As Caregivers, We're Not Being Delivered FROM It ...but rather, THROUGH It.

So many times, we caregivers cry out to God for us to be "delivered FROM" these challenges.  Doing this for 34 years, however, I'm learning that God meets us in it ...and delivers us THROUGH It. 

In the process, we discover our battle is not with our loved one's affliction, but instead ...the battle is with ourselves. 

From HOPE FOR THE CAREGIVER on American Family Radio JAN 18 2020  (See the full transcript of the show below.)

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HFTC January 18 2020

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Live on American family radio, this is Hope For The Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver, for those of you who are knowingly willingly and voluntarily putting yourselves between a vulnerable loved one and even worse disaster. You get up every day and you do this, and maybe you do it from a couple hundred miles away and you're ensuring that finances are being met or that staff show up to do things or whatever. There's all kinds of different ways to be a caregiver. But the challenges on the heart level are still the same. And some of us are up close and personal doing it every day all day long. Some of us are checking in once a day. Some of us are supporting financially those who are. There's just a lot of different scenarios of this and some of us have had to take a step back. You may have a loved one whose alcoholism or addiction has created such a destructive swath that you can't participate up close and personal. But they have a chronic impairment and where there's a chronic impairment, there's a caregiver. And that would be you. You got a special needs child or you got an aging parent. You got somebody with a traumatic brain injury whose personality has changed dramatically. And they don't think or respond in the normal way adults would, and you're engaged with this individual every day. You got somebody who gets violent or mood swings, somebody who has mental illness.

There's so many different scenarios but there's always a caregiver for every kind of affliction. And that's why we do this show. How are you feeling? How are you doing? What's going on with you? We speak fluid caregiver here and we're very grateful American Family Radio, they see the value of this, they see the need. And family is the middle name of American Family Radio, and this show is all about the family caregiver. 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840. If you want to be a part of the show, and you don't really have to have any kind of important question, or some earth-shattering thing. Sometimes you just want to just talk to somebody and that's one of the things we encourage you to do on this show, is to reach out to somebody and have a conversation. Don't sit in isolation. You're why we do the show. We're taking community to the caregiver because it's hard to get out. It's hard to connect with other people. It's hard to know what to say. It's hard to know how to respond and it's frustrating. And you if you want to have a friendship or meaningful friendships in this thing, you got to have people that are willing to embrace the pain that you carry. And that's not an easy thing. And you feel kind of weird about sharing some of those things with people. I get that. Okay? You don't want to expose your loved one and you don't feel like having a drag everything all out on the table. I get that. And that's why we do this show. Because here, you don't have to bring me up to speed. On this show, we speak fluid caregiver. Okay?

So, 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840. I want to start off with a Scripture. I thought this may be appropriate. Well, Scripture is always appropriate but I like to be laser beam focused when it comes to the heart needs of a family caregiver. And this is a Scripture that I saw and it was-- I struggle with this. Okay? I struggle with looking all around and getting distracted. I think sometimes we as caregivers, you know, shiny objects and we get our attention span gets pulled in so many different places. Proverbs 4:25 and I'm reading in the English Standard version, but I'm going to do it in another one, in a paraphrase. “Let your eyes look directly forward.” This is proverbs 4:25 to 27. “Let your eyes look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you ponder the path of your feet. Then all your ways will be sure do not swerve to the right or to the left. Turn your foot away from evil.” All right. And I'm gonna read that from The Message. Okay? “Keep vigilant over your heart, that's where life starts. Don't talk out of both sides of your mouth. Avoid careless banter, white lies and gossip. Keep your eyes straight ahead. Ignore all sideshow distractions. Watch your step and the road will stretch out smooth. Before you look neither right nor left, leave evil in the dust.” What does that mean to us as caregivers? When you're taking care of someone, and you-- For those who are brand new to the caregiving journey, it may not mean as much to you right at this moment, but for those of you who have logged some real time in this, you're going to understand that we get pulled in all kinds of directions. It is so easy for us to be looking over to the right, looking over the left, looking backwards. We spend a lot of time looking backwards. But we spent a lot of time also fearing the future. And we're going to look straight in front of us and just deal with what's ahead of us right now. And that's how we do it.

