Caregivers and the New Year

Welcome to Hope as a Caregiver here on American Family Radio.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver. How are you doing?

How you holding up? What's going on with you? That's the purpose of this show. We're going to speak to the heart of the family caregiver. If we talk to the heart of a caregiver, then the wallet, the relationships, the job, the body, every other part of the caregiver has a fighting chance. But if your heart is squirrely, if your heart is a dumpster fire, then what's going to happen to your body?

What's going to happen to your decisions that you make in your job or your career with your money, with your family, with your relationships, all that kind of stuff? That's what we do on this show. And if you want to learn more about it, hopeforthecaregiver.com. We also have the podcast that we do. It's a free podcast. We've got nearly 500 episodes out there or more.

And you can download any of them at your convenience, wherever you can get a podcast through whatever streaming mechanisms you want. And we want you to take advantage of this. I didn't have anything like this when I was starting out as a caregiver. I've been a caregiver now my 35th year. And there was nobody speaking to the family caregiver in any kind of cohesive manner and certainly not with the great authority of scripture. And that's why I'm so grateful for this network.

And we've got other networks that have joined with us on this, the Truth Network, his radio and affiliates and all over the country, over 200 signals now broadcasting this show. And I'm very grateful for that, that people have seen the value and the need for the family caregiver. A lot of people talk about the family and marriages and all that kind of stuff, but they don't even mention caregiving as it relates to what's going on. Did you know that the divorce rate in a family with a disability of any kind, it doesn't matter if it's the mother or the father or the kid, the divorce rate is nearly 90%.

So there is a huge need to speak to the family caregiver, but you can't just go out there and bloviate about it. I know. I've had people come up to me and give me all kinds of bad theology and platitudes and all kinds of just worthless things to offer me because they were trying to somehow speak into this. And it was just like, oh, come on, you can't do better than that. I mean, come on. And then they would just do things like, you know, if you had enough faith, God would heal Gracie or whatever. I've heard it all, every bit of it. And some of it calls me to sink into despair and others, other times it calls me to just be filled with rage and lash out.

And I just, you know, I had to learn how to bridle my tongue because I would be very poignant with some people and I've had to go back and make amends for it. But I look at all of it as a learning experience that I've accumulated now over three and a half decades of caring for a situation that is brutal. It's ongoing. Gracie will be facing surgery next week. This will be that I can count her 81st, that I can count 150 other smaller procedures. And this will be her 13th hospital, over a hundred doctors.

And this has been going on since Reagan was president in his first term. So you're talking a vast amount of time here that has occurred. She was hurt back in 83. So she's almost 40 years into this thing.

And I came along a couple of years after she was hurt. And so into this, I've learned some principles and some concepts, but more importantly, I've seen God's provision. And I wanted to be able to extend this to caregivers in a way they could understand. I speak fluent caregiver. This is not an episodic thing with me when I've done it for a couple of years.

A loved one has passed away. Now I'm an expert. The only thing I'm an expert at is failure. And I've failed enough times that I've learned a couple of things.

I've learned a lot of times that I've learned a couple of things the hard way. I'm the kind of the Wile E. Coyote of caregivers. And there's always an Acme anvil that seems to be in my way.

And it's just, you ever see those Roadrunner commercials where the coyote would just run off into space and he turns and looks at the camera and holds up his side and says, help, and then plummets. That's me. And that's my life. That's my journey. Along the way, though, I've had the privilege of seeing God move in His hand, in His provision, His grace and His mercy.

And I've understood the concepts of scripture that have anchored me so that I can look at some of these things now from a different perspective. You know, calm seas don't make great sailors. And we as caregivers don't go through calm seas, do we?

We go through rough, rough, rough water. And so I, when I developed this show, and as we start off the new year, I just wanted to give you a little bit of history. When I developed this show, I purposed that I would do something different. That I was not going to get out there and just talk about nursing homes and durable medical equipment and dealing with insurance companies and doctors and all that kind of stuff. I can do that all day long and never address the core needs of a caregiver. The core needs of a caregiver are in the heart and it reflects this sense of great loneliness, heartache, sadness, pain, sorrow, resentment, anger, despair, all of those things that are common to the human condition. That is the human condition. And we as caregivers don't feel anything differently than everybody else feels at some point in their life. We just feel it on a relentless basis.

