Money, Tears, Caregiving, and a Financial Planner

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Call 866-WIN-ASIA or to see chickens and other animals to donate, go to crittercampaign.org. Welcome to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver. How are you feeling? How are you doing?

How are you holding up? What's going on with you? That's the question we ask on this show. A lot of people ignore the family caregiver, don't even see the family caregiver.

It's almost like you feel invisible. Not on this show. 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840. If you want to be a part of the show, we'd love to have you on. Also, I want to welcome AM 1010 WPMH.

This is open in Virginia. I want to welcome 96.9 Suffolk, Virginia, 100.1 Norfolk, Virginia Beach, and the Hampton area in Virginia. We've got three new affiliates that are on this show, and we really do appreciate all of our affiliates. We have over 200 stations that are carrying this show right now. And as I was telling the producer of the show here right before we went on, Rick and I were talking that the world seems to have co-opted virtually every social topic out there and is offering what the world offers to it, which in my case is not a whole lot. And the church, for whatever reason, we seem to have abdicated or just playing defense on some of these things.

But not this issue. When it comes to addressing the heart issues of a family caregiver, believers are way out in front of this through this show. And I appreciate American Family Radio, The Truth Network, and all these other affiliates that are carrying the show because they see the need that so many people are facing and struggling with. Taking care of somebody who is chronically impaired, whether it's a child with special needs, whether it is an aging parent, whether it's somebody who, like in my case, deals with trauma-related issues, whether it's somebody with mental illness, whether it's somebody with addiction, whether it's somebody with all kinds of different diseases or impairments or whatever.

It doesn't matter. There are so many different kinds of impairments and there's always a caregiver. And the caregiver is an at-risk individual. And so what we talk about on this show is the often train wreck that's in a caregiver's heart. How do you help someone who helps somebody?

What's going on with that person? Is it just about saying, well, make sure that you get a good night's rest and eat well and try to exercise? Those are all important things.

But is that really where the battle is? Is that really where, you know, the caregiver's heart is late at night when they're having a conversation with the ceiling fan? And so we understand that here on this show and so that's what we address because if the heart is a squirrel cage, guess what's going to happen to the wallet, to the body, to the relationships, to everything else that's going on in that caregiver's heart.

Spiritually, physically, emotionally, financially, all of it is tied to the condition of the heart. And so we speak directly to that in a way that caregivers can understand. We speak fluent caregiver here on this show.

I'm in my 35th year now as a caregiver and I've learned to speak fluent caregiver. But here's the better news. It's our Savior's native tongue because that's who He is. And He puts Himself between us and even worse disaster. Definitively, He did it on the cross. And then every day that's manifested out in so many different areas of our life as He's working through these things and that brings me to my scripture today. We'd like to start off with a scripture. Genesis 50, 20. If you're driving, don't turn to this page.

Okay? Just listen along. Genesis 50, 20. I've heard often about the book of Genesis and you pastors and theologians out there can correct me if I get this wrong. But I've heard that many have described Genesis as kind of the index for the entire Bible. If it's in scripture, it's in Genesis. And as I've read through Genesis many, many times, I've found that to be quite accurate.

I mean, you can just see it's like it really is. It's kind of like the index for the entire scripture of what is getting ready to be unpacked from Exodus to Revelation. And so anyway, this is Genesis 50, 20. This is a familiar scene to most of us. And this is Joseph, you know, after his father died. He'd already reconciled with his brothers.

They'd come to live in Egypt and, you know, everybody was kind of having a, you know, living their life and so forth. And then his father died and his brothers remembered again their great sin against Joseph. And they had betrayed him. They had thrown him in the pit, sold him off to slavers and told their father that Joseph had been killed. And then all of a sudden, Joseph winds up in Egypt and he becomes the head of the, I mean, second only to Pharaoh and saves not only the Egyptians but his own family. And, you know, but then the father died. Jacob came to Egypt with him and the father died. And all of a sudden they're thinking, well, you know, dad's dead and now Joseph's going to, you know, nothing's going to stop Joseph from going after us and taking us apart.

