Hope for the Caregiver "Resentment"

Live on American Family Radio, this is Hope for the Caregiver. I am Peter Rosenberger. We are so glad that you are with us.

This is the nation's largest show for the family here. More than 65 million people every day put themselves between a vulnerable loved one and even worse, disaster. How do you help those folks?

What does it look like? Why do we need to do it? That's what this show is all about.

And if you're one of those individuals, you're in the right place. This is your show. This is live and you can be a part of the show. 888-589-8840. 888-589-8840 if you want to be a part of the show.

If you're just now joining in, you're saying, really? A show for caregivers? Yeah, a show for caregivers. And we're leading the charge here on strengthening, assisting, equipping, helping, detangling the heart of that individual who is pushing the wheelchair, who is staying up late every night doing laundry, who's in the corner of the hospital room, who is going back and forth to doctor's offices, who is back and forth to hospice, taking time off of work, doing all the things that caregivers do. And we are committed to strengthening that person because we think they're an at-risk individual.

In fact, we're certain of it. And if the family caregiver goes down, who is helping the loved one at that point? If the family caregiver goes down, what happens to the whole unit of those individuals who are struggling with all kinds of issues, special needs children, so forth? And then we've also included those who are dealing with addiction issues, alcoholism, because that is a chronic impairment. And there's always somebody in that orbit who is caught up in that person's impairment. And if they're not in a good place, then what happens to the loved one?

Again, this is not something that is real complicated, but for some reason, it just goes overlooked. So what we're trying to do is, not what we're trying to do, we are doing this. We are providing a path to family caregivers where they can catch their breath, take a knee, and develop some better strategies to live today, right now, not 10 years from now, not 10 days from now, but right now, where they can be healthier, calmer, and dare I say it, even more joyful while caring for someone who is dealing with harsh realities. Again, at 888-589-8840, if you want to be a part of the show, and we'd love to have you to do that.

Also, I want to start off with a scripture. We're going to talk about our topic today, because I usually try to start off with some kind of topic that will connect with a caregiver right now, but I also want to give a shout out to a friend of mine and his wife. They're longtime listeners of this station and this show. We've been on American Family Radio since July, and they've been loyal listeners, but Tommy is out driving a truck somewhere in Idaho, and Betsy coordinates all that from Tennessee. There's a reason I'm singling them out, because I learned a lasting lesson from them when I was a young teenager.

My best friend and I, Jamie, used to work for them. Tommy and his family had a big dairy farm at the time and a lot of livestock, and they had a barn where a lot of pigs were kept. Jamie and I had to show up and clean out that barn where pigs were kept. Now, I want you to wrap your mind around what a barn where pigs are kept is going to be filled with, but it had been there a long, long time. The pigs had been long gone, but they wanted to use the barn for something else now, and we had to clean the barn. Now, the barn had a concrete floor, but we couldn't see the concrete floor. Now, I want you to imagine why we couldn't see the concrete floor and what was on that concrete floor that had been dried and caked on for a long time. We had all kinds of tools that Tommy provided to us. Here, Jamie and I, we're 14 years old, and we're out there trying to scrape off this floor. Then also, Tommy brings us this high pressure hose.

It was a huge hose, like a fire hose kind of thing, but with a very tight nozzle on it. We had to pressure wash this floor off. Well, at the end of the day, Jamie and I, we looked a lot like what the floor looked like before we started, but that stuff didn't come off without a lot of work, a lot of scraping, a lot of high pressure, that water hose, but we got it off.

We got the floor clean, and it was pristine. Tommy gave us an attaboy, and I think Betsy gave us a sandwich. The life lesson I learned from that is that we have a lot of stuff caked on our hearts. We have a lot of stuff that we carry on us, and it gets just solidified and calcified on our hearts.

It's not going to come off without a lot of work and without a lot of pressure, and that's sometimes what suffering does. In fact, if we allow it, it can be an incredibly teachable moment for us. That brings us to a scripture today I want to read to you. We're all familiar with this scripture, but I want to particularly give you this one. 1 Corinthians 13, and I think most of us are familiar with this. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoings, but rejoices with the truth.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. And that word resentful is what I wanted to target today. Are you feeling resentful? We get a lot of calls of folks who are really struggling with that. And first off, I want to give you permission to call if that's where you are, that we're not going to bang you over the head with it, but we got to have an honest conversation about it. 888-589-8840.

