Hope for the Caregiver

Live on American Family Radio, this is Hope for the Caregiver. I am Peter Rosenberg bringing you three decades of experience to help you stay strong as a family caregiver. 65 million Americans right now are serving as a caregiver for a disabled loved one, an aging loved one, someone with an addiction, someone with a mental illness, someone with some kind of impairment, there is a caregiver standing between them, an even worse disaster. How do you help the caregiver? What does it look like? What are things that mean something to a caregiver?

What are their needs? What's going on with them? This is what we're doing on this show and we are so glad that you're with us. If you want to be a part of the show, 888-589-8840. 888-589-8840 and you can be a part of the show and I'm glad you are. We are live and thrilled to be with you. This is the only show of its kind that is focused on the family caregiver.

And when you have this many people that are doing this and very little attention going to them, how is that a good thing? And that's why we do the show. I've been a caregiver now since Reagan was president. That's a long time. I'm on my sixth president and I've learned a few things along the way. I'm kind of the crash test dummy of caregivers. And my wife has had a, she had a real bad car wreck back in 83. I didn't know her at the time. I met her a couple of years later. She'd had about 20 surgeries by the time I'd met her, but had recovered sufficiently enough to come back to college and just this beautiful young woman who captured my heart. And then the surgeries just kept coming.

Eventually now, as of this year, she had two earlier this year, 80 surgeries that we can count at least 80, 90, a hundred smaller procedures that it's hard to count those 90 doctors, 12 different hospitals, seven different insurance companies, both of her legs amputated, relentless pain. And this is the world that we live in. And this is what has framed our message of understanding, okay, what's going on? How do you help somebody like me?

Because if I go down, what happens to her? And these are the issues that fellow caregivers must grapple with. We, if we're not in a good place, what happens to the person we're taking care of?

As usual, I like to start off with a scripture, but I want to give a little bit of a preamble to this. And by the way, 888-589-8840 if you want to be a part of the show. I was, I'm out in Montana right now, and you can follow along on Facebook live. If you go to Hope for the Caregiver on Facebook and like our page and you can follow along and see what we're doing and, and see our, our set at a undisclosed mountain cabin, got a fire going. It's early in the morning in Montana.

We are, we are live by the way. And it's very early in the morning and I love it. And, and many years ago we were out at Yellowstone and we were heading back and there's a stretch of road that you've got to go. Once you leave the city of West Yellowstone, Montana, that there's nothing there but the Yellowstone wilderness, which is very cool, except at night it was a little bit dark and no street lights or anything that we're used to. And it started snowing very heavily.

I mean, and it's beautiful. I mean, in the lights of West Yellowstone, it was great. But as soon as we got past a certain point, it just went completely dark. And all we saw in front of us was just the snow. It was kind of like the Millennium Falcon, you know, when it went into hyperspace. That's what it looked like.

And I've got Gracie and our sons there. They're kind of sleeping, uh, cause it's been a long day and, and I'm in a kind of a whole bunch of cars we're leaving kind of at the same time, heading down the same road. Well, I knew where the road was going and I knew along the road there was, it would wind around the Gallatin River and it was rather treacherous and you couldn't see the road. It was covered with snow and there was nothing but white in the headlights and there was nothing but snow coming down and that's all you could see.

And the taillights of the car in front of you and maybe a few ahead of them, but not many. And all you could do, and for a while I followed the taillights and then it occurred to me, I don't know if these people know where they're going, they could be leading me right off of a cliff, right into the river. And after a while it dawned on me that I need to focus on those reflectors that the state of Montana put alongside the road.

And they're extra tall by the way, because of the snowfall. So you've got these really tall reflectors planking each side of the road. And as long as I kept between those reflectors, I knew that I was not going to go into the river or off the cliff or something. And I kept doing it and eventually the people in front of me figured out that maybe they didn't know where they were going and they didn't want the responsibility of all the people behind them. And everybody in front of me kept pulling over and then the caravan would pass them and pretty soon I was in the lead. So now I have this huge line of people following me in this blinding snow, well not a huge line but about seven cars or so. I'm in front and everybody's looking at my tail lights, at least that's probably what they're doing.

I don't know, I hope they're looking at the reflectors but I was looking at the reflectors because I knew to stay in between those reflectors I'd be okay. And so I just crept along there. Held the steering wheel a little tight, they had to call an extraction team afterwards because that's a little nerve-wracking I will tell you. But eventually I got to the lights of where we're going to go and we're able to get there safely and get the kids to sleep and Gracie and everybody else. And they had no, I don't think they really knew how much drama that was going on in my life as I was driving them down this dark stretch of road in the blinding snow.

