"Hurry Up and Relax?"

Welcome to Hope the Caregiver.

We are live. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is American Family Radio. We are the show for you as a family caregiver.

For those of you who are putting yourself knowingly, willingly, voluntarily, without training, without pay, but armed only with love and persistence, you're putting yourself between a vulnerable loved one and even worse, disaster. Maybe it's an aging parent. Maybe it's a special needs child. Maybe it's someone who is dealing with an addiction or alcoholism. Maybe it's somebody who's dealing with mental illness.

Maybe it's somebody who has some type of disease, trauma. Whatever the impairment, there's always a caregiver. And the caregiver is who we are focused on for this show.

And we are so glad that you are with us today. 888-589-8840. 888-589-8840 if you want to be a part of the show.

Just a little programming note. I subbed in earlier this week for two shows on AFR. And I've put the podcast of the first one out there on our podcast today. It's a long conversation I had with Joni Eareckson-Tada.

And she's just wonderful. And you'll like the interview. You can go out to our website and download that today. Our podcast is free.

Hopeforthecaregiver.com. And this was a little bit of a departure. Joni and I just talked about a particular milestone in her life that she and her husband Ken have just celebrated and what that means through her journey. And I think you'll enjoy, very much so, I think you'll enjoy the interview. And then I did yesterday's show, and I haven't put that out yet, but that'll be out later on in a couple days or so with Kathie Lee Gifford.

And we talked about some issues as well in her life, things that she's learned over the years of dealing with forgiveness and resentment and so forth. And we did this as kind of a counterpunch to the craziness of this country and the world that we're living in right now where everybody's just at each other's throat. And I thought, you know what, this is how I live. This is how I get through it. You can watch the news every day and just stay so torqued up. How do you calm yourself down?

I mean, I can listen to one hour of cable news, and it'll pretty much keep me agitated the rest of the evening. And so, how do we do that? How do we calm ourselves down and focus on where we are? Are we here to go out there and right every wrong that the government is doing and so forth?

Or is there something else that God would be pushing us towards or leading us towards? And I have to think that I can't fix what's going on in Washington. I do the best I can. I vote. I stay informed. I do all these things that I can.

But I have to live right here in this moment in the circle that I'm in, bloom where I'm planted. And when you're a caregiver, you can only do so much. And so this is some of the things that we talked about is, OK, if my head is so squirrelly by being so amped up on the politics and the acrimony that's in our country, and these are real issues and we do need to be involved. But if my head is so squirrelly because of that, how does that help me be a better caregiver?

How does that help me better care for my wife if I'm so amped up on these things? And so I anchor myself in the Word of God, settle myself down so that I can function here in this moment and leave to God to deal with these other things and give me grace and insight as needed. I love what was said, don't worry about when you're called in to speak to these people or this people. The Holy Spirit is going to be there. That's what he's told the disciples.

And you look at these guys who were drug in before magistrates and everything else. And yet they spoke with great clarity. And they spoke with great purpose and mission. But they stayed on mission about what they were about.

But they didn't sit around and try this political upheaval. So I think you'll enjoy my conversation with Joni. In fact, I know you will. She's just a wonderful, wonderful friend and mentor. And as I say on the show, she tolerates me and she led off with, yes, Peter, I'm tolerating you.

And she makes me laugh and we have a good time together. And then I think you'll enjoy the time I had with Kathie Lee when I put that out. So take a look at that and all the other podcast episodes we have at HopeForTheCaregiver.com. All right, let's go to our musical item for today, which ties into exactly what I'm talking about. And I want to see if you know this song. So I'm going to step over here to the caregiver keyboard and see if you know this hymn. And if you know this hymn, give me a call. And even if somebody else gets it, tell me why this hymn is important to you, what it means to you. We may have done this hymn before, but that's okay.

It's worthy of doing it twice because I think it is our core message. Excuse me just a minute. We've got some smoke in the air where I live out in Montana. We've got some fires that the smoke is coming into our valley. They're not right here on us, but they are close enough that we got smoke coming in.

So it's activated a few coughs and sneezes. Let's see if you know this hymn. ... All right, do you know that hymn?

The tune is Finlandia. If you know that hymn... We just had a huge Fourth of July event out here where we live. We just had a huge amount of people into our little town in southwest Montana. And it was stunning to see the numbers of campers that were coming in.