And so they were pretty scared. And here's what Joseph said to them, as for you, you meant evil against me but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result to preserve many people alive. That takes an enormous amount of trust and faith in the sovereignty of God to make a statement like that. As for you, you meant evil against me but God meant it for good. Now, when is another example of that manifested in Scripture? Well, there are a lot of places but ultimately there's one when Jesus is standing before Pilate and Jesus wouldn't answer any of the charges. And Pilate says, you know, don't you know that I have the power to kill you, to take your life? And Jesus said, you wouldn't have any power over me were it not given to you by my father.

Again, that unswerving confidence and faith in the sovereignty and provision of God. Now, how does that apply to us as a caregiver? Well, we look at our situations as caregivers and we think that this is so out of control, this is so messy, this is so distraught. I mean, we're so distraught over this, this is so distressing.

How in the world could God be in this thing? How in the world can we make sense of this? And I think that we are so frantic and driven to make sense of some of these things versus accept this is where we are. That we will wrap ourselves into pretzels. Have you ever done that? Have you ever just got yourself so torqued up trying to make sense of this? And then other people, if we don't do it, other people will do it for us.

We talked about this last week when we got, you know, when people come up and they say, well, here's why this is happening. You know, there must be some sin in your life that you do this, that God would do this to you. Or, you know, remember the disciples came up with the guy that was born blind. And his disciples, Jesus' disciples said to him, said, you know, hey, who sinned, this guy or his parents? You know, first off, the guy was born blind.

So that's a little bit cold to say, you know, this baby sinned and was born blind. But this is the way we think. We somehow try to wrap our minds around what we think we could understand. And sometimes it's just a matter of accepting it is what it is. It is what it is. And we heard the president talk about that in an interview with the COVID-19. And a guy from Axios asked him a question and said, what do you think of this death count? He said, well, it is what it is. And everybody said, oh, that's so cold. That's so, you know, how could he be so unfeeling?

Michelle Obama just wailed on him in her speech at the DNC. But it is what it is becomes a very important statement to us as caregivers. And I'm going to tell you why when we come back from the break. And if you want to be a part of that, 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840, we'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope of the Caregiver here on American Family Radio.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver here. Glad you're with us. Saddle up your horses. How about I actually do that this afternoon? That's going to be something I do on Saturday after the show. I saddle up. We live in Southwest Montana up in the Rockies.

And I'm going to do a little trail riding today. What do you think? Churchill used to say there's something about the outside of a horse that's good for the inside of a man. And I think I concur with that wholeheartedly.

888-589-8840, 888-589-8840. It is what it is. We've heard that statement a lot over the last couple of weeks, particularly after the president said this in an interview.

He responded to Jonathan, I forget what the guy's name is, from Axios, and asked him a question about the COVID-19 deaths. And everybody was just like, oh, he's so cold, he's so unfeeling. I personally have a different take on that phrase. That phrase I've been using for some time as I had to look at the devastation in our life on multiple levels of things.

And accept certain realities so that we can move forward. And I look at these folks that are dealing with this in Louisiana. I've got a very good friend of mine who's a pastor down there. A retired army chaplain and minister, and he was texting me that they're trapped. I mean, they're out now, but when he went out and surveyed the damage, and they couldn't even get out of their home, they had no power or anything else. And he said, Louisiana's a little hot in August to be camping out.

And it's been a long time since he was out on bivouac with the army. But they're making the best of it, and they're going to be okay. But they've had a good bit of damage, and so if you can get involved with organizations that are bringing relief down to the Louisiana area, please do. But when people come out after following a hurricane, a storm, tornado, things such as that, there's an assessment of what's going on.

It is what it is. And I watched the political foes, I can't even say, the politicalization of this phrase that the president said being just sprayed all over the media. And I looked at that, and it was just a bunch of emotion and feeling and all that kind of stuff.

And then when the former first lady got up in her speech at the DNC and just kind of castigated the president for that. And then she said, we need to be requiring empathy. And I was like, how do you require empathy? You must feel this way about me.

How do you do that? And I really thought about all this touchy-feely stuff that goes on, but those of us who've lived with long-term crises and pain and challenges and suffering and all these kind of things, we understand that there is a point where you accept reality for what it is. It doesn't mean you wallow in it, it doesn't mean that you are somehow resigned or defeatist or fatalistic in it, but you accept it for what it is in order to have that as a launching point to go forward. And I go back to our scripture in Genesis 50, 20. As for you, Joseph said to his brother, you meant evil against me. It is what it is. This is what you did.

