His Eye Is On The Sparrow

Live on American Family Radio, this is Peter Rosenberger. This is the show for you as a family caregiver. This is hope for the caregiver, for those 65 million plus Americans right now who are putting themselves between a vulnerable loved one and even worse, disaster. And that's only in the United States.

This ministry, this broadcast goes out across the world. And this is a problem that affects the human condition, that we will have to care for someone who is chronically impaired. If you love somebody, you're going to be a caregiver.

If you live long enough, you're going to need one. And that is the human condition. So what is the response to the family caregiver? Is there a response to the family caregiver?

More importantly, what is the scriptural response to the family caregiver? And that's why we do the show here. And we're glad that you're with us.

888-589-8840, 888-589-8840 if you'd like to be a part of the show. We do a couple of different things on the show. We start off usually with a hymn or a song that I want to introduce to you or reintroduce to you and tied in of why this is something that we can hang onto as a family caregiver. Now I've been doing this for now 35 years and caring for my wife. And we have serious medical issues that we deal with on a daily basis.

And we've got a pretty rough week heading into next week of some things we're going to deal with. And so the way I have learned to anchor myself, to calm myself down, to be oriented in time and space as opposed to just being disoriented and flopping around is to go back to these very simple principles in scripture that a lot of times are manifested in the great hymns of the church and great music of the church where these wonderful writers would take these things and make it easy to remember. And so I do this every week with a hymn or a song that you may know. Now this one today is embarrassingly easy. So I'm going to also put out a plea to see if you know who wrote the lyric.

But it is embarrassingly easy but it ties into exactly what we're talking about. So I'm going to step over to the caregiver keyboard. The caregiver keyboard and see if you know this song. It's embarrassingly easy but if you know that song give us a call. 888-589-8840.

888-589-8840. I was out working on some fencing the other day with my father-in-law. We live out in Montana and there was a gate that was struggling and we were out there repairing this. And it's over there by a small stream. And I was looking at the stream and of course I've been coming out here for many many years, 30 plus years and then we finally moved out here. So I'm very familiar with this area and there's a huge growth, well a dense growth, not huge but just a dense growth around the stream. And from where I was working on the fence I could see the line of the stream because you could tell all the growth that was running.

You could just follow it all the way down. And there's a moose that likes to hang out there and other wildlife and so forth. But on either side of the stream there's about 20 yards or so of growth, heavy growth. So much so that if you were walking in that growth, if you were along that stream and so forth, you'd think you were lost. And yet you could throw a rock on either side of you and you would be out in clear pasture.

And it goes on for some time. I mean it's coming down from the mountain and it just goes on down to the valley. So if you stayed close to the stream the whole way down, you would not ever see the view of what's going on around you when the mountains and the open countryside and so forth.

You wouldn't see it. You would just simply be locked in this thicket. And I thought about that for us as caregivers. That's kind of the way our life is. We are walking this narrow path and in that path it is extremely dense and often claustrophobic and often very difficult to catch our breath and to see any kind of perspective. And people can call to us in that thicket. They can say, hey come this way. But we have to make the decision to walk towards the sound of their voice. We have to make the decision to move perpendicular to the stream. And once we do, we can come out into fresh air and see perspective.

And it provides us clarity and calmness. I remember when I was a kid, I was a teenager, we backpacked and camped over in North Carolina near where I grew up. And the rhododendron and the undergrowth there in the western North Carolina mountains, east Tennessee mountains in western North Carolina, incredibly thick.

And I was with the backpacking group and we had to use whistles to make sure we could go towards the sound of somebody whistling and find our way through this stuff because you get extremely lost and disoriented. But that's the way this thicket looked over here, except it wasn't nearly as bad over here as it was in North Carolina. And yet this is the way we live as caregivers. And we are so cut off and closed in by our journey. But a fresh perspective is literally a stone's throw away. Can we take that leap of faith to do it, to step out and start thinking a little bit differently?

Are we so tied that we can't do this? It doesn't mean we're abandoning our post. It doesn't mean that we're walking away from it. It means we're gaining perspective. And that's what helps us avoid becoming disoriented.

That's what helps us keep a picture of where this is going and how do we function in it. My friend Johnny Erickson-Tada said, perspective is everything when you are experiencing the challenges of life. Now I ask you for perspective today. What is your perspective as a caregiver?

What are you dealing with that is closing you in and keeping you claustrophobic? What's your perspective? We live in the moment, but as believers we have the perspective of eternity.

And that gives meaning to the moment. Are you keeping the perspective of eternity in mind as you do these things? As you care for your loved one? As you watch somebody suffer?

As you preside over difficult things? Are you keeping perspective in mind? I've talked to several people just this week alone who struggle mightily with this and they're wondering, you know, where's God? Where's God?

And they're floundering around. And I get that. And I have great compassion for that because I've been there.