Now, again, I would really encourage you to not ever think that I own all of this. But I'm reminding myself of these things. And I had a great visual just the other day. I'm in Southwest Montana and I went out on a snowmobile. I do that a lot, just to kind of clear the cobwebs of my head. And Montana is a big state and the mountains behind us are big mountains and I have a lot of cobwebs, so I need a big state with big mountains, I guess. So, I went out there with a friend of mine, neighbor down the road, and we went out riding, and I learned how to ride snowmobiles from his father. Now you think, “Well, how hard is it to ride snowmobiles?” Well where we go, there's no lifeguard on duty and we're not out there on nice groomed roads that are flat and smooth. We're doing some pretty intensive riding. And there's this one trail that I've been riding on for 20 years, and there's a lot of switchbacks on it and it's going up incredibly steep and the snow is very deep right now. We've had a lot of new snow and it's very deep and you really gotta be-- there's a lot of balance and there's kind of a trick to riding a snowmobile. You don't just sit on it and press the throttle. You really have to handle the machine in a certain way, particularly when you have deep powdery snow.

And this particular trail is basically the width of the snowmobile, it’s not much more than that. And on one side, there's a drop off of several hundred feet, and it's a fairly frightening trail. And every time I get up there, I kinda just clench up. I'm thinking, “Oh my man, why am I doing this again?” Well, I'll tell you why I'm doing again, because the view at the top of this trail is spectacular. But to get there, it's a little bit of a challenge. And when you come out of this one clearing and the drop off is so steep besides you, you're tempted to look at the view there. Because it's a great view that I've snuck a peek out of my peripheral vision and look to my right there to see this view on this trail, but then I quickly look back and didn't stare straight at the trail so I don't go off the cliff because that's what you call a bad thing when you go off the cliff. And I wait until I get up to a place of safety where I can look at the view from a place of safety. And I have to keep my eyes on the trail. I have to stay focused. I can't be distracted, I can't look around because there's real danger if I do.

And I think that's for us as caregivers, that's kind of where we are a lot of times. There's some places that we would love to be able to stop and view but it's not safe to do it. And we have to keep our eyes focused straight ahead and keep our head in the game. Not get distracted, not looking left or right, but just not even trying to sneak a view out of a peripheral, but to keep focused on the trail in front of us. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” We don't necessarily see 700 yards down the road. And on this particular trail I'm riding on, you're doing good to look 10 feet ahead before it switches back, but you keep straight in here. This is hope for the caregiver. I'm Peter Rosenberger 888-589-8840. We'll be right back.

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Welcome back to Hope For The Caregiver on American Family Radio. I'm Peter Rosenberger. This is the nation's number one show for you, as a family caregiver, you’re why we do this show. And because He lives we can face tomorrow that we are not paralyzed by the circumstances that we're in. We're not overwhelmed by them. It's not gonna be easy. And I heard a great quote the other day that says “Anybody says life is easy as selling something.” It's not. It's going to be hard work. But doesn't mean it can't be done and doesn't mean that you're going to be doomed to seeing ugly things in life for the whole life. There's beauty and joy all around you even in the midst of very difficult challenges. 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840 if you want to be a part of the show, we're live. How are you feeling? How are you doing as a caregiver? How are you holding up?

I know that so many of you are looking at very grim things every day. And there are times when you just hang your head in weariness. I get it. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Still feel that way at times. I really do. And so, what do you do when you get that way? How do you strengthen yourself? How do you work through that? Who do you talk to? Are you hearing messages from your pastor that are strengthening you? Are you calling anyone? Is anyone calling you? You’re why we do the show because so many of you are not engaged in a good church situation. So many of you are just by yourself and the only lifeline you have is coming through the radio or through your app that you're listening to, or whatever device you're listening to this show on, and this may be the only place where you're hearing anything that speaking to you is in the voice of a caregiver, to your heart as a caregiver.