It doesn't seem to go away. It doesn't seem to get, we don't even seem to get a reprieve. And we have dark thoughts and isolation and we have despairing feelings and loneliness. And so when you speak to a caregiver, you can give them all kinds of verbiage. You could say all kinds of things to a caregiver. But if they don't understand, if you're not touching that place in their heart, they're not going to get it. They're not going to care.

It's not going to register at all. And those of you who've been doing this, you know this because people have done it to you and you're just looking at them with a blank look and they think they're depositing some great truth in your life and you're over there saying, I got to go home and change an adult diaper from somebody who cusses me out. So in this situation, we launched a show nine years ago that said, no, we're going to do something different.

And we're going to go to those coordinates and we're going to speak to caregivers in a way they can understand. I've been spending a lot of time watching documentaries and movies and so forth about guys in the reformation. And they were translating scripture. I mean John Wycliffe translated the Bible into English because he was so convinced that the common man needed to hear this that the priests were manipulating people from the Catholic Church. And they were the Roman Church and they were manipulating people because they didn't know the scripture so the priests could say whatever they want. They were selling indulgences and they were giving really false teachings. And Wycliffe came along and said, no, this is wrong.

We're not going to do this. And I want to make sure these people can understand the Word of God in their own language. And the Roman Catholic Church was aghast by this.

They just flew off the handle. And 40 years after his death, his bones were dug up and they burned his bones and they scattered his ashes in the water and they were so mad at him. And Luther comes along and he translates into German. And again, they're just aghast by how dare you give the scriptures to the common man. But that's the whole point of the gospel, that it does go to the common man, to you and me, so we can read it in our own language.

We can understand it in our own language. Jesus condescended to us. He became flesh.

He became this corruptible flesh so that we could see God in a way we could understand. Whoever's seen me has seen the Father, Jesus said. And so I just want to be able to communicate to my fellow caregivers in a way they can understand, in a way that they can somehow wrap their minds around in the midst of their own journey, translating it, if you will, into caregiver. So that you know, in the midst of those very, very lonely places, those isolation moments, that you as a caregiver are not cast off, that you are not alone.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but that valley of the shadow of death sometimes can be a very long valley. But he says, I will fear no evil for, say it with me, thou art with me. He is. This is Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberg. We're glad you're with us. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. Happy New Year.

We'll be right back. Imagine a parent at the end of a rope caring for a special needs child and that parent could get a daily phone call from a caring person, breaking through the isolation and checking in on that stressed mom or that stressed dad. What kind of difference do you think that would make? Imagine going to the grocery store in peace while knowing a sentry was on duty for your loved one at home, being able to look at them on your phone, talking to them at any time from anywhere, even if the power goes out. Imagine being able to safely monitor your loved one in an assisted facility, even during the quarantine.

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I'm using this right now. I want you to as well. This is Peter Rosenberger. Join us at hopeforthecaregiver.com. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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Thank you. Please visit standingwithhope.com to learn more and participate in lifting others up. That's standingwithhope.com.

I'm Gracie, and I am standing with hope. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver.

Big shout out to the Truth Network and his radio and all of our affiliates that carry this show. I'd never take for granted that you guys carry the show, that you guys see the value in what we do here for the family caregiver. Family caregivers are often the most overlooked demographic, period. And everybody will ask about the person in the wheelchair or whatever, the loved one, but the caregiver is almost invisible. And so the fact that there are networks that are carrying this show, not just a station, but networks carrying it, is deeply meaningful to me that people see the value in what we do as caregivers.

And I'm very grateful. So this is Peter Rosenberg. I'm in my 35th year as a caregiver, and I love that song coming in from Russ Taft and the Imperials, way back in the 90s.

So this is Peter Rosenberg. I'm in my 35th year as a caregiver, and I love that song coming in from Russ Taft and the Imperials, way back from the album that I thought was just such a fabulous record of theirs. And Michael LaMarte produced that record, I think back in 1980, 79 or 80.

It was just such a great record. But I love that song. I'm forgiven. And that brings me to my point of something I'm going to also ask you to do as we start the new year. Okay? Every one of us as caregivers have been wounded. It's the human condition. We're wounded. And we're wounded specifically in our journey as caregivers. Everybody gets wounded, but as a caregiver, we get wounded specifically in our journey as a caregiver. And it's hard to let go of some of those things. It's hard to release some of those things. The wounds are so deep.

From family members, from your loved one, from friends who want to give you their opinion on your situation, and they say things that are cutting or hurtful or they don't help. There's a lot of different ways that we can be wounded. What are we doing with those wounds? And as Russ and the Imperials were singing on that, I'm forgiven.