If you ever read Laura Ingalls Wilder there's a scene in one of her books, the Little House on the Prairie series that reminds me of that when her father was driving the buck board with the horse. But that's, for those of you who read those books, which I would recommend, they're good books. And I thought about that over the years, those reflectors. Those reflectors were put there for a reason and they guided me just reflector at a time.

That's all I could see in front of me was one reflector at a time. And that brings me to today's scripture which is Psalm 119, 105. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

You know that's pretty much the way it is for us, isn't it? He didn't say his word was a searchlight. He said it's a lamp. And sometimes we're only going to see one step at a time. And I wrote about this on American Family Association on their blog, it's called The Stand.

And you can go out and take a look at that at afa.net. It's called Look to the Reflectors. And it was a really powerful teaching moment for me as a caregiver to realize that I am not going to see the end result.

I'm going to have to just go at this slowly, one reflector at a time, one little bit of light at a time. And way too many of us as caregivers are living in the wreckage of our future. Well, what happens if, what are we going to do about this? What are we going to do?

How are we going to do this? And we're not going to know these things. We're going to have to deal with today, right here and right now. And that's frustrating. That's scary to a lot of us. That is unsettling. And yet that's the journey.

But he's also promised in scripture that he's not going to abandon us. And those reflectors that we can count on those, just like I knew that the state of Montana did not put those things up in the blinding snow in the middle of the night. They came out in the bright daylight. They knew what they were doing. And they put those things up alongside the road. And those things are anchors for us as drivers along that stretch of road. How much more so does God do with his word?

That it's an anchor for us. And he didn't put these things up willy-nilly. He knows what he's doing, where it's going, where the road goes, all these things.

And he's going to navigate with us safely. This was driven home to me some years ago when Gracie had a bad infection in her back after a surgery. And it was probably surgery number 50 or so. And the surgeon came back into the room and said she's got an infection and here's the protocol. This is what we're going to have to do. She's going to have to stay for three months.

We're going to open her up every couple of days and irrigate that out. And she can't raise up more than 15 degrees. At the time our children were not, you know, grown. They were in school.

They were kids. And I looked at nobody in particular. I just stared at the wall and I looked and I just muttered out, I can't do this for three months.

And the surgeon put his hand on my shoulder and he says, you're not going to do it for three months. You're going to do it for 24 hours. Today is sufficient for itself. Tomorrow's worries, we'll deal with that. And that's what Matthew 6, 33 and Matthew 6 is all about. That, you know, we can't live out on the wreckage of tomorrow. We're going to deal with today. And that's how we did it. That's one of those reflector moments. And God's word is like that for us. And we can count on that. You can count on that. There are moments right now when you are just hanging your head or you're gripping the steering wheel in such fear as you watch somebody you love suffer, go into seizures, all kinds of things, dementia, looking out the window without even awareness and you're struggling.

We're going to come back to the reflectors. Is this where you are? How are you feeling about this? 888-589-8840. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is hope for the caregiver. Hopeforthecaregiver.com.

We will be right back. Here's Pastor Alistair Begg from the American Family Studios documentary, The God Who Speaks. This book knows me. This book uncovers me. This book does things to me that no other book does. Why is it that people really don't want to read the Bible?

Because it is living and active in a way that is almost unfathomable. That the Spirit of God who has inspired the inscripturation of the Word of God is active in the reading of this book and in the proclaiming of this book. We meet with God in His Word. He speaks.

He doesn't speak new words to us. The Holy Spirit illumines the words that He's already spoken. If we start to look beyond that for encounters with God, we will actually be taken away from the authority and the sufficiency of the Bible.

Visit the GodWhoSpeaks.org. It gives an impetus to share your faith when you think you've got answers to objections that you expect people to bring up. The American Family Studios video series Intro to God's Revelation, featuring Dr. Richard Howe, shows how God has revealed Himself in nature and His Word, and how we can rightly understand what God has said.

These truths are just the part and parcel of the Christian life. It isn't just for the professional clergy. Learn the fundamentals of how to approach and understand the Bible in an age of skepticism. This six-week video curriculum is perfect for your Sunday school class or study group, and it can prepare you to give a defense of God's Word and how He speaks to us in nature. Knowing whether and how God communicates is a safeguard against false claims about God communicating.