So, I want you to take advantage of this show, I want you to take advantage of this time and be a part of it. Share what's on your heart. And I'm going to try to plow as many things into your heart to strengthen you along the journey, just as people have done for me, and I'm also doing it for myself. That's how we do it as believers. It's not a one and done by the way, it's not something you just get. Okay, I got it. I'm gonna go move on with the rest of my life. No, no, no, this is the rest of our life. We will be needing to say these things every day to ourselves. And if anybody tells you different, they'll lie about other things too. Because this is how it's done. You go back and look through all of Scripture, it is a constant reaffirming of the Gospel. It is a constant reaffirming of the work of Christ. It is a constant reaffirming of the faithfulness of God. God knows that we're scared. He knows that we're weary. He knows that we're struggling. Look through all of Scripture. You'll never find one Scripture says, “Hey, I know y'all got that. I'll see you around a little later.” He says “I'm with you always. I know you're scared but don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here.” Okay.

And I just can't stress enough to you these things on what it means to you as a family caregiver to be reaffirming these messages. I want to read another Scripture to you, Psalm 147:3. Psalms-- My mother tells me this a lot that Psalms is a great place to go when you don't really know what else to say or do. You can go into the Psalms and listen to others before you, particularly King David pour out his heart. But he wasn't the only one that was involved in the Psalms. There are others that wrote those Psalms and a lot of them are [??? 14:28], and they're struggling and you could see the shift in their faith, particularly in David Psalms when he starts off with you know, “I'm struggling, I long the Lord” or you know, all these things, and then he wrenches his will into the will of God and you can hear almost the wheels turning in his head as he is reaffirming his trust in God. Psalm 147:3. “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” Let me read it in The Message. “He heals the heartbroken and bandages their wounds.” How many of you as caregivers have had to dress wounds? I mean, I've done that quite a bit. And my wife has a lot of wounds. She had a terrible accident back in 83. 80 surgeries later that we can count, 150 other smaller procedures. She's got one right now that we're having to watch very carefully.

How many of you all have bandaged wounds? You know what that's like. Do you understand that you have ones that require bandaging, too. Every time you've dressed a wound, and some of the ones that we have to dress as caregivers can be fairly complex wounds. I've had to do dressings where I've had to gown up, you know, in mask and gloves and the whole thing, and that's not easy. And as you think about that, as you've changed a wound, as you look at a wound, as you look at an angry wound, an angry wound is a wound that is inflamed and red and irritated. You have wounds like that as a caregiver. Do you know that? You have wounds like that. But you also have a savior who bandages those wounds, who is tending to those wounds. And they don't heal overnight. Sometimes it takes-- gosh, it seems like it just takes forever for them to heal. And some wounds don't heal this side of heaven completely.

Do you understand? Can you picture what it's like to have a Savior that's bandaging your wounds as a caregiver? Let me describe what some of those wounds are. Maybe they’re wounds of resentment. Maybe you have been pierced all the way to the core of who you are by the very person you're caring for. Maybe they have said and done things to you that just cut you so deep and yet, you got to keep on being a caregiver. Maybe you're changing someone's diapers, an aging parent or whatever, who's just cursing at you. Or maybe you got family members who are criticizing you and you are showing up every day doing what they're not doing, but they're criticizing you and giving you lots of pointers and suggestions on how to do it better. Those are wounds. Maybe you've had church folk, pastors who have chastise you for your lack of faith. Maybe some of your wounds are self-inflicted. You brought this child into the world with a disability and you blame yourself for it. Maybe you're just continuing to just create your own wounds, by just beating yourself. You have a Savior you that bandages up all of those wounds and more. Did you know that? Did you know that that's who your Savior is. He heals the heartbroken and bandages their wounds.