888-589-8840. Resentful feelings come when we feel obligated to do something. And I've said for a long time that caregivers, we get into this, what I call the fog of caregivers, fear, obligation and guilt. And in that obligation phase, we start saying things like, I have to, I must, I should be, I need to, I'm supposed to. And we feel obligated and then we turn into very resentful people.

And what I'm trying to walk caregivers back to is not feeling obligated, but understand it because obligation implies that we own this or we don't own this. I can't fix this. You can't fix this. You know, I didn't do this to my wife.

She had a car wreck long before I met her. Her legs are gone. I cannot make them come back.

Her pain is extensive from all these 80 surgeries plus that she's had. I can't undo that. I don't own this. I cannot fix this.

And you can't fix your situation either with your loved one. So what are we? Well, we're stewards.

Stewards. See, God owns this, not me, but He's entrusted us with it as stewards. Now, are we going to do it resentfully or are we going to do it with a tender heart? That's what we're going to talk about when we come back. 888-589-8840.

This is Hope for the Caregiver. I am Peter Rosenberg. I'm so glad you're with us. We'll be right back.

Hey this is Peter Rosenberg. Have you ever helped somebody walk for the first time? I've had that privilege many times through our organization Standing with Hope. When my wife Gracie gave up both of her legs following this horrible wreck that she had as a teenager and she tried to save them for years and it just wouldn't work out and finally she relinquished them and thought, wow, this is it. I mean, I don't have any legs anymore.

What can God do with that? And then she had this vision for using prosthetic limbs as a means of sharing the gospel to put legs on her fellow amputees. And that's what we've been doing now since 2005 with Standing with Hope. We work in the West African country of Ghana and you can be a part of that through supplies, through supporting team members, through supporting the work that we're doing over there.

You could designate a limb. There's all kinds of ways that you could be a part of giving the gift that keeps on walking at standingwithhope.com. Would you take a moment to go out to standingwithhope.com and see how you can give.

They go walking and leaping and praising God. You could be a part of that at standingwithhope.com. Welcome back to the show for caregivers about caregivers hosted by caregiver.

I am Peter Rosenberg bringing you three decades of experience to help you stay strong and healthy as you take care of someone who is not. Jim, who is that singing? That's Zach Williams, sir. That is a lovely song.

I've never heard that before. I'm glad you enjoyed it. That is wonderful.

Thank you for that. Hey, 888-589-8840, if you want to be a part of the show. This is the nation's largest show for the family caregiver. We are committed and are out in front of leading the charge of speaking clarity, the gospel with focus, with precision right to that tangled mess that's the caregiver's heart.

And so many of them are filled with resentment. And we're going to address that throughout this show and actually pretty much every time I come on the air, we're going to go after those kinds of things. By the way, if you want to go out and see a new article I have out at American Family Association's blog, it's called The Stand. And if you go out to afa.net, right there at the front, right on the front page, there's an article that I've written called Shining a Light into the Darkness of a Caregiver's Heart. And it's a very, just read it, read it because the caregiver's hearts can be filled with a lot of dark thoughts.

I get this. I'm the crash test dummy of caregivers. And that's why I am so passionate about this show and about this message of what we're doing because if these individuals are not reached, then it's a two for one deal, whoever they're taking care of and the caregiver. And that caregiver deserves to know the power of the gospel in the midst of watching someone suffer or go through all kinds of difficult times.

That caregiver is pushing themselves to extremes and they deserve to know the incredible message of the gospel. And we're talking about resentment this morning. Resentment. Are you feeling resentful?

Are you struggling with this? I learned a long time. I'm a pianist. I've been a pianist longer than I've been a caregiver and I've been a caregiver a long time.

I started playing the piano when I was five years old and I ended up majoring in music and I love playing the piano. But did you know I discovered that I cannot play the piano with clenched fist? Can't do it. And did you know that you can't push a wheelchair with clenched fist? Try it sometime, not with your loved one in it, but go take an empty wheelchair out somewhere and just try pushing it with a clenched fist.

