Caregivers and Fear

Welcome back to Hope of the Caregiver here on American Family Radio.

I am Peter Rosenberg. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver. How do you feel? How are you doing? How are you holding up? 888-589-8840.

888-589-8840. Today we're talking about fear. Don't let people tell you that the only thing you have to fear is fear itself. That's a great quote for a nation.

But that's not necessarily the most applicable quote for a caregiver. There are things that are fear worthy that we live with. But what does scripture say about it?

Not what does President Roosevelt say about it, but what does scripture say about it? It says, Do not be afraid. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. And for caregivers, the valley of the shadow of death can sometimes be a very, very long and terrifying valley. 888-589-8840. 888-589-8840.

Are you afraid? It's one of the landmines in my book, Seven Caregiver Landmines. I talk about it in my book, Hope for the Caregiver. I talk about this fairly regularly, maybe not as regularly as I should on the show. And I'll put this out on the podcast. By the way, if you want to subscribe to the podcast, it's free. Hopeforthecaregiver.com and you can go out and click on it and search by topic within the podcast as well.

So if you've got something else that's going on with you, whatever, we put it out there. We've got the world's largest podcast for the family caregiver and it's free. Now, I can't lower the price anymore. Otherwise, I'd be paying you to go out and get it. So I've given it to you for free.

Would you do that for me and take advantage of that at Hopeforthecaregiver.com. You can see everything that's there and you could be a part of all that we're doing here on the show and follow along. I mean, you don't have to wait till this show airs every week.

You can be engaged. I've got hundreds and hundreds of episodes and some of them I put the whole show, some of them I just put clips of the show, you know, whatever. I mean, I try and sometimes I just do special stuff like music from Gracie. You can see her new CD that's out there. My CD is called Songs for the Caregiver, which you can download and stream. There's so many things I put out there for you.

The question is, are you going to take advantage of it? Because the nights, particularly the nights, but even the days too, but particularly the nights can be very, very terrifying for us as caregivers. So you can in the middle of the night, if something is just going haywire, you can just click on and just listen to something. Sometimes we just put out goofy things.

It'll just make you laugh because, you know, I are goofy. But that's the whole point of the show. And I was just thinking about Carol's call from Kansas. She's so afraid of her situation. It's gotten to the point where she doesn't even feel comfortable getting sick.

She's afraid of getting sick because how much it'll mess up her life. I get that. We all get that. If you're a caregiver for any amount of time, you get that. You can't get the flu as a caregiver because the whole thing just shuts down. And that's no way to live.

So how do we do it? Well, one of the ways we fight back with fear is we just deal with today. We just deal with today. I don't have the flu today. Now I'm going to eat a little healthier. I'm going to make sure I see my doctor regularly. I'm going to try to move around physically and do things that are going to take care of my body.

And I'm going to do what I can today. But I'm not going to live in the wreckage of my future. And this is what happens to us as caregivers.

It happened to me just recently. And I mean, I'm embarrassed to say it, but as I say, and I will say often, the views of the host of this show are not necessarily things that he owns, but are things that God is working out in his life, even as he says them. That's the whole point of this is that there's not a one and done for us as caregivers. We don't get to a destination, even if we make it to outlive our loved one. A lot of the issues that we deal with as caregivers won't stop, even after grass is growing on the grave, because I think there's a PTSD component for caregivers. Has that been your experience? Is that something that you share? Is that all of a sudden you're finding yourself reliving, reliving and reliving things that happened a long time ago.

And it causes a lot of the same feelings and a lot of the same fears, a lot of the same anxiety. And I go back to our scripture for today. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14, 27. Now, I'm going to ask you, do you believe that or not?

Let's start with that. Do you believe this? Do you believe that there is a peace available to you that is beyond what your eyes are looking at and what your ears are hearing? And one of the hardest things for me as a caregiver is to not trust my eyes, but to trust him. It's hard to watch somebody go off into surgery again and again and again and again and again.

It's hard to watch somebody suffer in pain day in and day out. These are hard things. These are frightening things. These are scary things. So what does scripture look like in that?

How do you know you can trust him? Lamentations says that his mercies are new every morning. Do you wake up and think like that? I'm going to wake up and see what new mercies I have from God today as you go about the task of being a caregiver. This lady that just called in, she couldn't talk long because he's always going to be calling for her and needing something out of her. How are you holding up with that? Is that your life?

888-589-8840. I want to read another quote to you on this. We're talking about fear today. The most famous quote about fear outside of the Bible, I think the most famous quote about fear is, I will fear no evil for thou art with me in Psalm 23. The second most famous quote in the world about it is Franklin Roosevelt said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

Like I said, I can make a case for that as a nation, but listen to what his cousin Theodore Roosevelt said, do what you can with what you have where you are. That's how I've learned how to deal with fear more practically. I do what I can with what I have right where I am. And I focus on today because that's all I have. Tomorrow hasn't happened yet. And yes, I know there are scary things that loom on our horizon.

And at any given point, I am prone to panic. But he's not. And if you look through scripture, Daniel fell asleep in the lion's den. Elijah fell asleep while Jezebel was chasing him. Jesus fell asleep in the boat during the storm. There's a scriptural precedent for resting in the middle of the storm. And I would suggest to you as a caregiver that you live in the middle of a storm. Can you rest in this?

