering he glorified God. And you look at Paul being beaten.

He understood that. In his suffering he glorified God. Peter, in his suffering glorified God. This is the mind of Christ that permeates our own even in the midst of distress.

So when you're dealing with somebody who is so difficult to deal with and you're dealing with somebody who has lost their mind because of Alzheimer's or somebody in your family who's an addict or an alcoholic and they are behaving atrociously. You're not to be their punching bag but what you can do is run to Christ. Put on Christ and realize okay how would Christ respond to this? Let this mind be in you which is also in Christ Jesus. Let's stop being held hostage to our sinful messed up brains and put on Christ. This is what I'm talking about because there is no other way. Now you can try it your way if you want but this is for decades of experience. And believe me Gracie will testify.

She'll be the first to get on this microphone and say hey hey hey I've seen Peter do it his way. It ain't pretty. Don't do that. Do not follow his example of that. Follow Christ. Don't follow me. What do I got?

All I have is Bill Gaither said it perfectly. All I had to offer him was brokenness and strife. But he made something beautiful in my life. I love that little chorus. Something beautiful, something good.

That's all I got is something messed up. But he comes into these situations and our thinking starts to reflect him. Keith Green wrote a song.

Gracie recorded this. I want to be more like Jesus. He said my one and only goal is his image in my soul.

Everything else is so permanently and pervasively and hopelessly irretrievably contaminated by sin. And if we lean on our own understanding there is a way that seems right to man but it leads to death. Do not do what seems right to you. Do what seems right to God. Do what his word says. Do what he decrees. Peter, I don't know how to do that. There is no place in scripture where somebody is taking care of somebody like that.

I agree. There is no place in scripture where you will see a guy whose wife has had 98 surgeries. You are not going to see it. But what you will see are plenty of scriptures about fear, about holding your tongue, about anger, about being kind, and the fruits of the Holy Spirit, long suffering, patience.

You see plenty of scriptures about those. Can I do that? When they do something, when I get doctors or nurses and things aren't going real well, can I exhibit that to them without abandoning one iota of my care for Gracie? Yeah, I can. Can I trust God with these things? Yes, I can.

Can I do this on my own? Well, no. No. Because, as Peter Rosenberger, I am non passe non picari. I am not able not to sin. But as a new creature in Christ, passe non picari, able not to sin. He equips me to be holy with him. Not on my own righteousness.

Never make that mistake of thinking that, but on his. And that is hope for this caregiver and for every caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger and we will be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. I am Peter Rosenberger, PeterRosenberger.com.

Glad that you're with us. If you want to see more of what I do, why I do it, how I do it, and who am I doing it for, go out to PeterRosenberger.com and you can see all the things that are going on. You can also sign up for our e-letter, which sends out about once a month, unless there's some kind of breaking news kind of thing, caregiver breaking news. But I send this out to apprise you of different things we've got going, different songs that we're releasing, or in my case, a new book that's coming out in August.

I'd love for you to sign up for that, just to be ready for when that comes out. It's called A Caregiver's Companion, Scriptures, Hymns, and 40 Years of Hard-won Insights. Things I've learned over these four decades that would greatly help my fellow caregivers.

The learning curve is a bit steep. Do you have 40 years to learn what I've learned? Or would you like it distilled down in a simple book that you can purchase and hang onto and pick up, put down, pick up, put down, take it to the hospital with you, take it to the nursing home, take it to the rehab center. You can have it wherever you go and it will give you, they're just quotes that I've said over the years, but I marry it with a scripture or a hymn. Caregiving's hard enough.

Don't try to do it by yourself. All right, so you can find out more about that at my site, PeterRosenberger.com. I also wanted to address one of those things that I've learned over the last 40 years. It was something, a conversation I had yesterday with the nurse manager over this entire unit that encompasses both floors. It's quite a big facility here. And this orthopedic wing is, you know, it's a pretty busy wing and they have a whole lot of nurses.

And this is a person who has a very important job over all of these people. And we were talking about just things that family members would benefit from knowing to assist with this process. And one of the things, because I asked her, I said, what are some things that you wish you could tell family caregivers?

