A fabulous show with the Count of Mighty Disco - My Sidekick, John Butler!

Live on the Family Talk channel, this is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver. We're on Sirius XM 131. We're also broadcasting on Facebook Live on Hope for the Caregiver so you can watch the show.

And we are glad that you are with us today. How'd you do through the holidays as a caregiver? How did that work out for you? Did you survive it or did you find some joy in it? We talked a lot about that going into it. Did you find things that were deeply meaningful to you?

Were you able to have moments for you as a caregiver? And we would love to hear from you on that. If you want to call into the show, it's 877-655-6755. That's 877-655-6755. And we'll be glad to have that conversation with you.

Speaking of having conversations, you know him, you love him. He's the Baron of the Board. He's the Sultan of Sound. He's the Earl of Engineering. He's the man who's never been slapped by the Pope.

He is John Butler, the Count of Mighty Disco, everyone. I don't even, I don't know how to respond to that one. Of all of the wonderful titles that you've given me, that one is... Well, it's true. Yeah, no, that's absolutely the case.

It is absolutely true. You have never been slapped by the Pope. Did you see the video of that? I haven't yet.

I've been really like holding on. Okay, my grandparents in their house had a picture of them meeting the Pope, like framed and yeah, John Paul, by the way. Well, if you go to meet a Pope, that's the one to meet. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, but they were, he was, my grandfather was very proud of that picture. So like, I'm going to hold off on watching the Pope slap somebody. I think it was kind of cool, man.

I mean, he got a little bit gangster with it. I actually don't know the context, so I can't really comment. That's why I'm dumbfounded at this point. Like, come on, man. Well, no, he was going through the receiving line and this one lady just tried to grab his hand and he pulled back and then slapped her hand and then kind of strutted off. Oh, okay. So it wasn't like a full back hand or anything. Okay, all right, all right. No, no, he didn't come up and just, you know, do like that, you know, Batman picture of Hit and Robin, you know, that everybody puts out on Facebook.

No, he just popped her hand real quick. And you know, it was just kind of funny to watch that. You've never seen anything like this. Right. I mean, the Pope is a, that's a thing, so. The Pope is a thing. Hold on, these are quotes from John Butler you might want to write down. The Pope is a thing. Speaking of quotes, you got me a wonderful gift for Christmas and I've got a book of dad jokes, right?

Yes. And I've got one for you today. I told you, you're going to have one every week. Oh yeah, until I mean, until we run out of the good ones. Here's the, we've not had a good one.

No, no, none of them are good ones. There is no good joke in this book. So, you know, I actually, I figured out, I figured out recently what ET is short for, you know, ET, right? I figured out what it's short for.

Should I ask or do I, is it required? I mean, you know, ET, because he's just got those little bitty legs. ET.

What is ET short for? Because he's just got those little bitty legs. Extra-terrestrial. No, but he's just, he's short because he's just got those little bitty legs, Peter. This is not a hard joke.

I don't get this. Because he's just got those short little legs. What is ET short for? Yeah, because ET is short because he's got those little bitty legs, buddy. That's so painfully bad.

You remember the alien was physically short, like a diminutive. Well, I know that, but I'm just, I thought, okay, I was in a different place there. That's wrong. It is wrong.

Is there some kind of law against this? Yeah, there really is. Okay, so we are getting a little bit too far into that. Anyway, how was your holiday there, Peter? Well, we got everybody off. We had a great New Year's time and then Grayson went back to Nashville on Thursday and then my sister and her husband went back Friday night. They took the Red Eye and their family, they took the Red Eye Friday night out at like 1130. So we were out, I took them way up on top of the mountain and it was kind of a Lord of the Rings view, you know, kind of thing. We were looking for the fires of Gondor, you know, the beacons have been lit kind of thing.

Exactly. And I took them out on the snowmobile for that and then got all packed up and got them to the airport and it was good. It was a good time. And I, you know, you hate to see people leave, you hate to see it come to an end, but it's still Christmasy out here. You guys haven't even had Christmas. The look of it out there, it's been so warm and wet. It has. Okay, so there were slight flurries earlier today, but it was like 44 degrees.

It was just a consequence of, you know, whatever weirdo atmosphere was going on. But yeah, it's been nothing. It's been nothing but warm and wet. So. Well, I'm sorry, but winter's coming in Tennessee. So say we all.