And we live about 90 miles north of West Yellowstone, Montana. And everybody was heading towards Yellowstone. And I saw pictures of Yellowstone, the traffic getting into and out of the park. And it was stunning just how many... it was just bumper to bumper.

And I was watching the kind of the freneticness. It's like the whole country finally opened up and people are racing to go on vacation. And all the out-of-state plates might as well have said, you know, we've got to hurry up and relax.

Do you ever feel like you have to hurry up and relax? That we as caregivers sometimes, the moment we get a whiff of fresh air, we're racing around like horses to the barn, you know, after a long ride. We've got a couple of horses out here. And when I ride them, every time I turn back and head towards the barn, I mean, they've been kind of plodding along. And all of a sudden now, oh, we're going back to the barn.

Let's go, let's go. And I'm having to kind of just chill them out a little bit and say, you know, look, we're going to take our time. We're going to enjoy the moment.

And it's really stunning to see how people are very much the same way. We're all this way. And we kind of get into a freefall panic. We've got to hurry up and have fun. And I watched people crowd themselves into very tiny camping spaces. We live, we're backed up to the National Forest. And so if I go into the forest, you know, and I've seen just this parade of campers going up there and they all camp near each other.

And it's a big forest, but they're all camping near each other. We've got to hurry up and have fun. You ever feel that way? That you've got to hurry up and relax? This is what we're going to talk about today on what helps you settle down. What helps you, even where you are as a caregiver, settle down. And if you want to be a part of the show, 888-589-8840.

Hey, this is Peter Rosenberg. In my three and a half decades as a caregiver, I have spent my share of nights in a hospital, sleeping in waiting rooms, on fold-out cots, chairs, even the floor. Sometimes on sofas and a few times in the doghouse. But let's don't talk about that. As caregivers, we have to sleep at uncomfortable places.

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We do it all the time. 10-year warranty, guaranteed not to go flat, 60-day money back guarantee, made in the USA. As a caregiver, you need rest. So start by going to MyPillow.com, typing the promo code CAREGIVER. You get 50% off the 4-pack, which includes two premium pillows and two go anywhere pillows. You'll also receive a discount on anything else on the website when using your promo code CAREGIVER. That's MyPillow.com promo code CAREGIVER. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. I'm Peter Rosenberger. This is the show for you as a family caregiver.

You know, he does know the plans that he has for you. That's my wife, Gracie, and her CD Resilient. Go out to Hopeforthecaregiver.com and see more about her and that CD and how you can be a part of what we're doing here. We're talking about hurry up and relax. How do you do that?

How do you settle down? And our song today reflects this, a little bit of what we do. Before I get into answering the calls about the song, we had a caller that called in, didn't want to go in there, but wanted to ask God for help to help elderly deal with the wickedness in our country. And I don't know if she's referring or the caller's referring to somebody specific that's elderly that they're taking care of.

I don't have all that information. But how to help, I mean, how to ask God to help deal with the wickedness in our country in any sense of the word is, well, first off, you have to understand what scripture says about this. And if you don't anchor yourself in the word of God, then you're not going to be able to address anything. So go back, there's a wonderful interview. If you ever get a chance to watch it, it's on YouTube, and it's Billy Graham being interviewed by Woody Allen.

Now, I know that sounds odd, but hear me out on this. Billy Graham sat down with him. This is some time ago, I think it was in the 70s, judging by the attire. But Woody Allen was being cutesy and sarcastic and snarky and all that, but he was still respectful with Billy Graham, but he was still being Woody Allen. And Billy Graham was about as relaxed and as nonplussed as you could ever hope to imagine.

He looked incredibly comfortable where he was. And every time Woody Allen brought up something, Billy Graham would respond with, basically, the scripture say, the scripture say, the scripture say, you know, let's see if I can do my best, Billy Graham. The scripture say, you know, and he would say this, though, with such calmness. Here's what the word of God says. Here's how we're going to respond.

You know, what it, what it, what it invites us to respond to. And so it's, it was amazing that he never got off message with this in this public forum with with a guy who clearly didn't share his faith. But Billy Graham was respectful. He was calm, and he was anchored in scripture. Now who does that sound like? Well, that sounds like his Savior.

When Satan came in and was tempting Jesus in the wilderness, what did Jesus say? Well, the word of God says it is written, it is written, it is written. And so when you're talking to anybody who is torqued up about what's going on in this country, in the world, and there are a lot of things that are, and it is very distressing to watch. You're watching an entire society now break down the hundreds of years that we have stood on principles of God. I see it, you see it, we all see it. It's like we've got a huge swath in our country that's basically given the finger to God. But how is that different from anything that has happened since the fall? We've just had a little bit of a veneer on it here in America, where we pretended to look more churchy.