You can't do it. And we have our hearts so in knots over some of the stuff that we struggle with as caregivers. But the only way we're going to be able to make beautiful music is to open our hands. I can't play if I'm all clenched up. So I've got to relax, open my hand and let the music come out. And we've got to open our hearts and deal with that as well as caregivers.

Because we're not going to do any good if we are so bound in this. And as I said in the first segment, I remember when I was 14 years old and my dear friends Tommy and Betsy who listen to this show regularly and listen to this network regularly and they taught me a life lesson when my best friend and I were 14 years old and we're cleaning out a pig barn and the thing had just been, I don't know how long they'd had pigs in that barn. They'd been gone for a long time, but everything was just calcified on that concrete floor and Jamie and I worked just brutally, at least we thought it was at 14 years old, cleaning this stuff out with a high pressure hose and all kinds of tools. And it was just, it was, it was, it was a grueling job. And I saw a visual of what it's like for our hearts when we are just taught with resentment and how it just is, it takes so much work to peel that off.

And it takes that high pressure hose that we had to just blast that stuff off. And that's what God does with suffering. That's what God does with these painful things in our lives is uses that to bust up our hearts and get that stuff off of us so that we can have a heart of flesh, not a heart of stone. That's the gospel that we are caked with sin and resentment and anger and all those kinds of things. And that stuff gets exposed when we're caring for someone. There's nothing like taking care of somebody with an impairment to expose the gunk that's caked on our heart. Are you willing to let God clean that off of you? Are you willing to let God go into that and pull that stuff off of you?

Because it will kill you if you don't. That's what this show is all about is helping the caregiver understand how that is affecting them. Let's go to Lynn in Arkansas. Lynn, good morning.

How are you feeling? Well, we lost Lynn, I think. We're going to, by the way, if you want to be on the show, 888-589-8840.

888-589-8840. Lynn, are you with us? Yes, I am. Well, good morning. How are you feeling? I'm on my way driving.

It's good. I want to say hello to my husband right ahead of me. He just called and said, be sure and tune into AFR. Mark is talking your language. I mean, Peter is talking your language. That's all right. Peter, Fred, whatever you want to call me, it's all right.

I was thinking of Mark Grigson that we heard earlier this morning. I know you're Peter because we have your book and thank you. Well, thank you. And I just want to thank you for... By the way, can I get you to turn your radio down? Sure. Okay. Well, tell me what's on your heart this morning. Well, I've been very resentful. Also, we take care of my dad.

He's getting ready to turn 100 February 11th. But we have it easy compared to you, Peter. We just go on the weekends. Yeah, but don't compare yourself to anybody. If you're going to compare yourself, here's the rule I use. Say, you know what?

If they found God to be faithful in their situation, then I'm willing to trust that He'll be faithful in mine too. How about that? Is that a fair comparison?

Yeah. Well, tell me why you feel so resentful. Because I feel like he's demanding and he won't come to live in hot springs with us. And when we get there, he has a lot to do and just wants to watch sports, but he's real bossy.

So he is a champ of a guy though. He's you know, 100 years old and he's with it financially. And he has caregivers during the week. And so we just come on the weekend and I'm an RN. So I need to be there to do his meds and but it's every weekend and he won't consent to coming home and spending a weekend with us in hot springs.

My mother died four years ago and my brother, my only brother died three years ago. So it's just my husband and I. Well, let me just go out on a limb here and say that at 100 years old, he's probably not going to change.

You know, I'm going to go ahead and just kind of spitball that one out there. He's not going to change, but you and your husband can change and you're not responsible to make him happy. You're responsible to do what the best that you can do with it. And the best you can do is the best you can do Lynn.

And the key is, is, you know, he's not going to, he's not going to budge probably much at all. However, you all have to make decisions on what is best for the unit. Not as, not what's just best for him. What's best for Lynn and the unit here, because if the unit goes down, then what happens to him? Right. Do you have, I mean, is there a plan in case you and your husband, something happens with you guys?