We're not going to dance around this. But God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result to preserve many people alive. So there's that pivot of accepting what is and pivoting to what has now become and where we're going. That God has a plan. He wasn't, and Joseph was wise enough to understand that God wasn't just interested in saving a family, he was interested in building a nation, which then he would ultimately bring forth the greater Joseph, which was Christ. Joseph was a picture of Christ in Genesis. There are a lot of those things in scripture where you have this foreshadowing of really who Jesus is. And so when we are willing to accept that it is what it is, that we don't have to flounder about wondering, is God aware of this?

Because he is. That doesn't mean we like it and doesn't mean it's pretty and feels good and all that kind of stuff. But we don't have to be bound by that. And I think so many of us are because there's this constant need to come to grips with our pain. And I looked at four different presidents in recent history of how they've responded to things.

And I looked at Bill Clinton when he was running for office, or maybe it was before he ran for office, I mean, after he got in office, whatever. But you remember the phrase he said to the one guy, he said, I feel your pain. So that's almost become a punchline. I feel your pain. So what? First off, number one, nobody else can feel your pain. Other people can try to identify with your pain as best as possible. They can respect your pain. They can see your pain. They can appreciate your pain. They can ignore your pain. But they can't feel your pain. It's your pain.

So put it in the context of my wife, who lives with pain every day and has since Reagan's first term. And people come up and say, well, I feel your pain. I had a guy, no kidding, I had a guy come up to me one time at church. Don't tell anybody about this. But he came up to me, this is some years ago, and he was sincere.

But he said, I heard about your wife's story, you and your wife's story. And I just want to tell you, I really get what you're talking about. I get it. We're there with you. We share it. We understand exactly what you're going through.

And I thought, wow, I didn't know anybody in our entire state had that kind of framework. Gracie's had 80 surgeries. Both of her legs are amputated. 100 doctors have treated her in 12 different hospitals. I mean, this is a massive medical journey that's been going on since 83. And so this guy comes and says, I know exactly what you're going through.

I feel your pain. And I said, wow, I had no idea. He said, yeah, my wife broke her ankle last month. And I just looked at this guy with a level of incredulity, and I was almost afraid to get close to him, because I didn't know if what he had was contagious, because that's a level of cluelessness that is beyond the pale. So I said what every good southerner would say in that situation. Bless your heart. Bless your heart.

We southerners can get out of pretty much any situation, any uncomfortable situation or topic. It's just bless your heart. And so I exited from that particular conversation and chalked that up to a teaching moment for myself to just give people like that a wide berth, because they have no clue. So when you get somebody to come and say, I feel your pain, be wary of those kinds of people. I mean, in reality, that whole phrase has become a punchline.

And it's presumptuous, and it's self-serving. And no, I can't feel your pain. I can't tell you how to take care of your loved one anymore.

You can tell me how to take care of mine. I can't do that, but I can acknowledge your pain. I can respect your pain. And I can give you the appreciation for what you're going through that you deserve, that the magnitude of what you carry is extraordinary. But words mean something, particularly when you're the president of the United States. And sometimes, and I go back to what Michelle Obama said, we got to require empathy. Well, that's going to be a tough sell. I don't know that I can require empathy from anybody. I'm going to make you feel for me. That's a little bit presumptuous, I thought.

I don't know, what do you think? But I think we can certainly foster it. We could certainly ask for it, and hopefully we can encourage people to think like this. But ultimately, empathy is something that's going to have to be generated from within someone else.

You cannot externally force somebody to feel anything for you. That's a reflection of their character. But then there are times when we model this, and I remember George W. Bush when he was on that mountain of rubble following 9-11. And he was speaking, and somebody yelled out, you know, we can't hear you. And he had that bullhorn, and he said, well, then he grabbed the bullhorn and he said, I hear you, the world hears you, and pretty soon the people that knock down this building are going to hear you.

