This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Hope for the Caregiver. I am Peter Rosenberg. Glad to be with you. This is the program for you as a family caregiver.
How are you holding up? How you holding up? I ask you that because you could probably tell me how your loved one is doing. You probably know their chart pretty well. You know the appointments, the medications, what happened last night, what's supposed to happen tomorrow.
But I want to know how you're doing in the middle of all this, and you can let me know at hopeforthecaregiver dot com. Hopeforthecaregiver dot com. You can send a message through that if you want to do it simply. You go out to my Substack, caregiver dot substack dot com, and you can send a message as a subscriber, and it'll come right to me. And just let me know how you're doing, how you're holding up.
Hopeforthecaregiver dot com. Do you have trouble asking for help? Just as a point of reference, do you have trouble that?
Well. I want to talk about that a little bit because I had a teachable moment for my life. This week's lesson involved a tractor. We have a good deal of sage up here, sagebrush up here, and my father-in-law has painstakingly worked over the years to clear fields of this stuff so that horses and cattle can all graze. And I noticed that it was encroaching on one of those fields, and he had worked pretty hard on this, so I.
Climbed onto his old tractor and did some mowing, unsupervised. I might add.
Okay, in rural Montana, that doesn't really qualify as news, but let me tell you something. I am putting this on my resume, and I'll tell you why. It's bigger than a riding mower. His tractor is, which makes it a large tractor in my estimation. And it's old.
This thing is so old. How old is it? You say?
Well, it was originally built to pull a chariot. That's how old it is. And I remember when Grayson and I lived in Nashville in our first apartment, we were brand new newlyweds, and he brought it through Nashville on his way to bring it out here on a trailer behind his truck. He has a big old diesel truck. He was pulling this thing with, and.
It was old then, and Ronald Reagan was president.
Okay, it was old then, so it's an old tractor.
Now, most of my adult life, I lived five miles from downtown Nashville. There wasn't a lot of tractor time, and I grew up in rural South Carolina. But I still didn't spend a lot of time on tractors, and I've always been a bit intimidated by large machinery. And that sounds kind of pitiful from a guy who's been coming to Montana since the '80s, and then now lives out here full time. But but but hear me out, okay?
Just hear me out. Public speaking frightens a lot of people. No no question. Ask somebody about it. You know, they.
Oh, I don't want to speak in front of people. That kind of thing. But you know, from the the set of the Today Show to keynote speeches at conferences, I have never. Had a problem with public speaking. Anybody who knows me knows this is just not something I strain over.
Give me a microphone and a room full of strangers, and I'm fine. I'm I'm more than fine. I'm comfortable with it, and and enjoy doing it. Don't even think about. Don't even use notes.
But a tractor pulling a mower across ground so slanted that the cows need shorter legs on one side to keep it from tipping over. When that gives me a little bit of pause. And oh, by the way, did I mention the rocks? Because we have a lot of, even though we don't have a lot of rain out here, those rocks keep growing, and they just keep thriving and multiplying. And it's just like there's so many rocks.
Well, I've got several neighbors out here. I'm very grateful to say who I regularly call for help.
Now, full disclosure, I will rotate the calls. Hoping that none of them get too accustomed to seeing my name and and letting it go to voicemail, and then sometimes I'll disguise my voice, but the southern accent gives it away. Hey, can you help me with this? Or, listen, this is the president. We need your help on a tractor.
No, they never buy it.
So, I would love to swagger and say, "No problem, I got this," you know. And but, have you noticed that swagger? Doesn't tell you what lever to pull on a tractor, so I call somebody who knows. I'm usually on FaceTime right there on the tractor, and my father-in-law's in assisted living now, and his competence with this tractor, he knows it very well. It's legendary, but that doesn't necessarily translate into teaching skills on how to do it.
And and as I've been taking music lessons, the instructor was telling me, he said, "Look, some of the the kids that play this stuff they grew up and they've been doing this since they were three, four, five years old, and they can play crazy stuff, but they can't tell you how they do it. They just do it, and that's the way it is with my father in law and a tractor. He can't tell you exactly what he's doing. He just does it. He's been doing it for so long.
So I am sitting there." Thinking, all right, I got some problems here, and the confidence that I have behind a microphone doesn't really translate to the confidence I need behind the wheel of that big tractor. And so I call neighbors and ask a lot of questions. And over the years, I have told countless medical professionals, plumbers, carpenters, and even tractor operators, "Hey, look, I'm a talker. I'm an exceptional pianist and a pretty good writer." That's where my skill set stops.
