It is No Secret

Live on American Family Radio, this is Peter Roseburger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. This is the show for you as a family caregiver. More than 65 million Americans right now are standing between a vulnerable loved one and even worse, disaster. How do you help caregivers?

What does that look like? Why should you do it? That's what this show is all about. Hope for the caregiver is the conviction that we as caregivers can live a calmer, healthier, and dare I say, a more joyful life while taking care of someone who deals with heartbreaking realities. Now maybe you're taking care of an aging parent.

A lot of people are. Maybe you're taking care of a child with special needs. Maybe you've got somebody in your circle that is dealing with alcoholism or addiction. All of these are chronic impairments.

There's so many different types of chronic impairments. And there's always a caregiver. And that's why we do the show. 888-589-8840. 888-589-8840 if you want to follow along. And also you can, if you want to call the show, if you want to follow along on live stream, we're on Hope for the Caregiver on our Facebook page.

And you can go out and check out the show live. It will probably drop off because Facebook and I have a long standing argument when I live stream the show and we get into a battle of wits and I find that they are unarmed. And so I, if it drops off, it drops off. Sorry.

Programming note real quick. If you want to go out to our webpage at Hopeforthecaregiver.com, you can see our latest podcast. And it's my interview with William Lee Golden of the Oak Ridge Boys. I've got his book here for those of you watching along.

I'll just hold it up here at the camera. And it is a wonderful conversation that he and I had this week and an amazing life. Those of you who have followed the Oak Ridge Boys for any length of time, he's the one with the beard and the book is called Behind the Beard. And I think you'll like the interview a lot. There's a lot that we put in this and on our podcast we can unpack conversations and interviews and so forth a little bit easier than I can sometimes on the show here. But I, and I wanted to have this conversation with him and see what some of his thoughts and about his life, his music, his faith, his falls, his recoveries, all kinds of things. And I think you'll like the interview.

So you can go out to Hopeforthecaregiver.com and see that. I want to jump right into our song for today. And if you know this song, I'm going to step over here to the caregiver keyboard. I have now stepped to the caregiver keyboard. And those of you who are ready to listen to the show know that I do this pretty much every week.

I find a hymn usually or some type of song that's going to connect to us as caregivers. And I want you to tell me if you know what the song is. And I will give you a hint on this one. The guy that wrote it actually once ran for president.

So that's an obscure hint, but you know, you may get it. But here's the song. So if you know that tune, 888-589-8840. 888-589-8840.

And feel free to give us a call on that. All right, let me tell you a story about a farmer who raised chickens. Any of you all raised chickens? Well, this farmer had heard that if you play some music, he was concerned that his chickens were not necessarily producing enough eggs. And so he'd heard if you play music for the chickens, then that would help them lay more eggs. So he was a flautist.

He had a flute. And he went out and sat by the chicken coop and played his flute. And he did this for a while and then he would go about his chores. He got up to do it the next day and did it again. And this went on for several weeks. And he noticed, however, that the chickens were not producing any more eggs. But he still kept doing it. And he kept playing and kept playing. Well, he had a neighbor that was watching all this. And the neighbor came to him and said, hey, are your chickens laying any more eggs?

I've been noticing you do this. He says, no. He said, well, you're going out there every day and you're playing your flute and you're doing your music and the chickens aren't laying any more eggs. Why do you keep doing it?

He said, because my music's getting better. As caregivers, we live with individuals who endure things that we cannot change. We cannot improve. We cannot fix it. We cannot take it away. But we can change. We can grow. We can adapt.

And along the way, we may discover that we make beautiful music and we experience beautiful music. Not in what we expected. I live with someone whose legs are gone. I can't fix that. It is way beyond my skill set, my power.

In fact, all the surgeons that have worked on her can't fix it. But I can change as I care for her. And I can grow as an individual. And along the way, I discover that there's beautiful music.

It's a great day to make music as we sit there and accept certain realities that are beyond our abilities. How many of you all are in this situation where you have thrown everything you have, you've tried as creatively as you can to somehow fix this situation or change it or improve it? And it doesn't. I know folks that are in a relationship with alcoholics who have thrown, and addicts who have thrown so much money at this, going to rehab and everything else.