He has nine grandchildren and I guess my daughter and my son, I mean my brother's oldest son would step in, but no, we have not talked about that. And actually one weekend on my way there, a John Deere tractor with a front end loader pulled right out in front of me and had a collision. Just God's mercy. Nothing.

I was not hurt. Well, we're all away from, we're all just like one phone call or one step away from something happening to us as caregivers. And if we don't have a plan for our loved ones, and if we're spending all of our time trying to make our loved one happy, then we're missing kind of the point here.

The point is to make a sustainable and a viable unit as a family doing these kinds of things. And not everybody's going to get everything they want. And your dad is one of those kinds of guys and he's going to just have to be grumpy. He's going to have to be whatever, but there's no need for you and your husband to put yourself into all kinds of turmoil just to appease him.

You can lay boundaries and say, okay, that's the way it's got to be. And, but, but if you're resentful for it the whole time, it doesn't do any good if he comes to be with you or not. I know it would be terrible if he lived with me if I was resentful. It would be. It'd be terrible for both of you, for all of you.

So what up now? It sounds like he's cognitive though, right? I mean, he's not, his mind is not gone. Um, and so, so the, the main reason you want him there with you is, is just for convenience of going back and forth. Well, and he calls me and tells me how much he misses me, how lonely he is. Um, he's asked me to come live there, but my husband's still working and I said, well, I'm married to Gary. We come on the weekends.

So that's part of it too. I'm so lonely. I've not done anything today. Well, just tell him, say, I know you're lonely. Here's the options. What do you want to do? And let him, let him kind of deal with that himself. If he's cognitive at all, which it sounds like he is, just say, okay, I get it.

You're lonely here. Here's the reality. And here, here's the options that we have. And, and put, take the burden off of you. Try to figure this out for him and let him make his own decisions with it. And that way you're not getting resentful then. Listen, we got to go to a break. Uh, the key is Lynn for you to not live in resentment and in bondage to what his whims are.

Let him feel the weight of his own decisions and then somewhere come to a meeting of the minds. This is Hope for the Caregiver. I am Peter Rosenberger, 888-589-8840. We'll be right back.

Hey, this is Peter Rosenberger. Have you ever helped somebody walk for the first time? I've had that privilege many times through our organization, Standing with Hope. When my wife Gracie gave up both of her legs following this horrible wreck that she had as a teenager and she tried to save them for years and it just wouldn't work out. And finally she relinquished them and thought, wow, this is it. I mean, I don't have any legs anymore.

What can God do with that? And then she had this vision for using prosthetic limbs as a means of sharing the gospel to put legs on her fellow amputees. And that's what we've been doing now since 2005 with Standing with Hope. We work in the West African country of Ghana, and you can be a part of that through supplies, through supporting team members, through supporting the work that we're doing over there.

You could designate a limb. There's all kinds of ways that you could be a part of giving the gift that keeps on walking at standingwithhope.com. Would you take a moment to go out to standingwithhope.com and see how you can give.

They go walking and leaping and praising God. You can be a part of that at standingwithhope.com. Welcome back to the show for caregivers about caregivers hosted by caregiver. I am Peter Smith, bringing you three decades of experience to help you stay strong and healthy as you take care of someone who is not. 888-589-8840.

888-589-8840. We're glad you're with us. Caregivers can live a calmer, healthier, and dare I say it, a more joyful life, even while dealing with harsh realities. We can do this. That is abundantly clear throughout scripture. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

We can do this. He came to give us peace. Come unto me, all you weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. By the way, rest and sleep are two different things. Sleep is a state of body.

Rest is a state of your heart. Can you rest in this or are you so torqued up with resentment that it's killing you? Forgiveness, by the way, doesn't mean it doesn't matter. That's not what forgiveness means. It means we're going to take our hands off of somebody else's throat.

Because when we're resentful, that's what we're doing. And we're going to learn to live peacefully with this. It's not easy.

It's a lot of work, but it is possible and it is doable. And that's the standard. That's how we're going to do this. We do not have to be at odds with where God has us right now. And if you are, then you understand the agony of that.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I'm telling you, when you stop fighting with the Almighty about where He has you, because that's really who your fight is with, your heart can slow down and you realize that you can see beauty and joy and live more peacefully no matter what's going on around you. That's the promise that we have. But it's not going to come just because you squint your eyes real hard when you pray. It's going to come when you release this to God on a regular basis.