Can you just breathe? Can you trust God in this? And just picture if you will, his scarred hand is holding onto your scared hand.

You tracking with me? His scarred hand holds onto your scared hand. My wife has a lot of scars. This car wreck she had back in 1983 was devastating.

Horrific. It's amazing that she's alive. And she and I have faced death with her many times during our years. I married her after her wreck.

Didn't know her when she had her wreck. She has a lot of scars. But her scars are not permanent. One day she won't have any scars.

She'll have a new body. That's our hope as believers. But his scars, the scars our Savior bears, those are permanent. Remember he showed up to his disciples and he told Thomas, here, touch him. That's after he's been resurrected.

And why do you suppose that is? Because his scars speak for all eternity. For all of this. And we can trust him with it. It's not easy. Nobody ever said it was easy.

And it's certainly not something I own. But it's something that I now know where the path is. And so we take a deep breath, four seconds in, eight seconds out, and we say, okay, I'm going to trust him today. I'm going to let tomorrow deal with tomorrow.

Jesus said that. Tomorrow is sufficient. Tomorrow's worries are sufficient for themselves. How about you? How about you? Are you anxious today? Are you struggling today? Are you worn out from holding your breath and trying to white knuckle through this thing? I get it. That's no way to live, is it?

We're not going to fix it. We're going to have to be reminded of it. See, I don't think we need a lot of instructions, Karen. I can't instruct you on how to take care of your loved one and your life anymore than you can do for me. But I think we need a lot of reminders. A lot of reminders every day.

And that's why we do the show. 888-589-8840. 888-589-8840. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Kicker.

But we'll be right back. Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you? I'm Gracie Rosenberger. And in 1983, I experienced a horrific car accident leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated. I questioned why God allowed something so brutal to happen to me.

But over time, my questions changed and I discovered courage to trust God. That understanding, along with an appreciation for quality prosthetic limbs, led me to establish Standing with Hope. For more than a dozen years, we've been working with the government of Ghana and West Africa, equipping and training local workers to build and maintain quality prosthetic limbs for their own people. On a regular basis, we purchase and ship equipment and supplies.

And with the help of inmates in a Tennessee prison, we also recycle parts from donated limbs. All of this is to point others to Christ, the source of my hope and strength. Please visit standingwithhope.com to learn more and participate in lifting others up. For more information, visit standingwithhope.com. I'm Gracie, and I am standing with hope. Eight Days of Hope is based right outside of Tupelo, Mississippi, and that serves as our national headquarters. Our northeast satellite is in Buffalo, New York, and this summer we'll be opening up our Midwest satellite in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Steve Tiber, president of Eight Days of Hope. If you're a church or a faith-based nonprofit ministry and you have a need for those that you are interested in, sign up for our distribution ministry.

It's simple. Go to our website, click on distribution ministry, submit the name of your organization or the name of your church, and every two months we will notify you with products that we've been given to allow the church to minister to those who are hurting. Instead of you running out and writing checks and going to your benevolence fund, we get these things for free. They're usually overruns or the last year's model, but it's all brand new. And as long as you're willing to come to pick it up, it's free.

You just got to come and get it. Eight Days of Hope, serving those in need, in the name of Jesus. To learn more about the ministry, Eight Days of Hope, please go to eightdaysofhope.com.

I'm forgiven. Now I have a reason for living. Jesus keeps giving and giving, giving till my heart overflows. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio. My name is Peter Rosenberger. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver.

888-589-8840, 888-589-8840. I want to close up this conversation we've been having with fear on one topic, on one illustration. My wife is a double amputee and both of her legs below the knee. You've heard of this thing called phantom limb pain, haven't you?

Most people have. When an amputee can feel the limb after it's been amputated. And by the way, that's a real thing. I can just say that that's a real thing. And you've heard of this where they can feel pain or they can feel a scratch or an itch or whatever in their foot. And the foot's been dust for years. Well, that happens. The nerves, the imprint of it. And they're feeling things that are no longer there. All right. Everybody's tracking with me on that.

All right. Now, caregivers, I believe this. I think everybody can, but I think caregivers, it becomes more acute. We can feel things that haven't even happened yet. Whereas amputees may feel things that are no longer there. We feel things that aren't there yet. Kind of like a reverse version of that.

You follow with me on that? Does that resonate with you as a caregiver that you're feeling things that haven't even happened yet? You're already living in that kind of fear. And that is the goal for us as caregivers is to stop living out in that fear.

It hasn't happened. We're going to deal with today. We're going to deal with right here, right now. There's a song. You can go out on the podcast at hopeforthecaregiver.com. Go out there and take a look at the podcast.

Just go out there and follow along. We put out a song and it's on the CD. It's on Gracie's CD. It's on my CD, actually, but we put it on both. It's called I Can Only Hold You Now. I wrote it with a buddy of mine in Nashville. And there's a line in there that says, I know there will be sorrows.