And it doesn't change. It's beyond your ability. Is there a point where you can maybe change up you and the way you're approaching this and recognize that maybe your responsibility in this is not to fix this individual, but just for you to trust God in it? There's a great scripture that I love, Mark 9. To me, it is one of the best prayers ever uttered in scripture. And Jesus, this father, this child brought him to Jesus, and the kid was having a, I think it was a demonic possession. Something was going on with the kid.

It was pretty messed up. And Jesus said to him, if you believe, all things are possible to him who believes. Now, again, it's not the amount of faith that you have. It's the object of our faith. My faith in itself is pointless unless my faith is in Christ. I can have faith in a chair, but that doesn't mean anything's going to happen. And Jesus said, if you can believe, the implication is believe in what I'm telling you, in me, and the power of God in this.

All things are possible. And the father and child, it said, Mark, cried out and said with tears, which I think is the best prayer in all of scripture, at least for me. It just resonates. Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Isn't that a great prayer? Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. And that's our journey as caregivers. Do we believe? And then will we ask him to help our unbelief in this? That he can work through all of these things in ways that we can't even imagine.

All right. This is Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the show for you as a family caregiver.

888-589-8840. We'll be right back. Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you? I have. I'm Gracie Rosenberger, and in 1983, I experienced a horrific car accident leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated. I questioned why God allowed something so brutal to happen to me.

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

And with the help of inmates in a Tennessee prison, we also recycle parts from donated limbs. All of this is to point others to Christ, the source of my hope and strength. Please visit standingwithhope.com to learn more and participate in lifting others up. That's standingwithhope.com. I'm Gracie, and I am standing with hope. Welcome back to Hope as a Caregiver.

This is Peter Roseburger. This is the show for you as a family caregiver, and we're glad that you're with us. That is Gracie, my wife, from her CD, Resilient. Go out to hopeforthecaregiver.com.

You can figure out how to get that. It's a wonderful CD that she's done. What a voice. I love listening to her sing. 888-589-8840.

888-589-8840. Now, I've got a bunch of folks that want to weigh in on our song for the day. Now, if somebody else gets a song, I still want to hear from you. You don't have to immediately hang up, because I want to hear why you think this song is important or what does it mean to you. There's a reason I do this every week with the hymns and these songs and sometimes a chorus or whatever. I want to first off help reintroduce these to folks who may not have heard them in a while and missed them. I want to introduce them to a new audience that would benefit greatly from these hymns, and then also because so many of these have a line or a phrase or a melody that is so easy to remember that in the dark times throughout the day and throughout the week when we're not on the show together here, when we're struggling in the middle of the night, you'll remember that phrase and it'll strengthen you and kind of give you a little bit more clarity on your next step over. That's what I'm hoping to accomplish.

Next step over meaning take your next step not passing over into eternity. As you're going through stuff like I did, he touched me one week. I want you to go through the day as you struggle with these things and if you'll remember that tune, he touched me, oh he touched me, and oh the joy that flooded my soul. That's what I did with this song today. If you can remember nothing else but that lyric from that particular phrase, it'll absolutely anchor you throughout the day. I know this because it does it for me and in my circumstances, and I've been a caregiver 35 years, so I know this. I really want this for you as well so that when you get in these dark moments, if you can do nothing else but just remember that. That's why I put on my CD Songs for the Caregiver, one of the hymns I put on there was Jesus Loves Me and I did this with a friend of mine on his trumpet. I wanted people to just remember that wait a minute, we're so busy carrying our loved ones to Jesus, do we know that we need him ourselves? Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so. Yes, he loves my wife, but he loves me too and he loves you.

Here's how we know this and here's what this means to us, so I'm trying to introduce these things for us. Let's go to David in North Dakota. Good morning David, how are you feeling? Good morning, I'm feeling good today. How's the weather in North Dakota? Well, right now it is cool down, we had a good rainstorm, perfect timing for the crops and we are doing great here.