So I need you to explain it to me simply and use crayons if necessary. And and I mean that. If I don't understand it, I I I have to say so. And and if I nod intelligently while somebody explains something that I don't understand, it may get me through the conversation, but it won't get me through the task.
So I'm going to have to humble myself and say, look, I don't understand. I need you to explain it, and and there are, how should I say this, gaps in my education. One morning, for example, I was chasing a moose out of the hay barn, and I called up my college piano professor, who's thankfully still alive, and I told him he didn't cover moose extraction in class. He laughed and he said, "Well, you know what? You you missed that day." Evidently, I've missed several.
So, despite forty years as a caregiver, I am still discovering gaps in my education that has nothing to do with tractors or moose. You know, I know medications, I know insurance forms, hospital routines, and all that kind of stuff. But there are still calls to make and questions to ask.
Sometimes about things I think I should already understand. And it's kind of embarrassing, and those calls are kind of harder than you'd expect. When you when you've spent years being the person that somebody else depends on, you know, admitting you need help can can kind of catch in your throat a little bit. You tell yourself what you ought to know that you ought to be able to manage this, you ought to be able to figure this out.
Meanwhile, the problem is waiting for me to quit arguing with myself. Does does any that sound familiar to you? Maybe you're looking at paperwork you've read, you know, three, four, five, six times, and you still don't understand it. And maybe there's something in the house that needs fixing, but every bit of your energy is going toward caring for your your loved one. You know, I I'm that way with painting.
With Gracie, I'm actually a very good painter, but I'm very slow at it. But I have to do all this prep work. I have to get and I have to commit to doing this, and then I need to make sure she's contained for several hours before I do this because I'm going to be covered with paint. I'm going to be in the midst of this, and you know, I sometimes I put off these things just simply because of that. Maybe you need an afternoon away, but you can't quite bring yourself to ask someone to stay with.
You know what you need, but before you pick up the phone, you hold this little argument in your own mind on whether or not you're allowed to need it. Other people have it worse. Other people, you know, are busy. You don't want to impose. You've already asked that before.
By the time you finish that conversation, you've already argued yourself out of the call. But you're still sitting there with the same problem. I get that. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. One of the things I've noticed about living out here in Montana is that limits tend to announce themselves rather plainly.
The ground is pretty steep here. The equipment is heavy, and the weather has no interest in my credentials. My standard response of "I'm fine" can sound great right until the tractor runs up the tree.
So, you know, caregiving limits can be easier to conceal. We we sound composed on the phone. We can tell somebody we're doing fine. While staring at a stack of bills or wondering how we're going to get through another uninterrupted night, people may take us at our word, and then we feel alone because nobody seems to understand how much we need help. That's why I want to encourage you to give somebody a specific place to begin.
Could you stay with her for an hour while I get a haircut? Could you pick up a few groceries while you're there? Could you sit with me and help me understand this paperwork? Could you help me with this tractor? It's teach me how to start it.
A request kind of like that. It gives the other person something they can consider. They don't have to solve your entire caregiving situation. They can just answer a question about this, and they may say no.
Okay, they may be working, dealing with their own stuff, or you know, unable to help, and that can sting a little bit, especially when it took a lot of courage to ask. Just because one person can't, though, doesn't mean you shouldn't ask. Earlier this year, I framed in a doorway. Last week, I worked with a chainsaw, which is kind of nerve-wracking for me and the caregiver keyboard. This week, on a tractor, and I asked people.
I asked them to show me how to do it, and I'm doing it. And I got news for you, people. I'm getting better at some of this stuff. All right, this is Peter Rosenberg. This is Hope for the Caregiver.
We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberg. Glad to be with you. HopefortheCaregiver dot com.
Hope for the Caregiver dot com. You know, thank you for indulging me with my tractor story there. But, but the the point is that I want to just spend a little time with this, if you don't mind. I find myself pushing myself on a regular basis to learn new things, to to really expand. Whether it's through reading, whether it's through driving a tractor or getting out with a chainsaw.
Let me tell you something that that is no small thing for me to get out there with a chainsaw. I have not liked these things in a long time, but I need firewood.
Now we got plenty of wood laying around out here, dead wood so forth, but it needs to be cut up.
Well, somebody's got to do it, and I either got to go pay somebody to do it or I got to learn to do it myself.
