Gratitude for Fleas?!

The world is going to continue to throw convenience at the expense of perseverance in caring for people with disabilities and afflictions and so forth. And that caregiver gets turned around and all these things and it's hard to know what to say and to do.

What does safe ground look like? And that's why we're on the air here on American Family Radio and that's why we're doing what we do. And I want you to be a part of it.

888-589-8840. And we'll get to the phone lines here in just a minute. I want to start off with a scripture that we have. It's that time of year when we're thinking about Thanksgiving. Well, what does scripture say about this? You know, Thanksgiving is not new to America. 1 Thessalonians 5-18, give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Now what does this mean for us as caregivers?

I mean, let's just cut right to this. When I hear this verse, I'm always reminded of the story of Betsy Ten Boom telling her sister Corrie Ten Boom in a concentration camp to give thanks in all things and to even give thanks for the fleas. And Corrie just bristled at that. They're in a concentration camp. They're all over 50. Corrie was 50 years old when she was arrested. Most of you all know the story of the hiding place.

They were hiding Jews in Holland in their home and they were arrested and sent to a concentration camp. And they're in there and they're in this hut and there are fleas everywhere. And Corrie just was struggling with this.

And her sister Betsy said, you know, we're going to give thanks in all things. Corrie couldn't process that. And it turned out that the Nazi guards did not particularly want to go close to the hut because of the fleas. And the women were able to have ministry and Bible study and be left alone from these guards just because of the fleas. And Corrie bent her will and she gave thanks for the fleas at the prompting of her sister. She may have done it grinding her teeth a little bit, but she did it.

And it's an extraordinary story of adhering to what Scripture is asking us to do when we don't feel like doing it, when everything else screams at us to just throw our hands up and just quit. Go back and look at Job's wife. You know, she got a little bit of a bad rap on that because everybody said, you know, just curse God and die, just be done with it. But she'd also went through all the things, too. She lost all of her children.

She lost the possessions. She went through these things and she was struggling. Can you give thanks while you're watching your loved one curse at you while you're changing their adult diapers? Can you give thanks while you're watching your kid go through seizure after seizure after seizure? Can you give thanks while you're watching your child with addiction relapse over and over and spiral the drain?

If you can't, don't slap yourself around because it's really not in us to do it. But if we ask God to light that spark in us that we can obey His command, that's when transformation comes about. Corrie Ten Boom gave thanks in a concentration camp for fleas. Her sister Betsy died in that concentration camp. Corrie was released a week before all the women her age were exterminated. And she went on to have an extraordinary ministry.

And books, movies, everything else was written about her. Years later when Corrie was very old, she was 80 years old or roughly or getting pretty close to it, she was vacationing in a town in northwest Florida and she met a little girl who was having some problems with her eyes. Little girl was born with eye problems that required her to wear a patch and special glasses.

She'd had six surgeries before she even got into first grade on her eyes. And Corrie led that little girl to the Lord. And that little girl remembered that event with this lady with a strange accent.

She asked her, you know, is Jesus your friend? And she had a hard time understanding but that was my wife Gracie. And Gracie remembered those words spoken from a woman. And when Gracie was faced with her great trial of being in a hospital bed with her body completely broken after the wreck she had 36 years ago this month, she remembered the words of that woman who thanked God for the fleas in a concentration camp. And Gracie learned to thank God for her broken body. When she lost her legs, she learned to thank God for that. We can't do this on our own but we can do it through Christ. 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840, this is Hope for the Caregiver, this is Peter Rosenberger, we'll be right back. Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you?

I have. 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.