Intro to God's Revelation, DVDs and workbook are available for purchase at AFASTORE.net or call 877-927-4917. Welcome back to the show for caregivers about caregivers hosted by a caregiver. This is hope for the caregiver on American Family Radio, the nation's largest radio program for the family caregiver, who is an at-risk individual. That person pushing the wheelchair. That person stayed up all night doing laundry. That person standing in the hospital room corner. That person driving back and forth to the rehab center. That person driving back and forth to hospice.

That person that's holding down a job while doing this, who's cleaning up all kinds of gunk. That's the person who this show is designed to reach. And we are so glad you're with us. I am Peter Rosenberg, bringing you three decades of all of that and more to help you stay strong and healthy while you take care of someone who is not. You want to be on the show, 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840. Real quick, I did an interview with the Journal, American Family Radio's magazine, American Family Association's magazine that's going out.

I think it's going to go out after the first of the year. Did this with Rusty Benson the other day. And one of the questions they asked, how would you describe your approach in manner of helping caregivers who call into the radio show? And I thought that was an interesting question. And I stated this, and I think this will resonate with you all. I am fiercely protective of the family caregiver. I know that sometimes we're our own worst enemies, but we also can be victimized and presumed upon by others. It could be our loved ones, the ones we're taking care of. It could be family or friends who like to sit on the sidelines and critique. I don't know if anybody else has that issue, or even church folk who want to slam us for doing it wrong or not having the faith or this and that.

And we had a lot of that on the show last week. And there's that constant, I don't know what the word is, I scramble for that, but it's incredibly frustrating and annoying when you have people who do not walk humbly next to people who suffer in light of the sovereignty of God. And they want to come and somehow explain their theology, their doctrines, their understanding of scripture against the backdrop of your suffering, your challenges, your frustration as a caregiver and as somebody who's taking care of someone and your loved one. I've had that for years with people with Gracie, and they look at her visible challenges and suffering and they want to somehow reconcile that with their doctrine. I've said for years that when my wife enters a room, people have a theological conversation in their head because she's so visibly disabled, when she wears her prosthetic legs uncovered and she is so exuberant, she's a beautiful woman, go take a look at standingwithhope.com.

That's the ministry she founded to her fellow amputees. And oh, by the way, you could hear the featured song right now. She did a recording of Silent Night that'll just melt your heart. It will truly melt your heart.

It is so good. You can just listen to it or stream it, standingwithhope.com, and you could see yourself what this woman is like. But when she walks into a room, people think, how can this be?

How can a good and loving God allow this sort of thing? And I've had this conversation with so many people that I know that it's a regular occurrence when she approaches people. And so some people try to go overboard and work that out themselves and say, well, it must be because of this.

It must be because of this. I lay a firm boundary on this show about that. I don't want people working out their doctrine on us as caregivers, certainly on me. And I'm going to extend that to you all, because I don't think we can know a lot of these things. Yeah, sometimes the stuff we deal with is self-inflicted. Most of the stuff I feel like I've dealt with is self-inflicted.

I'm my own worst enemy sometimes. But we also have a Savior who understands this. And as far as I'm concerned, it does no good to take the Bible and use it and to weaponize scripture to beat on other people, to somehow make us feel better about our own doctrine. I don't know why God allows these things.

I really don't. They're just things that, it's not why He allows it. It's why He doesn't intervene on some of it. And I don't have any doubt that God will heal Gracie, can heal Gracie, wants to heal Gracie. But for whatever reason, for whatever purposes that He has, He chooses to allow this. And trusting Him to heal, trusting an all-powerful, good and loving God to heal my wife, to me, that doesn't really take a whole lot of faith.

It takes a lot more faith to trust Him when He doesn't. And that is, that's where I land on this. And so I've come through this for so many years with fellow caregivers who have been brutalized by folks.

And I said, you know, not anymore. We're not doing that. I'm going to push hard to set up a boundary to give caregivers a place where they, a safe place where they can just breathe, catch their breath, take a knee, you know, we'll figure out some stuff.

And if there's things we've got to make amends for, if there's things we have to ask forgiveness for, if there's things we have to work through, we'll do that, we'll do it together. But I am not going to stand by and let other people come along who have no clue what it's like to watch somebody suffer and start slinging scriptures like they're rocks and pellets at people. And worse yet, they get up close and they do it like it's a cudgel. They just bludgeon people with it.

That does not fly. I think there's places where scripture certainly speaks to things and we need to deal with things and we need to deal with directly and forthrightly. But caregivers are so disoriented by what we deal with sometimes. It's mind numbing what we deal with. And I don't know how many of you all have watched somebody struggle with pain, intractable pain hours and hours and hours, day after day, day after day to see what that's like. I don't know how many of you all have done that. But for those of us who have, and I've talked to enough of us who have, it is truly mind numbing.