Well, then I got to learn how to operate this chainsaw, and my father-in-law has like a bunch of them, and one of them's like huge. And and I've been working with this because I got a very large tree that's down, and so I've been working on it. And then I got a a splitter. I mean, not a splitter. I've got just a wedge, and I've been hammering it out with a sledgehammer and doing that because I felt like, well, you know, I need the exercise.
He's got a log splitter somewhere, and I need to probably see if it works. I don't know if it does or not, but. The point of it is, is that I'm pushing myself to do these things. Why? I mean, I got enough to keep me busy as a caregiver for a while.
I bet you do too. Why am I pushing myself?
Well, number one is I don't want to pay somebody to go get the wood. I mean, you know, can I can I just admit a level of cheapness and frugality? But the other thing is, is why am I outsourcing things that I can do myself? And feel a certain measure of satisfaction, and then I I go even deeper. Why am I avoiding this?
Why am I avoiding these things? Do do they intimidate me? Do they frighten me? Do they? Do I feel you know unqualified to do so?
Well, yeah, pretty much everything. You know, wouldn't it be great if I could just sit around and run my mouth all the time and play the piano and write articles because those things I'm good at. But but is that it? And I've been way outside my comfort zone for a long time, learning how to deal with medical bills and all that kind of stuff, and and that's part of being a caregiver. And we have to do those things.
But the more I get outside my comfort zone, and I'm not talking about crazy stuff, like I'm not trying to join NASA or anything, or go skydiving and and things like that. I'm I'm not trying to. Be reckless at it, and and ridiculous. I'm just talking about little things that I can learn, skills that I can learn, things that will help me function better, survive better. When we lived in Nashville, we changed over to a gas fireplace and had gas logs, and they they looked great.
They were really wonderful, but there was no muss, there was no fuss, and I didn't have to worry about going and get it. You know, buying wood and cleaning it up and all that kind of stuff.
Well, I don't have that here. I got a real fireplace; it's a nice fireplace, and we like it. And Gracie loves having a fire, and and and I do too. It's on a great cold Montana night, and we get some. We want we want a fire.
Well, guess what?
Somebody's got to get the firewood.
Now, I either got to go pay somebody to have it delivered over here, or I can get a chainsaw and learn how to do these things.
Okay, so frugality is one thing, but intimidation is another. Am I intimidated by a chainsaw? And I'll be the first to tell you I am. And I can tell you that pretty much everybody in my family, when they hear me grabbing a chainsaw, flinches a little bit because I've been a pianist longer than I've been a caregiver, and chainsaw and pianist—you know, those are not, you know, things that you normally put in the same sentence together. And so I, but I'm very careful.
You know, I use safety glasses. The whole thing. I mean, I, I, I really take it very seriously. But it needs to be done, and I've got to learn how to do it. Just like I had to learn how to do the tractor.
My father-in-law had worked hard on that field to get all that sagebrush out of there, so that we have a good pasture.
Well, if it's starting to encroach back, somebody's got to do it. And there's a tractor. There's a mower. What am I waiting on? Just because I'm nervous about it, okay.
Well, let's get unnervous about it. And so that's why I pushed myself. I've been I framed in that doorway earlier this year, and I got out, you know, tools and so forth. I mean, I didn't know what I was doing, you know. And and then I'm working with the skill saw again.
Pianist, writer, skill saw. Yeah, and. And so, yeah, I'm very careful. I'm very slow. I'm a pretty good painter, they tell me, but I'm extremely slow at doing it.
I don't particularly like doing it because I am so slow at it. And once I get involved, I really don't want to stop because, you know, you you're covered with paint, you're in the middle of something, and you stop, start, stop, start, and that's kind of the way it is as a caregiver.
So I don't do a lot of those things, but I'm trying. Plumbing, I'm terrible at, but I have replaced certain things, and I'm I'm learning it. And by the way, you can get pretty much any kind of tutorial online for anything you want.
Okay, my my son has learned all these skill sets. He's building a um he has a business where he builds um props and. Things for folks, costume things for folks, real elaborate stuff. I think Disney actually had him make a Mandalorian suit. I mean, that's what he does, and he's got banks of three D printers and all these kinds of things, and he fashions these things.
He's he's taking up blacksmithing. It's amazing what he does, and he's very very creative this way. And I said, how did you learn all this stuff? He said, YouTube University. You know, and you go out there and you just learn it.
