"We have Met The Enemy ...and He is Us!

Live on Sirius XM Family Talk Channel, this is Hope for the Caregiver. I am Peter Rosenberger.

This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver. For those of you who are knowingly, willingly, voluntarily putting yourself between a vulnerable loved one and even worse disaster, how are you feeling? How are you doing?

How's that working for you? What's going on with you? Are you hanging tough? Are you feeling overwhelmed? Are you struggling? Are you trying to catch your breath?

All of those things we talk about on this show because it is the show for you as a caregiver. There is no other like it. It is unrepeatable. Speaking of unrepeatable, you know him.

You love him. He's the baron of the board. He's assaulted to sound. He's the Earl of Engineering. He's the man who's never been impeached.

He is John Butler, the Count of Mighty Disco, everyone. Well, okay, so about that impeachment thing. If you do a background check, you might... Please don't. Well, by the way, not required for this gig.

In fact, it was discouraged. By the way, if you want to be on the show, 877-655-6755, 877-655-6755 is the number call. We're live. John always gives us a dad joke. I hope you have one ready. In case you don't, I've got one for you. Well, you know, I'm going to deny you that particular pleasure because I happen to have been loaded and ready for bear, sir. All right, go ahead.

All right. Well, do you know why? Peter, Peter, you know why elephants... You know why... Okay, so elephants, right? You know why you never see them hiding in trees? Go ahead. Because they're so good at it. Oh, man.

That's wrong. You remember that Monty Python sketch, right, where it was about how to hide? This was not one of the more well-known ones, but there was a... It's like, we're going to teach you how to hide. It was set up like this is an instructional video, and they show this field where there's just a single bush in the middle of the field, and they say, this is Mr. So-and-so from Glastonbury, and he is showing us how to hide.

He has picked a good hiding spot. I've seen that. And the problem, yes, is that it's very obvious, and they just blow it up, the sound effect, and it's terrible. But, yeah, because they're so good at it, Peter. All right, well, I've got one for you, and then we'll get on with the matter of hand for caregivers. We try to start off a little with a laugh here. Yeah, yeah, I was going to say, well, right.

Well, you know, that's part of the big deal about this show is that we talk about things that are necessary for caregivers, and one of those things that is really essential for human life in general, whether you're a caregiver or not, is the ability to laugh and find something just joyous. Indeed. Well, there's a new band out. Oh, no. Is it called Duvet? No.

That's a good band. They're called 1023 Megabytes, but they haven't gotten a gig yet. Oh, that's very, that's specific. That's just, oh. Well, you know, because you can't really say your dog ate your homework anymore, right?

Because it's all digital. That's a thing. Well, I can.

Well, you can because, I mean, he did take a megabyte out of it. All right, 877-655-6755. If you want to be a part of the show. All right, John, I've been thinking.

Well, that's a new one. I've been thinking about something. Somebody asked me, said, what makes your show different? What is it about hope for the caregiver? What are you talking about?

What's going on? What are some of the things? And then I was thinking about that. And then I had a reporter ask me a while back doing a story on me and they said, what is the biggest challenge you faced as a caregiver? And, you know, I look at the inventory of my journey as a caregiver and you're looking at, you know, Gracie has 80 surgeries. Both of her legs amputated.

A hundred doctors, 12 hospitals, seven insurance companies, $11 million. And it's ongoing. We were just over at the prosthesis this week. She's going to have to get a new socket for her leg.

It's not something's going wrong. She's got a wound on her limb, amputated limb. And it's just, there's just constant stuff.

She lives with chronic pain. There's cooking, there's cleaning, there's laundry, there's groceries. There's, you know, lions and tigers and bears.

Oh my. And there's all of these things. And yet I had to stop short. Because what you have been asked is that what's the hardest part of it? What's the biggest part of it? What's the hardest challenge for you? And I was able to answer with extreme clarity, knowing what is mine and what is not mine to carry.

