The Challenge for Caregivers to be Still

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Give the gift that keeps on cooking. A chicken. Okay, maybe it's not the perfect gift for your family, but it is the perfect gift for a poor family in Asia. A chicken can break the cycle of poverty for a poor family. Yes, a chicken.

A chicken's eggs provide food and nourishment for a family, and they can sell those eggs at the market for income. When you donate a chicken or any other animal through Gospel for Asia, 100% of what you give goes to the field. And the best gift of all, when Gospel for Asia gives a poor family an animal, it opens the door to the love of Jesus. So give the perfect gift for a family in Asia this Christmas. Give them a chicken. Call 866-WINASIA or to see chickens and other animals to donate, go to crittercampaign.org. Welcome to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio.

I am Peter Rosenberger. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver. There are more than 65 million Americans right now who are putting themselves between a vulnerable loved one and even worse, disaster. How do you help a caregiver?

What does it look like? Why should you help a caregiver? Why is this even important? This is what this show is all about, and we're glad that you're with us. If you want to be a part of the show, it is 888-589-8840. We want to welcome all of our affiliates on the Truth Network. We want to welcome His Radio in South Carolina and AM 1010, WPMH 96.9 in Suffolk, Virginia, 100.1 Norfolk, Virginia. We've got shows all over the country. We're on, I think, over 200 stations, and we're glad that you are a part of this show, this movement of being focused on the family caregiver.

I've been a caregiver now in my 35th year that I've been doing this. By the way, if I sat a little stopped up right now, I'm in Southwest Montana. We have a lot of smoke.

We can't even see the valley. Gracie and I moved out here from Nashville. We've been coming out here for 30 something years, but we finally just decided to move out here from Nashville.

We got up early yesterday morning and went to a medical appointment for her over in Billings, which is 200 miles away, and we had to leave very early. It looked like the Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee because all the smoke is just hanging here, but we're supposed to have thunderstorms this afternoon. We hope that that will drive some of this smoke away from the fires. It has been a difficult fire season. We've had some fires out here close to us, and that is something that is hopefully going to be addressed by some political leaders that maybe they can rethink the way they've handled the forest. Stewardship is a big key of what we talk about on this show, and we have to be good stewards of our lives as caregivers and our loved ones and all the resources we have. If you'll notice, it was our first job in scripture.

Adam was a steward of the garden, and that's what his job was. We've got to be really good stewards of our forest. We've got a lot of this standing deadwood around, and then it just explodes in these fires that are started either by people or lightning or whatever. It's been a little bit smoky out here, and so if I sneeze and cough a little bit, forgive me on that. It's not corona.

It's just smoke. Let's go to our scripture, Dave. Psalm 46 10. Psalm 46 10. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations.

I will be exalted in the earth. One of the things I've said on this show for us as caregivers, that if we don't take time for stillness, we're going to have to make time for illness. Now, how many of you all take time to be still? We live in a 24 hour news cycle. We live in the craziness of this world. We're in election season.

We've just lost a Supreme Court justice now who has passed away with Ruth Bader Ginsburg. That's not exactly an antidote for anxiety in an already anxious 2020. Are we able to take time for stillness?

Because if we don't, we're going to have to make time for illness. Psalm 62. For God. Verse one. For God alone, my soul waits in silence for him. From him comes my salvation. Verse two. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress. I shall not be greatly shaken.

And one of my favorite hymns. And I have this side on my door in my office and also have Gracie made it for those of you who are watching on the caregiver cam. It is on Facebook.

You can stream the show on Facebook Live through our Hope for the Caregiver page. But right above my right shoulder up there is a framed. It says from a hymn that says, Ponder anew what the Almighty can do. Ponder anew what the Almighty can do.

And I tell you what, if you know what hymn that's from, I'll give you special bonus points. So ponder a new what the Almighty can do. Do we take time to ponder? Do we take time to be still? Do we take time to recenter our thoughts?

Do you do that? I'm as guilty as everybody else of just living in this frenetic world. But as caregivers, we have a you know, it's often relentlessly onslaught of what happens with us. And the pace that we keep just this week, just this week.