You, the the wealth of human knowledge, is available at our fingertips if we want it. The question is, what's keeping us from doing it? And many of you know, I've been talking about this on this program for some time. I've been studying theology extensively, and I, but I can't sit down and read it. Because I'm always doing stuff.
I'm I'm always doing laundry or cooking or cleaning or whatever, you know. But I was out cleaning the barn the other day. It's it's a it's horrendous. I got the first third into it.
So this guess what I'm doing today after this program? I'll be out in the barn, and it's it's a mess out there. But you know, it's 40 years of accumulated stuff in a barn. But while I do it, I listen to teachings, I listen to theology. There is podcasts out there.
There is so much you can do, and God has gifted me with the kind of mind that I can retain most of this, and I am very grateful for that. I can't sit down and read. I can't go to seminary and go to classrooms and so forth. But doesn't mean I can't learn. And so I am throwing that out to you, caregiver to caregiver.
What are you intimidated by? What's keeping you from doing something? You know, and it doesn't have to be elaborate. You know, leveling the washing machine was a big deal for me one day. You know, in this little old cabin we live in.
You know, the the the part we built, the addition that we built to to help with all of Gracie's disabilities. That's all wonderful level. Beautiful, handicap accessible. The old part of the cabin is, how can we say it, decrepit, but. One day when I get a little bit more money, I'll I'll update that.
But in the meantime, a level is the most useless piece of of equipment that you could have in this part of the house, and and that's okay. You know, I I had to work on leveling the refrigerator one day and leveling the wash machine and getting on on the floor and trying to figure this out, and that sounds like nothing to some people. But then again. Going on television is nothing to me. Getting in front of an audience, speaking—that's nothing to me.
I've been doing this since I was a kid, so it doesn't even register to me as something to be nervous about. Whereas other people would be terrified of public speaking. But now, let me work with machinery, and a chainsaw, and a skill saw. And you know, I'm just like you know. But you know, if I if I practice good common sense, good safety, all those kinds of things, I can do it.
I have to go slow. I go at my own pace, and I don't try to be weird about it. I just do it, and then pretty soon you become more proficient at it. You know, it's like riding a horse. And or anything else, and a lot of people wouldn't want to ride a horse.
I I was up on horseback this week, and I was doing things that would probably terrify people. But I'm I'm very comfortable with the horse, and I'm very comfortable with where I am and what I'm doing. And and so I'm I'm being, you know, I'm not taking it for granted. I remember snow skiing, and I loved to snow ski. And I haven't done it in a while because Gracie hasn't been able to go because she she's a very good snow skier.
She trained with the disabled ski program for for many years, and we're going to get her back to doing it. But we're ways away from that. But but I remember I grew up skiing in North Carolina. When I first learned to ski, we would go up to the mountains of North Carolina and do some of that gravel and ice skiing that they call up there. And then I remember the first time I skied out west.
On big mountains with lots and lots of powder, and it's a whole different experience. the The goal in skiing is not to not fall. I mean, I don't want to spend my whole day trying to not fall. The goal is to ski and to love to ski. And I would go first when I first started doing.
I would. Do it like I did in North Carolina, just you know, blazing down the mountain and trying not to fall. But then I started settling into it, and a friend of mine told me about how to work the mountain and do these things, and I started just doing it. I was going slow, wasn't in a hurry, and then there was a couple of places I remember that were that always caused me to be very nervous when I took off from them. and And then one day I came off the lift and just just went down and didn't even think about it.
And I realized, oh, something's changed. I became comfortable. This I started doing what I was told, doing it the right way, and properly skiing with the mountain instead of trying to fight the mountain. And I found out I could enjoy myself, and it was just such an amazing experience to be competent at something that used to intimidate me. And they—they sound like small victories, I know, but small victories are important to us as caregivers.
You know what I did on the tractor is not a small thing to me. It may be to you or to anybody else, and maybe you laugh at me and so forth. That's okay. I've got a long line of people that have laughed at me, but to me, it was a big deal because it represented me getting out and doing something that I've always been. Anxious about doing, yeah.
How do you do this? I don't. I don't want to cause a problem. I don't want to get wrecked. I don't want to get anybody hurt.
I don't want to tear something up. And turns out, I did okay. I did all right. And I'm going to do it again. And I'm going to keep doing.