That's the best word. The wall of noise that attacks your heart in that is deafening. You can't step into somebody who is in that state and start just slinging scriptures at a bit and beating them over the head with it. You've got to walk into that with humility. You've got to walk into that with tears in your own eyes and recognize that all of creation is groaning over this. All of creation is groaning, scripture says, knowing that it's going to be made right, but it's not now. And how do we function like this? How do we function day to day? How do we minister to somebody who is going through this kind of stuff? What does that look like?

888-589-8840, 888-589-8840. And I know that some of you right now are struggling with that because you have been like that and you've been so isolated by it and you feel so ashamed of what's going on with you or embarrassed about it or somehow that everybody else is singing victory in Jesus and you're not. I get that. I get that. And so that's why I am so grateful that this show is available now because of American Family Radio. They said we're going to do this because there is victory in Jesus even while you're doing the things that we as caregivers do. There is this.

It is available to you right now. Doesn't mean all these things are necessarily going to go away. But it means that there is, like we said, the reflectors that you can count on. That you are not going to go off this cliff if you just look to those reflectors.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet. And when you are cleaning up barf for the umpteenth time. I was talking to Sandy Rios who most of you who listen to this station are familiar with and she told this moving story about taking care of her daughter with special needs and she'd get her all prettied up and her hair would be done and everything else would be just picture perfect and then she would just have a seizure and throw up all over again. And she'd have to do it all over again.

She'd have to just clean her back up and do that whole thing again. And I thought, you know, that's the gospel. That's what our Savior does for us. Because how many of us are doing that on a regular basis? And yet He just continues to minister to us in that regards. Do you want to tap into that inexhaustible love that He has for us as you minister to your loved one?

That's what this show is all about is to help each of us walk into that so that we can be strong and healthy as we take care of someone who is not. I'm going to try to squeeze in a call before the break here. Let's go to Becky in Missouri.

Becky in Missouri, welcome to the show. How are you feeling? Feeling good. Thank you. Tell me what's going on with you.

I just wanted to share. Oh, by the way, do you have your radio on? No. Oh, wait a minute.

I turned it down, but it's not off. Let me walk into another room. Sorry. Okay. Okay.

Is that better? Go ahead. It's okay.

We'll make do. Well, hold on. Wait a minute. We've got to go to the break, Becky. Can you hang on through the break?

Hang on just for a minute for the break. We're going to come right back to you. This is Hope for the Caregiver. This is the nation's number one show for the family caregiver. You can be a part of it. 888-589-8840. 888-589-8840.

This is Peter Rosenberger, hopeforthecaregiver.com. We'll be right back. This generation is different. Everything is smart phony.

Everything is appy. You know, it's all about the quick access to information and short attention spans and all the rest. But it seems to me that another way that we can have a very big impact on our culture is to outthink the culture. You cannot be a good thinker as a Christian. Is this not a command of God that we are to love the Lord with all of our mind and not just our heart, soul and strength? Join me for Janet Mefford Live weekdays at noon central on American Family Radio. This is Tim Armstrong from the Worthy Walk radio program inviting you to join us as we study the scriptures verse by verse each day, Monday through Friday at 630 p.m. central time here on American Family Radio.

We will study the word of God and learn to apply its truths to our lives each day. The Worthy Walk, Monday through Friday at 630 p.m. central time on American Family Radio. Over the past few years, the AFR family has teamed up with India Partners to help rescue young children from Mumbai's red light district. Through your gifts, new safe houses have been built and existing homes have been expanded allowing more children to have their basic needs met. They're being taught who Jesus is and about his love for them. Payal was one of the children rescued. I came to know about Jesus after I came over to the safe house.

I didn't know anything about Jesus, but after I came over here, my life changed. AFR staff members will visit these safe houses in January. They would like to bring some personal notes from you to remind these children that they are loved and are being prayed for. Would you please join us in providing a note of encouragement? You can find all the details and where to send your letter by visiting AFR.net. We hope you'll join us as we share God's love with these precious children by writing a simple note of encouragement.

Visit AFR.net, AFR.net. Welcome back to the show For Caregivers About Caregivers, hosted by a caregiver. I am Peter Rosenberg. I'm bringing you three decades plus of experience to help you stay strong and healthy as you take care of someone who is not 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840 if you want to be on the show. By the way, there's still time for the caregiver you know if you're a pastor, you're a counselor, or get one for your pastor and counselor, Seven Caregiver Landmines.