One of those is what she has observed and all the other nurses have observed me doing when they come in, which is I keep the dialogue going. And I'm very specific on what's going on with Gracie. For example, if they come in and I'm in a panic saying, hey, she's in a lot of pain, give her something for pain. Well, what kind of pain is she having? Gracie has pain all the time.

That's never going to stop. Some of it's related to the new surgeries she's had, the most recent surgery, being stuck in a hospital bed and you can't move around very much so your muscles kind of get wonky. Some of it's her regular pain she's had since 1983.

Some of it's the pain she's had from 98 surgeries. I mean, you know, there's lots of different kinds of pains. Is it sharp? Is it stabbing? Is it burning?

Is it pressure? All those kinds of things need to be addressed. You can't just have a nurse come in and say, hey, she's in pain, get her out of pain. Well, that doesn't help, okay? Part of being a good medical practitioner is being a detective. What is going on? You can't just flood somebody with a bunch of painkillers and think, okay, they're quiet now, so therefore everything's okay.

It doesn't work that way. And in the past, unfortunately, this is what has happened with Gracie. A lot of doctors have done this and I was young and I didn't know the right questions to ask. She's in pain, help her. She's screaming, help her.

Well, what does that look like? And you have to put a lot of your natural inclination to panic aside and you have to disassociate from that a little bit and speak with clarity into what's going on. I have to be her voice when she doesn't have one. But that said, I also have to be aware that she has a voice and it's important for her to use it and for me not to trounce it because some nurses have said a lot of caregiving husbands particularly will try to overpower their wife and speak for them and say, well, this is what she needs and so forth and so on. And they said, you don't do that. You get out of the way for her voice to be able to be heard, but when her voice can't be heard, you step in. That comes from years of learning it the wrong way, but here we are.

So this is what I've learned. Gracie grew up on the Florida coast, northwest Florida, down in Fort Walton Beach, Destin area, and we would go out on the boat a lot. And at night particularly, I loved going out on the boat at night, and I learned from her dad and her brother-in-law who spent a lot of time out there on boats and doing stuff. In the intercoastal waterway where all the big barges come through with all the container ships and so forth, well, they have channel lights going so you know where the sandbars are and you stay in that lane there and those lights guide you there. And if you get outside of those lights, you're going to hit a sandbar and it's going to be a mess.

Well, this is what caregiving is like sometimes. You've got to know where those lights are, and we're all familiar with driving on a road, but we're not so familiar with driving a boat at night and making sure we pay attention to the lights because that's a little different set of learned behavior. So for caregivers, where are the lights? Where are the sandbars?

How do we know? Well, one of those sandbars that can really mess us up, we can run afoul on, is that one of stepping in too heavy or stepping in too little. And I've said this on this program many times. I remember, this has been a long time ago, I was being interviewed and the reporter asked me, what is the most difficult thing you've struggled with as a caregiver? And without hesitation, hands down, I simply answered, knowing what is mine and what is not mine to carry. And that has been a challenging principle, and it may be for the rest of my life. Do I lean in too much here, or am I pulling back too much?

Where's the balance? And it's not an easy thing to do, but one of the things that is consistent in this area of knowing what is mine and what is not mine is when to speak and when not to speak, when to advocate and when to let it play out. And if I am panicking, when Gracie gets into an enormous amount of pain, and I'm panicking, I get the nurse in there, the doctor, and they say, give her something for pain. Well, I have not given them good information.

I have not provided them with something that is helpful. Now, they can give her something for pain, and she can be out. But why is she in pain? What's going on here? What is the history? What's the narrative?

How did we get here? Pain medication is not this blanket you put on somebody and say, okay, you're not screaming, so therefore you're okay. That is not pain medication. That is not the purpose of it in today's world. And maybe in the days past, that's the way they did it.

But now there's so much more precision they can do. Is the pain from a cramp? Is the pain from a tear or a burning?