It is not a one and done. We are constantly coming back to this and there's nothing like suffering or watching someone suffering or caring for someone who is suffering, to expose all this and to keep squeezing it out. And that's what we're here to talk about today on this. I'm going to go to Beth in Virginia who's caring for her son with a mental disorder. Beth, good morning. How are you feeling?

Hi. How are you feeling? Beth, how are you feeling? How am I feeling? How am I feeling today? I'm feeling pretty good. All right, good, good. All right, tell me what's going on with you.

Well, I listen to this station a lot and I have never heard of this program and I was sitting there and I heard care for the care giver. We get that a lot, Beth. We get that a lot.

Yeah, I was like, wow, that's me. So, you know, and then I heard you talk about are you caring for someone out of resentment or with resentment or tenderness of heart and, you know, I do both but it is really easy to be resentful and I have been. I've been mad at God. I've, you know, hollered at God and then I ask forgiveness because I know, I mean, I've been a believer all my life. I know that sickness doesn't come from God and so I guess that statement, this resentment versus tenderness was huge for me. You know, it really stopped me in my tracks. Well, and it's not, let me, let me be very clear, Beth.

This is not something I own. This is something I am aspiring to and I have to be reminded of this just like everyone else. The difference between this show and maybe a lot is I have not achieved some level of superstardom as a caregiver. Are you kidding me? I mean, if you could fail at it, I've failed at it and regularly do and if, and if you need proof of that, just ask my wife.

She'll tell you. But it's, but here's, here's what I'm learning through it. Here's where the path is. Here's where safety is for us as caregivers. So when we get off it, but you know what? I have to be reminded of the gospel, Beth. I have to be reminded on a daily basis of how much God loves me and what the cross means in that regards. And if I have to be reminded of the gospel, how much more so do I have caregiver amnesia?

Like I have gospel amnesia. And so that's what we're here to do is, well, that's what we're here to do on this show. You and me and everyone else that's listening is we're here to bang these ideas around and build each other up and remind each other where safety is.

And safety is learning to let go of these painful things that are, that are just burdening our hearts. They're, they're crippling us. We can't even breathe sometimes.

I, I, I, I'm going to ask you a question. You don't, don't feel free to disagree, but are there times when it just, it weighs on you so heavy that you don't even feel like you can breathe? Well, I don't know about not breathing, but I, I'm pretty angry. I'm pretty just, you know, I'm a very strong person and I'm like, I feel like I'm beat. I feel like I just can't keep going on with this, you know, but I have to, I don't have a choice and I will keep going on with it because I love my son and, and I do feel the word.

But, but the point is that we don't have to white knuckle it, you know, because all that's going to do is tear our own hearts out. When I say I can't breathe, I mean, there are times when it just, when you just hang your head and you think, I don't know, I don't know what to do. I, I, I'm over here just flummoxed and I, and it just weighs on me so heavy sometimes. And yet that's when Christ speaks with clarity into our situation.

Go back and look at the word. Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden. You ever feel weary and heavy laden, Beth?

Oh yeah, definitely. And yet he says, come, but what does that mean? It means to a caregiver.

What does that mean? When Christ says that to us, what does that mean? Come unto me, all you are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest.

So what does that look like in caregiver terms when you're taking care of a son with a mental disorder? And that's, that's what we're here to do today. Just, you know, just sitting around and in conversation about these topics. So if I say that scripture to you, when I say that to you, what does that speak to your heart? Knowing what you're dealing with?

Well, that there's somebody there that cares, someone that is ready to help me, that there's an ever-present God and an ever-present help in our time of need. You know, I tell myself that and, and I know that's what we have to do. We just have to encourage ourselves daily with the word. Do you remember that story? It's one of my favorite stories in scriptures and that story when David and his men were all fighting a battle and they came back and the Amalekites had taken off all of their possessions, all of their families, their donkeys, their everything, livestock, everything. And David's own men picked up rocks and they were going to start to stone him. And David, it said, David encouraged himself in the Lord.