Well, send some of that rain west, because over here in Montana we are a little bit dry and we could use it, so I'm not feeling very good about our fire season this year because we need some rain, but the Lord calls us to rain on the just and the unjust and so we will just continue to ask for rain, but I'm glad you're doing well over there in North Dakota. Do you know the song? Yes, Precious Jesus, Precious Jesus, hear the children when they pray. Well, nope, that's not it. David, I'm sorry, we don't have some kind of sad trombone playing wah, wah, wah, we don't have that, but that's not it. It's not it, but I want you to know how much I appreciate you listening to that.

You've got to keep listening so you see what the song is and remember the guy that wrote it did run for president one year, way back in the 50s. He didn't go very far, but he did run and he's written several other wonderful songs, but this is probably his biggest one and this is the chorus, but let me go to, thank you so much for the call though David, I really do appreciate it and let's go to Faye in Texas. Faye, good morning, how are you feeling? I'm fine, how are you doing? Well, you know, for the shape I'm in, I'm in pretty good shape, Faye.

Tell me this, do you know the song? Yes sir, I think it is no secret what God can do. It is no secret what God can do. It is no secret what God can do. What he's done for others, he'll do for you. That is a great, great lyric for us as caregivers to remember in those moments when we were so discouraged, it is no secret what God can do. What he's done for others, he'll do for you. With arms wide open, he'll pardon you.

It is no secret what God can do. You know who wrote it? That's the bonus question, do you know who wrote it, Faye? I think it was Stewart Hamlin.

It was. Did you know he had run for president? No I did not, however, I actually met his brother one time and I was just shocked, but within a circumstance, I did not, I did not, he had written many songs, and they did. They've always blessed my entire family, my mother, who's in heaven now, and my dad, but I wanted to tell you that your playing is a blessing to me because I have been playing piano for a long time, many years, but I hang on all your chords. So I'm just listening to the chords you play and it's a blessing to me. Well, that's very, very kind of you to say so, thank you. I will throw a lot of that credit of my chords and at my piano professor, John Arnn, from Nashville, Tennessee, who I still stay in touch with, he was my piano professor in college, and he taught me how to better play some of these songs, and I like to change up the chords, because I think it gives a little bit more texture to the song, and then helps us better connect with the song, because sometimes people will, when they plunk out a song, you know, they'll, and I hate that, I mean, come on, it's a great lyric, let's let's take your time with it, and I threw in it, that's a major seven chord, and then I throw in the the five over four, and then the here's a chord right here, a flat nine, and so it just gives a lot more texture, and then hopefully then we'll anchor the song better in our lives, you know, and that's why I do what I do, and I love to take these hymns and these old songs and give them a little bit more, put a little bit more mustard on them, if you will, and sometimes some hot sauce, but not to get so inside musically that it loses the texture of the song, that the point is the melody, and one of the things that my professor used to instruct us to do, and he still does, play the song with one finger, that's it, just play the melody, one finger, first, and play it as expressively as you can with one finger, and for a pianist, that is almost torture, that's a lot of work, because we're so used to all of our fingers going, but when we do it with one finger, it teaches us the importance of that melody, and how to better get the melody to sing, and then we do everything around the melody, and so that's that's his philosophy, and I think it's worked out pretty well.

It's beautiful, I really enjoyed that, and thank you for the show. Well thank you, Faye, and do you play at your church or anything? Yes, I do, and I played a long time, and there have been times when I got so discouraged playing at the piano, that I thought I'll never play again, have you ever experienced that?