Remember, I'm in my 35th year of this. On Monday, Gracie, every couple of months, she has to go for the special infusions that they do. They have to monitor her for it.

And it's pretty tiresome for it, but it helps reduce some of her pain. And so Monday we're there for three hours. Tuesday we're there for three hours. Wednesday morning early, I get up and I had to go to an orthopedic surgeon, see about an arthritic knee of mine that I'm having some problems with. And as they stuck a needle into my knee, I had to think about my wife and I thought, well, she wouldn't want me to scream like a 12 year old girl.

And because she's a double amputee. And so I have to suck it up a little bit. And then I and that's in nearby Bozeman, which was 60 miles away. And then I come back to the house, get her going to take her down back to the hospital, the little community hospital where she gets these infusions and do that for three hours.

And then yesterday we drove 400 something miles round trip to see the prosthetist to get her legs worked on. Well, that's a frenetic pace. And at some point you've got to take some time for stillness. And what does stillness look like when you have these kinds of responsibilities?

How do you still yourself while still multitasking and managing the craziness? And that's a very good question for us as caregivers. That's a challenge for us as caregivers.

And we don't we don't get the opportunity necessarily to punch our card and take off. We can't even go to bed sometimes when we want to go to. I mean, I came home after doing that last night and I'm doing several things of laundry and and and so forth. I mean, and meals have to be prepared and things such as that. So when you're a full time caregiver, that's that's the job full time.

How do you take time for stillness so that you don't have to make time for illness? And and I learned a long time ago that you cannot wait for it to come about to you. You're going to have to be deliberate in this. And you may not get it in the kinds of portions that you would like.

It may just come in little tiny portions, but it's still important to have. Are you struggling with that? Do you do you keep up this frenetic pace?

888-589-8840, 888-589-8840. If you want to weigh in on what you do to still your heart. And sometimes for me, it's it's sitting down at the piano. I've been a pianist long before I was a caregiver and started this when I was about five years old. Plucking out tunes on the piano. And then I ended up majoring in music. And it's a big part of my life is being at the piano. And I stay in regular contact with my piano professor from college. He's retired now.

He's in his 80s. And he and I talk pretty regularly. And we talk about piano things and music things and expanding the concept of music and what I'm learning through it.

And that's a way to kind of recalibrate by my head, my heart, everything else is just to kind of stop talking about all the other things and just talk about music. Churchill did that. He would paint. He said to to allow the part of his brain that was being used to rule the world and deal with the world's problems. And he would let that part of his brain cool off while he would paint. What helps your brain cool off?

What helps your spirit cool off? So these are these are things that are important for us as caregivers that we've got to find those things that can do it and it won't be conventional. We don't get a chance to just go on and take a break. Like like maybe some others do. You don't get to say, OK, I want to take my vacation next week and I will be off for three days. It doesn't work that way when you're a caregiver. But that doesn't mean that we don't deserve a break. It doesn't mean that we don't require a break.

And it doesn't mean that we don't require the ability to silence the noise around us. But it's hard to do that. We're going to talk about that some more on the show today. And I want to hear what you do.

888-589-8840. Ponder anew what the Almighty can do. Ponder anew what the Almighty can do.

If you know that hymn title, you've got to go to the front of the line. He will be strong to deliver me safe. The joy of the Lord is my strength. The joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver on American Family Radio. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver.

Is the joy of the Lord your strength? That's Gracie, my wife, with Russ Taft from her CD Resilient. If you want a copy of that, go out to hopeforthecaregiver.com. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. Just click right on the button there on the CD cover and you can help support what the show is all about. And we'll send you a copy of that CD.

Whatever's on your heart to send, we'll send you a copy of the CD and do that today. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. She is a wonderful singer and it is a great, great, great record.

I think you'll like it. It's called Resilient and she is indeed resilient. She's had 80 surgeries, both of her legs amputated. All this from a car wreck she had back in 1983 and it's still going on.

