Let's go through your next A lot of people are coming over to bring meals and just, you know, from their church. They go to different churches. I pastor.
I just recently started pastoring at this small church. But it's been a very unique situation, you know. People have different mindsets about treatment, chemotherapy. Where's your head space in this?
What's that? Well, I'm very supportive. Well, I think that, you know, he's accepted Christ as Savior. She's a born-again Christian. Let me switch back a little bit, Nick. What are you doing to help your wife? Are you doing the laundry, the cooking, the cleaning? Well, I work full-time and I pastor full-time and I do as much as I can at the house. Nick, I'm going to ask you straight up now, Nick. Are you doing laundry?
No. I haven't been doing laundry. Now's a good time to start. And that's a good idea.
I'll do that. You know, being a caregiver and helping a caregiver doesn't have to be all spiritual and making sure everybody heard the four spiritual laws and all that stuff. Sometimes it's just doing laundry and cleaning up and cleaning the toilets. And making meals.
I've been doing this now for a long time. And I can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan and never let you forget I'm a man. I get the journey, okay? I get what it's like to work. I get what it's like to care for children. And I get what it's like to care for a sick wife. But right now, your wife needs you in the game while she focuses on her mother. She needs to come home to a clean house.
The iron is not some enchanted device. It really is a very easy thing to work. And I am on a mission to help men learn how to do things around the house and not somehow take on stereotype roles that there is nothing wrong with picking up a vacuum cleaner, a dish rag, doing the laundry. By the way, when you do the laundry, Nick, separate the whites and the colors, okay?
I know how to do that. I have done the laundry. I haven't done it lately. And then ask her which of the items she wants dried and not dried. Because some things need to be hung up and not dried. And you do this for your wife and you just look at the beauty that will come on her face when she sees her husband serving in this manner, okay?
Because she's tired, she's emotional, she's stressed. Learn to cook. Do you know how to cook?
I know how to cook some. And what I'm really more worried about is her father who is taking care of my mother-in-law who doesn't do any of that. My wife does all that. Does pretty much a lot of the cooking and all the laundry there. Unfortunately, as well as most of the laundry at our house, too. And the good news for your wife is that's going to change today.
She's only going to do laundry from one household. Now, you can't fix your father-in-law situation, okay? He's a grown man. He's gotten to this point and she and her dad are going to have to work out this arrangement.
But what you can do is that when she does come home and she will be tired and she will be emotional and she will be frustrated, she can come home to a clean home, made up beds, all the above. And these are things that you can do. This is being a pastor. This is being a pastor.
And you're not going to get a lot of... It's a different role for you, but you're serving your wife because this is how Christ loves the church. He stretched out his arms for her. And Christ is in love with a wounded bride. I've been saying this for years now. And I take care of a wounded bride myself. And our Savior, metaphorically speaking, does all of the things that we're talking about for us.
He just serves and that's what He's done for us. And now you're going to model that for your wife and you watch what happens to her face. And she will look at you with the most beautiful gratitude because she will see that her husband is truly caring for her. You tracking with me? Yes, sir. You are spot on, sir.
That's excellent. And as you do those things, you may be able to expand it with her dad. That may or may not happen. But right now, I know that she is pulled in six different directions. And her heart is heavy. Her mother is dying. You can't fix that.
You can't change that. But what you can do is you can care for her in a way that she's probably never been cared for because obviously her dad didn't do that kind of stuff. And now she's going to see her husband do it and it's going to be astonishing. You're going to minister to this woman and then what's going to happen? I promise you this, Nick. You can follow back with me.
You listen to the show regularly. I promise you this will happen. You will change the way you pastor.
I promise you this. It will open your level of ministry up in ways that you've never even dreamed of because you're going to learn to serve in a deeper capacity. The more we learn to serve in this manner, the more effective ministry will be. And your sermons will change. Everything about you will change because you will then share in the sufferings of Christ in this.
And one of the sufferings of Christ is He serves. He lays out Himself without asking anything in return. And you're not doing this for any other reason other than you just love this woman and you want to care for her in a way that tangibly communicates to her how much you love her. You do not expect anything from her. And I mean, when I say that, I know this is a family show, but when I say you don't expect anything from her, you don't expect anything from her. Period. Anything.
You just give the way your Heavenly Father, the way your Savior has given to you, and you watch what happens in both of your lives. I promise you, it's a game changer. Does that help? Amen.
Yes, sir, it does. And I want to say that part of the reason why I've become very interested in this, I mean, this is before we got the news about my mother-in-law's cancer, is some of the folks at the church that I've been called to pastor at have done huge caregiving assignments with, you know, some of their loved ones, and it just floors me, what they've done. They've gone, like, you know, being awake with folks 24-7, you know, having to take turns and just being exhausted, you know, because it's, and I know how you've done this 30 years, it can be exhausting, you know, you've got to wake up at any time.
I concur. Go out to hope for the caregiver, look at my picture. I'm only 30 and look at what it did to me. I'm just kidding. Thus my white hair. I admire you.
Thus my white hair. You know, it is, it's exhausting. It's exhausting, and so for those of us who aren't physically in the trenches staying by those bedsides, vigils, the rest of us who care for us in that circle, in our orbit, can learn to do things in a way that really minister to a caregiver. That's what this show is all about. Let's change the way we interact with ourselves as caregivers and with those who we know who are caregivers. Don't just put your arm around and say, brother, we're going to pray for you.
No, no, no. We're going to do your laundry. We're going to learn how to iron. We're going to learn how to cook. Get a recipe book.
Start making heart-healthy meals. It's not that hard. You can do it. I believe in you. Hey, thanks for the call, Nick. This is Hope for the Caregiver. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. I'm Peter Rosenberger, 888-589-8840. 888-589-8840.
We'll be right back. Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you? I'm Gracie Rosenberger, and in 1983, I experienced a horrific car accident leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated. I questioned why God allowed something so brutal to happen to me.
But over time, my questions changed, and I discovered courage to trust God. That understanding, along with an appreciation for quality prosthetic limbs, led me to establish Standing with Hope. For more than a dozen years, we've been working with the government of Ghana and West Africa, equipping and training local workers to build and maintain quality prosthetic limbs for their own people. On a regular basis, we purchase and ship equipment and supplies.
And with the help of inmates in a Tennessee prison, we also recycle parts from donated limbs. All of this is to point others to Christ, the source of my hope and strength. Please visit standingwithhope.com to learn more and participate in lifting others up. For more information, visit standingwithhope.com. I'm Gracie, and I am standing with hope.