All right. On some level, but it was good. It was very peaceful and quiet and capped it off with just a nice time with family. And we went for a drive. You know, when you go out for a drive, we're in Southwest Montana, for those of you who just now joined the show.

And when you go for a drive out here, drives out here not just, you know, downtown or down this road, we went for a 200 mile drive, a 200 mile drive. And it was beautiful. It was just a beautiful vista. And we got some snow up on the mountains and stuff here. There's no here, but it's, you know, it's just nice. It's quiet today and it's kind of getting back in tomorrow.

We have to get back into the work week. And, but I did my chores today, John, you know, fed the horses. Well, and I was, I was, I was out feeding the horses and Mac, our dog rode down with me on the, the side by side.

And he likes to sit there with me and look. And then when he got out, when I was putting the hay out and the horses come running up from the barn area up into a little pasture area where I was feeding them. And then Mac saw them and he jumped right back up into the side by side because he's, he's been frightened by the horses before. And so he's our Australian Shepherd. And he was like, it was, it was funny to watch him. He's like, Oh no, I'm not going to be a part of this.

These are giant animals. And so, yeah. Okay. So I had the inverse experience because I was gifted a robot vacuum for, for Christmas and my cat reacted in much the same way, but not because it was horses, but because I have this weird piece of technology in my home. Do me a favor. Post videos of it because everybody else.

No, no, no. He does not like me. I've had my cat for 17 or 18 years. And at this point he is very upset with me. Let me die.

Exactly. What have you done? What have you brought upon me anyway? Well, let's get right to our caregiver tip of the day. Our caregiver tip of the day is something a little bit different today. And I read this quote and I thought I would share this with you all today that would be meaningful to you as a family caregiver. And I thank you for just joining.

John and I just like to catch up and talk a little bit, but we just want you to, we want to invite you to the table, you to the conference, you to the conversation, because this is about us building each other up as caregivers, sharing our individual experiences for the purpose of growing each other as a group of caregivers. And that's why I'm doing the show, but here's the quote, sharing experiences widens one's horizons and opens up new and better ways to deal with difficulties. There is no need to solve them alone. And I just thought that was a really good quote.

I'm going to read that again. Sharing experiences widens one's horizon and opens out new and better ways to deal with difficulties. There is no need to solve them alone. And I think that we as caregivers deal with such relentless challenges. They just don't seem to want to go away and they won't necessarily for a lifetime for some of us. And it's just a part of our life, but we don't have to bear them alone. We don't have to walk through these things alone. And I think this is what brings me even more laser beam focused on why we do this show, because there wasn't anything like this for the, well, there's never been a show like this, but after I had been a caregiver for 25 plus years, a friend of mine said, you know what?

You need to do a show for caregivers. And I thought, how would that work? What would that look like? What would I say?

What would be about, you know? And when I approached a radio station about it in Nashville, they looked at me like I had a horn growing out of the front of my head. In all fairness, I was dressed as a unicorn that day, but that's a different, different conversation. Sorry, John.

You should be. They were like, you mean like nursing homes and stuff? And I said, no, caregivers. And I think that the general consensus is that for most people, caregivers are people that are, you know, dealing with senior citizens and they're in nursing homes and they're wearing, you know, purple, you know, hospital type clothing or something.

I don't know. I think that's what people think of. And I thought there is some, there's a lot of that, that we have an aging population and all that, but this is a much broader category.

It's so much broader. And that was never a part of my life. And it's never been a part of my brother and my sister-in-law's life who have a daughter that's 31 with cerebral palsy and severe developmental issues.

And she's like a, you know, 18 month old. It's never been a part of their life. And it's never been a part of, I just go down the list of people I know with children with autism or so forth. And then we started thinking, okay, well, what would we say to a caregiver? What does it look like to help somebody who is taking care of somebody? You know, people would come up to me and offer platitudes and I bet they have with you.

And they've said, well, make sure you take care of yourself and get a good night's rest. And I'm thinking, you know, that's, you know, that's, I don't think that's where we caregivers live. I think there's so much inner turmoil. And if we don't speak to that, then we will miss the opportunity.

We're just giving surfacy stuff. And I felt like if we can address the dumpster fire that is a caregiver's heart of all the angst that's in there and give them an opportunity to kind of catch their breath and breathe a little bit and then point them to safety, then they got a fighting chance of dealing with their weight gain. Then they got a fighting chance of dealing with their job situation and their coworkers or their family dynamics or their money issues or whatever else is in there.