So she is one tough gal. I do want to quickly thank, I had a caller from Savannah, Tennessee, way down in Hardin County, right on the border of Tennessee in the southwest corner. Said how much she appreciates the books.

Her name was Lynn and thank you for that call, Lynn. And my book is Seven Caregiver Landmines and How You Can Avoid Them. And then my other book is Hope for the Caregiver and both of those are available wherever books are sold and it's a great resource to have.

I wrote this to myself really, I mean to that 23 year old version of myself who married a woman with a broken body and was clueless. So I wanted to write, how do you speak to a caregiver? What do you say to a caregiver? What do you address for a caregiver? And I knew that the topic of caregiving was not the issue because I can't tell you how to care for your loved one anymore than you can tell me how to do for mine. But what I can do is speak to the train wreck that's in the caregiver's heart and that I do understand and I speak fluent caregiver.

But I also learned that it's our Savior's native tongue and that is great hope for me. All right, let's go to, this is Lynn in Arkansas. We've got two Lynn's in a row here. Lynn in Arkansas, good morning. How are you feeling?

Oh, I'm great. I actually am not doing caregiving anymore, but I've called in several times. I took care of my mom in another state for three years.

But anyway, what I wanted to say, what restored me, I loved going to yard sales and I had a friend who would come for a couple hours and take care of my mom or maybe even an hour. And the caregiving agency would not send anyone out for under two hours, plus it was $23 an hour anyway. So to justify paying somebody $23 an hour to go to yard sales was kind of crazy. So anyway, this friend, I just felt like that was a real life saver. Well, for most yard sales that I've seen, for $23 an hour, you could have them bring the yard sale to your front yard.

Yeah. I was going to say about one time something that happened that was a real blessing. Somebody was supposed to come and they were late and all these things happened and I was really tired and discouraged. And so I was going to go to some yard sales and as I got going, it was late.

It was getting hot. People were all, it was a whole neighborhood yard sale and everyone was picking up their stuff. And I was just so discouraged and I just, it sounds silly because it's a little thing, but I just prayed for encouragement to the Lord. And I went, as people were picking up this stuff, I had bought a leather purse for $25 one time with no strap. And this guy was picking up his stuff and he had this leather pouch and it had a strap on it. And I said, how much is that?

And he said a dollar. And so to me, that was huge just because number one, I got to get out and number two, it was just one of those things where God answers something that's little, but it's an encouragement. What do you like about yard sales? I've never gotten into yard sales that much.

I don't particularly enjoy going to them and I don't particularly enjoy having one. What do you enjoy about it? It's kind of an adventure. You never know what you're going to find and normally I don't like surprises, but you can find gifts for people that are unusual. I used to have a flea market booth years ago and so I would find stuff for my kids and then at the same time I would make a little money to pay back for my time and effort and all that.

So it was that in saving money. You can get some really good stuff, but usually it's getting there early and when I was a caregiver I wasn't able to get there real early. But California has them all year round. I did not want to go live in California.

I think California is having a going out of business sale right now. Everything must go. I know.

I know. Well Lynn, that is really interesting to hear that from you and I appreciate that you called in and talked about that. There is no right or wrong. I'm always intrigued by what people do to kind of still their hearts.

What kind of feeds their soul? One of the things I hope that my fellow caregivers will take on is that if it's rejuvenating your spirit and your heart and your soul, let's do it. Let's do it.

You may not get to do it as much as you'd like, but if it's gardening, if it's yard sales, if it's art, if it's cooking, if it's needlepoint, whatever, writing poetry. If you've got a poem that you've written as a caregiver that is meaningful to you, call us up. Let us hear it. We'd love to hear these kinds of things because that's feeding the part of your soul that is often starving for some oxygen. Ultimately, it goes back, of course, to Scripture where David says in Psalm 62, For God alone my soul waits in silence. We learn to just go down that path. Sometimes we have to take a couple of detours to get to that point. But ultimately, I'd love for us to be as caregivers to learn how to lean on God for our sense of quiet and peace and stillness. That's been a hard journey for me because there's so many distractions. There's so much noise. It's been hard for me. I'm always interested to hear how other people arrive at that place. I thank you for sharing that, Lynn.