Are you wounded today as you're listening to this show? Are those wounds front and center in your thoughts in mind. My dad, longtime minister, greatest influence in my life, and the song that defines his entire ministry is an old spiritual called Balm in Gilead. That's Balm, B-A-L-M, not B-O-M-B. Forgive my Southern accent. For those of you who speak Southern, that's not a problem, you understood what I was saying. But for those of you who don't, it's Balm, B-A-L-M, a soothing ointment. There's a Balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole. There is a Balm in Gilead to heal the sin soul. Gracie recorded this on her CD, you can get a copy of it, and I would highly recommend you doing so. You can go out to HopeForTheCaregiver.com and take a look at it. It's an extraordinary arrangement that she sang. And I was always-- I've heard this song sung so many times and I think they've tried to recapture the old spiritual sound for it, and everybody that I heard perform it growing up saying it like, you know, “There is a Balm in Gilead,” like they're singing Old Man River kind of thing. And I didn't think it needed to be performed that way. This is a song of lament, and from people who are in pain, that's the origins of the song. And I felt like it needed to be sung by someone who was in pain. And my wife has not known a day without pain since Reagan's first term—37 years this year.

And so, when she sings this, she's singing it from the depth of that pain and Gracie is a real singer. I mean, a no kidding singer. And when I played this for her, and I slowed it down and I played it for her to sing, she was in her wheelchair and she sang it live to track. Which, what that means for those who are not really in the music scene, whatever that much, we weren't punching anything in. he didn't have to do a bunch of takes with it or fix this or this. She just sang it. And what came from her was so extraordinary because she understood the concept. “There is a Balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole,” and she's wounded. Both of her legs are gone. Her body's orthopedically a wreck. She's wounded and she's had more bandages on her than other people I know. I don't know anybody who's had bandages on her like she has and wounds at least orthopedically and physically. But I would suggest to you that you as a caregiver understand wounds of that level too, just a different way. And I would also encourage you not to dismiss those wounds, that they are real, and they are painful, and they require attention. But the good news is you have a Savior that's giving you that attention. You have a Savior that knows how to dress wounds, your wounds. Your wounds as a caregiver. 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840. You don't have to have a question. Just call it just help one caregiver today. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope For The Caregiver. We'll be right back.

[Music]

Welcome back to hope for the caregiver here on American Family Radio. This is the nation's number one show for the family caregiver. And by the way, I got the stats that we're also the nation's number one podcast for the family caregiver. You want to be a part of the podcast, it’s very easy. Just go to HopeForTheCaregiver.com, and it's all there at the website. And it's a free podcast, we podcast this show and other bonus materials, and all kinds of things that we do out there and it's a free podcast. And I'm very grateful for American Family Radio for seeing the value of what we do, and taking this message to this incredibly underserved population. For the family caregiver, for those who are knowingly, willingly and voluntarily putting themselves between a vulnerable loved one and even worse disaster. And sometimes we're doing it at the expense of our own bodies, of our own hearts, of our own wallets, of our own careers, all those kinds of things. How do you help these people? How do you strengthen the family caregiver? What does it look like? That's what this show was about. 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840.

I want to go back to the Scripture we started with— I want to kind of just drill down on this a little bit more so that you can leave this show today. After this show, my goal for the show is, is at the end of the show, I leave you a little better than I found you. You know, with something that you can hang on to that's tangible, right where you are as a caregiver. I can't take away your stuff anymore than you take away mine. I can't fix what you deal with any more than you could fix mine. But we can build each other up in this, and we can sustain each other. There's not a destination where you get to a point where you say “Okay, I've got this. I'm done.” Even at the grave that doesn't end for the caregiver. Because I maintain that the caregiver has a PTSD quality that affects them after the funeral. Now, I can't say that from personal experience because I'm still a caregiver. I'm in my 34th year of this. But I can say that with reasonable certainty based on the number of caregivers I've talked to, and the amount of time I've spent in this world, that just because your loved one passes away, doesn’t mean that the challenges you're dealing with and the things, the wounds that you're dealing with, just go away.