But now even that's gone. Even our churches are struggling with this. We'll go back and look at what scripture says. This is not the first time that people, and people of God for that matter, have turned their back on God. So what is scripture saying?

Go back and look at it. If you want to, I mean, go spend some time in the book of 2nd Chronicles and watch the decline of a nation. And then go back and study church history. Look at what happened during the Reformation. You had a group of individuals being called out, being pulled out of this horrible, unholy alliance that the church and the state had that governed harshly, and in many respects, heretically. And this is what Martin Luther and Huss and Tyndale and Wycliffe all stood up against, because it's the selling of indulgences. Okay, as long as you contribute to the church, you can get away with this. And all these things were going on.

This is wickedness, and it was being done in the name of God. And these individuals came along and said, the scriptures say, you know, that's what the five pillars of the Reformation are all about. You have sola scriptura, sola Christus, sola scratcha, and sola fide, and sola degloria. But sola scriptura means the Bible only. Scripture alone.

You don't need an intermediary. You don't need someone to hold the gate open so you can get to God. Jesus did that. That's sola Christus. Jesus Christ alone.

Sola Christus. By grace alone. And so if you understand what you believe and why you believe it, and it is anchored in scripture, that's how you deal with what you see on the news every day. That's how you deal with it. So I hope that helps. That's how I deal with it, and that's how I've seen countless others before.

But this is what Johnny and I were talking about on the show this week when I hosted at a different hour. This is what the scriptures say. And that's why I do these hymns, because these hymns reflect that. So I'm going to go to Brenda in Michigan. Now, she may get this right, and there are other callers there. If you want to talk about why this song is important to you, feel free to.

Even if somebody else has already guessed what the hymn is. But Brenda in Michigan. Good morning, Brenda. How are you feeling this morning? Good morning.

I'm feeling great. Thank you. All right.

Do you know the song? Yes. Be still, my soul. Be still, my soul. Be still, my soul.

The Lord is on thy side. Now, tell me, is this a song that you've sung a lot? Is this important to you? Is there a story behind you and this song? Tell me something about you and this song and what this means to you. Well, I believe it's a song that my parents used to play and sing. They were great Christian parents.

I don't know what we would have done if we wouldn't have had those type of parents that had a strong belief and their parents the same. It's just a song that I've always enjoyed listening to and singing. And when I heard it, I thought, oh, I'll just call in and be still my soul.

It's just a very calming song for me. And I have a lot of faith in Jesus Christ. He's my savior.

And I just pray that he comes back real soon to save this world. Well, in the meantime, I love what the lyrics say of this song. Be still, my soul. The Lord is on thy side. Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain. Now, that does not sound like a message that sells for a lot of televangelists.

Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain. We want to get our breakthrough. We want to be delivered to this. We want to get out of this. Lord, make me happy, happy, happy.

But here's somebody that comes along and writes this amazing lyric. Leave to thy God to order and provide. In every change, he faithful will remain. Now, look at what's going on in the news today. We might as well say through every administration, God faithful will remain. No matter who's in the White House. No matter who's in Congress.

No matter who is on the evening news. And we can be outraged about it. We can be. And a lot of things we should be outraged about.

But in our outrage, are we allowing ourselves to get off message? And this is why I did this song. So, Brendan, thank you so much for calling that and knowing that hymn. And thank you very much for the testimony of your parents. It is deeply meaningful that we have parents that we can look back on and anchor ourselves in this. Hebrews says, Remember those who spoke the word of the Lord to you when appropriate, imitate their faith. And I'm in it wonderful that you had folks that spoke the word of the Lord to you and you were able to imitate their faith. And that's that's a great gift.

So thank you very much for sharing that. Julie in Kansas. Julie, good morning. How are you feeling?

Good morning. I am feeling so blessed just listening to you preach this morning. I'm driving and I I just think it was an answer to prayer.

I heard your message, not just because of the song, but because of your message about holding fast to the word of God. We're, you know, praying for the decline of our culture and just the lostness of people. And I'm I'm on a prayer team that's been praying for revival.