Now I have a reason for living. Jesus keeps giving and giving. Giving to my heart overflows.

Once we understand the forgiveness of God that was extended to us, it better equips us to understand how to extend that to others. And so as you launch this new year, I'm asking for you to consider doing something for you as a caregiver. Write down the offenses and the heartache and the bitterness of these individuals who have hurt you. Write it down. And be as specific as you want to be. Just write it down.

And as you finish that list, I want you to put your hand on it. And just simply say these words. Lord, I know these things so deeply in my soul. And they hurt. And they're painful.

And these are real wounds. And I want to lash out at times. But I also know the power of forgiveness because of what you've done for me. I see my own sins and my own offenses towards you.

And I'm willing to take my hands off of their throat and trust that you will work this out. And I want to give this to you and I want to walk in forgiveness with these people, whether they've asked for it or not. Forgiveness doesn't mean that it was unimportant. Okay?

Please get that. It was important. What happened to you was important. Forgiveness doesn't mean it didn't matter. Forgiveness means you're just going to take your hands off of somebody else's throat. That you're not going to harbor and fantasize about this deep-seated retribution that you'd love to inflict on these people. That you're going to extend what you have received.

As you face this new year, there are plenty of offenses that you've received. But you're going to take your hands off of the throats of these people. And that doesn't mean you have to be in fellowship with them.

That doesn't mean you have to hang around and be buddy-buddy and just, you know, oh, it doesn't matter. It's okay. No, it's not okay. It's painful.

It hurts. And you can have boundaries. In fact, I encourage it.

I recommend it and I think they're imperative. Boundaries are very good. But you don't have to have bitterness.

You see the difference? You can have boundaries without bitterness. And I would encourage you as you start this new year, maybe this is the way to do it. Just burn that list. Those feelings are going to come back at you. But now you have a tangible way of recalling back, you know, I burned that and I gave that to God. I wrote all those things out and I gave it to God. And Lord, I don't understand. And Lord, I struggle with this. But I want to follow your Word and forgive as I have been forgiven.

I want to extend what I have received. He gave grace freely to us. And we can extend that to others. Not on our own.

You're not going to be able to do this by yourself, I promise you. But He's equipping you to do this. And the more you focus on Him with this, the more effective this will be for you. And you can walk in peace with it. And again, you do not have to be buddy-buddy with it. You don't have to be in a situation where you feel like, you know, it's your sense of well-being at somebody else's. I mean, your life is forfeit because of somebody else. They're having a better life at your expense.

That's not what I'm looking for here. You're just trusting God to sort this out. Okay? Will you trust God to sort it out? Because He will, you know. And maybe not in the way you want Him to. In fact, it's often not in the way you want Him to. But it's always in the way He knows best.

And He'll get the glory for it. And what do you get out of this? You get to live in peace.

You get to live with a calmness that defies explanation. And people will look at you and marvel. And they're marveling at the Jesus in you. And that's how we do it.

It's not any more complicated than that. But I know, I know, I know, I know some of you are so torqued with bitterness that it's physically affecting you. And you have hot tears in your eyes. And your fists are clenching, your teeth are grinding. I get it.

I know it. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Still struggle with that sometimes.

And I think I will for the rest of my life. That's the human condition. And this is the part of our journey as caregivers that doesn't get discussed very much. But it's no different from any other journey as believers.

But it's just really compressed as a caregiver. And this sanctification journey is what's going on. And things are being revealed in us that need to be dealt with. And the pressure on us as caregivers forces that stuff to the surface.

It amplifies it in ways that other people may have a longer period of life to work through issues, but you and I don't. We're going to see our own crud pretty quickly. There's nothing like caring for somebody with extreme disabilities and needs to expose the gunk that's in your soul.

I'm preaching to myself at that point because I've seen it and I'm like, oh, in my own life. And so we cry out to our savior because, you know, we see this and it's ugly, it's unpleasant. But he knows, but he wants to deal with it. And those of you who are caregivers for somebody who has a lot of surgeries.

Let me just talk to you for just a moment. A lot of medical issues. You know this. You've seen this with wound care. You know, wounds can be ugly, messy things. You've heard the phrase an angry wound.

Well, what does that bring to mind? A red inflamed pussy wound. And I've had to help irrigate things like that with my wife. She has a lot of wound issues. She's had so much trauma and there were amputations.