And it's probably all a combination of everything. And I also came from the mentality and that we as caregivers don't really deal with anything that other people don't deal with on a heart level. We just deal with it relentlessly. There's very little reprieve in order for you to kind of regroup. We're always in the, I guess we're in the NFL playoffs right now, John.

I don't watch football much, but you know, I feel like caregivers, we're always in the no huddle offense, you know? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and this is, what this is, is that we wanted to make something that where you could share the stories. This is coming back to the tip of the day, which is that, well, the richness of life is in the experiences of others and we can really share things with it. We gain from sharing with others and from, you know, really telling our story, but we also can do that for other people. We can hear their stories and it's, you know, other people's problems are a little bit easier to bear temporarily with them. And we can lighten the load a little bit and really just, you know, gain some knowledge from their journey.

Yes. And I, I've heard from the network when I do the show, they said, you're different from other hosts. They try to get as many calls.

Well, that's an understatement. I'm different from most, but I'm different from most and from most hosts, but they said that there were other people, their shows, they tried to get as many calls in as possible and get the caller off and get to the next one and so forth. And the guy was saying, you take time with your callers. You're not in a hurry to get them off the air. And I said, no, because I think they need to talk.

I think they, it helps them to be able to just express their heart and their feelings and, and, and their thoughts and ideas. And, and we can just sit there as two caregivers and just converse about it, you know, and just have a good conversation. So if that's where you are today, 877-655-6755, 877-655-6755, you want to be a part of the show. This is Hope for the Caregiver.

I am Peter Rosenberg. I've been a caregiver now in my 34th year. How are you doing? Love to hear from you.

Don't go away. We've got much more coming. 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.

Finally, you can live life knowing you have a lawyer in your back pocket who, at the same time, isn't emptying it. It's called Legal Shield and it's practical, affordable, and a must for the family caregiver. Visit caregiverlegal.com. That's caregiverlegal.com. Isn't it about the time someone started advocating for you? www.caregiverlegal.com.

An independent associate. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on Family Talk on Channel 131, Series XM broadcasting also by video on the caregiver cam on Facebook live at Hope for the Caregiver. That was my wife Gracie with Joni Eareckson-Tada off of her new CD, Resilient. I got a treat for you. I'm going to play a song from that at the end of this segment before we go to the break at the bottom of the hour that you're going to love. I think it's a great way to start off the new year. I think it's to have that in your mind as part of our journey for the new year.

If you want to be a part of the show, by the way, 877-655-6755. I saw a quote, a prayer the other day, a prayer. I was thinking about new year stuff and I read this on New Year's Eve, a New Year's Day. We had a wonderful day. My brother-in-law fixed some steaks Jon that were just, I mean it was just. Okay, so you say that and my standards are like way high.

Well, he would meet your standards. I promise you and it was a fine meal and he, but we sat down and I sat down with his kids and with Grayson and Gracie and my sister and so forth and we were all just sitting there and I read this and I thought it was a really good prayer to start off the year with. Just throw this out to you. May God make your year a happy one, not by shielding us from all sorrows and pain, but by strengthening us to bear it as it comes. Not by making our path easy, but by making us sturdy to travel any path. Not by taking hardships from us, but by taking fear from our heart. Not by granting us unbroken sunshine, but by keeping our faces bright, even in the shadows. Not by making our life always pleasant, but by showing us when people and their causes need us most and making us anxious to be there to help.

God's love, peace, hope and joy to us for the year ahead. I thought that was just a good way of looking at it. I think so many times we're so wrapped up in the fact that we've got to make everything perfect.

We've got to be happy, happy, happy all the time, time, time. I said this in a show recently that I think sometimes our Christian faith in this country has been somehow blended and diluted with the American dream. That unless we're being prosperous and feeling good all the time, then something's wrong in our life or something's wrong with our theology or whatever. I just don't see it that way and I don't think scripture supports that at all.

In fact, I could show you where it doesn't. But I think that God equips us for these things and that we can be sturdy for the journey and sturdier. That's why we do the show because I can't take away the things that you deal with as a caregiver any more than you can take away the things that I deal with.

But we can build each other up and we can make us- We can make each other sturdy enough to travel any path. I have plans. I have for you.

I know just what you're going through. So when you can't see what tomorrow holds and yesterday is through, remember I know the plans I have for you. Oh, thank you, Jesus. Thank you that he knows the plans he has for you.