I think that's the mistake a lot of people make as they get into this world as a caregiver that it's, if we can just get them to stop doing this, then we'll be okay. But it doesn't work that way. And those of you with some real longevity in this understand that concept. It takes a while to figure that out. In the first, the beginning part of your journey as a caregiver, we spent a lot of time trying to run around in a flurry trying to do this and this and this and this because we're trying to fight off all the tigers that are attacking us. And then after a while, we realized the tigers aren't going to stop coming, and we got to have a different strategy. We can't just keep rushing out. We've got to replenish, we've got to stock up, we've got to endure this. And that's why when I wrote the book, Hope For The Caregiver and my other books and when I did the show and all the things that we do, it was always designed to equip caregivers to endure, not to accomplish or not to reign victoriously as a caregiver, but to endure but endure, with more calmness, to endure with more hope, to endure with more joy.

So, I'm not content to just kind of grind my teeth and survive this. I want to grow in it. More importantly, I want to see God differently in this. And more importantly than that, He desires to reveal Himself to us in greater depth in this. Everything in Scripture confirms that, and He reveals Himself to us in suffering. CS Lewis says, “Suffering is God's megaphone” because sometimes we just don't want to listen to the whisper. You know, I've never heard anybody say, “Well, I sure learned that the easy way.” That's just not the way it works for us, at least not for me. When you are the crash test dummy of caregivers, you know, and I've logged ample time at this. So, I've had enough time to make enough mistakes that you start seeing a pattern. Oh, oh, you can only run into a brick wall so many times before eventually, you're going to have to figure out that that wall’s not going to move. For some of us, it takes longer than others. For me, it took quite a bit of time but that's all right.

I want you as a caregiver to grab a hold of these concepts. I see a lot of people try to meet the needs of caregivers in the media and other shows or whatever. But a lot of them are talking about logistics, and then a lot of them talk about platitudes. You know, take care of yourself. Make sure you take care of yourself, and I get that. I get it and I appreciate it, God bless you. But on this show, we're going to drill down into the matters of the heart, because I think that's where the battle is for caregivers. See, if your heart is a train wreck, then guess what? Your wallet will be too. The way you interact with other relationships will be too. Your job will be too. And so if we speak to the heart and strengthen the heart of the family caregivers, then we provide a fighting chance for us to deal with these other issues. So, when I am faced with grim news from a doctor, or behavior, or the myriad of other things that can come at us sideways, where we're just trying to just live peacefully. And all of a sudden something just gets dumped in our lap that is just nuttier than a fruitcake, man. I mean, it's just crazier than a pit cocoon. And we're trying to somehow just get through the day and then all of a sudden here comes something that just, you know.

They say being a caregiver is like coming to a road looking both ways before you cross and then getting hit by a plane. And when those things happen, how do you reorient yourself? How do you recalibrate your brain and your heart? And that's when you go back to Scripture and see what Scripture has to say about those things. And that's the Scripture I started off with today, “Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet and all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left. Turn your foot away from evil.” That's Proverbs 4:25 through 27. It seems almost on the surface unsatisfying for us as caregivers to hear things like that because we want answers. We want a sure thing. Tell us how to get out of this mess. And I don't see that it works that way. The way out of the mess is through the mess. And we want to be so delivered but we don't understand that we're being delivered through it of far more than just our caregiving challenges. And that's the heartbreaking thing I think for us as caregivers to realize that there's multiple battles going on. And the biggest battle is not the loved one we're taking care of.

The biggest battle is what's going on in our own hearts and the things that God is zeroing in on and just keep-- It's like He keeps pressing on this one spot until we cry uncle, and we realize, oh, that's what he's after. And that's painful. That's hard, I know. But then you go back and look at the other Scripture we read today. “He heals the brokenhearted, Psalm 147:3, and binds up their wounds.” He's not doing these things haphazardly and he's using the circumstances in our life to reveal something about ourselves so that he can reveal something about Himself to us in that. There's a lot of broken stuff in our life. There’s a lot of broken stuff in my life. And God is using these circumstances around me that I deal with as a caregiver to reveal those things in me so that I run to him. You just have-- It's a different way of thinking about it. But this is what I've learned in 34 years of this. And we watch somebody suffer, and those of you who've watched somebody in pain and watch somebody suffer, you're going to get this really well. But to watch another human being suffer creates a theological argument inside you. And it just bores down all the way to the core of who we are because it seems so unfair.