You just make so many mistakes, you think, I'll just never get up there again, that's life. I share that, but there are also times when I'm so discouraged in life, that all I can do sometimes is go to the piano and play, and I don't even have the words, and I'll just go through the hymnal or whatever, and I'll just play, and then it helps settle my heart down. That's so true, you can go to the piano and start playing and worshiping God, and you can just cry at the piano and nobody knows except you and God, it's just a form of worship. It is, David set that stage for us way back when he would just sit out and sing and play out in the wilderness while tending sheep, and I think that the music of Hans Christian Andersen said, where words fail, music speaks, and I live by that, I love that, and so music is a big part of my life, and I thank you all for indulging me while I play these songs, because I feel like that they will stick with us, and I'm hoping that fellow caregivers listening to that will go through the day or the week, and when things get really gnarly, you'll say, you know, it is no secret what God can do, what he's done for others, he'll do for you, you know, and if you could just hold on to that lyric, with arms wide open, he'll pardon you, it is no secret what God can do, and that is, that's why I do these songs, they're wonderful songs that we have somehow allowed to get too much dust on them in our churches and so forth, and it's time to bring them out and speak and introduce them with some clarity and maybe some better chords, you know, I used to kid my pastor back in Nashville, I was playing one of those flat nine chords, you know, and I was doing that, and I looked at it, and he was walking across the front there, I would play as people were coming in, and I whispered to him, I said, you know, I can get thrown out of some churches for that chord right there, he would start laughing, but you know, I love, I love these hymns, and thank you all for indulging me, and Faith, thank you very much for getting the song. Well thank you for having your program and for your family, your wife, and God bless you for everything you do for all the caregivers out there.

Well thank you very much for that. Alrighty, well this is Peter Rosenberger, this is Hope for the Caregiver, and the song is, it is no secret, do you know that? It is no secret what God can do, what he's done for others, he'll do for you.

With arms wide open, he'll pardon you. It is no secret what God can do, and I think that that's a very appropriate song for us as caregivers to hang on to. It all starts with our relationship with God.

You can try to do this as a caregiver on your own strength. It is unsustainable. That's 35 years of experience saying that.

It is unsustainable, but once you understand the inexhaustible, start to engage with the inexhaustible love and grace and mercy of God through Christ, you are strengthened and equipped to continue doing this in ways that you never even dreamed possible. And you go back to that prayer that Father said, Lord I believe, help my unbelief. And that's our start. We've got more of your calls that we'll answer, and more to go on the show. This is Hope for the Caregiver, 888-589-8840.

We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio. This is the show for caregivers about caregivers, hosted by a caregiver, all about strengthening the family caregivers.

Healthy caregivers make better caregivers. It's just that simple. And if you are torqued up in your own heart that you're just so full of tension, so full of angst, so full of fear and dread, how in the world are you going to be able to do to care for another human being to do this, to sustain this over time?

You can't. And it always starts at the heart level. If your heart is a train wreck, guess what the rest of you looks like?

It's only a matter of time before your wallet, your body, your relationships, your profession, and all of these things collapse under the strain. And so we start on this show on a heart level of understanding these truths in God that Scripture lays out of how to navigate through these very painful realities without collapsing through fear or despair or getting ourselves so worked up over rage and resentment. And these are things that affect us as family caregivers. I was talking with someone last night and they were discussing, you know, the way we interact with loved ones and so forth, and they had someone who was dealing with alcoholism.

And she said, I don't know whether I should yell at her or fuss at her or whatever, and I said, step back for just a moment. Alcoholism, this disease of addiction, has overtaken this individual and you can yell at them, you can shame them, you can berate them, you can do all those kinds of things, but you might as well be just arguing with diabetes. You know, if you take it out of the behavior issue and look at it from an impairment issue or disease or an affliction issue, it helps you understand the concept a little bit more. My wife's missing both of her legs. I cannot argue with amputation.

It would be stupid and inappropriate for me to in any way malign her for not being able to to walk in a normal manner because her legs are gone. And we could wrap our minds around that. But when you're dealing with the behavior issue of somebody who has mental illness or somebody who has an addiction, we want to help just shake them and help them snap out of it and just make a better choice, not understand that we can't. This is beyond us. And we get ourselves all worked up thinking somehow we can we can go in there and fix this thing.

And we can't. And I go back to the story I had with the farmer playing the flute. He was trying to get the chickens to lay more eggs, but they didn't lay any more eggs with the flute or with anything else. It was just it was it was beyond his control. Once he's done what he can do, he gives them the food, gives them the water, and then chickens got to do what chickens do. But as he was playing his flute for them, he realized he was making better music and he was becoming better at his instrument.