We'll face that somehow. But my hands can't hold tomorrow. I can only hold you now. Right here, right now, that's all I can do. In this moment, I live my life with you. I wrote this to express the heart of a caregiver. Does that resonate with you on your heart of what's going on with you right now?

Because this is where the journey for us as caregivers, this is how we fight back against fear. We're going to live right here, right now. And there are things that are coming our way that are going to be tough. We know this.

We're not idiots. So we're going to just change the way we look at these things and start breathing and living here in this moment. Because that's all we have. Yesterday's gone.

Tomorrow, it's not here yet. And I don't want to have future pain brought into the present. I've got enough pain and challenges here in the present. I don't need to go out and live in future pain. Any more than amputees need to live with pain from the past. And there are things that you can do to kind of desensitize those nerves so they don't recall those things. There are physical things that amputees can do so they don't have phantom limb pain. So it's not an issue as much.

So it's not a big problem as much. And there are things that we as caregivers can do so we don't have future caregiver pain. We've got enough pain going on in our lives.

We've got enough challenges right here, right now. We don't need to live out that way. We just don't.

It's not helpful. And we do what we can. So let's put this in the practical.

All right. Because if you checkbook and you're fearful of what's coming down financial wise, what do you have today? And start making a tighter budget. And then start looking for a path forward and do what you can today. If you need to make a phone call to someone, if you need to sit down with your banker, if you need to sit down with whoever, your CPA, whatever, sit down with them.

If you can't afford a CPA, talk to somebody in your church and see if somebody would be willing just to sit with you and help you organize your finances a little bit better. Yeah, it takes a little bit of humility to do it. But that's kind of the whole point, is learning to ask for help.

And by the way, that's one of the other landmines in my book. We've been talking about fear today, but in my book, Seven Caregiver Landmines, the last landmine, number seven, which I think is the biggest, is thinking that it's somehow all up to me. And it's not. It's not all up to me to do all this. It's not all up to you to do all this for what you're doing. It's okay to ask for help from a trusted source. If you're fearful about your health, go see your doctor. If you're fearful about the way your loved one's going to respond, if you start setting any kind of healthy boundaries, then get a third party involved in this like a professional, a counselor, physician, social worker, pastor, somebody that's a professional, not just, you know, your cousin from down the street.

Get a real pro involved. And there are people out there that can help you with that. If you're fearful that they're going to die, eventually they will. But they're not dead today. That's not where we're going to live.

We're not going to live in the wreckage of our future. If you do that, it'll turn your hair white like mine. That's what happens.

And, you know, if you do that, it's going to have a debilitating effect on you. There is beauty and joy to be experienced in your life right now, right here, right today. I am convinced of this and scripture convinces me of it. Not just my own experiences, but the things laid out in scripture.

There is beauty and joy that you can experience right here. It doesn't mean that the pain is going to go away. That doesn't mean that the heartache is going to go away.

But it does mean that there is stuff that you can still see that is beautiful and joyful. And you can rest in this knowing that he who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it to the day of Christ Jesus. And I'm going to go back to our scripture that we started out with today. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14, 27. The peace that the world gives says that when, you know, if you get enough money and you get all these things, you got everything laying around you, I'm good. But the peace that God gives says no matter what's going on around me, I'm good. Is that where you are today? Can you walk in that place today? If you can't, don't beat yourself up for this.

Again, the views of the host of this show are not things that I own. These are things that God is working out in my life even as I say them to you. And I'm going to need you to say it back to me because that's how we do it. We build one another up in this and we remind each other. Again, I do not think we need a lot of instruction. You cannot instruct me on how to care for my wife any more than I can instruct you to care for your loved one. It's just not going to happen. But we can remind each other of where the road is, of where safe ground is, of where that place of safety is.

We can help each other get back on the highway and get out of these swamps that we get into of fear. My martial arts instructor told me something. We were in a class, I'm a black belt, second degree. I'm a very dangerous person.

You've heard of Shogun, right? Well, I'm Shonuff and you write that down. That's just funny.

I don't care who you are. And he said this in a black belt class. Fight what's closest. Fight what's closest. If you've got a guy that is five yards from you, another guy that's 50 yards from you, fight the one that's closest. And I said that to someone and they said, well, what happens if the first guy whoops me?

And I said, well, then you don't have to worry about the second guy. We're going to fight what's closest. What is closest to you that you could put your hands on that you can deal with today?

What is closest to you? And ask yourself, are the things that you're fretting about, are they concerns or are they responsibilities? Are these things that you are just worried about or are these things that you actually have control over, a responsibility to deal with?

You have a responsibility to go to your own physician and be checked out. You have a responsibility to be a good steward of your body, of your checkbook, of your time. But you can't be concerned about how other people are going to act and treat you in this. I mean, you'd be concerned about it, but you don't have a responsibility. You can't change that.

You can't fix that. Okay? Don't be afraid. Fear not, for He is with you. This is Hope for the Caregiver. This is the conviction that we as caregivers can live a calmer, healthier, and even more joyful life, even while dealing with harsh things.

You can do this. Go out to hopeforthecaregiver.com. If you like what you're hearing, subscribe to the podcast and support what we're doing. You can see it all there at hopeforthecaregiver.com. We'll see you next week.