That's the hardest thing for me as a caregiver, because those lines get very blurred. I'm overreaching. I'm over expecting. I want more.

I don't want this. I feel resentment because of this. And then I was taking some calls the other day on the Saturday show we do. And I started to see a pattern for so many the callers that we get and so many of the people I interact with, a caregiver, and then in my own life. And I think I've kind of locked in that one of the common denominators, denominators for all of us as caregivers.

Is this word resentment. And I've spent a lot of time pondering on this. And they said, well, what is different about your show? Because I don't really get into the logistics of caregiving. You know that.

And I know that. We don't tell people how to dress a wound. To care give. Right. Well, because each situation being different and you know the best way to do that for your loved one. I mean, how in the world could I have the chutzpah to come into your life and tell you how to take care of your loved one any more than you could do with mine.

And because my name is Rosenberger, I like to throw in Yiddish words every so often. Yeah, exactly. You have the little schmutz on your... Shlep off. But I was thinking about that and I thought, OK, that brings me to my caregiver tip of the day. Oh, Ed's on the ball, man. Nice one.

Ed is on it like a pack of dogs on a three legged cat. But it is a caregiver tip of the day is it's an admonition type of tip. It's not a... That's about a five and a half dollar word. That's good. Yeah. OK, I'll give that. You can't push a wheelchair with clenched fist. You can't push a wheelchair with clenched fist. And I thought about that for us as caregivers. Because I think so many of us struggle with this resentment term and I want to unpack this, like I said. And if this is something you're going through right now and if you want to just you want to just kind of get it out on the table and talk about it with, you know, fellow caregiver and just kind of hang out with it.

877-655-6755. We're live, you know. Yeah. And that's why we do the show. I guarantee there's a caregiver out there who... Look, we deal with resentment as just humans in relationships, period. And as we've talked about on the show, there's nothing super special about the message that we're giving to caregivers. It's that these are things that people deal with all the time that are not caregivers, but caregivers deal with them and everything is cranked up to 11. It's just the worst thing. Everything is, you know, so intense. It really is. And I think that's the key is that we don't deal with anything that's that much different from anybody else as far as conceptually wise, principle wise, precept wise. We deal with things that everybody deals with, but we deal with them on a nuclear level and what has made my show different and my message different from I think anything else I've heard out there and I've gone out there looking because, you know, I are a caregiver.

Right. Well, and you needed to find the show before you did the show. Yeah, I needed the show for a long time. But I came to a con... An epiphany. Yeah, I had one of the... We're in the season of epiphany right now. No, it's January 6th was like a long time ago.

I know if January smelled like forever. Yeah. No, that's right. We're kind of... We're coming up on length, bro. We're epiphany, circa epiphany. But I came to this understanding that the real battle for a caregiver is the key. What is the real battle? And I think that so many of us look at the external as our real battle.

If you look at the things that are going on in our country right now, if you look at Rush Limbaugh, for example, number one radio host in the world. In order to be successful at this, you've got to have an enemy. And the enemy for Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and these guys is liberalism. That's the enemy. The enemy for Dave Ramsey is debt. That's the enemy.

The enemy for the Democrat Party is the Republican Party. I want to change foil. I want to change it to foil, actually. The foil. Okay, the adversary.

Yes, yes. This is the literary sort of thing. But you've got to constantly engage your audience and help them fight this common adversary.

Right, because you've talked about this on the show before. Like, it's not about there, there. It's don't go there. And the don't go there is the foil for caregivers.

Well, as caregivers, it's a little bit more than that. In our case, we can't point to a geographical thing. I was thinking about the wars and so forth. When we were fighting in World War II, we knew where the enemy was. We knew who the enemy was.

But when it got to Korea and then it got to Vietnam and now Afghanistan and all that, it gets a little bit murky. So it's hard to know where's the enemy? Who is the enemy here? For us as caregivers, who's the enemy? And it turns out, guess what? We have met the enemy and it is us.