And right in the middle of that, the guys were going to stone him, his own men. And I thought, okay, that's the lesson for us as caregivers in the midst of, we're not in danger of being stoned, but that's the lesson for us as caregivers is that in the midst of whatever, we can encourage ourselves in the Lord and we can be encouraged by others and we can encourage others in this. And that's what we're, you and I are doing right now.

We just happen to have a whole lot of people listening on American Family Radio, but that's what we're doing with each other. I mean, there are people driving in cars or trucks, they're sitting at their homes, they're at hospice, they're at the hospital, they're coming off of the third shift and all of a sudden they're tuning in just like you are to a show for caregivers and they're saying, they're hearing caregivers encouraging one another and said, okay, we can do this. Yeah, that somebody knows we're out there.

Somebody knows, yes, we're struggling. Yes, there is somebody. I mean, I'm just blown away there's a show for caregivers. Well, I'm thankful for that. I am. Well, I am too. I'm thankful that I have a show that I can listen to and I can hear people calling in just like you and saying to me, hey, you know, here's where I am. And all of a sudden I don't feel so alone with it. You know, one of the things we deal with as caregivers is isolation and in those, and if you get a chance, please go out to afa.net, uh, the homepage of American Family and look at that article I wrote called, um, a needed light into the dark thoughts of caregivers because I heard you say it.

I'm definitely going to check that out. Read the article and share it. Um, I put these things out there because I want to, I want to give language to this. I want, I want caregivers to know that we speak fluid caregiver here, but guess what, Beth, I've learned to speak caregiver over 30 something years of this, but it's our savior's native tongue. That's who our savior is.

He didn't learn to speak caregiver. That's who he is. And he's been caring for us with all kinds of disorders, mostly the big disorder of all. And, uh, in that, in that comforting though, to know that we have a savior who is not unaware of what we deal with and has been caring for his wounded bride for eternity, which is us. We're the wounded bride of Christ.

We're messed up people. And he knows this. Beth, I'm so glad. I'm so glad you're part of this show and I want you to feel free to call in anytime you want. Okay.

All right. Thank you for what you're doing. We have a support group every Saturday morning at seven central here on American family radio. And it's just for us as caregivers.

It's an exclusive group, isn't it? I'm going to be there. Well, I'm glad you're with us.

Thank you so much for calling and, and, uh, I really appreciate it. All right, let's go to, um, Lynn. We had two lens from Arkansas. That's what got me confused.

We had actually two lens from Arkansas calling at the show at same time. Now that's, um, it got me a little bit off kilter there. So sorry about that. Lynn, are you with us? Yes, I am. How are you feeling?

Oh, I'm fine. I, um, am actually not caregiving right now. It was, I care, I took care of my mom for three years and what I wanted to say is I got eaten up with resentment because no matter what I did, it was wrong.

And it was, uh, the branch of my family was all from my brother and they all had similar outlooks on how things should be done. Um, you know, mainly I was supposed to be the cleaning lady and, uh, I was in my mother's home and it wasn't, you know, real dirty or anything, but they're like, uh, you know, uh, very, very perfectionistic and um, let me, let me ask you a real quick question. They were perfectionistic, but were they helping clean? No. There you go. That's what I was going to say is that to me, when a caregiver gets resentful, it's because these people look from the outside, they size everything up, they don't help.

And then they criticize. Well, listen, can you hold on through the break? Yeah. We're going to go take a quick break. We'll be right back. So don't go away. Uh, hang on, Lynn. I want to talk about this a little bit more. This is hope for the caregiver 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840.

This is the nation's number one show for the family caregiver. We're glad you're with us. We'll be right back. Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you? I'm Gracie Rosenberger and in 1983 I experienced a horrific car accident leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated.

I questioned why God allowed something so brutal to happen to me, but over time my questions changed and I discovered courage to trust God. That understanding, along with an appreciation for quality prosthetic limbs, led me to establish Standing with Hope. For more than a dozen years, we've been working with the government of Ghana and West Africa, equipping and training local workers to build and maintain quality prosthetic limbs for their own people. On a regular basis, we purchase and ship equipment and supplies.

And with the help of inmates in a Tennessee prison, we also recycle parts from donated limbs. All of this is to point others to Christ, the source of my hope and strength. Please visit standingwithhope.com to learn more and participate in lifting others up.