Okay, thank you. Bye. Yes, ma'am. Becky in Ohio. Good morning, Becky. How are you feeling?

Becky? I wanted, number one, to just thank you for this show. Even though I am not a caregiver any longer, but it has really been a blessing for me just to hear the stories. Who did you take care of?

I'm looking at the notes here. You took care of your father? Yes. I was a weekend caregiver. I worked full-time, and I live in Columbus, Ohio.

They live in Louisville, Kentucky. So it's a four-hour drive. There were some times driving down there, I was like, Why am I doing this?

This is really hard. But it really gave me my dad back because we had barely spoken for years before he got sick. Actually, he had surgery, and it didn't go well, so it was a several-year process. But I was so blessed to be able to help to be a caregiver because we hadn't had a relationship, and I was blessed to be with him when he passed. What did you do on the drive?

That's a four-hour drive, eight hours round trip? Yeah. I listened to music, listened to the radio a lot, just kind of flipped around channels. One of the things that I heard, it was an old gospel song, and I hadn't even thought about it in a long time, and I was able to sing that in church, not verbally, but kind of in my mind, dedicated to him. Which one was that? It was, shoot, now I'm not going to be able to think of the name of it. Do you remember any of the lyrics of it? Yeah, it was Put Your Hand in the Hand.

That old, let's see. No, actually. Not that one. Yes, that's it. Oh, that one?

Who steal the water. Is that it? Yeah, okay. That's the one, and especially the second verse.

Did you put your hand in the hand of the man who steal the water? Absolutely. That's great.

Absolutely. That is great. That's great, Becky. That is great. Well, I appreciate you calling, and I appreciate you taking the time to share that, and I'm glad that you had that time of reconciliation with your father. That is a gift, that is a real gift that you were able to do that, and that's very meaningful to hear. A lot of people don't get that, and so I'm glad that you're able to treasure that. And thank you for sharing that with us today, and thanks for listening to the show.

Oh, thank you. Yes, ma'am. Doris in Texas. All right, Doris, you got the name of the hymn? I do, Peter.

It's such an honor to speak with you. I listen to you every Saturday morning, every Sunday night when it's a rerun, and the name of the song was Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation. Isn't that a great hymn? You win the prize, Doris.

You win the prize. I almost have to stand up and scream that song when we sing it in church, because I love it so much. Oh, it's a wonderful hymn. Gracie sings it better than I do, so I'm not going to sing it. I'll play it, but I won't sing it. But I love that. Ponder anew what the Almighty can do.

And my friend Rebecca is watching on Facebook Live, and I remember her being a much better pianist than I was when we were in college, and so I hope that she's not judging me too hard, Rebecca. Well, Doris, thank you for getting that. That's one of my favorite hymns. Ponder anew what the Almighty can do.

Do we take time to ponder as caregivers? Do we consider all the worlds thy hand has made, as the hymn says? These hymns are there for us as a treasure trove to help guide us to a place of being still before the Lord. That's what the Psalms are. That's what David did. And that's why I love the hymns.

That's why I love the music so much. And, Doris, you made my day by getting that right. I appreciate you very much for calling on that, okay? You bet.

It felt great. Well, thanks for listening. We've got to go to a break. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. 888-589-8840. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

I am Peter Rosenberger. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver. 888-589-8840.

888-589-8840 if you want to be a part of the show. One of the things we do on the show is try to just clear the room for us as caregivers. As you can tell by now, we speak fluent caregiver here. This is a place where you don't have to translate things in your mind and try to figure out what's going on.

This is a place that is exclusively for the family caregiver. Come on into the room, hang out, grab a cup of coffee, just hang. You don't have to overthink this thing. We're going to help clear a space for you, even if it's just this one hour that you have while the show is on. We come on Saturday mornings live. We're rebroadcast on the Truth Network on Saturday afternoons, on Sunday nights. AFR does it again at 10 o'clock Central, 11 o'clock Eastern.