Oh, yeah. It's that resentment you were talking about. I am my own worst enemy. Gracie and all of her physical challenges and so forth is not my enemy. Her condition is not my enemy. Now, these are challenges that we have to face in this world that we live in as caregivers. But Alzheimer's is not my enemy. Parkinson's is not my enemy or your enemy. These are also things that are way beyond us to be able to fight. If you're going to start looking at diseases and afflictions and things that are bad as your enemy, then you're going to end up being just spent and overwhelmed by this because life is full of those things. Yeah.

And it's an easy trap to fall into. We had a caller a couple of weeks ago that was dealing with a bipolar husband. And that is a particular—and I have a friend who dealt with that for many years. She married very young. And this ended up being just a really resentful sort of thing. But bipolar disorder was not her enemy. It was the way she dealt with it and the things internally with her that were the enemy and came through it just fine. Well, not just fine, but yeah. These afflictions expose the enemy.

Yeah, there you go. And we find that it's us, that we cannot fight things that are beyond us to fight. And yet we think that we can. Well, at least I spent a lifetime of that. And that goes back to that question with the reporter where they asked me, what's your biggest challenge? I am my biggest challenge. Knowing what is mine to fight and what is not mine to fight. Knowing what is mine and what is not mine.

And I struggle with this mightily. And I've talked to enough caregivers that I've learned that they do too. My fellow caregivers and I—and you and I have talked about this—we struggle with, okay, what is mine and what is not? You've expressed the same sentiment. Is this mine to fix? Is this a concern or is this a responsibility?

Ooh. No, the difference between those two things is crucial to what we deal with. Like, it's a concern or a responsibility. And so I've come to this understanding that resentment, which is our reaction or our response to unmet expectations, becomes a critical battlefield for us as caregivers. This is where we engage the enemy. And guess what? It is our own—it is us. It is me. I am my enemy in this regard.

So I can't build a coalition to fight me. What I have to learn to do is be at peace with certain things, learn to let go of certain things, learn not to fight certain things and accept what is. Accepting reality is extremely difficult for us as caregivers.

It really is. We're going to talk about that some more. 877-655-6755.

This is Hope for the Caregiver. I'm Peter Rosenberger. 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. That's standingwithhope.com.

I'm Gracie, and I am standing with hope. As a caregiver, think about all the legal documents you need. Power of attorney, a will, living wills, and so many more. Then, think about such things as disputes about medical bills. What if, instead of shelling out hefty fees for a few days of legal help, you paid a monthly membership and got a law firm for life? Well, we're taking legal representation and making some revisions, in the form of accessible, affordable, full-service coverage.

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Isn't it about time someone started advocating for you? www.caregiverlegal.com, an independent associate. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver. We're live on Sirius XM Channel 131, the Family Talk Channel. If you want to be a part of the show, 877-655-6755. This is my wife, Gracie, with Johnny Eric Santana on that Andre Crouch classic, through it all. What a tremendous arrangement they did of this song, and I just was thrilled.

It's off of her new record, Resilient, and you can go out to hopeforthecaregiver.com and see it, and see how you can get that today. Anyway, we're talking. I'm back here with the Count of Mighty Disco himself. I'm drinking out of my brand new mug that I got. I'm having some hot chocolate. We've got snow coming in all here in Montana, John. It's been snowing all day long. Really?

Oh, we are experiencing a little bit of Indian summer right now here in Nashville, because you, of course, are in Montana, drinking out of your fantastic mug. They sent it to me yesterday. The Babylon Bee. They sent it to one of my favorite publications, and their motto is, John, I'll let you read the back of it. Ah, fake news you can trust. That's fantastic. I love a well-turned phrase like nobody's business, and they're so good at it.

They really are. I was very grateful that they sent it. I didn't ask for it.

They just sent it. I'm a subscriber, but I'm a special subscriber. But you've been contributing or submitting things?