What's going on here? And then we give the appropriate medication, because if you do too much, you flood the whole system, you could really hurt the patient. Now, you don't want a pole vault over rat droppings, okay? I remember this when Gracie gave up her right leg. Now, the plan was for the anesthesiologist to do a nerve block in the epidural space so that she would not have any residual pain print. Sometimes when you have chronic pain in a limb and you take the limb off, you'll get a pain print.

It's not phantom limb pain in the sense, but it's just different. But they were going to kind of reboot her. And it would be completely numb and she wouldn't feel it. Well, it didn't work. And she was in raw surgical pain.

I mean, she was in bad shape. I called them and the anesthesiologist kept getting more frustrated. He kept giving her more of the stuff, and it wasn't working. It wasn't working.

It wasn't working. And I remember the anesthesiologist and her surgeon outside her door arguing about this, because the surgeon was saying, you're doing too much here. You're flooding her with too much. You're going to hurt her. And the anesthesiologist was saying, no, no, no.

Well, guess what? He called in another anesthesiologist, and this guy recognized that Gracie had had scar tissue in her epidural space that was preventing the numbing agent from getting to where it needed to be. But the anesthesiologist didn't take that into consideration. She had scar tissue there because she had had a pain stimulator put in there that they took out, but it left residual scar tissue that was blocking the medication he was putting in there. And so the second anesthesiologist went up a little higher, and he put what they call a spinal intrathecal, and it went into the dura space a little higher, and immediately she got relief.

Well, there are several lessons I learned from that moment. One of them is that when there is a crisis situation, and experiencing the kind of pain she was experiencing postoperatively for an amputation qualifies as a crisis. If there's not a historical narrative being provided that gives complete information, they will misdiagnose this.

They will get it wrong. You've got to have the facts. Well, who has the facts?

Well, the caregiver. But I didn't know enough at the time. I didn't understand this, and so I, over the years, have learned that I've got to do a deep dive and to make sure I understand the history of how we got here and what's going on with Gracie. Because time is not our friend in a situation like that. When you have that kind of crisis and post-surgical amputation pain, again, that's a crisis.

We can agree on that. But who has the time to figure this all out in the middle of that? You've got to have somebody that could step in quickly and offer that, and I didn't. I knew that she'd had the stimulator there. I knew that she'd had that thing in that epidural space, but I didn't articulate it well enough. I didn't understand the implications. Now, this doesn't mean I have to go to medical school, okay? This just means I have to keep a cool head and understand what's all been going on here. I'm not responsible for the diagnosis. I am responsible for the narrative. Now, granted, I was in my 20s when that happened, and I was still pretty green even though I had been doing it for some years, not nearly to where I am right now.

And I will still miss things, okay? Gracie's healthcare is not dependent on me being able to properly catch everything that goes wrong. For example, the reason we've stayed here as long as we've stayed here in Aurora is because they didn't anticipate something that I did, and I tried to warn them.

I didn't have the vocabulary because I didn't really understand the surgical component, but I did know that if you involve plastic surgeons in closing the wound after the orthos did their work, that Gracie had a much better chance of success. They did not heed my thoughts on that. They didn't feel like it warranted such. I did tell them, and I was right, and here we are.

Now, I'm not spiking the football saying, hey, guys, but the fact is I did call this. Sometimes we're going to get unheated, and sometimes things are going to happen. That's just the nature of it. I'm not a surgeon. I'm not a doctor. I am board certified in cranial proctology, and whenever there's neurorectitis abounding, I have to step in, but I'll let you figure that out, but I did say something, and that is our job.

Ultimately, it's all under God's providence. I can't go into the OR and do this, but I can make sure that I'm as educated as I possibly can in order to say something on her behalf, not to override her voice, but when she doesn't have one, and that's what that nurse was telling about how I'm able to walk that line, sometimes without the results I had hoped for, but it doesn't absolve me from doing the work and trying and making my voice heard without trampling on gracies. We're going to talk about this more when we come back and some other things I've learned along the journey.