It's my new book. It's just a little pocket-sized book that you could take with you to hospice, to hospitals, to doctor's office, whatever, keep it with you at all times. It is a field manual for the fellow caregiver and it is filled with stuff that I've learned the hard way because I've hit every one of those things. I'm the crash test dummy of caregivers.

Seven Caregiver Landmines and How You Can Avoid Them. My other book is called Hope for the Caregiver, which is why the show is called that. It's available as an audio book as well. That one is and I'm going to be working on Seven Caregiver Landmines to get that as an audio book.

All of these things are available wherever books are sold and at all the dot coms. Friends don't let friends care give a loan, so do not go through this season, which is particularly difficult for caregivers without having some kind of anchor to help you as a caregiver through that. Seven Caregiver Landmines and How You Can Avoid Them. All right, let's get back to the phones here. Sorry I had to make you hold there, Becky. You still with us?

Yes. All right, tell me what's going on with you. I just wanted to offer a word of encouragement. Our 11 year old son had a massive heart attack in 2003, was without oxygen for 45 minutes and was left in a devastated condition for 16 months before the Lord took him home. We had done everything in the spiritual, fasting, praying, anointing with oil. We had done everything in the physical, every surgery, every therapy and confessed our doubt and God called him home. I remember struggling with, did I have enough faith?

It would come and go because I knew deep down in my heart that that wasn't the case, but it would still haunt me sometimes. One day I was reading the story of Shadrach, Nisha, and Abednego. I'd read it 100 times before, but the words, even if just jumped out at me and I just began to weep because I know God was making it clear to me that it's not about me having enough faith in myself to have enough faith that God can do this or that or the other, but it's about me having enough faith in God to do it his way, no matter what the outcome is. And I got such comfort from that and we have since adopted four more children and each of them have varying different needs, none as severe as Andrew was, but the youngest we named Shad to remind us that our God is faithful and our faith is in him and he deals with, he's in charge of the outcome and these kids are just, they're a blessing to us and we have others tell us that they're an inspiration. And so have that faith in God and let him deal with the outcome.

You know, beautiful Becky, just beautiful, beautiful. This is why I bring this up because I know that it resonates so deeply with people that you guys, you know, we don't have to squint our eyes real hard when we pray to get God to hear us. He is close to the broken hearted. He is close to the, you know, he sees all these things and he is not without compassion in them.

He's not without mercy in them. He's not without healing in them, but he has purposes that we just cannot fathom. But this is also the same God who allowed his own son to bear all of this on our behalf and Becky, you have reminded that just beautifully that we can trust him. How do we know we can trust him? Because when we slip our scared hand into his scarred hand and those scars, his scars, I look at all my wife's scars, she has a lot of them, but in those scars mean that she had a car wreck and a lot of surgeries. His scars, however, means that he did something far more to take care of all of these things. And I look at Thomas, you know, when Thomas was there looking at the risen Christ and he said, I believe, Lord, help my unbelief.

He was actually looking at Jesus risen from the dead and he still said, help my unbelief. And I think that is, that's a beautiful lesson, Becky, this morning. Thank you so much for calling. Thank you for listening to the show and God bless you for what you've done for these other children.

And Shad is a great name for that child and what a great reminder. So thank you for that. Merry Christmas to you. Okay. Thank you. You too.

All right. Let's go, let's go to Jack in Virginia. Jack, how are you feeling? Good morning. Good morning. How are you feeling?

Jack? I'm doing fine. How are you? Well, I'm, I'm just precious, but, uh, are you really doing fine?

Yeah, actually I am. What I'm dealing with is my wife. She has small cell cancer. They have no cure and it's been battling it for four years now. It's just a matter of time.

And? Well, um, they gave her like, you know, six weeks to live and then two years at most with treatment, but it's been four years now. So we praise God and, uh, what we've gotten through this, we don't know why God does what he does. Um, but instead of looking at ourselves, um, it's such a theology of selfishness out there that we try and look beyond ourselves. And this is something that God has allowed to come into our lives. And if we allow it to, it's bigger than us, but God is bigger than the cancer. And so, um, it's given us an opportunity to be able to minister to people that we've never been exposed to before, and those would be a lot of hurt people that are hanging out at the cancer centers that have never been exposed to the gospel.