Oh, yes, he does. He knows just what we're going through. When you can't see what tomorrow holds and yesterday is through, remember he knows the plans he has for you. Oh, plans to give you hope for tomorrow, joy for your sorrow, strength for everything you go through. He'll give you hope for tomorrow, joy for your sorrow, strength for everything you go through.

He'll give you hope for tomorrow, joy for your sorrow, strength for everything you go through. Remember he knows the plans he has for you. Oh, he knows the plans he has for you.

Oh, yes, he does. He knows just what you're going through. So when you can't see what tomorrow holds and yesterday is through, remember he knows the plans he has for you. Oh, to give you hope for tomorrow, joy for your sorrow, strength for everything you go through. He'll give you hope for tomorrow, joy for your sorrow, strength for everything you go through. He'll give you hope for tomorrow, joy for your sorrow, strength for everything you go through. Remember he knows the plans he has for you.

Oh, yes, he does. He knows the plans he has for you. Oh, thank you, Father, you know. Oh, I'll rest in your love, Father.

He knows. 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 131. We are thrilled to have you with us.

I am Peter Rosenberger. This is the nation's number one show for the family caregiver. And John, we got the stats back, and we are the number one podcast for family caregivers as well. Nice.

You know, and I'm just really stunned by all of this. And I knew that there was a need, but speaking to that need in a way that makes sense, and you and I did this. We started this show in May of 2013.

Yes. I was on a little tiny radio station in Nashville, and it was really kind of funny. By the way, if you want to be on the show, 877-655-6755, 877-655-6755. And I was on this little tiny show in Nashville because I'd gone to this major radio station, and I said, I'd like to do a show about caregivers. And again, they looked at me like I was odd, which I'm fairly familiar with that look. And I was on it 1230 to one on Wednesdays. And I was sandwiched in between, I think it was like the sort of Joshua Fire and Holiness Pentecostal Hour and some other show.

It was just totally different from what I was doing. And I had my show on there, and I was just kind of doing my thing for about eight months. And then the station that had turned me down called me up and said, we've been listening to your show. We'd like to have you come over here. And I did, and they assigned me with this young producer named John Butler.

I don't know if young were. You're younger than me. And the rest is history. But I've been just thinking about this show for a long time about what would it look like and what would I say to fellow caregivers? Why would I say something? Where are we going with this?

And this is kind of embarrassing, but why stop now? But I remember one time during a particularly difficult time in my journey as a caregiver. And you've got to remember my wife's had 80 surgeries that I can count, 150 smaller procedures that I can count, 100 doctors that I can count, 12 hospitals I can count those, and seven insurance companies. And I guess we're now $11 million that I can count. So it just keeps growing.

This has been going on since Reagan was president. And there's one time that I was pretty low when I was really struggling. I had had some medical problems myself, which I don't normally do. And it was pretty serious, and I was trying to recuperate from that. And nobody really knew how to help me. They showed up and they didn't realize what I was carrying and bearing in my own body. And nobody quite knew how to help me rest.

And nobody knew quite how to help Gracie because I'd been doing it all by myself. And it just kept spiraling out and spiraling out. And finally, I just thought, I got to get some help here.

I'm losing my mind. I wasn't sleeping or anything else. And I went to a local mental health hospital in Nashville where we lived for many, many years until we moved out here. And I just kind of walked in the front there at the lobby and they all looked at me odd. Again, John, these people just looking at me.

I look to which you are used. There's a theme here with that. And I thought that was kind of insulting because it's a mental health hospital. I cannot be the weirdest person that's ever walked in there.

I saw a thing that since it's getting cooler now in Nashville, they're asking people to wear two pairs of pajamas at the same time to Walmart. So I cannot be the weirdest person that could have walked into this place, but they said, are you lost? And I teared up a little bit and I said, yeah, I think I am. And I said, are you lost?

I knew what they meant, but the question went deeper in my life. And I said, do you guys take walk-ins? And they looked at me kind of odd again. And I'm thinking, really? That's the question that causes the weird looks? I mean, honestly, it's a mental health hospital.

That's the question. And they said, yeah, we take walk-ins. And so they escorted me back to a room. They took my keys and took my blood pressure and sent me down this room.