It seems so un-Christ-like, un-God-is-good-like, and you hear all these people on TV that are talking about this and being delivered of this and you go to have your breakthrough here. And yet you and I are on watching somebody in pain. You and I are watching somebody suffer, day in and day out. And we wrestle with the concept of the goodness of God in the midst of that. I cannot be alone in this. I cannot be the only one that wrestles with that. But it's in that wrestling, that we get a chance to see him in a way that we don't expect. That's the issue. Because at the core of it, I think it’s a crisis of faith. Do we trust God while we watch this? Do we trust God while we see this? You remember, those of you who are old enough to remember it well that 9/11 when the nation was so shocked by this unimaginable horror of attack, and the nation reeled. And for the first three to four days, you could just see the stunned look in everybody's eyes. And then you started hearing the questions on the news and so forth, you know, how could God, why would God? And people were doing this kind of thing, and they were wrestling with it? Did they ever answer the question? A lot of pastors try to go on television and talk about it. But think about it, when we're faced with tragedy, we instantly ask how could God allow such a thing? But when the tragedy fades, we put the questions away. But you as a caregiver, you got to look at it every day. How are you doing with the question? 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840. This is Peter Rosenberger, and we'll be right back.

[Music]

Isn’t that a great song? It’s Keith Green. “There are sometimes I doubt but you always find me out.” It's exactly what we're talking about. Keith Green, well you go on after the show's over, go just do some research. If you don't know who he is or who he was, he still is, he's with Christ now, but just an enormous influence on the Christian music world, but I love that song. “There's sometimes I doubt but you always find me out.” He knows you doubt. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope For The Caregiver. 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840. “There's sometimes you doubt, he's gonna find you out,” and he is pursuing you. And sometimes the path that he pursues you leads you through these dark places that seems so unpleasant, so horrifying to us. And yet what he's revealing is going to trump every bit of that. I go back to what I talked about at the beginning of the show, when I was out on the snowmobile and I'm on that trail, and it is a frightening trail. I promise you, but the view is so fabulous. In order to get to where I want to be, I'm going to have to go on that trail. There's no other way up there. And others have gone before me, I can see the path.

I am smart enough to not go up there by myself, number one, and number two, just after it's a brand new snow …because that's how you get stuck. And I just don't feel like digging my snowmobile out on a cliff at this point in my life. But there are others who go up there all the time and they get to see that spectacular view, and we all get to rejoice in it. That's our journey as believers. This is what we're doing. This is what it looks like as caregivers. And the journey right now, some of us it is incredibly frightening. I get it. Weeping endureth for a night, say it with me, but joy comes in the morning. And that's the promise, that's the hope for us as caregivers. That's what I call the show Hope For The Caregivers. That conviction that we as caregivers can live a calmer, healthier and even more joyful life, this is not the end of the story. Even the grave is not the end of the story. And it’s really important for us to understand that, and if we don't understand stand it, then despair will overtake us. Despair is going to be nipping at our heels, no matter what. And we're going to constantly fight it, but we don't have to be overtaken by it. And we will be if we don't continue to wrap our minds and our hearts with the things of the Gospel.