We're on Sunday afternoons on his radio at 4 o'clock Eastern, I think, in South Carolina. So there's different spots throughout the weekend. But if this is all you can get, it's just one hour to hang out with fellow caregivers who truly get your journey, then that is your entry point to learning how to be still. Today we're talking about taking time for stillness or you're going to have to make time for illness. Your body will get sick. Your body will break down. You will not be able to sustain the frenetic pace that you keep as a caregiver if you don't take time to recharge.

But what does that look like? And stillness and rest and sleep, these are all different kinds of things. Rest and sleep are different concepts. And being still and reflecting on things is a decision, is a choice. You can go to sleep. We can get eight hours of sleep every night. But that doesn't mean we're resting and that doesn't mean we're being still.

That just means we go to sleep. This is on a soul level. And is your soul tired? If you've been a caregiver for any length of time, your soul is tired. I promise you.

So how do you rejuvenate this? Well, this is what scripture says. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. Psalm 46, 10.

You've got to start with being still. And then Psalm 62. For God alone, my soul waits in silence. We're uncomfortable with silence. You ever been to church when they have a time of silent prayer and things like that? And if it goes on too long, people start getting fidgety. It's very hard for people to be silent and still before God.

Certainly as a corporate entity. Just try it sometime. Ask your pastor to try it sometime. But if you'll notice in scripture, there's a part in Revelation.

I'm not going to give you the chapter right now because I don't know it off the top of my head. But there's going to be 30 minutes of silence in heaven. That's going to be an awesome moment. 30 minutes of silence. And the only time we usually contemplate silence in that is when there's great grief and mourning. And we stop and reflect in a moment of silence for the dearly departed or whatever. You've heard that at funerals and so forth.

But do we take silence for what it is sometimes as a way of just being rejuvenating to our spirits? I remember one time I went outside here in Montana in the wintertime. And we live pretty remotely.

I mean, we don't even have a traffic light in our county here. And it's pretty remote. And the wind usually howls and all that kind of stuff when there's weather.

But I went out this one day and it was in wintertime and there's a lot of snow everywhere. And there was no wind. It was completely still. There was no traffic. There was no airplane. There was no bugs. There was no birds.

Nothing. I walked outside and it was silent. I've been inside when it's silent, but I walked outside and it was silent.

It was completely still. And it is a weird feeling. It is a weird sensation to be outside and to be completely silent. I've been up in the mountains on a snowmobile and I would turn off the sled and you could hear the snowflakes.

It was so quiet as they settled on the trees. And when you have that much snow, it just muffles everything. So even the little tiniest noises you could hear, but everything was so still that you could just actually hear the snowflakes just resting on the trees and on my sleeve and so forth.

It's a very strange sensation. And I don't know that we're very comfortable with silence. Are you comfortable with silence?

Do we have to reach for our phones or turn on the television or all the other things that go on in our lives that we just have to have this noise? And Scripture is constantly referring us back to learning to be still. Stand still. Be still. Be quiet. Hush. That's basically what it's saying. Because we can't hear the whisper of the Holy Spirit if we're so busy listening to the shouting of everything else. Jesus removed himself away from all the craziness.

People were just pawing at him. But this is part of our journey as fellow caregivers. How do you do this? 888-589-8840.

888-589-8840. And it's not a situation I found for me where I can go and just say, okay, I'm just going to have some silence and turn everything off. Well, my mind is a squirrel cage. And it is an intentional, deliberate thing to be still. You don't just be still by accident. You have to will yourself to stop and be still. And for me, the way I get to that is usually through music. Sometimes it's going for a walk. Sometimes it's getting out on a horse.

Whatever. But other people, it's picking up a paintbrush. I've got a friend of mine who is really into knitting. And this is a passion of hers. But it's a way for her to just kind of be still and let her mind just kind of coast at that point. And those are healthy things for us to do. It doesn't mean we have to just sit in a room with our hands folded in our lap and do nothing, because I think that takes a long time to get to that point where you can just learn to just be still and sit. But maybe it starts off with turning off the television. Turning down the audio clutter in our life.