And there was a room that it looked like it'd seen better days. And then this counselor came in, very nice lady. She came in and she sat there and talked to me for a long time. And I just kind of verbally vomited. As a caregiver, you ever just verbally vomited or just as a human being, just let it all out.

And this went on for some time, about an hour and a half, maybe two hours. And she was very nice. She listened, she took notes and she looked at me and she said, well, we can't keep you here because you're not crazy.

And I asked her for that in writing because there are a lot of people that needed to see some type of documentation. She said, nah, you're not crazy. She said, but you are burned out.

And I got some people I can refer you to for some help. And she said, I'd recommend a book for you to read, but you're the guy to write it. And then she said, we've been giving out box lunches all day and we've got one left and it's tuna fish.

Do you want it? And I said, absolutely. I've never turned out a tuna fish sandwich in my life. And I think, you know that John.

Oh yeah. You might've read my tuna fish newsletter. I have had many a breakfast of tuna melt and coffee and not the greatest breath afterward, but definitely sustaining. So I tried to have my self committed and all I got was a tuna sandwich out of it.

I thought about making t-shirts up of that. So I sat out in the car and I had my tuna fish sandwich and they had a soda in there with it and chips and an apple. And I thought about what this counselor said, I'd recommend a book for you to read, but you're the guy to write it. And that's where all of this started was what would I say to a caregiver? What would I say to myself at 22 years old when I fell in love with a woman who had a broken body? You know, how do you prepare somebody for the reality of a lifetime of caregiving? What do you do? What do you say?

And then I wrote my book, hope for the caregiver. And that's what this show is all about is equipping us to be sturdy for any path. You know, no matter what it's thrown at us, can we respond without reacting? Can we be calmer? Can we be healthier? Can we be more joyful in this as caregivers? And the answer, I believe, and I have a lot of experience backing me up on this, is an unequivocal yes, we can. No matter what's going on with our loved ones, we do not have to put our life, our mental health, our emotional sobriety, our physical health, our professional health, or anything else on the back burner.

We can do these things, but it does require some work and it requires some help from people who are a little bit further down the road, who have wrestled with these things. And so what I've tried to do is kind of offer a tuna sandwich for the soul. I'm a tuna noodle helper. I've tried to bring a lifetime of experience and wisdom I've collected along the way from folks that have intersected me and just hard lessons that I've learned into a way that makes sense to you as a caregiver. You know, and that's why, you know, when I said our caregiver tip of the day earlier, and I read that quote about how our shared experiences are so valuable to us. And I'll read it again. Here it is again. I got time for it. Yeah, I really like this one. I thought this was just such a good quote.

John, remind me to start having my glasses close by. This getting old is not everything it says in the brochure. Sharing experiences widens one's horizons. It opens out new and better ways to deal with difficulties.

There is so much we can get from being with each other. There's no need to try to solve these things by ourselves. We just don't need to do it.

We don't need to solve these things by ourselves. We can work together, build from each other, learn from each other, and then develop healthier tips on how we're going to deal with this. Because it's not going to go away next week.

It's not going to go away anytime soon. And even if it does, there's still the residual impact of what's happened to you as a caregiver, how it's conditioned you and your response to stress, your response to conflict in a family and things such as that. So that's why we do the show. And at the core of all of this is me speaking to that 22-year-old man who, young man, just a kid, who took the helm of a medical nightmare armed with little else than love and a goofy sense of humor and tried to make sense out of something that really doesn't make sense, tried to manage the unmanageable. But that's what we do as caregivers. Those of you right now who are taking care of a loved one with Alzheimer's, for example, you're wanting desperately to try to reason with it, but you can't. You can't fight that. You cannot fight Alzheimer's. I can't fight amputation. You can't fight autism. You can't fight someone else's addiction. But we can fight cholesterol. We can fight high blood pressure. We can fight being a jerk. We can fight losing our temper. We can fight despair.

We just need a different set of tools. And so that's what brings all of this to play for me. And I noticed that it's not a one and done. There's no such thing for caregivers. It's not a one and done. You cannot simply say, OK, I got it now.

Jesus, give me back the wheel. You know, I think it just doesn't work that way. No offense to carry a nice cartoon in my head. I don't think that's the first cartoon has been in your head.

No, but, you know, no offense to carry underwood. But yeah, you know, you can't you can't just say, OK, I got it now. Give it back. No, this is something that is really beyond us as as human beings.