Is that right? I do. I've been published in USA Today, in WebMD, the Chicago Tribune, Fox News, Guidepost, all these others, but when I get published in the Babylon Bee, then I will have arrived. You will know. Well, then you will feel confident, like, phoning up Weird Al, all right? That's a level of confidence I'm looking forward to having. Yeah, if you can phone up Weird Al with, like, no reservations, you're not really experiencing a lot of resentment in your life, all right?

No, you're not. And that's what we're talking about for caregivers today is this issue of resentment. And I think that I was talking to my father about this. My dad's a wonderful minister.

He's been on the show. He has, and he's a wise, wise, wise man. Wiseest man I know. And he said, hold up, he said, hold up both your hands, Peter. And I said, OK. And he said, on one side, one hand is rejection and the other hand is resentment. And most people live in between those two hands. And I told you, he's a wise man. That's rough, though.

But it is. And he has spent, he's been ordained now for six, almost 60 years as a minister. And he has spent the better part of his entire ministry between those two hands with people. And in dealing with rejection and dealing with resentment. And I think that when you are a caregiver for someone, you're not, everybody deals with this. Everybody deals with it.

But other people have, a lot of other people have time. The episode ends, there's no longer the acute episodic event happening. The ink will dry on the divorce papers.

The grass will grow on the grave. And the wound will heal from surgery. But when you're a caregiver for a chronic impairment, it's relentless. It doesn't go away. You look at this journey and you realize it can be decades.

And for me it has been. And the resentment can be masked or compartmentalized with time. We can kind of stuff it a little bit. You can callous over that mess. We can dress it up.

We can dress it up a little bit. But when you're a caregiver, you're in acute, and particularly when you're dealing with things that are really chronic in suffering. There's chronic issues going on.

Gracie is in pain every single day. There's chronic crises going on on a regular basis. Not every caregiver deals with that, for example. You're going to deal with some people that are dealing with things that have kind of plateaued and everything's just kind of pretty much as is.

Or you're dealing with some sort of cyclic thing, like what I mentioned earlier, which is something like bipolar disorder or something like that. Many times, everything will be fine. And you'll feel like you can take a break. And then the whole thing explodes. Right, right, right. Well, then you go to get your brake pads changed and you realize, oh no, my transmission's out. Oh, I've got to replace that.

That's another two grand. Well, and when the thing continues to be a source of angst and suffering and challenges and heartache and grief and all those kinds of things, there's this reality that we start to form in our mind like, wait a minute, this isn't fair. I didn't sign up for this. I don't want this. This is not what I thought I was getting into. Well, I do have a favorite book of the Bible.

Joe. Yes, you do. And you know what? It may not seem fair. And in reality, a lot of things may not be fair.

I get that. It may not be what you thought you were signing up for. But in reality, it is what you signed up for if you married someone. This is exactly what you signed up for.

If you bring a child into the world, this is exactly what you sign up for, to bring this child in the world. Nothing is going to be perfect. But it doesn't mean that you have to be miserable.

And resentment comes from a place of entitlement. I deserve this. I want this. I deserve this. I guess it's the best word.

Right. This is owed to me. Like the expectation in reality. And the expectation is, this is owed to me.

This is owed to me. And the reality is that it may not be owed to you. Or it may not come. Even if it is owed to you, it may not come.

It may not. And what exactly is owed to me? I mean, that becomes... And so I'm unpacking this a little bit. And I want you to stay with me as caregivers, because I don't want to bring you down with it. But I want us to understand where the real battle is. Because sometimes we put our loved ones' face over our real enemy.

Sometimes we put our family members' faces over our real enemies. Write that down. I can't. I'm doing a show, John.

I know, right? Come on, man. I'm in the middle of a show, John. But we need to take those masks off and see the enemy for what it is. So that we can better deal with this, and we can learn to be content in this. We can.

I promise you we can. It's not easy. But what is? This is Peter Rosenberg. This is Hope for the Caregiver. 877-655-6755. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on Sirius XM 131. This is the Family Talk channel, and I am Peter Rosenberg.