She's had multiple amputations on both legs. I mean, they've had to keep going back and reworking and revisiting, take it a little bit more off. I mean, it's just been a it's been a journey. And sometimes we had to let the wounds heal over time. And I would have to dress those wounds. And they were very complex dressings. And you had to do certain things with it. And it was it was messy and ugly. But that's what it's like for us as caregivers in our own hearts. We have messy, ugly wounds.

Who's addressing these things? And think about the pressure that builds up with all that inflammation and all that infection that has to come out. You have to get it out and think about the pressure that's on your soul for that.

Who is addressing this with you? And the first step is learning to deal with forgiveness. And letting go of some of these things, de-breeding it, if you will. Those of you who understand wound care and you nurses and doctors and medical technicians and so forth understand this. And those of you dealt with this, particularly if you deal with somebody with diabetes or whatever, you have to de-breed a wound. You have to get the gunk out of there. And you often use a saline solution.

The saline solution we use when we deal with this is the forgiveness, the work of the Holy Spirit to clean that stuff out, to de-breed that wound. I've had a guy call on the show one time, I may play this call, but I had a guy call on the show one time that his father was an alcoholic, a very ugly alcoholic when he was a little kid. And he just grew up in that environment. And then his father, now he's 50-something years old, his father has had an accident, a fall or something.

I'll see if I can find that call and play it. But he needs care. But he's still an alcoholic.

And he said, every time I'm around this guy, I feel like I'm that kid again. And that's a deep wound. And he's got to care for the guy that treated him so poorly. Some of you understand this. Some of you are caring for a family member who abused you when you were a kid. Sometimes sexually.

And here you are in a situation where that family member needs care and you're like, oh God, please don't ask me to do this. That wound is ugly and it's painful and it hurts. It matters. It matters to our Savior. Hear me on this.

It matters. And He is redeeming this. Would you trust Him to help you debride it and get that gunk out of there and start with forgiveness? Will you trust me with that? Will you trust Him with that?

Don't trust me. Trust Him with that. This is the process that He can do. And He will do it. And He desires to do it so that you can be healthier. Healthy caregivers make better caregivers.

This is Peter Roseburger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. Don't go away.

We've got more to go. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. I am so glad that you're with us.

Is the joy of the Lord your strength? That is my wife Gracie and Russ Taft from her CD Resilient. Go out to Hopeforthecaregiver.com and get a copy of that. Just click on the donate button. Whatever is on your heart, we'll send you that CD.

Hopeforthecaregiver.com. We're talking about things to do as you approach the New Year. And the first thing I'd like for you to do is consider calling your doctor to schedule an appointment to CD your own health. Just get a checkup.

Get a physical. And the second thing we talked about was forgiveness. Letting go of certain things. Letting the work of God, the forgiveness of God extended to you, the work of the Holy Spirit, clean these things out in you. There are things in your life right now that are prohibiting healing. And I told you I'd try to find that call and I want to play this for you right now just to give you an idea of some of the wounds that can go on in there.

Bill in Indiana. Good morning. How are you feeling? I'm feeling pretty good.

Good morning. Well, what's going on with you? I'm going to be 52 next month and my dad, who is 75, he and I have had a tumultuous relationship my whole entire life. I was pretty young when I would have been diagnosed as what everybody calls OCD now. And it was in response to his alcoholism and the way he treated my mom and that kind of stuff.

And, you know, I found that I'm not the only person that that deals with trying to be perfect so that you don't get yelled at. And it's been this way, like I said, my whole entire life. And about a year ago, I had decided I was done dealing with him. I just couldn't take it anymore from him calling me at work and being drunk.

And it was crazy. But a year ago, I just finally decided after the calls at work and him being in a drunken state and the things he would say and accuse me of. I said, that's it.

I'm done. And I talked to him just a couple of times. And then this last July, he fell and hit his head. And but he was completely inebriated when he fell. So when he went into the hospital, they kind of ran him through, you know, I can't think of the medicine they gave him to help them through the withdrawals and everything. When he came out of it, he has he can't swallow very well.

The swallowing mechanism is not working and stuff that he swallows gets into his lungs. So he's had a PEG tube. And I had really got a fantastic wife, great church. And I had prayed, you know, maybe I need to stay with dad when he finally got to come home from the nursing home. He is in the hospital in the nursing home.

I see from the middle of July till about the middle of October. And it's still dealing. You know, it's his house. It's almost like I'm nine years old again. And he he can take care of himself somewhat. But he's scared to be by himself. And there is so much stuff that has happened in life. And I'm always afraid to confront him about it because it's like I said, it's like I'm nine years old, 10 years old.