Just sitting down. Just be still. And know that he is God.

And these are hard things for us to do as caregivers. I'll never forget, though, God was working on me evidently in this area. And when Gracie would be in the hospital, I would be a frenetic source of energy. I mean, I was just all over the place. I was on the phone.

I was doing this and this. But in this particular season of our life, I was learning to be still. And I was sitting next to her in the hospital and following a pretty significant surgery. And I was reading through just the menu, what we're going to order for dinner for that night from the hospital cafeteria, which those of you spending time with hospital cafeterias, you know how exciting that can be. But I was reading through it and she was sleeping in the hospital bed next to me.

And I'm in one of those uncomfortable recliner chairs they have next to the hospital bed. And I noticed that her breathing, so I looked over and she was blue and she stopped breathing. They had overshot her anesthesia or pain medicine after surgery, which is very difficult for her to manage that.

And they overshot it. And I was the only one in the room. And I don't even think she was on monitors at that point. And and so she had stopped breathing and I immediately called for the nurses and so forth.

They came in there and they intubated her and got her into intensive care and she was OK. But if I hadn't been there and if I hadn't been still, she'd have died. That drove home a point to me in a pretty graphic way that it is a it is imperative that I learn to be still, because ultimately God is moving in this thing and my frenetic behavior, however much I think I'm getting done, can't even touch what he can do if I'll just be still. Be still and know that I'm God. Be still and see the salvation of the Lord. If I had not been still in that moment and just sitting there, just being still, she'd have died.

Something to think about, isn't it? All the work that I'd done as a caregiver to that point would have been for naught. She'd have died because I wasn't paying attention.

But because I was being still, I saw and I was able to get help for her and move on. And so God was moving when I was being still. And it was just one of those lessons that drove home to me that, wow, this really isn't about me.

It's about him. And I am a steward of this. And if I will listen to the soft whisper of the Holy Spirit. How many of you all know that the Holy Spirit doesn't come and just kick down the door? Jesus says, Behold, I stand at the door and what?

Knock. He's not beating it down. Elijah didn't hear God in all the craziness, but when he heard the still small voice. And that's the point that we drive home is that we think that somehow our freneticness and our craziness and our multitasking abilities and so forth that keep this whole thing on the rails. But that's not the case at all, is it?

That's not the case at all. What keeps us on the rails is God. And he's going to do what he's going to do. Now, he invites us to be a part of this.

He invites us to share in this. But the lesson I'm learning is that to make no mistake that this this is not about me. And I think that caregivers tend to put this over emphasis on that this is all up to us.

That's one of the landmines in my book, Seven Caregiver Landmines, thinking that it's all up to me. But it's not. It's not all up to me. And that's a hard thing because we see how much activity we do. We know that the laundry is not going to get done by itself.

Breakfast isn't going to get made by itself. But the concept is that we do what is at our hand to do to the best of our abilities. But we also exhibit stewardship over our own spirits, our own hearts, our own souls, so that we can learn to be still, because if we don't take time for stillness, we're going to have to make time for illness. And when is a good time for you to be sick? When's a good time for you to break down? It's a hard line to walk, isn't it?

Hey, this is Peter Rosenberger. Have you ever helped somebody walk for the first time? I've had that privilege many times through our organization, Standing with Hope, when my wife Gracie gave up both of her legs following this horrible wreck that she had as a teenager. And she tried to save them for years, and it just wouldn't work out. And finally, she relinquished them and thought, wow, this is it. I mean, I don't have any legs anymore.

What can God do with that? And then she had this vision for using prosthetic limbs as a means of sharing the gospel, to put legs on her fellow amputees. And that's what we've been doing now since 2005 with Standing with Hope.

We work in the West African country of Ghana. And you can be a part of that through supplies, through supporting team members, through supporting the work that we're doing over there. You could designate a limb. There's all kinds of ways that you could be a part of giving the gift that keeps on walking at standingwithhope.com. Would you take a moment to go out to standingwithhope.com and see how you can give?

