This is the Truth Network. If you're feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, or carrying more than you could put into words, I've created something just for moments like that. Go to hopeforthecaregiver.com. Right at the top of the page, click the blinking Caregiver 911 light. That page will take you to a short, guided audio I made to give caregivers a quiet place to pause, breathe, and set the load down.
You don't have to fix anything. You're allowed to rest here. Hold on. Hopeforthiver.com. Click on Caregiver 911.
And then I was talking to a guy the other day. And he's been going through a pretty rough patch. And His wife is now, it appears that we're at the inn, and hospice has been called in. And But he said something that when I talked to him, he said, Well, the situation has certainly not improved, and the circumstances hadn't changed, but the hospice was there, people were helping. And there was no crisis, there was no ringing of phones.
Things had kind of settled down because there was a path there. And I said, How you doing? He said, Well, I'm sitting down and resting. I'm sitting down to rest. I haven't done that in a while.
Any of y'all understand that? You know. What it means to rest, to sit down, and just be still. I think any of us who've cared for someone knows what it's like to have this. Constant.
Vigilance that we do. And he's not having to do that for a while. Even when I was in the hospital with Gracie last year for five months. I understood that. And this time, by the way, this time last year we were still in the hospital.
And I understood that because she had 24-7 care. She was across the street in the hospital. And so I could. Turn off that vigilance switch with me. I didn't have.
to be 100% on duty all the time. It's a surreal feeling. Uh when you've been particularly when you've been doing it for four decades. And I remember when they when we they discharged us, And they sent me home with her, and I had to drive all the way back to Montana. We didn't fly because she had a lot of things going on.
And I all of a sudden it it all hit me as I Put her in the truck and we're getting ready to head out. And I got the picture of it, and you could just see my shoulders start to sink a little bit because she was going home with three drains, a catheter, oxygen, no legs. You know, after being in hospital for five months, it was it was a bit of a E even for me, America's caregiver, it was a bit of a challenge. And assuming that again, after being off for five months, when I didn't have the acute part of it, I was there every day with her in the hospital, but I didn't have the acute responsibility of being vigilant. And so, but I kind of tried to imagine where this guy was that.
He said, I'm resting. I haven't done that in a while. And You know Offhandedly, I just said You know, you can have a picnic in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. You can do that. And the words kind of surprised both of us, and the more I thought about it, the more.
Appropriate, it seemed because. And I wasn't trying to be profound or anything. It just kind of occurred to me. Most of us that read Psalm 23, we imagine the valley as a short stretch of road.
Okay, we're going to go through the valley of the shadow of death. It's only a couple hundred yards, but we're not going to fear any evil. for thou art with me but it's just a couple of hundred yards. But some valleys aren't short, are they?
Okay.
Some of them stretch beyond the horizon. You know, most people can endure a crisis for a season. Yeah. Most of us can do something like this for two or three months, stand on our head or something. But We can't sustain that pace for years.
And yet many of our burdens as caregivers last far longer than we expect. Chronic illness, grief, disability, loneliness, and countless other hardships. often remain long after we've exhausted our plans for escaping them. You know, Scripture never promised that God's going to remove every frightening, uncomfortable or painful circumstance just because we don't like it. In fact, when Israel found itself exiled in Babylon, God instructed his people to build houses, plant gardens, raise family, and Seek the welfare of the city where they lived.
Why? Because they're going to be there for a while. God wasn't abandoning his people. That's what Jeremiah 29:11 says. He says, I know the plans I have for you, but you're going to.
But if you look at the context of it, he said, You're going to stay there for a while. Y'all just be still. Get busy living. He was teaching them how to live faithfully in a place they didn't want to be. Before promising a future and a hope, He told them to unpack.
get settled in. they're going to be there for a while. And that truth has been increasingly meaningful to me. And for years, I just kept waiting for life to settle down after the next surgery, after the next hospitalization, after the next crisis. And eventually I was I realized I was waiting for a train that wasn't coming.
More than 40 years later. The valley stretches farther than I ever imagined. But yet so does God's faithfulness. That's why the one verse in Psalm twenty three has taken on fresh meaning for me. Look here, he says you prepare a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.
Notice what David doesn't say. He doesn't say the enemies disappear. He doesn't say God. Um waits for everything to settle down. He said you do it in front of my enemies.
The shepherd doesn't always lead us around the valley, but he always feeds us in it. He's always with us in it. None of the things that he has done in that regard has removed the burden, but all of them reminded me that I wasn't carrying it alone. And I thought about that friend of mine as he sat quietly at his kitchen table. It occurred to me that nothing about his circumstances had changed.
His wife was still dying. Hospice was still there. The sorrow remained, but he was resting. The table was there. And that's that's why I think the image of a picnic fits.
A picnic in the valley of the shadow of death is not denial. It doesn't minimize the grief or pretend the suffering isn't real. It simply recognizes that even in the darkest place the shepherd remains present. And if the valley stretches on beyond the horizon, We might as well stop occasionally and enjoy the picnic. not because the valley is pleasant.
but because the shepherd is present. Even there, especially there, he's already set the table. If you want to see that article, I wrote that. And it's out at my substack, caregiver.substack. Dot com.
And you can get that right now. Go out there to caregiver.substack.com, and I have that and so many other things. that are available for you. As a caregiver, caregiver.substack.com. This is Peter Rosenberger.
This is America's Caregiver. I'm grateful to be with you. HopefortheCaregiver.com. We'll be right back. Gracie, when you envisioned doing a prosthetic limb outreach, did you ever think?
The inmates would help you do that. Not in a million years. What does it mean? I would have ever thought about that. When you go to the facility run by Core Civic and you see the faces of these inmates that are working on prosthetic limbs that you have helped collect from all over the country that you put out the plea for.
And they're disassembling. You see all these legs, like what you have, your own prosthetic legs. And arms, too. And arms. When you see all this, what does that do to you?
Makes me cry. Because I see the smiles on their faces and I know. I know what it is to be locked someplace where you can't get out without somebody else allowing you to get out. Of course, being in the hospital so much and so long. When I go in there, then I always get the same thing every time.
These men are so glad that they get to be doing, as one man said, something good finally with my hands. Did you know before you became an amputee that? Parts of prosthetic limbs could be recycled? No, I had no idea. I thought we were still in the.
1800s and 1700s. I mean, you know, I thought of peg leg, I thought of wooden legs. I never thought of. Titanium and carbon legs and flex feet and C legs and all that. I never thought about that.
I had no idea.
Now that you've had an experience with it, what do you think of the faith-based programs that Core Civic offers? I think they're just absolutely... Awesome. And I think every prison out there. have faith-based programs like this because Return rate.
Of the men that are involved in this particular faith-based program. and other ones like it, but I know about this one. Are just an amazingly low rate compared to those who don't have them. And I think that that says so much. But that's so much.
about Just, that doesn't have anything to do with me. It just has something to do with God using somebody broken. to help other broken people be Yeah. If people want to donate a used prosthetic limb, whether from a loved one who passed away, Yeah. You know, somebody who outgrew them, you've donated some of your own.
What's the best place for them to do? How do they do that? What do they find? Please go to standingwithhope.com/slash recycle, and that's all it takes. It'll give you all the information on the what's that website again?
StanningwithHope.com/slash. Slash recycle. Thanks, Cracie. Take My hair. Lean on Yeah.
We will stay.