I'm going to keep learning. And I'm going to keep pushing myself because that's how I stay healthy as a caregiver. I cannot sit there and just focus on caregiving twenty four seven and do nothing else to to grow as a human being. I push myself to learn. That's why I take piano lessons now.
Still, I push myself to learn. And I offer that to you. Maybe that's something that would be beneficial to you. Is there something you can learn? Maybe you've wanted to tackle a project in your house, but you've been intimidated by it.
If it's too big for you and you don't understand it, that's okay. But if you're avoiding it because of intimidation, would you be willing to maybe have that conversation with yourself, or maybe somebody who could teach you? I have found that people really do enjoy teaching what they know. But sometimes the students got to get ready.
So caregiver to caregiver, are you ready? This is Peter Rosenberg. This is Hope for the Caregiver. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.
This is Peter Rosenberg. Glad to be with you. Hope for the Caregiver dot com. Hope for the Caregiver dot com. Hey, I just want to give you an update.
On something we talked about here for the last couple of weeks, we got our prosthetic supplies over, and we have the Bibles and hymnals that we collected were dropped off this week to make their way over to West Africa. Each patient will get a Bible. This came from our little church out here in Montana. They bought a bunch of new Bibles and hymnals. The old ones been there for forty plus years.
And I said, well, don't, don't get rid of those. I mean, let me have them. And and they said, okay. And and I'm, and I've got them all boxed up, and I'm on the way to Africa.
So each patient that gets a prosthetic leg will get one of these Bibles. And there's a local church there that's going to get the hymnals that we sent over, so those things can can be reused, just like our recycled prosthetics can be used. You know, for those who don't know, when Gracie gave up both of her legs, she envisioned this ministry of providing quality prosthetic limbs to her fellow amputees as a way of telling them about Jesus. That simple. I'll never forget it.
I walked into the hospital room that day. She was out of surgery, maybe five days after becoming a double amputee. She had become a single amputee four years earlier.
So here we are, back in 1995, and I walk in. She's got. She's laying in bed now. You know, one leg is all healed up. She's been walking on that with a prosthesis for for four years.
The other one still has all kinds of drains and bloody bandages and all that kind of stuff. It's freshly amputated, and she looks at me, you know, just sitting up, bright eyed, and she said, "I know what I'm going to do." And as I, you know, kind of was a bit jarring, I said, "Well, what what are you going to do, baby?" She said, "I'm going." To put legs on my fellow amputees, and we'll tell them about Jesus. And I said, "Okay, do you suppose we can get out of the hospital first?" She said, "Okay, but that's it, you know." And so, it took a while for this to come to fruition, but we ended up doing just that, and made our first trip over to Ghana in two thousand and five. And so last year we celebrated our twentieth year of this. We went to Ghana because Johnny Erickson Todd's organization, Johnny and friends, we talked to them.
We met some of their people there, and we were telling about what we're trying to do with the Wheels for the World team that she has. She has those go all over the world, and they do refurbished wheelchairs and. They said, "Well, in Gracie originally envisioned going over to Eastern Europe, where they had a lot of, you know, landmines and so forth." And they said, "Well, we have a pretty strong work going on in Ghana, and we feel like if you can make it work there, you can make it work anywhere." And I didn't even know where Ghana was on the map. I thought it was Guinea. That's in South South America.
So I would have really got that wrong. And and then the other thing was, I said, you know, I'm not going to Africa. I I don't I don't feel particularly called to go to Africa. And I said as much to Gracie, and and to their team and so forth. And and let me let me let me just give you a piece of advice, okay?
I want you to write this down if you want. It's probably futile. To say no to Johnny Eric Santana and to Gracie individually, and certainly collectively, you just—it's very difficult to tell these two women, "No, I'm not doing this." You know, I'm not putting myself out to go to do this. It—it—it just doesn't work. I mean, you try it if you want.
I mean, you know, all the best to you if you want to make that effort, but. I didn't find any success with it, and I I was just you know as I got on the plane for the first trip, I was like, I'm not going to Africa. I'm on the plane now. I'm not going to Africa, and and and I kept saying it all the way till we got to Africa. Then I'm like, okay, well I'm in Africa.
So I and I once we got there, there's an old saying says the dust of Africa. Once it's on your feet, we'll call you back. And it's absolutely true, and and I've come to just really treasure the people that we've served, but but even more specifically, the people that we partner with to serve them, and we work with Ghana Health Service, which is kind of like their government's Department of Health, and they have a prosthetic clinic there in Accra, the Prosthetic and Orthotics Clinic, and it's kind of decrepit, or no, I mean it was. When we got there, it was awful. And power was intermittent.