We're bumping against the clock, so I've got to take a heartbreak, and I'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger, and I'm so glad that you are joining the program today, PeterRosenberger.com, bringing you a lifetime of experience to offer a lifeline to fellow caregivers. The learning curve is a bit steep. Do you really have time to gain 40 years of insights like I have as you deal with what you're dealing with? Do you really have that kind of time, or would you like it distilled down into something you can hang on to today? If you want that, then you're in the right place, because that's what I'm doing. That's all I'm doing is taking all this stuff that I have failed at, so utterly failed at, and aggregating the life lessons I've learned to give you something you can hang on to. Some of this is going to involve a lot of work for us as caregivers. That's just the nature of the job, and we don't do this. I'll never forget, and you can see this somewhere on YouTube.

I was speaking at a conference, and we took Q&A at the end of the keynote, and we took Q&A, and this one guy said, how do you respond when you don't get the appreciation or the gratitude from the person you're taking care of? Now, the first thing that flew into my mind is there's a story behind this with this guy. I can still remember that moment. I'm on a big stage. There are lights, cameras. There's a big hallway. There's 900 people there, a big auditorium, and it was a moment that is forever blazing in my mind, because I can still see the guy saying this.

So I know there's a story behind this. He's not getting the appreciation and the affirmation for what he's doing that would somehow fill this hole in his heart that he evidently had, but I responded to him a little bit differently than maybe he expected. I said, you're not doing it for their appreciation. You're doing it because it's who you are. Then I asked the audience, I said, how many of you all have been married?

I said, don't get ahead of me, y'all, because they all knew the response. How many of you all with your spouse that you've done something for them and they didn't notice it? How many of you all have gone to extra trouble with a meal, picking up laundry, and all the things that go on in a normal household without a disability, just two people living together, putting the tube back on the toothpaste, rolling up the toothpaste so you're not squeezing it from the middle?

Just little things that we do as spouses for one another that may go unnoticed. Is that why we do it, to be noticed? Yes, it's nice to be noticed.

It's nice to be thanked, but is that why we do it? That's what I told this guy. You're not doing it for their appreciation. They may not be able to say anything.

I've told you the story. My brother and his wife have a daughter that's almost 37 years old. She's got special needs. She's nonverbal. She's in a wheelchair.

She's about like an 18-month-old. She can't express to them appreciation. She's not going to say thank you. She doesn't know how to say thank you. Is that why they do it?

No. So we have to understand that it's our character being illuminated on how we persevere, how we do these things, even without being acknowledged for it. And I told him, I said, you're never going to feel better about this situation, particularly if you're in a situation where they could give you gratitude but they don't.

You're never going to feel better about it, but the goal can't be to feel better. The goal has to be to be better. And that's where the working of the Holy Spirit comes in. And we're going to talk about that in programs to come.

In fact, I'll delve into that next time. But I wanted to just touch base with this of recognizing that something is going on in us as caregivers. We're being cultivated. Something is happening within us. Things are being brought to the surface that we see, ooh, that doesn't look really good. And then we have an opportunity with the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit to deal with these things and bring Scripture into play and say, okay, this is in my life and this is not good. I'm short-tempered here.

I'm demanding. And, again, we have a Savior who set the model for us. Now, are we going to follow Him or are we going to say, yeah, well, that was great for Jesus, but this is me we're talking about, you know, that kind of thing. There is nothing like caring for somebody for several decades to expose the gunk that's in our own souls. And that's all we have time for is to deal with our own shortcomings, our own messes, our own failures, and our own sin. If somebody else is doing something that is whatever, let God deal with that. I've got all I can deal with in just dealing with Peter. That's it. I can't change anyone else. Do you follow the train of thought here? The goal is for me to grow up.

The goal is for me to go into greater levels of maturity. Whether anybody else around me does that or not, I can't be responsible for that. There was an old man in our church growing up. His name was Doc Webb, and he's certainly gone on to be with the Lord. He died many, many, many years ago. And, in fact, I know some of his great, great grandchildren now.

So that kind of makes me feel old. But I remember him when I was a kid, and he was a farmer and just a wonderful fellow. And he got up, and I think it may have been at the occasion of his 90th birthday or something like that, and Dad recognized him at church and said, Doc, do you have any wisdom for the church today?