And I just was looking for anything, advice, a book, something to help me over this fear to talk to him and say, hey, you know, the reason you've driven your two wives away and your family away is because of, you know, the Jekyll and Hyde dealing with your alcoholism. We need to call it what it is. And and I, I just can't take being, you know, berated anymore, I guess is the short way to say it. Well, let's let's start right there.

Let's just that's our starting point. The first step is to get you away from being nine years old. You're 52. So you're not nine years old and you are not in any way bound to this this man's disease and his behavior. Unfortunately, this that's what this disease does. It disorientates you and makes you think that you are. So we want to help you detach from that as best as possible.

There are places you can go for that. Al-Anonism. I would highly recommend you go into an Al-Anon meeting. Are you familiar with Al-Anon?

I just have heard of it and that's that's all I've ever heard. I would recommend going. Don't don't go there with any expectations other than there's a group of people who are dealing with the same stuff that meet in anonymity. And they deal with the same things that you're dealing with with a family member who has an addiction issue. And you're going to hear your story come out of somebody else's mouth. And that's where you start. Because the principles that you can learn on that will help you detach from your father's disease. You know, you can't shame your father or argue your father or reason with your father into recovery. He's got to do that himself. What you can do is learn for you to live more healthily in this.

And that's the goal. You didn't you didn't cause this. You can't fix it.

OK. That's where your your powers stop at the end of what you can do. And all you can do is be in control of Bill, not in control of your father or his recovery or his demise. He may not make it, Bill, but you have to.

You've got you've got a family that's counting on you to not be nine years old, to be 52 years old. Your father's made his choices. He's got his life. He's got his thing going on.

He's in a place now where people are starting to see what has happened to him. He may not make it, but you have to. And those are hard words. Those are hard words, Bill.

And I don't mean them to be anything other than what they are, because it's blunt force truth. But that's sometimes that's what we as caregivers need in the midst of our craziness is that blunt force truth. You have spent a lifetime being a slave to your father's disease.

And it will it will affect you for the rest of your life and your children. So this is your time now to step in to this and say, you know what? No more.

No more. I'm going to go on a path of recovery for myself no matter what happens to my father. I'll do the best I can to care for him. But I am not obligated to fix him, to save him. He has a savior. Look, I tell you what, here's what I do. Look down at your hands.

If you don't see nail prints, this ain't yours to fix. You know, you know, he has a savior. You ain't that savior. And that's that's your starting point to realize, OK, what is my responsibility? Honoring your father does not mean honoring his disease. And it's hard because it looks like it's the same person, but it is not underneath all this dysfunction is your dad, the man you want to honor.

And you can, but you do not have to honor alcoholism. What you have to do is back away from that so that you can be healthy no matter what he's doing. When you go home to your wife and your kids after being with your dad, they don't need to have a nine year old walk in the house. This last few months have been really hard trying to figure out where I draw the line.

And I guess that'd be maybe the second part of this question is as far as just confronting him and saying, you know, dad, here's the deal. Here's this whole situation. Is that something that should come? I mean, should that come? Yeah. Yeah, it can. But not right now.

Not right now. OK. You're not in a place where you have the vocabulary or the strength to do that on your own. You can get there. And that's why working a good recovery program for yourself is going to help. If you're dealing with something you can't control and you're struggling with it, that's a place.

Because that's what the whole point is, is to learn how to come to grips with this. Sit down with your pastor. Sit down with a counselor.

I would recommend getting a counselor involved with you at this point, Bill. There are lots of resources out there that you can go to that that will that will strengthen you and give you the vocabulary of doing this. You don't have the tool belt right now.

You know, it'd be it'd be basically like you going out there and trying to build something with with only a screwdriver. You just don't have the vocabulary. And so.

But but you know what? We're all going to pull together with you and help you get the vocabulary. And you can do this. And your family will have the vocabulary and they'll know how to minister to you and know what's going on with you. And your wife will be able to be able to that she'll be able to better understand what's going on with you and why that nine year old kid seems to emerge all the time in the face of this. And your and your children will the same way.

This this is there is a recovery path for you on this. That's work. But you're not afraid of work. And it's good work, Bill. It's good work, Bill. It's a way of you reclaiming that which was stolen from you by this terrible disease.

This disease has more than one victim. And and you can move through this. And this is this is what God can and will do through your life when you trust him with this.

It's going to mean you're learning a different set of skills and words and so forth. And that's OK. But, you know, this thing will it will disorient you.