Now, you can try it your way, you can try it not doing that. You can just shake your fist at God and walk away from all this and see how that works for you. I don't recommend it. This is 34 years now that I've been doing this. My 34th year of caring for a human being who's broken, who suffers and has gone through more trauma and surgery and all kinds of things that I care to recount on this show. Some of you are living in similar circumstances. Is despair overtaking you? If you feel that way today then I'm glad you listened to the show because as one caregiver to another. I just want to tell you these things. These are things that I've learned. These are things that I've seen, these are things that I've experienced, that I've touched, that I've witnessed. This is not my opinion. I don't even care about my opinion. But my experience, on the other hand, now that's a different matter. “They overcame by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony.” That's what Scripture says in Revelation. So, it is the redeeming blood of Christ that equips us and then our experience, our testimony, our personal encounter with [??? 40:59] Christ, that's how we overcome. And the implication is there something that needs to be overcome. And for you as a caregiver, there's something that needs to be overcome. And it's not Alzheimer’s, it's not autism, it's not addiction, it's not a mutation. Well, that's a lot of alliteration I just use. It's not the affliction that we need to overcome. He's already overcome all of that. It hasn't been manifested yet in your life, but it is overcome. That's not what needs to be overcome by us. That's not how we endure through this. What needs to be overcome is our own hearts; the rage, the resentment, the fear, the doubt, selfishness. You say, “How can I be selfish? I'm a caregiver, look at all the things that I'm doing.” When we say those things, look at all that I'm doing, we've already indicted ourselves. And you are, please, again, I always have to have this disclaimer, I think John, John's producing the show today. And I have to probably have a recording a disclaimer that the views represent-- The views expressed by this host are things that God is working on in his life every day.

So, we may have to have that disclaimer played because these are not things that I own, these are things that I know. When I go up that trail on the mountain, I didn't make that trail and I don't own that trail, but I know where the trail is. And that's our journey as believers, that's our journey as we walk through these things as caregivers. And we can somehow try to put the battle over here that well if we can just get, you know, mom to stop doing this or if we can just-- if this would just, if this would just. And you really think that's gonna make everything go away or that's going to make you all feel that much better? Nah. That's not where the battle is. I can't fight amputation. I look at my wife's limbs and we're dealing with some prosthetic stuff right now. She still got a sore on her limb because of a prosthesis that we're working back and forth with. For those of you who are not in the amputation, prosthetic world, you won't really get this as much. For those of you in the-- that have limb loss in your family, you will.

But for example, when you have diabetes and you lose a limb, they go above the bad tissue wherever the infection or whatever it is, that’s causing the limb to be dysfunctional. They just go above it and find a healthy tissue and that's where they amputate. And you usually don't have a lot of the fitting issues that you would normally have. I mean that when you do with diabetes and so forth because you're cutting away to good tissue, but otherwise the person has not been damaged in other parts where it would affect the prosthesis. I didn't probably say that as clearly as I would like. But when you come to a situation like Gracie, she was so traumatized, everything was broken. One of the residents, surgery residents told her prosthesis later that they stopped counting at 200 breaks. And when you have that much trauma, then fitting a prosthesis to traumatized limbs, this is where a lot of wounded warriors will get this because those wounds were, they were incurred through trauma, roadside bombs and so forth. And when you have scar tissue and all those kinds of things, it's hard to get these things to fit properly. And it requires a lot of extra work.

And so we're dealing with those kinds of things right now. But I'm not a prosthetist. I don't even play one on TV. I mean, you know, I know enough about it from a layman's point of it. We run a prosthetic limb ministry. You heard Gracie’s story just a few moments ago. And we do this and I know enough to get me in trouble. But I can't fight that battle. I can't do that. I don't have the time and the wherewithal to go to prosthetic school or become an orthopedic surgeon or whatever and do all these things. That is not what I do and what I can do. Those are not my skill sets. I can't fight that. But I can fight being a jerk. I could fight that. I can fight being demanding. I can fight being resentful. I can fight cholesterol. The country ham that a friend of mine sent me for Christmas doesn't help me fight that battle, but I can fight it.

Are you fighting the wrong battle? Your battle is not with your loved one. However poorly they may act, your battle is not with your family or friends. However poorly they may act toward you, that's not your battle. The battle is always within our own hearts. “When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows row; Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, It is well with my soul.”

Is it well with your soul today as a caregiver? Is it? If not, why not? Is it because your loved one’s acting funky? They may be a catalyst, but that's not the battle. You want to know more? Go out to HopeForTheCaregiver.com. Get the book. Get the CD. Let Gracie and I play and sing for you. Don't do this alone. I’m so glad you joined us today. And get the podcast, we’ll have this out on the website later on. We'll see you next week. HopeForTheCaregiver.com. This is Peter Rosenberger. Healthy caregivers make better caregivers.