He was changing. And that's the goal for us as caregivers to realize that there are things that are just way beyond our abilities. Most things are. In fact, the only thing that we really have control over are our thoughts, our words, our deeds. That's really all we have control over. And so if we're so busy trying to force someone else to change or improve or stop acting in a certain way, we are spending all of our time trying to do something that is not ours to do.

And it always comes back to a heart level. Okay, where are we in this with Christ? Are we understanding the change that is going on in our life that is available to us?

Can we live peacefully in this? When Elijah, after he had had his big encounter with the prophets of Baal, he ran and he, you know, fell asleep and the angel Lord came and brought him something to eat, but he rested up, took a nap. When Daniel was in the lines, he was able to sleep at night. He, you know, woke up the next morning and told the king, hey look, we're all good here.

When Jesus was in the boat, he took a nap. There's a scriptural precedent for us settling down and just taking a nap and just relaxing. There are things going on around us that we have no control over. And if you notice on the news and things such as that, that they have a vested interest in getting you ramped up over something you can't fix. And keeping us in a perpetual state of outrage.

Whereas scripture comes along and speaks to us on a spirit level, on a heart level, to keep, to help facilitate us staying in a perpetual state of trust, in a perpetual state of resting in God. That I'm not going to get torqued up about things that have, I have no control over. And as a family caregiver, you understand this in ways that maybe others don't get the opportunity to because we live with it relentlessly.

It never goes away. And so we are, we are confronted with this on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. On my CD, I put a, I need the every hour on there.

Somebody said, why did you put that on there? I said, because there's no song that says I need the every minute. So I had to go with I need the every hour. But, but we are confronted with this, relentlessly. Now you either make peace with this or you're gonna go barking bad.

And you're gonna end up being so filled with resentment or despair that you can't function. And I go back to our scripture today. Jesus said, if you believe all things are possible to one who believes, to him who believes. And the father child cried out, and this is our prayer.

This is mine. I love this prayer. Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. You know, and, and, and crying out to God is in itself an act of faith. And it's not how much faith you have. It is the object of your faith. What are you believing? Who are you believing in?

What does this mean? Ezekiel 11 19 states, and I will give them one heart and a new spirit I will put within them. I'll remove the heart of stone from their, from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh. In other words, we're being transformed. We're being changed through this, if we trust in him to do this. And, and somehow we think, okay, if God will right every wrong, then I can be at peace. And that is not what scriptures teaches, scriptures teaching. He is going to write all this. One day there will be none of these things.

We know this. But in the meantime, he's inviting us to trust him as he works his redemption out in his way, in his time, in his plan. And so once we get a hold of that principle, however timidly we are, we are doing it. Once we get a hold of that principle, then it changes the way we approach the situations our loved ones deal with. And we stop trying to force what we think is best on someone else.

And trust God to work his best in their life and in our life. And that's when we can go back to the Psalm that we did today. It is no secret what God can do, what he's done for others. He'll do for you. With arms wide open, he'll pardon you.

And it starts with the understanding of the word pardon. Because if you are somehow coming to God thinking, look God, fix this, you know, then I'll be happy. And God is seeing a greater problem in you. There is a greater issue in your life and in my life than just the angst we feel over our loved one. However big a deal it is of what we're dealing with as caregivers, there's a greater issue.

And understanding his promises, his word, his changing power in that is the starting point. Gracie and I both tell you there are worse things than amputation. There are worse things than orthopedic challenges. Her body's an orthopedic train wreck. And we'll both tell you there are worse things than that.

There are worse things than Alzheimer's. And he came to to address that issue. That was the purpose of the cross. And then all the other issues will flow from that.

You tracking with me? And that's why I pull out these hymns and these songs to help drive that point home in ways that maybe I can't do very well. Because others have come along and they've done this. A while back, several weeks back, we did, Oh God our help in ages past. Oh God our help in ages past.

Well that alone implies that there have been times when we have seen God's provision in ages past, in the past long ago. And we can rely on that. And we look at all these individuals who have walked through these things and we're standing on their shoulders. We have their lives to look to. And then in the book of Hebrews it says there's a great cloud of witnesses that are cheering us on.