That's standingwithhope.com. I'm Gracie, and I am Standing with Hope. I love that song. I love that song. And if you want to hear the rest of it, go to standingwithhope.com because that is my wife, Gracie, with her dear friend, Joni Eareckson-Tada, singing through it all.

If I never had a problem, I would not know that Jesus could solve them. Now when those two women sing that line, it's one thing for others to sing it, but when those two women sing it, they have 85 years of suffering and disability between the two of them. Gracie has had now well over 80 surgeries and at least another 80, 90 or 100 smaller procedures, both legs amputated. Joni's been in a wheelchair for 51 years with quadriplegia and now is facing her second round of cancer. Gracie lives with intractable pain all the time and they're singing through it all. I've learned to trust in Jesus.

If you want to hear the rest of that, go and I do recommend it. They've got a couple of duets they put out there and you can see all of that at standingwithhope.com and that is the ministry Gracie and I founded years ago. We have two programs. One is for Gracie's fellow amputees. We provide prosthetic limbs to them. We collect used prosthetic limbs from all over the country.

Go to a local prison in Tennessee where the inmates, they volunteer to disassemble so we can recycle parts from it and then we ship all kinds of purchased and recycled products and everything else over to West Africa regularly in Ghana where they build and maintain limbs for their own people. We teach them how to do this and we've been working with them since 2005. And the other program is the family caregiver outreach. It's for the wounded and those who care for them. Standingwithhope.com, we'd love for you to get involved. You can see all kinds of stuff out there.

Let's go back to Lynn in Arkansas. She dealt with, I love that, you know, you were doing all the work and your family was perfectionist. They weren't that much of a perfectionist.

They were just critics. I don't have a lot of patience for people who tell me how to be a better caregiver and do things better when they're not helping and putting their shoulder to the wheel. And I want to encourage my fellow caregivers to go ahead and detach from people like that who sit in the sidelines in the cheap seats and tell me how to do it better. It's like me trying to tell, you know, Dabo Swinney how to coach from the sidelines of Death Valley Stadium in Clemson. I just threw that in there because I'm originally from South Carolina and they just won the national championship.

So I just threw that in there for all you Clemson fans. But you know, sitting in the cheap seats does not give you license to criticize people who are out on the field doing it. If you want to criticize somebody, keep that to yourself and get in there and put your shoulder to the wheel and help. And Lynn, obviously you were a recipient of a lot of criticism, but very little help. I was in her home and that's part of it in another state from where I lived.

I actually moved out there for three years. So, but what I was going to say is being, I was justified in feeling resentment from them, but what I did with it was I kept trying to get them to understand. I kept explaining stuff, which they never looked at it from a different viewpoint other than theirs.

I wore myself out trying to be understood because it was so important to me. Well and they're not, people aren't necessarily going to do it. Let me, let me back up to one statement. You say we're never justified in feeling resentment. We self justify, but we're not resent, we're not, we're never justified in that. And I think that what we, they're certainly, it's understandable why you felt that way, but when we give ourselves permission to feel resentful, then we're already down a path that we need to, we need to stop and back up. What we can do, however, is recognize that they're toxic and we can be justified in detaching from that and not engaging with that in the sense because we recognize that as a bad place.

We don't need to go down that road. When we start justifying ourselves and feeling resentful and trying to always, and when you try to explain this to people, it's like trying to buy bread at a hardware store, you know, they're not going to get it. And so what you, what you do, you just back up and you put some distance between you and them. If you can't put distance physically, George Burns used to say, happiness is a warm and loving family separated by two states. And which I always thought was kind of funny, but if you can't put physical distance, then you need to put some emotional distance and some conversational distance.

You just don't need to engage and no is a complete sentence by the way. Well, like I said, it was her house. They were used to being with her all the time.

They spent holidays together, et cetera. I really didn't have any, you know, say so over them coming over that came when they wanted to. But, um, what I was going to add was when I said I was justified with the resentment, I let it, when I said I was eaten up with it, I would wake up in the middle of the night and she was terminal. So I would always kind of be listening for her as I slept, you know, subconsciously. And I would start thinking about it and it was like a big circle. I knew I should quit thinking about it, but I couldn't quit thinking about it. I think about things they said, I think about, you know, things they did and how I tried to explain it to them. And I'm just saying it, it was so self-defeating, you know. Well, and how, how did it negatively affect their life?