And we have to have the group approach of building each other up and ultimately, you know, seeking out God's counsel in this. I played that song from Gracie. So we had a little technical difficulty, but that's all right. You could get the record and listen to it all the time. How about that?

You could just go out there right now to the website and just click on Gracie's picture and get the record. So. But it's you know, it's it's all about us learning how to to see beyond ourselves in this.

In my book, Seven Caregiver, let's go ahead. Well, in doing all this, in sharing our experiences with each other and hearing the experiences of others and sharing our own, you know, yes, we're doing this because it's like we get the effects of of learning things and all that. But I mean, this is just like the warmth of friendship to be a little cliche about it. Like you get all of these things out of it because you're doing this wholesome thing already.

And it's just good for your soul. I mean, you know, Milton, I've said it often, Milton said it best. That's John Milton, not Milton, you know, Friedman or Milton, Milton Bird. But John Milton said it best when he said, the first thing that God's eye said that was not good was that man was alone. This was before the fall.

This was before sin entered into the equation. And you go back and look and he said, it's not good that man's alone. You know, it's not good that caregivers are alone. And caregiving isolates you. It's one of the three eyes that we live with as caregivers. We lose our independence.

We lose our identity and we become isolated. And so when I envisioned doing this show, it was all about how do we best communicate to caregivers that are not alone. There are a lot of caregivers driving around right now and they're listening to this station and they're thinking, wow, you know, there's a show for me as a caregiver.

And yeah, there is. And I've expanded the concept of what a caregiver is. I think I'm the only one that has taken the approach that addiction and alcoholism put you into the caregiver world because these are chronic impairments. And there are a lot of people right now who have an alcoholic or an addict in their life and they are just really struggling.

You know, you hear a lot about the opioid crisis in our country, but go back and look at all the news reports and see how many of them are talking about the caregiver. Because every one of those tragic cases that we hear about, they might not have somebody right there every day, but they at least are there at some point and they're still on or they're still on the periphery or like they are orbiting at some level. It may be like a Pluto orbit. By the way, is Pluto a planet now again?

It will always be a planet in my heart. I expect you to know these things, John. Other people have Google.

I have John. The actual answer is there are conflicting reports. Okay.

But you know, some of us orbit further than others, but you're still there. And then you've got the mental health issues and all those things involved with it. And so there are so many different realities going on that people are functioning as caregivers in.

And I want to speak to the core issues. If you're married to somebody with bipolar disorder, where it's a personality disorder, it can be, that is a... You're a caregiver. Yeah. You're a caregiver clearly, you know? And these are the things that we wanted to envelop it. We wanted to get past the conversation of just thinking nursing homes and start thinking that these are family dynamics and all of this is rooted on a heart level of where the battle really is.

Yeah. We can deal with some of the other things. We can get into, you know, wheelchairs and adaptive equipment and all kinds of things. Dealing with doctors, dealing with insurance companies and hospitals. We cover all that here too, but ultimately we also deal with plumbing. But we ultimately deal with matters of the heart. And we want to know how your heart's doing. 877-655-6755. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the 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. This is Peter Rosenberger.

This is the nation's number one show for the family caregiver. That is my wife Gracie with Russ Taft singing the Joy of the Lord off of her new CD, Resilient. How'd you like a copy of that? How'd you like a copy of that?

Well, it's very easy to do. Go to hopeforthecaregiver.com, click on her picture and for a donation of any amount, any amount, we'll send you a copy of that CD because it's going to go to Standing with Hope. Now, let me tell you about Standing with Hope. Standing with Hope is the ministry Gracie envisioned after giving up both of her legs many, many years ago. And she wanted to provide quality prosthetic limbs to her fellow amputees as a means of sharing the gospel. I remember when she said it, she was in the hospital. It was like days after becoming a double amputee.

And she had watched a documentary about Princess Diana working with amputees in Southeast Asia. And she said, this is what I'm going to do. And she told me, I had just showed up to the hospital. I was taking care of the kids and doing all these things, work and everything else. And she said, here's what we're going to do. And I looked at her, I said, take another hit of morphine, baby, you know, because that is not on my list of things that I want to do.

Well, the name of my wife's CD is called Resilient and she is, and she's also a force of nature. And a short story for now almost 15 years, we've been going to West Africa and working in the country of Ghana and sending over equipment and supplies and prosthetists and so forth. That's prosthetist, we're not sending hookers to Africa, prosthetist, and we're teaching and equipping them how to build legs for their own people. In fact, I got a shipment going over there this month. We just bought some resin. We can buy resin there in country. It's a little bit more expensive, but by the time you try to ship it, it's a hazardous material.