They go walking and leaping and praising God. You can be a part of that at standingwithhope.com. Do you believe that?

That's Gracie, standing on two prosthetic legs, singing that with a broken body. Do you believe that? As a caregiver, welcome back to the show. This is Hope for the Caregiver.

I am Peter Rosenberger, 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840. Do you believe that? These are things that are important for us as caregivers to wrestle with and grasp in our heart because it's going to reflect on how we then caregive. But if our heart is a dumpster fire, imagine what our caregiving looks like.

Imagine what our wallets look like, our bodies look like. All these things are important for us to contemplate, to think through it. And I wanted just to be able to have this time with you all today because I know that we're going into what I call the absolute nutty season for caregivers. The fall is a hard time.

We start getting to the holidays, we've got an election going on, we've got all this drama in our country, we've got the coronavirus, we've got all these things. How do you settle down? How do you simmer down?

How do you slow down? I want to leave you with this quote. I'll try to squeeze in a few more calls, but I want to leave you with this quote. Never doubt the power of inactivity. Never doubt the power of inactivity. What does that mean?

We somehow think that the more active we are, the more productive we are physically where we get things going, the better we're doing our job. And I still struggle with this. When Mary and Martha were there at the house of Jesus, and Martha was like, hey, Jesus, get Mary to come in here and help me with some of this stuff. And he rebuked her and said, look, she's doing what she needs to be doing right now. And of course, they all ate the dinner that Martha fixed. Martha's doing all the hard work. And I thought Martha got kind of a bum deal on this, but the principle is still the same. I haven't really reconciled that out yet on how that works, and I'll ask Jesus about it one day when I meet him face to face.

And I'll say, hey, what's the deal about that? Because you could have made dinner with Martha, but she was in there doing all the work. And we caregivers, we do all the work. But he was very clear when he said, look, this is the priority. You know that scripture, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. And when we have our priorities straight on what it is we're seeking, what it is we're doing, what's the purpose? What's the goal?

Where's this heading? And it takes some deliberate steps for us to reorient our thinking to do this. You do not unintentionally be still. I don't think so, at least not as a caregiver.

I haven't figured out how to do it. I think it's a decision that you make. I'm going to be still.

And sometimes I feel like I am just blowing and going like a horse after running a race. I remember, y'all don't make fun of me for this, but I have to share my own experiences, which are usually fraught with failure, but hopefully it makes the point. Gracie and I were at the Republican National Convention in 2004 in New York, and Gracie sang for the opening of the second night. And the first time any woman with a disability had ever done that for any convention, and they asked her to sing the anthem, and she did.

So we get there, and we're staying at the Waldorf Astoria, not a cheap place to stay, okay? And then she did her thing, and then the next day we got a call from the White House, and they wanted her to stick around for another couple of days and be on the platform with the president when he gave his acceptance speech that Thursday night. I said, okay, that's quite an honor. Okay, we're okay with that. But then the RNC, which brought us up there, the Republican National Committee, they said, we don't know anything about it. You guys need to go on home and your flight leaves today.

And the White House said this, and the RNC said this, and I'm watching the bills mount up because I'm thinking, okay, who's going to cover the Waldorf Astoria for the next two nights while we're doing this thing and change our planes and everything else? And at that particular point in our life, I didn't have a whole lot of disposable cash, and I was just kind of a little bit frantic. And I remember getting on the phone, Gracie called my dad, said, you talk to him, and he said, be still. And I sat down in a rocking chair in our room at the Waldorf Astoria, and I sat there and I was just blowing like a horse. I really was. I was just like, what do I do?

What do I do? I'm watching the bills mount up, and I just sat there and was still for a few moments. And it took me quite a bit of time just to kind of settle myself down and just trust that, okay, this is all going to work out and the Lord is in control of this thing. And about an hour or so later, we got a call from the White House and it was, okay, we're good.