It will take you down in some dark places. And you've already been there. You're not responsible for your dad's destruction.

You're just not. He's a grown man who's made his own grown man decisions. And at some point you're going to see where God can. God's even interested in helping him get to a place of recovery, too.

God hasn't abandoned him. Right. But but but but with alcoholics, you've got to almost you've got to step away from this and let them spiral out of control until they get to the point where they want help more than they want alcohol. Alcohol is not his problem. That's his idea of medication.

Right. Whatever's going on in him, he's numbing that with alcohol. Even if he gets sobered up and never drinks another drop for the rest of his life, he's still got to deal with the inner turmoil of what was going on in his life that led him to that place. So this is a long, long, long journey that he may or may not be able to make now that he's in physical bad situation here.

So your your challenge is, is to detach from this so that not not sever it, just attach so that you are focused on the healthiest bill that you can be. OK, that that's that's the goal. And and for you and your family that this thing stops now.

For your children's sake, for your wife's sake, for your sake. That certainly does. And there's the main times I felt like I'm just in a whirlwind of not knowing what to do because I know there's no way to talk to him without getting upset. And I thought when I was driving in and heard your show, I thought, you know, he's going to have some kind of an idea what I should do next, because I can't I can't seem to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I really appreciate you taking the time to talk. Well, Bill, this is why you're why I do the show. And I'm preaching to myself here because let me let me tell you something real quick. And I know you've got to go, but I can't argue with my wife's amputation.

The legs are gone. I can't argue with it. I can't reason that I have to accept it.

That doesn't mean I have to like it. I just have to accept it. Acceptance is not agreement. It's just acceptance. OK, this is the reality.

The reality is your father's an alcoholic and he has taken everybody he's that's in his orbit into a bad place with it. That's acceptance. We don't have to like it. We don't have to agree with it. But we do have to accept it in order for us to be able to say, OK, here's it is what it is. Now let's get to a place of safety. He may not make it. But you have to. Bill, please keep listening to the show and feel free to call in anytime.

We're out of time. This is Peter Rosenberger. Helping caregivers make better caregivers. Happy New Year.

Let's do it together. Hope for the caregiver dot com. Hey, this is John Butler, producer of Hope for the Caregiver. And I have learned something that you probably all know, that Gracie, his wife lost her legs many, many years ago and started a prosthetic limb outreach ministry called Standing with Hope.

And recently they ended up with a rather unique and unexpected partner. Peter had a conversation with Gracie and take a listen. Gracie, when you envision doing a prosthetic limb outreach, did you ever think that inmates would help you do that?

Not in a million years. When you go to the facility run by CoreCivic over in Nashville and you see the faces of these inmates that are working on prosthetic limbs that you have helped collect from all over the country that you put out the plea for and they're disassembling. You see all these legs like what you have your own prosthetic and arms and arms. When you see all this, what does that do to you? Makes me cry because I see the smiles on their faces. And I know I know what it is to be locked someplace where you can't get out without somebody else allowing you to get out. Of course, being in the hospital so much and so long.

And so these men are so glad that they get to be doing, as one band said, something good finally with my hands. Did you know before you became an amputee that parts of prosthetic limbs could be recycled? No, I had no idea. You know, I thought of peg leg. I thought of wooden legs.

I never thought of titanium and carbon legs and flex feet and sea legs and all that. I never thought about that. As you watch these inmates participate in something like this, knowing that they're helping other people now walk, they're providing the means for these supplies to get over there, what does that do to you just on a heart level? I wish I could explain to the world what I see in there, and I wish that I could be able to go and say, this guy right here, he needs to go to Africa with us. I never not feel that way. Every time, you know, you always make me have to leave, I don't want to leave them.

I feel like I'm at home with them, and I feel like that we have a common bond. But I would have never expected that only God could put together. Now that you've had an experience with it, what do you think of the faith-based programs that CoreCivic offers? I think they're just absolutely awesome, and I think every prison out there should have faith-based programs like this, because the return rate of the men that are involved in this particular faith-based program and the other ones like it, but I know about this one, is just an amazingly low rate compared to those who don't have them. And I think that that says so much.

That doesn't have anything to do with me. It just has something to do with God using somebody broken to help other broken people. If people want to donate a used prosthetic limbs, whether from a loved one who passed away or, you know, somebody who outgrew them, you've donated some of your own for them to do. How do they do that? Oh, please go to standingwithhope.com slash recycle. Standingwithhope.com slash recycle. Thanks, Gracie.