And the guy that he had his arm around, an older man, he was a retired firefighter. I got to meet him in the green room downstairs at the Republican National Convention in 2004. Gracie and I were on the platform with the president when he gave his acceptance speech.

She had performed earlier that week and opened up the second night of that event in 2004. And they invited us to be on the platform behind him, so when you go back and look at some of the old footage back in there, and you'll see the president giving it over his left shoulder as he's giving his address. You'll see Gracie and me behind him, and she was wearing tennis shoes because there were a lot of wires and cables and so forth and moving around, and so she didn't want to be unsteady. But we couldn't go back down once we got seated on the platform.

We couldn't go back down and get her dress shoes, which were downstairs. And so it was a little bit weird, so she's sitting there with her prosthetic legs and tennis shoes on right behind the president. So I remember my dad saw us in Newsweek or something, and he's this picture, and he said, hey, I saw you in Newsweek right behind the president. But, you know, I met that older man that stood by the president when he yelled that out. And here's a sign where empathy came from someone, and he said, I hear you. The world hears you, and pretty soon we're going to take that empathy that we're hearing and we're feeling what's going on, and we're going to take that and we're going to turn it into action. And that empathy was galvanized but led us into, you know, a couple of long, long, long battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq. And then I remember another time when another president, when Trayvon Martin was killed, and the president came out and said, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon. He inserted himself into the story, and I'm sure that people felt, you know, that was, particularly with the president's supporters, that, you know, that was identifying with this and that was meaningful to his supporters, but the nation needed more.

We didn't need somebody to insert themselves into the story. We needed to move the nation to a different place. And he did the same thing with Ferguson and with Baltimore, and now we're in these other situations. And then when Professor Gates was arrested, we need more than just feelings and, yeah, empathy's good and sympathy's good and it has a place.

You know, those things have a great place in a funeral home, but they don't do a whole lot of good in a surgical suite. And so we have to do something different. It's a way of approaching this thing, and we're going to talk about that more in the next segment. 888-589-8840. My life, my life is in your hands. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberger. That is my wife, Gracie, who is accepting that God is sovereign over all the things that she deals with, all of her injuries, all of her broken body, issues that she's dealt with since her 1983 car wreck, both legs amputated, 80 surgeries. That's quite a journey, and to be able to make that kind of statement. Speaking of amputated legs, you know, we put prosthetic limbs on her fellow amputees, and we've been doing this now since 2005 over in the West African country of Ghana. Had a young man this week. We sponsored a leg for him named Kosi.

We've been working with him since 2007, I think it was, when we first met him, so 13 years. And amputees will go through a lot of prostheses. Gracie's gone through many, many legs herself, and we recycle prosthetic legs. I don't know if you knew that or not, but I just mailed some stuff of hers over to a prison in Arizona where inmates will be receiving these items and limbs that come from all over the country, and they disassemble the leg. You can reuse the foot, the knee, the pylon, the screws, the adapters, the connectors, all those kinds of things can be recycled. And Gracie has recycled many of her legs, and then we'll send all that over there to Africa where they will build a custom fit socket that is for the patient there. And we just purchased some resin this week, gallons of resin. And each gallon can make up to, I think, six legs. And so that is the socket that fits on that patient.

That's custom fit for them, but then we can reuse a recycled pylon or a connector or adapter or foot or whatever in that work. How about being a part of this? Sponsor a leg with us.

Help sponsor this show. Whatever's on your heart to do, go to HopeForTheCaregiver.com, and you'll see a thing there that says donate. Hope For The Caregiver is the family caregiver outreach of Standing With Hope. We have two program areas at Standing With Hope. It's for the wounded, the amputees that we serve, and those who care for them.

And that's caregivers for the wounded and those who care for them. And you can be a part of that. You can help us expand the scope of the show. If you like what you're hearing on this show, if you like what we're offering, then help us do more or help us put another leg on somebody. Help us send some resin to things. All kinds of things that we're doing, you can be a part of. And for whatever's on your heart to do that with, it's a tax-deductible gift. We'll send you a copy of Gracie's CD.

How about that? And you'll love the CD. She is a no kidding singer. And isn't it great to have your own radio show that you could have your wife do your own bumper music with? I just like to hear her sing. Thanks for watching.