There was open plumbing and sewage and stuff around. I mean, it was just awful. And we have worked with them now for many, many years, and we've trained them and equipped them and provided equipment so that they can do this for their own people. We don't refurbish leks.
Okay, a lot of people think that's what we do. No, we collect used limbs from all over the country, and they go to a prison in Arizona. It's run by an outfit out of Nashville called Core Civic, and we've been working with them now for eleven years. And what we do is we collect these limbs and disassemble and recycle all the usable parts. And before Core Civic got involved with it.
I was doing this at our home in Nashville. I mean, I'd sit there out in the garage, and the kids would help me sometimes. And then I would sit there in the winter time. I'd sit there by the fireplace, and and it was, you know, it was kind of a freak show at our house. We had legs everywhere, and a few arms.
It was always great at Halloween, but still, I mean, it was it was a little bit weird. And and we've been doing this ever since, and we've now recycled. I think we've hit a thousand limbs now, a thousand prosthetic limbs that we've recycled, and and we can use the if it's a below knee leg, we can use the adapters, the pylon, the the foot. That kind of thing, and then certainly prosthetic socks and liners and sleeves if they're in good shape. If it's an above knee, we can use the knee joint and and the longer pylon which we always need.
And you can see all this on our website, steadywithhope dot com. It's a fascinating work that we've been able to do. I remember one time, and I was I was putting together some old video clips of some stuff, and I saw this. I forgotten I'd said this, but we we did an event years ago at Walter Reed with. With Franklin Graham, and it was when I got to meet him, and he was asking about what we do and so forth.
Very gracious fellow, and I said, "Franklin, we got more people standing over there. Looks like a Benny Hinn crusade being played backwards." And it took him a second. He looked at me, kind of. I mean, let me tell you something. When Franklin Graham looks at you funny.
You know you're kind of skating the edge there a little bit, but you know I don't. You know it's me. I mean, what? Honestly, what do you expect from me? I mean, y'all, y'all know me.
I mean, of course I'm going to say something that's stupid, and but he laughed about it. But I think he looked around to see if it was okay if he could laugh. But it was funny. I don't care who you are. That's funny right there.
But we've been doing this and and and enjoying the journey. I've watched. There's a young man that runs the clinic now. He is the director of the both the orthotics and prosthetic side. His name is Moses.
I don't remember when he first came as a tech. Many, many, many years ago, and now he runs the place, and just a fine young man. We want to go back. I am ready to go back. It's been a while since I've been back because of Gracie's illness.
Because then COVID, then Gracie has just had surgery after surgery after surgery, and I haven't been free to go. I would very much like to go, and I have her prosthetist has been working with us here in Bozeman, wants to go as well, and in fact, he's got a. A lady that was job shadowing him, who's just applied to prosthetic school and just graduated from Montana State, and she's got a she's got a significant orthotics disability with her leg, and she wants to go. And so I've got plenty of people want to go, but I need to be able to go. In order for me to be able to go, it's a bit more of a challenge.
So here's what I'd like for you to do.
Okay, I'd like for you to just pray with us about this. That God's going to open this up and give me wisdom and the right timing because in order for me to go, Gracie said she's going to go, and I said, No, no, you're not going to go yet, baby. We're going to take you, but not now. I mean, I'm not ready for that yet. And I said, We we spent five months in the hospital last year.
Can we go at least a couple of years? I mean, give get let's get some distance between you being in a hospital and get you up walking. And moving, and and being more active, and she is getting there. I mean, it's it's slow, but she's getting there. But I need to go.
But in order for me to go, then I've got to have, you know, somebody that stays with her the whole time I'm gone. You know, and that's that's not a small commitment.
So you're looking at, you know, probably ten days. You know, because they have to get here, then I go to airport, I go to thing, come back, and then I come back in straight into it being a full time caregiver.
So it can be a little bit challenging, and then we got to pay for it, and so it's it's a big expense.
Now, if you go as a team member, they raise their own money or people help sponsor them, but you know, for me to go, it's not just an airline ticket; it's. All the care that has to go in with Gracie and everything else that's involved.
So, logistically, it's pretty difficult.