Not too much, but it tore you up. Yes. Here's something, here's something I learned. Now this is going to sound incredibly simplistic and sometimes the most effective things are, but when my mind is turning into a squirrel cage and racing like that and just eating me up or things such as that, a friend of mine gave me a tip and he said, go through the alphabet and it gets a little hard with Q and Z and X, but go through the alphabet and think of one thing for each letter that you're grateful for. And by the time you get halfway through it, you'll find that your mind will start settling down because it's hard to feel resentful when you're spending so much time feeling grateful.

Yes. And it, I'm telling you, I know it sounds simplistic and people say, ah, Peter, that's just stupid. Well, I've heard that many times in my life, Peter, that's just stupid.

I hear that quite often. However, I could just say for me, it's pretty effective because it is mighty hard to be hacked off when you're spending so much time and energy from your heart and your mind being grateful. And start with A and go all the way through and find things in your life that you're so grateful for. And when you do that, I promise you it will settle your heart down and you'll respond different. Now that doesn't mean you don't keep boundaries with people like that. I'm a big fan of boundaries. Boundaries are good and we have to protect our own hearts from the toxic behavior of others. And there are ways that we can do that.

And the word no is a complete sentence. And so we separate ourselves, but we're not going to get there if we're so busy torqued up with resentment. But it sounds like, now that part of your life is over, but how is the relationship with the rest of your family now? We don't have one. I mean, it's harder to keep a relationship with anyone long distance.

When I left, my brother was, and he's the only direct relative, but like I said, it was his kids, their kids, et cetera. We just don't connect anymore. He's older than me.

He's like eight years older than me. And anyway. Let me ask you real quick on something, real quick, because we're getting close to the top of the hour here. How's your relationship with yourself, with your own heart? Well, I don't think about it all the time anymore. And if I even start to, I say, don't dwell on that.

And then I also want to turn it into something good as far as helping someone else or whatever. I called the library to see if they had your book. And they didn't. But the person I talked to said, we'll look at purchasing that.

And they did. Now, that was the Landmine book. And I would suggest to anyone on the radio to purchase that for your church. And so it would be available for any caregivers to read. Because it's such a short little book and it's so helpful. And then I haven't read Hope for the Caregiver. But sometimes if you call your library and request a book, if they don't have it, you can get it from an interlibrary loan or they may just purchase it.

In the case of the little Landmine book, that's so inexpensive that they might do that. Or just get it. I wish I would have had that. Well, thank you for that. It's like a field manual for caregivers. That's all I did for it. Just something you can carry in your pocket with you to remind yourself that, hey, this thing is going off the rails. Here's how I get back. And it's easy to do that, isn't it, Lynn?

Yes. This thing can go off the rails really quick for us as caregivers. And I think that it's one thing to have to do all the ins and out of taking care of somebody.

But then when you have family and friends who want to parachute in and give their opinion, it really can torque us and torque our hearts pretty hard. Lynn, I want you to know how much I appreciate the call. Feel free to call in. I appreciate it very much. And I'm glad that you're working through these things.

And I'm sorry that you don't have the kind of relationship with the family members that you'd like. But I'm glad that you are looking at the person in the mirror and having a relationship with that person in a healthier way. And that's a good thing.

Well, hopefully it can turn into something good if I can, you know, I have a couple ideas. So anyway. Well, that's good. We have a Savior that is highly invested in reconciliation and redemption.

And so I have great confidence that He who began a good work in us is faithful to complete it to the day of Christ Jesus. Hey, listen, we are out of time. Sadly, sorry about that. We are. There's more at standingwithhope.com. standingwithhope.com. I have lots of resources out there. Lots of things I put out there. Our blogs. There's so much more.

Would you go take a look? And today is a great day to start being a healthy caregiver because healthy caregivers make better caregivers. All right. Listen, thank you for joining us. We'll see you next week. standingwithhope.com