So we just see this as an opportunity we would have never had if she had not been going through this to be able to minister today to those people in the hospital. So how's this, uh, how's this dealing with you and your heart level, those quiet moments when you're alone and you're reflecting on all this? Um, I've always been close to God. I've walked and talked with him since I was a small boy. And there have been moments in my life where God has spoken very clearly to me and when all this started off, he just said, I've got this, and that's what I reside in, that there's a truth that you know, that you know, that you know, that what the gospel says is true and that the cross was enough, and that we have victory in that, and nothing's going to take that away. So you just press in closer, you lean on him, and it's hard to see a loved one in pain, like you said, and I appreciate what you said. And that is that, you know, as a caregiver, there's not a lot that you can do, and we really don't need people feeling sorry for us, throwing things up in scripture, but just to come alongside of us. Just to be with us. Yes. And I appreciate you saying that because that's the truth.

That is the truth. Well, and that's, that's why I'm so grateful that the American families let us do this show, Jack, because you know, that's, the isolation we feel as caregivers is, is crushing to us. And now that we have a place for one hour on Saturday mornings that we can come to as fellow caregivers and just bang around ideas, build each other up, think through it, talk to each other, and, and strengthen each other for the journey, what a gift that we all have. And I've put myself as a receiver of that gift.

I'm not the giver of it. I'm the receiver of it, that we have a place now that we can do that. And I'm just grateful for all of you all that are listening in and joining us and, and particularly for American Family Radio, because the family caregiver, I believe, is an at-risk individual.

And I am passionate about standing between that person and even church folk who want to just come along and just, you know, bang us upside the head with stuff. And I thank you for your call on that. It means a lot. I want you to do something for me, Jack. I want you to, this, this Christmas, I mean, you don't, you know, we'd never know how many more times we're going to have, but just be sure to slow down this Christmas and enjoy the moments that you have and, and reflect on the joy that you have with the season and maybe hold your wife's hand a little bit tighter. Okay.

I could do that. All right. Listen, thank you for your work that you do. Well, thank you so much for, for the call and for listening and we'll just stay with us. Keep calling back and let us know how you're doing. Okay.

You have an open invitation to call as much as you want. All right. I appreciate that.

I do. All right, buddy. Let's go to Martha in Tennessee. Martha, welcome to the show. How are you feeling? How are you doing, Martha? Not that great, but well, what's going on with you? Well, um, I've been married 48 plus years and my husband's in full time nursing home care for a number of physical, you know, handies to handicaps that I can't manage at home.

And um, and in the time I had him at home, I, I didn't take care and I, I can't believe that there's a program on caregivers. I just love it. The very idea that it's out there is such a blessing and I want to thank you for that, that you're why we do the show, Martha, you are why we do the show because friends don't let friends care give alone and you're why we do the show. Martha, go ahead. I'm sorry.

There's a tiny bit of a delay. So sorry about that. That's all right. Um, I have been totally isolated from my church. There's nobody been to my door, not one person. And I, you know, I'm a member of the big church and nobody hardly ever called. Um, and then when, like, when they did call, they had suggestions when I was taking care of him at home, you know, like, well, let one of my friends and her husband take care of my husband while I go to church. Well, his condition was such that I couldn't let somebody take care of him because I needed to take care of him. And I think sometimes people don't understand there's certain things that other people can't do for your mate. You know, well, it's true, but sometimes you have to let go, you know, well, sometimes they, sometimes it's a good idea for a church.

If they want somebody to come to church and they don't feel like they can because of the kind of care that need, sometimes it's okay for the church to step in and provide some skilled care so that person can come to church so that you can have somebody you can trust him with. Well, listen, can you go to Martha, what can you go to church now? Well, listen, we've got to take a quick break. Hang on. And I want to talk to you a little bit more when we come back from the break.

Okay. Don't go away. This is hope for the caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberger. We are so glad you're with us 888-589-8840 hopeforthecaregiver.com hopeforthecaregiver.com friends don't let friends care give alone. That's why we do the show.

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. This is a Decency Minute.

I'm Bill Johnson. You probably heard this about the wise men from the east who traveled to worship Jesus. Wise men still seek Him. Citizens in Newaygo, Michigan, right in the backyard of our organization are left wondering if it's the wise men who seek Christ. What does that say for those who take the wise men down? Since being manufactured by students in shop class in the 1940s, a display of three wise men on camels has sat atop the Newaygo Public School looking towards a star at the top of a clock tower. But after over 70 years of being displayed, an atheist civil rights group is calling the display a violation of the separation between church and state and demanding that it be removed. Newaygo's superintendent deserves credit, at least at this point, for not giving in to these demands. But how long until our Christian Christmas traditions are banned from the public square?

May Christians stand up with courage for the truth of the Bible. This is a Decency Minute. I'm Bill Johnson. Welcome back to the show, four caregivers about caregivers hosted by a caregiver. This is Hope for the Caregiver on American Family Radio. I am Peter Rosenberger, bringing you three decades of experience to help you stay strong and healthy as you take care of someone who is not. By the way, you just heard Gracie's ad, standingwithhope.com.