I've been praying for revival for our country for 15 years. And so often it's through the struggles and through the pain that we find the Lord, that we see the light in the darkness. And so this song is precious to me for the same reason as the other caller, because I would listen to my parents sing it on our way to church. That and the old rugged cross and some of those hymns that just, you know, are timeless. And I just I loved your message this morning.

I've never I've never listened before. And I had to get up early. And I thought I need I had the news on the radio and I thought I need the word of God.

And it landed on your station. So I just thank you, Peter. Thank you for preaching. You are quite welcome.

Alone is what holds us fast. Well, you were quite welcome. And thank you for those kind words.

This is how I do it. When you live in the kind of craziness that Gracie and I have endured for lo these many years, 35 years that we've been married and she's been hurt since 1983. You can only stay outraged about external events for so long. And then you're going to have to deal with yourself and and God's provisions and the word of God and God's redemptive work in your own life. And you realize that the chaos that you're keeping going on is your own. It is not someone else's.

You know who? No matter who's in the White House, Joe Biden is not causing me to be anxious. I'm causing myself to be anxious.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez does not cause me to be fearful. I cause myself to be fearful. The evening news does not cause me to be this way. I cause myself to be this way.

And if I am the problem, then let me go to scripture and see what God says about this. Because scripture says I can be calm. I can be at peace no matter what. Paul says I've learned to be content and all this. I can do all things through Christ. Whether I have this, whether I have this, it doesn't.

I can be settled today, right now, no matter what's going on around me. Now that's what scripture says. Are we applying this in our life? Are we appropriating this in our life?

No matter what we see on the headlines. And that's one of the reasons we do the show this way. So no matter what's going on with our loved one and the pain that they're in or the struggles they're in, are we appropriating scripture properly to say, be still my soul? This is Peter Rosenberg and this is Hope for the Caregiver. For Julie, thank you so much for the call. We'll be right back.

888-589-8840. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberg and this is the show for you as a family caregiver. For those of you who are putting yourselves every single day in often harm's way, what it's doing to you physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And all too often people are asking about your loved one, but is anyone asking about you? I am. And I'm asking, how are you doing?

How are you holding up? What anchors you? How do you settle yourself down? How do you speak peace to yourself? How do you equip yourself to endure?

And there is no other place to go. This is 35 years of experience saying this, except to the Word of God. If you are anchoring yourself in these things that we're talking about on this show, if you're saying to yourself what this hymn of today says, be still my soul, you'll find that has a spillover effect into every other area of your life, whether it's your professional area or whether when you sit down and just watch the news. And if you see these things going on, there are a lot of troubling things out there. But age to age, he's still the same.

Rock of ages, cleft for me. Oh God, our help in ages past. Great is thy faithfulness. All of a sudden there's a cascade of these great hymns of the faith, these great scriptures that we've heard, but we've kind of dismissed and they've got dust on our Bibles. Pick up your Bible, get the dust off of it and start looking through how people before you leaned on the promises and the eternal Word of God to sustain them in these trials.

There is nothing that we're dealing with now that others before us haven't dealt with. If you're struggling with an oppressive church state type of thing, look at what the Reformers went through. When you had a totalitarian government that says, you know, we're going to burn you if you do this. I mean, they put, excuse me, they put Tyndale to death. They put Hus to death.

They excommunicated Martin Luther. They dug up Wycliffe's bones 38 years after he died and burned his bones. Now we're not being burned at the stake. We're not being fed to the lions yet.

So we can still calm ourselves down and recognize that, yes, all of this stuff is going, but God is still sovereign in this. Now, how did I learn this? Because I learned to trust that God was sovereign and he was faithful, even while I watched Gracie go through the things she's gone through all these years. Both of her legs amputated. She never lives any moment now.

She has it since 1983 without significant pain. 80 surgeries, 100 plus doctors. And I learned to see God faithful in this. And it translated into the other things that I look at. I remember someone called me up and we were talking about prophecy. You ever get people that get you so amped up about, well, what about this prophecy? What about this? And the Lord's doing this and we got this and we got four blood moons or we got this and this.

And they were they were just all over the map. And I stopped and I said, how does that help me take care of my crippled wife today? And this is the battle for us is that we've learned to be right here in the moment and trusting him with this. When Jesus was on the boat with his disciples and was being tossed around, he was asleep. He knew he came to die on this earth. He knew what was ahead of him. And he knew that his death was not going to be on the Sea of Galilee.