It's easier just to go ahead and buy the resin there. And now we're going to ship over a bunch of recycled limbs. And what we do is we collect them from all over the country at a local prison in Tennessee. And this is run by CoreCivic. It's one of their many faith-based programs they have, which significantly helps reduce return visits for inmates. Faith-based programs really work with what they call recidivism.

They don't come back as much. John, that's a big word, by the way. That's a big word. That's a good scrabble word or like embargo. It's probably like 11 points or something.

You would win three games. I got quinines the other day. I felt really good about that one.

Of course you did. But the inmates take these limbs and they disassemble them so that we can use the parts again, like knees or feet or pylons or connectors, adapters. We can use prosthetic liners, belt systems, sleeves, prosthetic socks. We can use shoes. But the problem is a lot of people send the leg with the shoe on it, but they don't send the other shoe. Yeah, you need two shoes, guys.

Send the shoe. So all these things can be done to recycle. And then what we have, and by the way, I just saw a message on Facebook from my friend John, who I've known for since before I married Gracie, and he has a below knee. So John, standingwithhope.com slash recycle, or just click on the Gracie CD picture at Hope for the Carrier. You'll see it.

It's all there. It's very easy to get to, but we can recycle these things and these inmates at CoreCivic do this. And it's a great program. Unusual. There's nobody in the whole world doing something like this. And it's really extraordinary. You've got a woman with a broken body reaching out to lives that are broken that are in a prison, and they're taking materials from broken lives that have gone on or the kids that have outgrown them, and they send the legs to us. And then they work with those to send those over to broken lives over in West Africa.

And all of this is pointing to the one who was broken for us. How about that? Isn't that extraordinary how these things work? And you can be a part of that today.

And two ways you can do it. You can contribute financially as a tax-deductible gift at Stating with Hope. You can sponsor the show with it or with the Prosthetic Limb, your choice, whatever you want to do. Or you can tell somebody, and you can tell somebody about the Prosthetic Limb Recycling Program. You give the gift that keeps on walking. Maybe you know a funeral home director that could be a tremendous source of referrals for that.

Family members don't know what to do with the limbs. And they can all go to the facility there in Nashville where these inmates can do this. It's an extraordinary ministry, and we would love for you to take advantage of it and share this with friends and so forth, how they can get involved. And then we'll send you a copy of that CD of Gracie's.

And I think you will very much like that. We're very proud of the record, and Gracie has done an amazing job. She's a no-kiddin' singer. And you can also go to our podcast and hear the interview I did with She and Russ Taft when we released that song. And our podcast is free. So all these things are out at our website, hopeforthecaregiver.com. The podcast is free. Sign up for it.

Listen to it. John, we have 368 episodes out there now. Ooh, nice. That's a lot of stuff. Yeah. That's a lot of stuff. I mean, you know, and we put bonus materials— Incredible amount of content just waiting for you to reach out and take it. Yeah.

And we put bonus materials out there. I just did a live version of It Is Well With My Soul that I put out there last week for New Year's. And I did the arrangement of it on my CD Songs for the Caregiver just as a piano solo. But a while back, I played this during communion at church, and I had a friend of mine play with me on it and on the violin who's just an extraordinary violinist. And it was a live thing. So you can hear kind of the communion trays clacking around a little bit and people coughing. But it didn't matter.

It was such a great performance that he did on that with it. I wanted to put that out there because I thought that's a great song to start off the new year with. When sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot thou has taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul.

Is that not a good way to start off this year for us as caregivers to understand that, you know what, no matter what happens, we can be at peace. We can be settled in our hearts and our spirits. It takes work. It takes some help. It takes people walking with us through this.

You know, it does. And we're going to fail. We're going to make mistakes.

That's okay. You know, I'm the Wile E. Coyote of caregivers, the crash test dummy of caregivers. You could fail at it. I failed at it. Hey, listen, hopeforthecaregiver.com, hopeforthecaregiver.com. It's all there.

The CD, the limb program, everything you need to know that the podcast hopeforthecaregiver.com. Take a look. Don't try to do this alone. We learn from each other. Hey, we'll see you next week. This is Peter Rosenberger, John Butler's with me. Thanks for joining us.