And this is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver, 877-655-6755. I am with, as always, himself, the Baron of the Board, the Count of Mighty Disco, John Butler. And we're having a robust discussion on what exactly is the enemy for us as a caregiver. What exactly—where's the battlefield? Who is this nefarious, nebulous individual that we're fighting?

And I'm 34 years into my journey as a caregiver. And I have come to discover as—where's that quote? Source that quote, John. I have met the enemy. Oh, no, I was actually—I know it's not this guy, but I was looking up. Peter can see me because we're on FaceTime right now. So he sees me with my phone out, and what I'm looking up— I see you when you're sleeping.

Oh, no, no, I hope not. But I was looking up quotes from one of my favorites, Sun Tzu. Sun Tzu, the art of war. Art of war. Okay, so I've been reading Sun Tzu, and I did that a while ago, but right now I've been reading the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.

And I can't recommend it enough. It's completely off topic. I've been doing Calvin and Hobbes. You're way beyond me here. Yeah, oh, man. No, hey, Calvin and Hobbes is the height of deep thinking and really important things that we need to be aware of. All right, Spaceman Spiff.

Tell us what you got. All right, no, well, actually it was not Spaceman Spiff, but I was also looking up dad jokes. That's a different thing. No, but I was looking up stuff about the enemy, and like the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without even fighting. You know, that sort of thing. And I haven't thought this through very much in this context, but the way you put this as far as identifying the enemy— and I want to say it was from World War II that you're pulling that quote, the we have met the enemy and he is us.

I don't know. Somebody call in with that, because John is— Look, I carry this box in my pocket that has some knowledge of the world just on it, and I can click around. And yet, we have met the enemy and he is us, yeah. Well, the point of all of this is that—and this is when I go back to what this reporter asked me about our show and everything else— is that I go at this thing from a different perspective for my fellow caregivers and myself. And remember, I don't lob anything out at you all that I am not struggling with, working through, and trying to own and process in my own life.

Right, because this show is not for everyone else. It's for Peter. It is my own therapy. Because he needs some help.

Guys, come on, help him out. And so, but I was thinking about this. Why do we do the show the way we do? And I have come to this conviction.

This is not an opinion. This is a conviction of mine that the real problem for caregivers is in the heart. And our hearts are often train wrecks. And if our heart is a mess, if it's a dumpster fire, then guess what?

The rest of us will eventually be as well. Our wallets, our jobs, our marriages, our relationships, our friendships. Every emotion you have will be broken.

Our physical bodies will be a mess. I mean, that's one of the landmines in my book, Seven Caregiver Landmines, is excessive weight gain. And the weight that we gain in our body is a direct correlation to the weight that's around our heart. And the weight that's around our heart is often fueled by resentment. And I wanted to just unpack that a little bit because I think what happens is that we are broken people. And resentment becomes our opioid to avoid having to feel some of the things that we don't want to grieve through or let go of or so forth. And so we keep wearing resentment patches on us because it makes us feel stronger than we really are.

Oh, it is so, it feels so good to feel. It is a delicious sin. Yeah, a delicious sin to feel righteous about something.

Like something or someone or some situation has done this to me. And we feel wrong. Like the wrong, the more evil the situation is and the more egregious the violation on our person, that then in our minds can correlate to or just turn into, well, clearly we are on the side of good and righteousness.

We have been unjustly persecuted in this. And my goal for myself and my fellow caregivers is that one day we stand at a grave. That's the first goal is that we actually make it there to the grave of our loved ones. We don't want them to have to live without us. But that's our reality. I get it. But that we don't stand there with clenched fist at ourselves, at our loved ones, at God, at family and friends, at God.

And the thing is, is that we can easily do that. And the journey for caregivers and write this down. Everybody's listening. If you're driving a car, just try to get the podcast. It'll be out on the podcast. Yeah. At caregiverpodcast.com.

Just go to the website. It'll be there. But here's the deal. Write this down. Your challenges as a caregiver do not stop at the grave. Okay? They are not going to stop there. You're going to process what happened to you as a caregiver long after your loved one has died. I promise you this.