I grew up out in rural South Carolina, and it has been my experience that great wisdom often drives a truck and wears overalls. And Doc Webb looked at the church, and he said, every tub's got to sit on its own bottom. And my dad never forgot that he quoted that for the rest of his life here on this earth to us. Every tub's got to sit on its own bottom. I've got to sit on my own bottom. I've got to deal with me. And I have found that dealing with me is beyond my capabilities. And that's why I need a Savior.

And that's why I'm grateful that I have one. So we've covered a lot of ground today. We talked about our minds not being clear. We don't have clarity of thought because of what happened at the fall, because of our sin nature. We don't think clearly. And we have to lean not on our own understanding, but on the Word of God to help us penetrate through the fog of our besmirched minds. I love that word, besmirched.

And we're going to be in a fog. We're not going to process this well. So, for example, like that guy asking a question.

What do I do? They're not showing me gratitude. Well, what does Scripture say about that, about doing things? Who are we looking to for approval?

For the people we're serving? Or are we looking to God? Matthew 6, 3 through 4. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Matthew 6, 6. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. You see a theme there with Jesus right there in Matthew 6? Colossians 3, 23 through 24. Whatever you do, work heartily. Ask for the Lord, and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance of your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.

Now, I'm going to ask you what I ask myself on a regular basis. Christian, what do you believe? Do you believe this? That's the word of God. Do you believe that? If so, how does that apply to you right now?

Some of you may listen to this program, and as soon as it's over, you've got to go clean the toilet. Can you remember that verse? Whatever you do, work heartily. Ask for the Lord, and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance of your reward.

You are serving the Lord Christ. Can you go clean that bathroom with that verse in mind? If you're taking care of somebody who has been mean to you, whose behavior is vexing on a good day, maybe you have some unresolved abuse issues with them growing up, and now you're having to take care of them.

Maybe you've seen their rude, demanding behavior, and you don't like it, but you're having to take care of them. You're having to deal with it. You would hope that that could be far removed, but now it's up in your face. Can you remember that verse? Christian, what do you believe? Do you think that this is escaping God? Do you think He doesn't see this? Do you think that with all the things you know about the Lord in Scripture, that He's not interested in dealing with this issue in your life?

He would have you bring this to Him and talk about it with Him, lay it all out? Do you see how all this applies? Our minds are not clear. And our minds say, but this is not fair.

Well, no, it's not. Okay, now what do we do? We've established it's not fair.

What do we do about it? You see, that's one of the problems we're having in our culture right now is that we're focusing on this equality versus equity. Equality is we have the same opportunity. Equity is we have the same results. Equality is we're United States citizens.

We have the freedom to work hard and accomplish. Equity is we're going to make sure everybody has the same amount. That's communism.

And as Ronald Reagan said, there's only two places where communism works, in heaven where they don't need it and in hell where they already have it. So we're not here to somehow make all this distributed out equally here. What we're here to do is grow up. What we're here to do is mature in the Lord so that we can give an account to our Savior of how we function with what He assigned us.

Period. Gracie has a Savior. I'm not that Savior, but I have to answer to Him.

And I have to give an account for what I've done on her behalf. He sees everything. Every load of laundry, every bathroom clean, every meal prepared.

He sees it all. And that's enough. We've run out of time. Thank you so much for spending the time with me today. Listen, if you want to help me get this out to more people, I would really appreciate the help. StandingWithHope.com slash giving. StandingWithHope.com slash giving. That's the ministry that Gracie and I founded that has this program called the Prosthetic Limb Outreach that we do for Gracie's fellow amputees over in West Africa. We've been doing this for 20 years this year, and we could use the help with that. We have a limb recycling program where we can collect used limbs. They go to a prison run by CoreCivic down in Arizona, and it's an incredible faith-based program that they partner with us to do. We're inmates, volunteer to disassemble these limbs so we can use the parts. We send them over to Africa, and then we purchase a bunch of materials, and then they build a brand-new custom-fit leg for a patient on site. It's an amazing program that, and then we have the caregiver outreach that you're listening to today. Help us do more at StandingWithHope.com slash giving, and I'll see you next time.