So he could rest. You got to understand people say, well, Jesus knew everything. He shelved his divinity. So he was free to experience life as a human being. That's why he could marvel at the faith of the Roman centurion or the woman who wanted to touch the hem of his garment. He marveled at their faith. Because he shelved his divinity so that he could marvel at the faith. And so when he's out there sleep on the boat, he knew he wasn't going to die on the on the lake.

On the Sea of Galilee. That wasn't going to happen to him. He knew his purpose and he was free to rest, knowing that God will will will in due time. And if you go back and look at the scripture, when it talks of Jesus at that time, this at that time, the word time is the Kairos. Appointed time.

It was a set time at that time. And so he was free to move as the Spirit gave him leading. You are free to do as the Spirit gives you leading in this and to move, trusting that God has already ordered your steps. The steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord. Now, it's not your righteousness.

It's his. But you walk in that and you recognize, OK, we've got very difficult things coming ahead of us as caregivers. You and I both do.

If you're a caregiver of any kind of length, you know this. Gracie and I have things this month that we're dealing with. They're very painful things, hard things, but we're not there yet. It's not the end of the month yet where we have to be there. And we'll deal with it when we get there.

So today, right now, as I'm on the air with you, I can just settle myself down and say, be still my soul. Now, the next time you turn on the news and you see all this nonsense being paraded around and all these people flailing around. And understand that the broadcast news particularly has a vested interest in keeping you ramped up.

The more outrage you are, the more you tune into them because they're the ones that are going to help direct that outrage. I say to you, take that outrage to the cross. And settle yourself down.

You are no good to anybody if you're torqued up. Pace yourself. Be still my soul. The lyrics of these hymns mean something to us. You know, the hour is hastening on when we shall be forever with the Lord. When disappointment, grief and fear are gone, sorrow forgot, love's purest joy restored. Be still my soul. When change and tears are past, all safe and blessed, we shall meet at last. These are promises in scripture and the hymn writers knew these things. And they settled down.

They settled themselves down. The waves in the wind still know his voice who ruled them while he dwelt below. Do we believe this or not? Now, I don't know how many other shows are telling you these sorts of things, but I know this one is. And this is framed by the context of living with a medical nightmare where I have been all over the map. My parents listen to this show every week. I talked to them before the show and after the show to see how I did. But they've seen me flail around. They've watched. They've had to watch.

Sometimes they bite their tongue and learn to like the taste of blood as they've watched me flail around. Knowing that I had to work these things out in my own life, I had to learn to trust God myself. I couldn't rely on their faith. As Dad has said for many years, God ain't got any grandchildren. I don't think Dad uses the Southern lingo quite like I do.

But the point is not lost. You're going to have to work these things out in your own life. More importantly, you're going to have to trust Him as He works these things out in your life.

Are you going to trust Him? And can you say to yourself, be still by soul when you have a loved one with Alzheimer's that is deteriorating so quickly and so rapidly? When you have a child with autism who is having a freak out, can you still your own soul? You know, I was talking to a friend and back to the thing with Yellowstone because I saw all the traffic in Yellowstone. People are lined up and this is one of the reasons I won't go to Disney World because I just hate crowds. I mean, the Magic Kingdom Death March, not to mention all the pagan stuff at Disney, but that's a different story.

I just don't like being around crowds. And I look at the aerial shot of what's going on down there and just the lines of campers. And it's hot and it's, you know, people are just crowded on there and they're trying to get a glimpse of a buffalo. And I get that, but there's a whole lot of this country to see that you don't have to stand in line at a national park to see it. Yes, and I know Yellowstone and things like that are once in a lifetime.

But there's a once in a lifetime everywhere around you if you're willing to trust God to reveal it to you and show you. But they were telling me that in the park, do you know what the two biggest offenses that people are arrested for in the park are? And they have their own, you know, because it's a federal park, it's a different type of police force and so forth.

But do you know, can you try to imagine what you think the two are? Because you see it in the news every year that there's somebody getting too close to a buffalo, getting gored and trying to get into one of the geyser pools because, you know, people are, some people just ain't got any sense. But the two biggest offenses of arrest in Yellowstone, and this is what a friend told me this week and they're in the know. DUIs and domestic violence.

Now think about that. You're in one of the most beautiful places in the world, Yellowstone National Park, this vast place. And the biggest arrests are made for domestic violence and drunkenness. People are ramped up. And when you rush to go and try to have fun and it's crowded and you're trying to get your camper park or you're trying to do this, we've got to see this, we've got to do this, we've got to do this. Settle down. Slow down. Don't rush to have fun. Just settle down. Don't hurry up and relax.