So, what I'd like to for you to do would you do this with me, please? Would you just pray about it? And maybe just you know we'll we'll pray about it for several weeks and months and see what the Lord opens up. But I'm really planning on 2027 as the year we're going back because what we do is we offer advanced training and it just it it it's a wonderful experience to go. I speak at local churches there.
I meet with government officials, and it's wonderful to go.
Now when Gracie goes, it is a big deal. And and she has a massive impact when she goes, but she's just not physically ready to go. And may not be for at least another couple of years, so. But you know that could change. And if if she turns a corner and really starts rocking and rolling, then you know what?
I'll come back to you and have her on the show, and she'll talk about it, and we'll we'll see about going. But in the meantime, I'm just asking you to pray about it. You've helped me ship prosthetic supplies. You helped me ship books and and I mean Bibles and hymnals. You helped sponsor this program with because we have two outreaches at Standing with Hope.
We have the The prosthetic limb outreach for the wounded, and then the caregiver outreach and those who care for them. That's our that's our mission statement for the wounded and those who care for them. And you know, I was out speaking at um at an event in Columbus, Georgia, not too long ago. And the honorarium that I get when I go speak there goes to Stadium with Hope. That's how we raise money.
We don't have like rubber chicken dinners and golf tournaments and all those kind of things. You know. We don't do that kind of stuff. I don't even have a fundraising budget for Standing with Hope. We just tell you what we're doing, and as the Lord leads, you know, people get involved and be a part of it.
And in the meantime, I am going to do the best I can on this program and all that I do with caregiving. But even when I went down to Georgia, not the devil went down to Georgia. That was Charlie Daniels' song. But even when I went down there, you know, it's hard to. I had to have somebody full time with Gracie.
Make sure I had everything. I mean, just there's so many details involved just in a couple day trip to Georgia.
Now, try to extrapolate that when I'm going across the ocean all the way to another continent, and it's pretty involved. and And that's okay. The Lord knows this, and that's why we're going to seek Him. And so I'm I'm just asking you to join with me as we seek Him to do these things, and as we take the work that we're doing here to a a whole different level. And and I would very much welcome your thoughts, your insights.
If you have a conference you want me to speak at, I'd be happy to talk to you about that as well. There's lots of different ways that we would welcome your involvement.
So thank you for that. Go out to standingwithhope. dot com, standingwithhope. dot com, and you can see you can see on the prosthetic limb part of it the types of things we recycle and what that looks like. And then if you want, you can join our E letter there, so you can keep apprised of all the updates and things that we're doing.
Okay, standingwithhope dot com. This is Peter Rosenberg. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberg.
Glad to be with you. Hope for the Caregiver dot com. A friend recently described a conversation with her father, who's a big celebrity who used to have worldwide fame and and still has an audience that takes him rather seriously. And for years she had hoped he might become more interested in her life, and and less captivated by his own thoughts. And recently he offered her a theological update on where he is.
He said he reads only the red letter words of Jesus, doesn't particularly care for the apostles' teaching, and he doesn't like the God of the Old Testament. And after all that, he pointed to his his good works, and with, according to her, a considerable satisfaction, announced, "You know, I think I'm becoming more like Christ." And he had dismissed the prophets, discounted the apostles, and had given himself high marks. Apparently, becoming like Christ goes a lot easier once the people who might question the resemblance have been excused. All right. Look.
Aside from the obvious theological potholes, his daughter had also hoped for something considerably less grand—a question about her life, maybe her thoughts, or or how she was doing. Instead, she got another favorable review of him by him. You know, just FYI, the Christ whose words appear in the red—the red letter words. Affirmed the scriptures and commissioned the apostles, so that makes the declaration. I only read the red letter parts.
To it's kind of difficult to reconcile with that, but here we are. But look, before I get into this guy's absurdity too much, I have learned something that worldwide fame and nonstop caregiving apparently have something in common. Both give what's in a man's heart ample opportunity to come out. I don't need an adoring audience to justify myself. I handle that aside, but just fine on my own.
Sadly, you know, for decades of this, as a caregiver through this relentlessness of our life, have exposed plenty of gunk in my own soul. And you know, if you do it for a short stretch, helping someone, it may leave you feeling like a hero or a rescuer. But decades into it, I have quite a bit more evidence to examine. I've seen my work. Enough failures—I mean, serious failures—remain so up in my face that I sometimes just hang my head and mutter, "I just want to be less like me." You know, I'm I'm grateful that God keeps chipping away, even when it hurts and seems painfully slow, and and those failures bring me back to something I landed on years and years ago.