Please take a look at Standing With Hope. You can also hear the feature song. She's got an arrangement of Silent Night out there that'll just melt your heart. It is so moving.

My wife can really, I mean, no kidding, sing. And so go take a look at that. Standingwithhope.com and see how you can be a part of what we're doing. We have regular things that we're helping with amputees over in West Africa. This is a vision she had when she gave up her own legs. And inmates recycle prosthetic limbs for us.

They come in from all over the country. We just got a flight attendant call me this week, and we were having a pallet ready to go. And she flew down and brought legs with her on the plane. She said it was cheaper for me to just fly with legs. It was her brother's prosthetic legs, and they got them over to the prison.

The inmates disassembled them so that we could pack them, but we got them on top of the shipment, and the pallet's being picked up Monday morning heading over to West Africa. You can be a part of that at standingwithhope.com. Give the gift that keeps on walking this year. I know everybody hangs up their stockings this year, but you can put a leg in those stockings. Oh, that's funny.

Thank you very much. All right, let's go back to Martha. Standingwithhope.com, by the way. All right, Martha, I'm going to ask you something. Are you going to church now? No.

Now, tell me why not. Well, actually, while I was doing my caregiving at home, I became ill, and right now I'm in a position where I can't talk without crying, so I don't want to be around people. But I love God, and my TV stays on Christian television, so I get good thoughts. All day long, of course, I read the Word and spend time with the Lord. I do all that.

Well, I'd like you to take a little... Well, I'll tell you what, Martha. Let's do this really slowly, okay? Really slowly. Okay. Be last in to church and first out.

Try that one time. Last in, first out. You slip in and you slip out, and that way you get to go and you ease yourself into it.

It's like dipping your big toe into the pool here, but you want to make sure that the water's not too cold before you jump in. That way you're slowly easing into it, but you need people around you. It is not good for you to be alone, and I know that having Christian television and all that stuff is good to have that coming in, but you need to have the fellowship of believers. If you're not comfortable with the church you're going to, that's okay. There's plenty of churches out there.

Find one that preaches the Word, but you could slip in and slip out. Then do that a couple of times until you kind of get your strength back and feel a little bit more settled, and then all of a sudden you're going to find that you stick your hand out and shake somebody's hand, and it's going to feel okay, and you're not going to worry about it. If you cry, you cry. At any church that doesn't allow a widow to come and cry, well, you don't need to go to that church anyway. In some respects you're not a widow yet.

Your husband hasn't passed, but he's in a nursing home and you're not there. That's the kind of mentality that you're dealing with here anyways, that you're grieving through this. It's okay to cry.

You know what, Martha? You could call this show and cry. You reached out. You made a phone call today. Well, I am, and I thank you for being there.

I just want you to know I never dreamed there would be a show like yours, but I just love it. This is my first time that you can hear it. Well, we're here and I want you to listen every week, and I want you to pick up the phone as much as you want to call because, you know what, you picked up the phone and you made a phone call today. That's a big step. I want you to kind of give yourself a little pat on the back for that, Martha, okay? You picked up the phone. You reached out. Don't wait for people to come to you. Let's go out, and right now this is a safe place, and you can cry anytime you want here, honey, okay?

Yes. There's one thing that I run into, and I don't know whether it's just my situation or what, but people say, well, if you need anything, call, but they don't come. You know, they don't even... They don't call, they won't really call. That's a platitude that people say because they don't know what else to say.

They'll say, well, let me know if there's something you need. Well, now I've got to think of something for you to do. Don't worry about that. Let's focus on you taking care of Martha right now, and right now you made a big step. You picked up the phone and you called, all right, and then you're going to consider going to church, you're going to be last in, first out, and that way you just kind of slip in and slip out and get yourself kind of acclimated to it, and pretty soon you're going to find that you're going to have strength to start meeting people and talk to people and engage with people, and the tears will still come, but you're going to be stronger as you deal with it. You're never going to feel better about it, but that's not the goal. We're not trying to help you feel better.

We're trying to help you be better, okay? I like that phrase. You can do this, Martha. Well, you can do this.

I think so. You can. Well, I know if I could, certainly if I could do it, you could do it, Martha. I mean, listen. I know that.

You could do this. I was listening. We're going to help you. We're going to help you do it together. Okay?

Yes. I'm proud of you. And I just, I just pray that, that, uh, the radio station understands the value of your show. Well, I think they do. That's why they let me do it. They hadn't thrown me off yet, Martha.