It's done. And it's all good. And Gracie looked at me and just kind of arched an eyebrow and said, see, you know, and it was embarrassing. I mean, in the scope of things, it's kind of a silly, stupid thing, but at the time it was very real to me. At the time it was important and I was scared and I was nervous.

And, you know, when I've got a disabled woman and I've got bills mounting up and everything else, and I've got, you know, this is a national platform and all these kinds of things. And so it was a little bit unnerving. But if you go back and look at some of the footage of that, you can see Gracie now sitting over his left shoulder when he's giving his speech. And it was kind of funny. Learning to be still, just sit down and be still. I'll never forget that moment.

That's a painfully embarrassing thing to share, but I figured y'all are used to that by now with me. Let's see if we squeeze in Rodney from Texas. Rodney, how are you feeling?

Pretty well, Peter. Thank you so much for taking my call. I've really been enjoying the program. I just happened to tune into it while I was on the road and I thank you for all that you share. Well, you're quite welcome. Thanks for listening. This is how you get still while caregiving.

So how do you get still? Well, I've been caring for my wife since 1998. She went through a lot when we were teaching out when we first married.

We even got to head up the children's ministry and we were very energetic together. And she went full stop because she developed an autoimmune condition that fatigues her and she's also in constant pain. So the one time that she went into the hospital that was really frightening was because nobody could figure out why. Her blood pressure was so low, she was in pain and feverish. And I was sitting beside her bed and I was just so, so frantic and frightened. And it just occurred to me that she's a lot more frightened and frantic than I am. So I thought of reminding her about the things that we were doing when we were teaching in children's ministry and some of these things, you know, were pretty funny.

They should have been, but they were pretty funny. And one time in particular when we were teaching a class or we had a class program prepared and then we ended up having to go and teach something impromptu because of something that happened in the classroom. Somebody said something they should have said and we decided that we were going to do a lesson on blessing and not cursing. And as a result of that, you know, she became active and it calmed me down and I pulled out a piece of paper and we started just recounting the things we'd done.

While she was in the hospital for a week, we wrote a children's book together. You know, I think that's brilliant. I think going back to the simple things and how many times have we, you know, reminded that it's when Jesus had come to me as a child. Not child-ish, but child-like. And going back to the basics and the simple things, it's always about the simple things.

And we complicate it with all this craziness. So I think that's brilliant. How are you doing today? Doing pretty well. You know, the condition is it's stabilized, you know, the things that she does, you know, to keep her, you know, basically.

And, you know, it's not cured, but in a place where, you know, she's getting along and I'm getting along with her. And, you know, what I've learned from being in the hospital is I'll come home, I'm still working and take care of her. And then I'll sit down on the sofa, you know, I'll pull out my laptop and I'll just write a few short stories, you know. And I'll say, you know, maybe one day that I'll stop just doing it for myself.

But maybe, you know, together we'll just edit them and publish them because it calms me down. It seals me and it, you know, opens up my imagination and creativity quite a bit. You know, it doesn't happen long, but the quality of it gives me sustainability to go the distance.

That is exactly what I hope that all my fellow caregivers and myself will learn from is that we may not get it in the doses that we want, but it's important for us to touch that place where that creativity, our imagination, you know, just being able to get oxygen down to those parts of our soul. And that is so important, Rodney, and I appreciate you sharing it. I hope you will publish them someday. Just keep track of them and keep track of them. And I hope that you will publish them because I think they'll be meaningful to other people.

But certainly right now they're meaningful to you and they're rejuvenating your heart while you pursue on this journey as a caregiver. And I think that's just marvelous. Well, thank you for that. I actually did get one published. And, you know, it's got a title that, you know, makes you ponder.

But basically children's book, actually, a grown person's book is disguised as a children's book because it's teaching grown people how to approach their adult language. I love it. I love it. Well, you keep listening and thanks for taking the time to call on the show.

And I'd like to hear more about your books. We're out of time. We've got to go. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. Go to Hopeforthecaregiver.com for more information. Get involved. Sponsor the show. Be a part of what we're doing. We'll see you next week.