Settle down. Be still my soul. The next time you turn on the news, if you must turn on the news, say to yourself, read this hymn first.

Before you turn on Tucker Carlson, read or sing out loud to yourself, be still my soul. The Lord is on thy side. Leave to thy God to order and provide. Be informed. Be aware of what's going on around you. By all means, vote. Get involved. But be still my soul. Calm, Christians, of what the world needs right now. This is Peter Rosenberger.

We'll get back to your calls in just a moment. This is Hope for the Caregiver, 888-589-8840. Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you? I'm Gracie Rosenberger, and in 1983, I experienced a horrific car accident, leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated. I questioned why God allowed something so brutal to happen to me.

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

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

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the show for you as a family caregiver, and the love that is in your heart comes from him. That's Keith Green, and I go back and listen to the music that he had and the call to action that he had for us. And so I want to just continue to reintroduce him to those who are familiar with him and his music, and then also to those who've never heard of him. It just had a huge, profound effect on me as a young musician, as a young believer, and it still stays throughout today.

So, anyway, I just love that song. 888-589-8840, 888-589-8840, Homer in Oklahoma. Good morning, Homer. How are you doing? Good morning, Peter. Better, but I'm broken. I'm still standing and in the fray.

Good show today. Well, thank you very much. I draw upon a lot of the lessons that God has taught me in my life, saying, as you stated, remembering those who have gone on before as faithful contenders. I hear what you're saying, and the music that you're playing really resonates. Personally, I draw upon Ezekiel, how he became single, unplanned, and Thomas Dorsey, the writer of the hymn, Christ the Lord, take my hand, lead me on, help me stand. And the lessons of life are heartfelt, but, you know, shows like yours bring encouragement. Well, I appreciate that.

I'm only offering what I've received, and there's no way I can claim any credit for any of this, because I know too many people that would rise up and say, are you kidding? This guy, this guy. Precious Lord, take my hand.

I haven't played that in a long time. Homer, thank you for reminding me of that hymn. Precious Lord, take my hand, help me stand, lead me on, help me stand.

I am tired, I am weak, I am worn. Through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light. Take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home. That's a great hymn. That's a great hymn for us as caregivers. And I thank you for reminding us of that this morning, Homer.

I really do. Keep up the good work. God bless you, Peter. Thank you very much, Homer. It's always good to hear from you.

Mandy in Texas. Mandy, good morning. How are you feeling? Good morning. I'm feeling good.

Peter, thank you so much for your message of encouragement. To be still and talking about Kaunas versus Kairos, I really, really appreciate that, because I'm just going through a time in my life where I care for my dad and he's Amy, and he was having a little bit of Alzheimer's going on, and I took him to a neurofeedback place in the Woodlands here in Texas, and it was amazing because they were able to help him save us Alzheimer's and get his memory back. And so now he's just totally vibrant. He doesn't even take afternoon naps.

He goes and plays golf. It's amazing. And so I just wanted to tell you, because I had heard that you were talking about Alzheimer's just a little bit, but also I just need encouragement, and I appreciate your show because I am a single mom. So here I am raising my two daughters and my dad, and my ministry is evangelism and discipleship and working with victims of domestic abuse and human trafficking.

And I see what you're talking about every day when it comes to saying, hey, it's happening in Yellowstone. It's happening so many places. And so I've been doing that, but the struggle that I have is I just don't know where my funding is going to come from for all these things because I'm doing the work of the ministry, but I'm not.

All the donations have fallen off. So it's kind of a time of crisis in many ways, even though the Lord is good. And I built a chapel recently at my house where I go out into our old barn and I got across and I just sit there and I pray.

And I was doing that this morning. So I just think that there are places to be still. And our home, we call it Seymour Sanctuary because I just believe we need to see more sanctuary in our lives. And so that's kind of what I wanted to share with you and just how what you said this morning had its impact. Well, I appreciate that, Mandy.

I really do. The sanctuary starts in our hearts no matter where we are. And we can be at peace no matter where we are, whether we're in a memory care ward or whether we're in the hospital, whether we're heading to surgery for the umpteenth time, whether you're in prison. This is the testament and the testimony of all the ones that have gone before us that have learned to be still where they are. They don't have to go on vacation in order to relax.