Sin is a bigger problem than I think it is, and the cross is far greater than I could ever imagine. Mom once told me something. My mother listens to this program. Mom, how are you doing? And um, she she.
Once told me something about that. She said, "When things went awry, your father was never suspicious of God. He was constantly suspicious of himself." And she said, "Your father remained confident in God's mercy, His goodness, and grace, while recognizing his own capacity to lean into something until it bent to his will." You know, trouble didn't mean God had disappeared. My father knew his own heart warranted examination. Sadly, I have the experience with the opposite.
I become suspicious of God while preparing an excellent defense of myself, and you know that argument sounds real good, particularly if you're the only one making it. The result of all that is just misery, and I'll remain weary and heavy laden with a growing file of supporting documents. John Calvin described the human heart as a factory of idols. And my heart doesn't seem to have a supply chain problem. I am prone, at a moment's notice, to fashion a God who finds my reasoning persuasive, and my conduct understandable.
Scripture keeps interrupting that, though. A couple weeks ago, I mentioned to you about the Bereans who received Paul's teaching enthusiastically, but then examined him to to make sure what he was saying was okay. But my question is, what did they examine him with?
Well, they examined with Scripture.
Well, what Scripture?
Well, what we call the Old Testament. Paul hadn't read the Book of Romans yet, and they examined his Paul's words against the scriptures that my friend's father would prefer to set aside. You know, if Paul's teaching could undergo that kind of examination, I don't have any grounds for exempting mine. That that that gives me a standard for examining worship leaders. Televangelist claiming a word from God, a celebrity, and the remarkably persuasive voice in my own head.
When you do that, you inevitably come to Paul's cry, where he says, "Oh wretched man that I am," and it sounds awful familiar. At least it does for me. But so does his thanksgiving to God through Jesus Christ. That's what he, Paul, just erupts into this praise. And the the apostle that my friend's father finds unappealing helps me understand both my condition and my hope.
I want to become more like Christ. But I have a long list of quote Bereans in my life who should I ever make a statement like, you know, I'm becoming more like Christ? They would line up to beat me like a ridden mule, and some of would get back in line a second time. But you know, you got to have people in your life like that, and I do, and and they should do that because I've seen my work, and some of them have seen it too. Becoming more like Christ involves a cross, and dying to myself, not encouraging a round of applause for the man who's supposed to be dying.
You follow me? I've seen my work, but my hope rests in His. And I'm going to do something a little different today for the song that we normally do a hymn here on the caregiver keyboard. But I thought when I heard that phrase. I thought there's a perfect song for this.
Keith Green wrote the song many, many, many, many years ago, and Gracie did a cover of it.
So I thought I'd end with her version of this that I think you'll find very meaningful.
So we'll let Gracie substitute today for the caregiver keyboard and do this song that I think is just one of the most wonderful songs ever written. It's called "I Want to Be More Like Jesus" by Keith Green. Here's Gracie. As each day passes by, I feel my love run dry. I get so weary, worn, and tossed within the storm.
Well, I'm blind to others' needs, and I'm tired of planting seeds. I seem to have a well of so many thoughts about myself. I want to, and I need to be more like Jesus. I want to. When I need to be more like him, there's no greater love than to lay down your life for a friend.
Our Father's will was done by giving. Us His Son, who paid the highest cost to point us to the cross, and when I think of it, taking on the whole world's sin, I take one look at me compared to what I'm called. I want to when I need to be more like Jesus. I want to and I got to be more like Him. There's no greater love than to lay down your life for a friend.
The end of all my prayers is to care like my Lord cares. My one and only goal, His image in my soul. Yes, my weakness is revealed, but by His stripes I am healed. He's faithful and He's true to complete the work and begin the new. And you and I want to, and I need to be like Jesus.
I want to, I need to be like Him. I want to, and I need to be more like Jesus. Oh. I want to, I need to be more like him. There's no greater love than to lay down your life for a friend.
There's no greater love than to lay down your life for a friend. That is my wife. Y'all continue to pray for her. I want. I told her the other day.
I said, "Baby, I want to get you back singing again. I want you to do so much more." And I'm looking forward to it. And I love that voice. And that's still her prayer. It's still her cry.
And and I hope it is yours as well. We're out of time. I've got to go. This is Peter Rosenberg. Go out to hopeforthecaregiver.com if you want more information.
We'll see you next time.