They hadn't thrown me off the show yet, so I think they do. And thank you. How long have you been there? We've been doing this on this show, on this, uh, network for, since July.

I've been doing my show for about five years, and then American Family said, hey, we want to do this on, on, on our network. So I'm grateful. And they ain't thrown me out yet, Martha. I mean, God bless them. God bless them. Well, yes. God bless them. But, but you're, you're, I mean.

For their mercy. God, God's using you through your circumstance to be a blessing to others, which was what I want to do, but like I say, I can't talk without crying half the time. That's okay. That'll come, but let's get you a little bit stronger. Okay. Yes, sir.

Listen, I'm going to go take another call, but I'm proud of you, Martha, and I want you to call it as many times as you want. Okay. Thank you. And God bless you and Ms. Gracie. You too, Mary.

Well, thank you and Merry Christmas to you. All right. Let's go. Thank you. Oh, thank you. And let's go to, um, Tonya in Texas.

Tonya. Good morning. Thank you for waiting.

Yes. Thank you. Um, I wanted to call in and I'm feeling good.

I'm feeling good. And it's really due to a lot of the, a call that you had about a month or so back where you had a man call in that was going to have to take care of his alcoholic dad and you told him that he had to not be, or he had to not be that nine year old again, taking care of his dad. I love that.

I think that his name was Bill and I love that. I think I put it on a podcast, uh, on our podcast because that was a very meaningful conversation I had with that young man. And thank you for remembering that. Yes, it is exactly the situation I'm in. Um, I left home at 17 because my dad was an alcoholic and he had actually, uh, shot and killed my mother. And so, and when he did that and it was, he was gonna do the same to me and it was getting that bad. And so I left and, uh, uh, now he needs a caregiver, doesn't he?

Yeah. He's, uh, on oxygen all the time. Um, can't care for himself. He's still an alcoholic, but he won't drink in my home.

And, uh, it was amazing. He looked over at me and he asked me the other day, he said, why did you leave? Cause he lives in Oklahoma and I, I've moved here that, you know, when I caught a plane to Texas and, uh, and I told him, I said, it was just time for me to go. He goes, no, I want to know why you left. And him normally having that power over me, um, and I would have to be forced to say it.

I just told him, I said, it was simply time for me to leave and make my own way. And that's what I did. That's good for you.

And I felt so good inside. Huh? Well, you should, because that's you standing up to, not to your father. You're standing up to the disease and we can honor our fathers and mothers. Okay. But you don't have to honor alcoholism.

Yeah. It does not deserve, it does not deserve your, it is a disease. Uh, and, and it's easy when it's such a physical thing, like, like, uh, you know, my, my wife's legs, they're gone. They're amputated. Well, you know, I don't have to honor amputation.

That's gone. That's, that's an impairment that now has happened. But when it comes to alcoholism and behavior issues, it's very, it's very disconcerting to us.

We get, we get twisted around. We don't, we don't think straight and we get all these emotional entanglements and you, you just laid a boundary with your father. You detached and you laid a boundary because he's not safe. He's active in his alcoholism. He has not made amends for what he's done and people will never know, um, how much you hurt them until they feel safe enough to tell you.

And you don't feel safe enough to talk to them and you don't have to. You could care for him. You could honor him. You could see that his, his physical needs are cared for. You could pray for him. But if this man is an active alcoholic, which it sounds like he is, what you say, you are not required to engage with his disease. I do not recommend people having a conversation with Alzheimer's.

You can't do it. What you do is you learn how to engage the heart to the best of your abilities and you're doing a great job, Tanya. Now let me ask you a question. Are you in any kind of recovery program for you?

No, I never did go to any of those, but I mean, I've been, I've been away for him. By the way, is it Tona or Tanya? I'm sorry. Tell me your name.

I just looked at it. Is it Tanya? Tanya or Tone?

Tell me your name. Tanya. Tanya. Tanya. I would call you Tanya. Sorry about that. There's no Y.

The Y is silent. Tanya. Yes. I would ask you to learn strongly enough for some type of recovery program for you, whether some type of 12 step counseling, something for you to have somebody who can help walk with you through kind of a sorting through all that's happened to you. Please do not underestimate how important that is and how much you've been affected by your father's disease and this trauma.

Oh yeah. Would you, would you just take a leap of faith with me on that one? I will. I will. I will. And, and, and, and get, get a recommendation from your doctor, uh, to a counselor or to go to a 12 step recovery program, someplace where you can get the healing you need to work through this. Do not underestimate how big a deal this has been to you. The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.