They can relax right where they are. Now let me go back to something you said with your father. He was dealing with some Alzheimer's and they were able to stave it off. There are lots of different kinds of dementia. Has he been diagnosed with Alzheimer's or is it dementia that he was dealing with? Because you could have dementia with Parkinson's. You could have dementia with a UTI. A little more dementia. I would say probably more dementia.

So those beginning stages that Alzheimer's runs in the family. So that's why it was assumed that eventually it would progress if he didn't stave it off first. Well, and do what is necessary to keep him as healthy as possible, for himself to be healthy and all that kind of stuff. But as far as where your finances are going to come from and so forth, I have no idea. Where he leads, he feeds. Where he guides, he provides. And if God has led you in this, if it's God's ministry and his calling, then the burden is on God to direct you on this. And your job is to be obedient to what he calls you to do.

If that's the plan, if he's called you to go and financially support yourself in some other way, you and your children need to be financially taken care of. And there are ways to get involved and do things and there's all different kinds of paths on this. Your job is to anchor yourself in the scriptures to say, OK, Lord, where am I going here with this? And then you do your due diligence. You make your best decisions based on you doing your homework. And trust that he is directing your path on this.

And there will be times when it's lean and it will be very lean. And that may be one of those times right now. But you have two children that are counting on you to get this right and to make sure that you are financially viable for them and you as well.

And then ultimately taking care of your father after that. So do your due diligence. I would probably recommend, I think you would benefit greatly from having some good business counsel from folks. Find some people that you know who are good business people around you, whether it's some type of accountant, a CPA or things such as that. But they can give you some good business counsel on growing and maintaining your business structure of what you're trying to accomplish. And I think that would benefit you greatly. Maybe your pastor can recommend somebody like that.

Look for successful businessmen, not to business women, not to necessarily get money from them, but to get counsel from them and help you as you go down this endeavor. It's an important work that you're doing. Clearly you see the need and there may be opportunities for you to align yourself with other ministries doing the same work that you can pull together your resources and the vision that God has given you and see.

Because the need is great. So hopefully that will help. And then also as you work with your father, it would probably be very helpful to get an accurate diagnosis so you know what's going on. I mean, you can't change it if he's got progressive dementia, but sometimes there are medications or there are strategies you can put in place depending on what's going on. And don't underestimate that you can also have dementia brought on by urinary tract infections. I mean, there's all kinds of things that lead to dementia. And so we don't want to just assume that it's Alzheimer's.

It's good to have a good neurologist involved to help give you some good directions. So hopefully those are some good starting points for you as you're struggling to determine some next steps for you, Mandy. And I do appreciate you calling and I appreciate you listening to the show. Thanks so much, Pete. Well, God bless you and all your good work you're doing too.

Thank you very much, ma'am. This is, again, you can see these are complicated things that we deal with and we can get ourselves easily led astray and torqued up. And I don't want to leave anyone with this Pollyanna feeling that somehow, OK, we squint our eyes real hard and we're going to trust God and everything's going to be OK and we're going to be happy, happy, happy all the time, time, time. There are dark and troubling things that we must walk through. You know, scripture tells us this throughout all of scripture.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil for thou art with me. And, you know, Luther said in the mighty fortress, the body they may kill. But God's truth abideth still. And if we can grasp these these concepts as we deal with these things, there are very painful things that we have to look at.

We have to deal with as caregivers. But they don't have to overwhelm us and overcome us. In fact, they they we're told specifically in scripture that we're not over. We've already won the victory through Christ.

And it doesn't mean that it's going to have this. They lived happily ever after in this life. It does mean that we've got grieving to go, but we don't have to grieve as those who have no hope. And we can mourn with those who mourn.

We can grieve with those who grieve. But if you look around what's going on in this world, do we need more church folk living in denial or some type of name and claim it or some type of of naive, childish, not childlike, childish faith? Or do we need does the world need to see the church standing strong with confidence and authority, saying, be still my soul?

Because the world is going to anchor themselves in the things of this world, whatever escapism we could have. But believers are called to anchor ourselves in the word of God, which transcends all of these things. This is Hope for the Caregiver. Healthy caregivers make better caregivers. And this is our step towards healthiness. I'm Peter Rosenberger. Go to Hope for the caregiver dot com. Be a part of what we're doing.

We'll see you next week. 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 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 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 legs. 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 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 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? Where do they find it? Oh, please go to standingwithhope.com slash recycle. Standingwithhope.com slash recycle. Thanks, Gracie.