This will happen. But you don't have to be miserable about it. That's a choice. Misery is a choice. Acceptance is also a choice. And accepting reality is the key. I would say that not just acceptance is a choice, but growth is a choice. Growth is a choice. And if you allow me to swerve just a hair, I will tangentially touch it.

Oh, man. Are you going to get into meddling instead of preaching? Look at our country right now. We are having a convulsion over one particular group that is not willing to accept a certain reality.

Whether you like the man or not, man is president. And one particular group has struggled to accept that from the moment it happened. And look at the convulsion. And you think that's a problem.

Guess what? There's more coming. And if you're a caregiver, or even if you're not a caregiver at this point, there are convulsions that are waiting to happen to you. And it's going to happen to our country as we've got this aging baby boomer population that really hasn't quite landed full throttle yet.

It's coming. And then we've got special needs children. And then we've got all the other normal sicknesses. We've got alcoholism. We've got drugs. We've got all these things going on. And you think there's a convulsion in the halls of Congress.

Wait till the convulsion hits with these things. Yeah. And I like that in that, yes, there are so many things going on politically. And we get so torqued about everything. And it's so important to all of us.

Because it is important. I'm not diminishing that in the slightest. But these are kind of symptoms of really accelerating society. Think about how, you know, even just things like, you know, technology has accelerated over the past 20 years. I haven't said this on the show.

I'm 38 years old. Right? I know.

Right. And yet you're so wise. Well, but I've lived through some of the most...

Some harsh realities. Well, yeah, that's a different story for a different time. But just the technological advancements that have happened during my short, short time.

I have a 12-year-old daughter who knows everything about technology. And yet, you know, it's advanced so much in that time. And all of those things that we deal with, all of the vast transitions that we deal with are representative in our politics and things like that.

But think about how much that is going to affect not just politics, but every aspect of the way that we live as people. And caregivers are going to hit it again. It's all there.

All the pieces are there. And if you want to see a glimpse into the reality of a caregiver's life every day, watch the impeachment hearing. Go back and just watch it from start to finish, because that's the reality. It's that level of dysfunction.

I have no desire to put myself through that again. But it's that level of dysfunction and denial and justification and resentment and all these kinds of things that are coming out. You can just see it. And we're floundering. This is what happens to it. This is the human condition. When things happen that we don't like, we don't want, we don't feel like are right, we become indignant and then we allow it to become resentful to us. We've got to take a call real quick here. But anyway, before I get to the call, let me just finish this one thought with caregivers. But you know what? It doesn't have to be this way.

You are not in bondage to it. You can learn to be peaceful in the midst of this thing. Elijah was chased by Jezebel and he fell asleep and took a nap. Jesus fell asleep in the boat. He took a nap. He learned to be peaceful.

Daniel slept in the lion's den. He was the biblical president for sleeping in the midst of crisis and resting. And we can do that. All right, let's go. Trinity in South Carolina. How are you doing?

I'm doing excellent. And first off, I want to tell you who did that quote. Oh, I actually looked this up, Trinity, but I'm going to let you have this because it is beautiful. I read through this, Wallace. I got it before you did, John.

Yeah, I bet you did. Snidely, snidely whiplash. Snidely whiplash.

Snidely whiplash. I haven't heard that for a while. All right, where did the quote come from? We have met the enemy and he is us. Yes, American naval officer Oliver Hazard Perry in 1813.

Commodore Perry, absolutely. The War of 1812. Okay, but it was in a cartoon with Pogo. Well, but in the real quote, we have met the enemy and he is ours.

Yes, absolutely. So I got the context wrong. And the context is we have met the enemy and we own the enemy as far as a conquest. And I misquoted it by saying we have met the enemy and he is us. Yeah, this cartoon she's talking about because Trinity's got the right of it as usual. All right. But also, I think that when you're talking about resentment, there's a culture now. And because I'm still recovering from my injuries, I watch too much TV. And the current push on ads is get what you deserve. Oh. But I don't want what I deserve.