Do you know that there's a great cloud of witnesses that are cheering you on right now? As you're a caregiver. That all these things that you're doing where you think nobody else has seen you doing it in the middle of the night. You're cleaning up just horrendous messes. Or you're taking abuse from someone.

Or you're so tired that you can't even stand. Do you know there's a great cloud of witnesses that are cheering you on? This is the message of Scripture to us as family caregivers. And my passion on this show is to say this in a way that we as caregivers can understand this. I didn't have anybody speaking to me like this for the, well really for the entire journey. I've had to aggregate a lifetime of this and try to somehow make sense of it in the caregiver ease. But because I speak fluent caregiver I'm able to take these principles down and offer them to my fellow caregivers in a way they can understand. And this is why we do the show.

This is why we do all the things that we do. Because I understand how lonely, how painful, how discouraging this is. But I also understand how deep and how powerful and how transforming the gospel is. Not as much as I'm going to understand it.

But I understand it a lot more than I used to. Even as a caregiver. It is no secret what God can do. What He's done for others He'll do for you. This is Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger. 888-589-8840.

We'll be right back. Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you? I'm Gracie Rosenberger and in 1983 I experienced a horrific car accident leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated. I questioned why God allowed something so brutal to happen to me.

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

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

Welcome back to Hope for the Keager. This is Peter Rosenberger, 888-589-8840. If you want to be a part of the show that's Gracie. By the way, I've got a young man we're trying to help provide. You heard Gracie's story and a young man we're trying to provide a leg for over in Kenya. We normally work in Ghana.

Kenya is on the other side of the continent and we can't travel right now with COVID. I'm still not in a Gracie even though Gracie says she's going. I'm like no I'm not taking you over there right now Gracie.

You're gonna have to just wait. But we're still sending supplies. We've got a shipment that's going out.

Actually this this week coming up here they got it all packed up at a prison. Thank you all for the folks who have been supporting. There's still time if you want to help support sending these things over. We recycle prosthetic limbs at a prison where inmates strip them down and then we use the the parts that can be recycled and send that over. Then we also sponsor a patient when they can't afford a limb or something if they're not even in the country we work in. We try to work with the local provider and help sponsor that and this is a guy named Godfrey in Kenya and he just was evaluated yesterday.

They're sending me a report on on what it's going to be to to help him get this leg and if you want to be a part of that you can go out to hopeforthecaregiver.com just see where it says standing with hope and you can see how to do that. Support the show. Support Godfrey. Support the shipment.

Whatever's on your heart to do. I wanted to also, so that's hopeforthecaregiver.com and go out there and you see all that there and then we'll send you a copy of Gracie's CD just as our gift to you for doing it. I wanted to talk about the lyrics of the verse on It Is No Secret that we've been doing today. The chimes of time ring out the news. Another day is through.

Someone slipped and fell. Was that someone you? You may have longed for added strength. Your courage to renew. Do not be disheartened for I have news for you.

Let's see how that goes. And that's the verse on that but the chimes, you may have longed for added strength. Your courage to renew. Do not be disheartened for I have news for you. It is no secret what God can do. What he's done for others, he'll do for you. With arms wide open, he'll pardon you.

It is no secret what God can do. Nancy in Ohio. Nancy, good morning. How are you feeling? I'm blessed. Very blessed.

Well that's great to hear. What's on your heart and mind today? Well, today is the sixth anniversary of my husband's passing into glory and so he's that's much on my mind today and I was his caregiver for a lot of long years as he was had a condition had conditions that were deteriorating and there were times when I was in despair and only the music, Jesus loves me.