If you or a loved one has experienced the symptoms of mesothelioma, you may be entitled to financial compensation. Get what you deserve. I don't want what I deserve.

I want what I think I deserve. It's in all kinds of ads. And so I know caregivers aren't sitting around watching TV, but it might be on. And they're hearing this message repeatedly, even if they're not consciously hearing it. And it's insidious. You're absolutely correct.

Yes. It's like, you know, Rodney Dangerfield said that. He said, I went to McDonald's. They told me I didn't deserve a break. Sit down, sir. I get that so much because there is that sense of you're entitled, you're entitled, you're entitled. And if somebody says that you're entitled doesn't necessarily mean that you are, number one.

Correct. And I think that there's this, the resentments come from this entitlement mentality that we get that, you know, we deserve better than this. And we may deserve better than this. It may be.

But it may be also delayed for a season. And there may be something going on that is that is so enriching and joyful and deeply meaningful in the midst of it that we're so busy trying to avoid because it's a little bit of work and it's a lot of pain. And there's a lot of dynamics going on. But anyway, I didn't want to take up much of your time, but no, no.

John just wasn't rising up to the occasion on research. Exactly. Like, seriously. Well, I was this is something else I was thinking about, though. I've been thinking about it over the past weeks or months or whatever, is that there is a thing about risk that we don't like. We want like and that's what you were talking about, kind of dipping into the political thing. We want all of the rewards with none of the risk.

And it's a little it doesn't happen that way. And the reward for us as caregivers is a peaceful contentment and a joyful life no matter what's going on around us. That's the reward. Can we get there? Yeah, we can. But do we have to let go of some of the other things we've been thinking of?

Yes, we do. We have to let go. I can't play the piano with Clint's fist in order to make good music. I've got to open my hands and let go of things.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is hope for the caregiver. This is the show for you as a family caregiver.

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www.caregiverlegal.com, an independent associate. 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. That's standingwithhope.com. I'm Gracie, and I am standing with hope. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on the Family Talk channel, Series XM 131. That is my wife, Gracie, with Russ Taft, gospel recording artist, Russ Taft.

I love that recording they did. It's off of her new record, Resilient, and you can get a copy of that. Let me tell you how.

It's very easy. Go out to hopeforthecaregiver.com. Hopeforthecaregiver.com, and you'll see a picture of Gracie's new record.

And you will also see a little bit more about the organization that sponsors all of this for this whole show. It's called Standing with Hope, and it's the presenting sponsor of the whole show. Standing with Hope has two program outreaches for the wounded and those who care for them. For the wounded is for Gracie's fellow amputees. My wife gave up both of her legs as a result of this wreck she had back in 83, and she decided she wanted to create a mechanism to provide quality prosthetic limbs to her fellow amputees.

And so we do that. We do that with the help of inmates at a Tennessee prison run by CoreCivic, and there are many faith-based programs, and they have prisons they manage all across the country. And this one, the inmates come in and they help us recycle prosthetic limbs.

We collect used limbs from all over the country, go to this prison, and the inmates disassemble them for us so that we can take the parts, the feet, the pylon, the knees, the screws, the adapters, connectors, all that kind of stuff, and we ship it over to West Africa, to the Republic of Ghana. We've been working there for 15 years, and we're going back, John. We're going back this summer.

We've got a shipment going out this month, but Gracie is going to return with us this summer, and we're going to take a trip over there. We're taking her... Is that above or below the equator, by the way? It's 90 miles north of it.

90 miles north? Oh, man. The city of Accra is, it's right there, baby. Dude, okay. Well, I haven't said this before, but I do want to kind of take a quick mention that this is something that really pleases me about the program that you're talking about. It is proof that those who are marginalized and in prison are not any different from any of us sometimes. Just a different wardrobe. Just a different wardrobe and a little empathy and compassion can go a really long way because they're there for the grace of God sort of thing.

And you know what? And when I go over there to see the guys, I will hear back repeatedly, you know, House Gracie, we're praying for her. These are inmates that are praying for my wife. These are meaningful things. People might not get hired. You know, just kind of consider that next time you encounter somebody along these lines. And CoreCivic has great programs to help transition them out.

So contact, go to CoreCivic.com if you're an employer that needs some good workers to come in who deserve a chance. They really do. They've earned a chance.

They've built legs for people in West Africa. They don't get to work in the shop unless they've earned the right to be around tools and things such as that. Exactly. And so, yeah, give them a shot. We're going to be having the head chaplain for all of CoreCivic, for the dozens and dozens and dozens of prisons. It's going to be on the show. We're going to be talking about some of these programs coming up hopefully this month. And it's a great program to do that with people. And so it's for the wounded and those who care for them. And that's what this show is for the wounded and those who care for them. That's all about Standing With Hope. And if you go into Standing With Hope today and you click on the link there with Gracie's record and just go to the giving page, for whatever amount, whatever is on your heart, we'll send you Gracie's CD. It's a great CD. Or whatever tax-deductible amount.

Whatever tax-deductible gift you want to do, we'll send you Gracie's CD and I think you'll like it. Anyway, I want to wrap up this discussion about resentment. Because I think, and we're going to circle back to this. I mean, we're going to come back to it. It's a perennial theme, yeah.

Yes. And it is so easy for us to feel a sense of entitlement and then discouragement, which leads to this resentment when we have unmet expectations. I get that. Been there, done that. Got the T-shirt.

When we trust God with the circumstances we're in and say, okay, this is where I am. I'm going to accept this reality. I'm not going to fight against it. I'm not going to put my enemy's mask on other people.

I'm just not going to do that. I'm going to learn to be content in this. I will accept this for what it is. Reality is a tough companion, but it is an honest friend, okay?

Oh, that's nice. And if we can just hang on to that thought and realize I'm not going to fight against, however hateful it may be, go back and read Elie Wiesel. Go back and read Viktor Frankl if you want to see people learning to be at peace in the midst of a nightmare through the Holocaust and so forth. Go back and look at Corrie ten Boom and Betsy ten Boom in the hiding place. There are lots of hateful realities in this world, but hateful realities do not necessarily mean we have to become hateful people.

We just don't. My wife lives with more pain than I've seen anybody endure, and she's in her thirty seventh year of this. This is a this is a tough place for her. And her body is just broken orthopedically. She's a train wreck. But she's not hateful. She's not mean spirited. She's not bitter.

I think we spend so much time trying to feel better that we miss the opportunity to be better in the midst of this. And I watched Gracie and I leave this, we're up against the clock, but I will leave you with this picture. After her second amputation.

And this was way back in 1995. She told her surgeon, look, you've got to take it off. This leg is just killing me. She'd already gone through the first one four years earlier, and so much of what she deals with today is a result of us trying to stave off amputation. And finally, Gracie just put the kibosh on all of it and said, look, I'm getting rid of these legs.

They're killing me. I don't know what's on the other side of the operating room door, but I can't live like this anymore. And I'm going to trust who's on the other side of the operating room door. And she gave up her leg and she came out of surgery.

I'll never forget this. I saw her coming out of surgery. With her laying on a gurney, half anesthetized. Both legs gone.

One of them is now in a brand new bloody bandage with tubes and everything else. And she had her hands lifted to heaven. Laying flat on her back, lifting her hands to heaven, singing in that amazing voice of her saying, praise God from whom all blessings flow. What does she know that I need to know?

What does she know that maybe you need to know? We don't have to feel better in order to be better. And we can let go of some of this resentment. We'll talk about this some more on the show. You can get the book also as well. Hope for the caregiver. It's all at hopeforthecaregiver.com. Healthy caregivers make better caregivers. Today's a great day to start being healthy. I'm Peter Rosenberger. I'll see you next week.