It is no secret. It is well with my soul. All of those songs were just a blessing and an encouragement and a strength for for my walk and it was the path that God had me on and he reassured me of that and so I take rest in knowing that I did what God had asked me to do. Well you did and those you're right those songs these songs that we lean lean on and that we cling to were not written in a vacuum they were written by people who wrestled with these same things and this is where they landed. The second verse on it is no secret there is no night for in his light you never walk alone always feel at home wherever you may go there is no power can conquer you while God is on your side take him at his promise don't run away and hide it is no secret what God can do isn't that a great text that is a great text and you know the words of the songs every morning when I have my devotions I sing at least one hymn I have a hymnal right by my Bible and I pick out at least one hymn and I sing because the words of those old hymns are just so uplifting give it give you a sense the sense of security knowing you're in his hands what did you sing this morning like the songs that that have come down through the ages what did you think what hymn did you sing this morning um is well with my soul oh I love that one so so sing that chorus there a little slower so that is just such a great hymn that has sustained so many millions upon millions upon millions of people and it was written out of such heartache yes it was written out of such heartache you know peter uh if you can't sing just pick up a hymnal and just read the the the poetry of those all those hymns and even that does an amazing thing I often do that if I if I don't know the tune or my voice isn't doing and then right now it's not doing very well but just read the words and they will just have such a blessing on you that sustains me well they do we have a treasure trove that we have um almost ignored in our churches today of these hymns and they were written out of of great understanding and insight and a lot of them were written out of great pain and and yet God gifted these individuals to write beautiful text beautiful music that has stood around for hundreds and hundreds of years and it's not that I'm you know biased towards things that are you know written today there's beautiful things that are being written today but you know I like to cook with um with an iron skillet quite a bit and one of the things about cooking with an iron skillet is that an iron skillet requires seasoning you have to season the the skillet you can't just throw it in a dishwasher or things such as that and it has to be done well songs are the same way music's the same way hymns are the same way that requires some seasoning to to go to be able to have that endurance factor and when you think about you know when you ask somebody what songs you want played at your funeral well they want one of these old hymns you know and and they um in fact on the uh interview i did with william lee golden and the uh from the oakridge boys i closed out the interview with them singing amazing grace at the funeral service of george herbert walker bush and they were very close friends with the former president and and were asked to sing at his funeral and you probably saw that on the news and i closed out the um the interview with the recording of them doing that the live recording and just listen to the simplicity of of four-part harmony singing when we've been there 10 000 years bright shining as the sun we've no less days to sing god's praise than when we first begun and and and i think this is the the message for us as caregivers that we we are going through these very painful painful things i get it but scripture anchors us into something eternal and the moment we live in the moment but we have the perspective of eternity which gives it gives meaning to the moment so as we do these things as you go through these tasks that you do week in and week out as caregivers and as you do this if you'll just hang on to whatever phrase that you can of the music we've done it is no secret what god can do you've heard it here from nancy who did this with her husband and the days when she was so low and yet it is well it is no secret jesus loves me you know all these wonderful hymns that we've we've been playing here on the show for some time they mean something in the midst of these very very difficult circumstances and we would ask that you hang on and if you feel like your faith is weak well i've got very good news for you because jesus said to this father if you believe all things are possible to him who believes and the father cried out and said lord and he said he cried out with tears lord i believe help my unbelief he is near to the broken-hearted and this is the nature of our of our savior and you know i i i say this often i speak fluent caregiver 35 years of this you'll learn how to speak caregiver i speak fluent caregiver but i had to learn to speak caregiver it's our savior's native tongue that's who he is that's who our savior is and it is no secret what he can do what he's done for others he'll do for you nancy thank you so much for the call and for being such an encouragement to me this morning that's just this beautiful testimony of your journey and your life and thank you very much for that it's a it's it's a treat to be able to come to you each week thank you for it i've got a special july 4th show that we're doing next week will be off but i've got an interview with someone that i think you'll find very very meaningful and then there's always more out at our podcast hopeforthecaregiver.com and we look forward to seeing you healthy caregivers make better caregivers today's a great day to start being healthy we'll see you next time this is peter rosenberger this is john butler and i produce hope for the caregiver with peter rosenberger some of you know the remarkable story of peter's wife gracie and recently peter talked to gracie about all the wonderful things that have emerged from her difficult journey take a listen gracie when you envisioned 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 core civic 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 everything 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 um that these men are so glad that they get to be doing um as 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 a 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 the this guy right here he needs to go to africa with us i 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 i feel like i'm at home with them and i feel like that we have a common bond that 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 core civic 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 other ones like it but i know about this one are it's 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 where they find it please go to standingwithhope.com slash recycle standingwithhope.com slash recycle thanks gracie