Sometimes, sadly, I still go there. You know, for those of you who listen to the show regularly, you'll know one of my favorite prayers in scripture is the guy that told Jesus, Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. And it is not the amount of faith we have. We don't have to squint our eyes real tight and look like we're praying real hard. It's the object of our faith. And if your faith is in Christ and the redemptive work that he's done, that brings perspective to that claustrophobic closed off thicket that we find ourselves in. And this is the journey for us as caregivers.

This is our call to trust him in this. Can you do that? Will you do that?

Will you take a leap of faith on that? We're going to talk about that and more when we come back. Our song for today, 888-589-8840.

It's painfully easy, but I still, it's going to apply very much to what we're talking about. 888-589-8840. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver.

We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the show for you as a family caregiver.

And he does know the plans he has for you. That's Gracie, my wife, from her CD Resilient. And if you'd like a copy of it, let me tell you something, what's going on with what she's done recently. And I think you'll be very moved by this. We had a kind of a milestone moment for us with the ministry that she envisioned after giving up both of her legs. And you've heard her story, standing with hope. And if you, when you're faced with brutal realities and you trust God with them, God will do extraordinary things with them.

And this is repeated over and over and over in scripture and in history. And Gracie was, and I'll never forget it, she was in her hospital bed and after losing now her remaining leg, and she had this vision of helping fellow amputees with prosthetics. And it was an extraordinary moment watching her do this in the hospital bed. And tell me this, and I was like, nah, I don't know about that Gracie. But she was relentless on this. The name of her CD is Resilient.

I probably should have called it Relentless. But we just put on, we've been working in Ghana for 15 years, but we just helped a man in Kenya just this month, just recently. His name is Godfrey. And Godfrey had a tragic event.

He lost his wife last February, a year ago February. And then three months later he lost his leg above the knee. And we worked with a prosthetic clinic there in Kenya to help Godfrey get a knee, an above knee prosthesis. And now he has it. And so he is walking and they are adjusting with it and so forth.

And you could be a part of that right now. We also just put on a limb last week for a young girl named Dorcas. We've been treating her since she was five. And this is what happens when you have prosthetics. You go through a lot of prosthesis over the course of your life.

And particularly if you're a child, you go through them pretty quickly. And Dorcas came to us when she was just a little girl. And now she's 20 years old and just a beautiful young woman. And we just put a new limb on her. And we also have a recycling program at a prison in Arizona where prosthetic limbs come in from all over the country and inmates disassemble them for us so we can reuse the parts that are available to use. And all of that you can find out more about.

Go out to Hope for the Caregiver and you'll see Gracie's CD cover. Be a part of that. We could use your help with that. And you could help with Godfrey, with Dorcas, with other patients, sponsor limb, shipping, whatever is on your heart to do.

We really need your help with it today. And if you like what you're hearing on this show and what we've been talking about for family caregivers, now for several years here on American Family Radio, help us do it better. Help us do more.

And send the podcast out to someone and share this message with others. Strengthening Family Caregivers is what we're all about here. It's for Standing with Hope, the ministry that Gracie and I do, it's for the wounded and those who care for them. So be a part of that. Go out to Hopeforthecaregiver.com today and you can be a part of that. All right, we do have our song today and it is embarrassingly simple.

But you'll know it. If you know that hymn, 888-589-8840. 888-589-8840. And there's a wonderful story behind that that will apply to family caregivers as well. And if you do know, because it's an easy one, if you do know that, see if you know the name of the woman who wrote the text, if you know that one.

888-589-8840. And the reason I'm doing this particular song, because the title of the song, the whole theme of the song is something that's going to help us go back again to what we talked about, the opening block of anchoring ourselves when it gets gnarly for us, when we feel so claustrophobic, when we feel so closed in and cut off and abandoned. I listened to someone today say, you know, I mean this week they were struggling with somebody that they were having to care for and they were like, Jesus, where are you?

And I get that. We've got to speak more forcefully to that if folks are not understanding that He's always there. His Spirit is everywhere.

He is not, you know, caught by surprise by these things. And this is really important for us to understand this. And somehow we get in our mind that because something is happening to us that we don't like, that is unpleasant, that God is punishing us, that God is somehow pouring His wrath on us, or this is because of this or this or whatever, and it's not that way at all. And there are things in our life that are part of this broken world that are not going to be resolved in this lifetime. But He equips us and gives us strength and grace to be able to walk through these things. And it's one of those things where you're like, do we believe this or not? Do we believe Scripture or not? What do we believe?

Christian, what do you believe? And yes, at the first sign of difficulties, we start flailing around. I get it, done it, in there. I've flailed a lot more than pretty much anybody else has flailed. I flail a lot.

But after 35 years of this, the flailing becomes exhausting. And then you realize, wait a minute, I can trust Him with this. Can't I?

Yeah. But how do I know I can trust Him? What it tells me that I'm trusting Him?

What communicates that to me that says you can trust Him with this? And I don't have to look any further than the cross. And there's things that start to make sense when you start studying Scripture, the breadth and the width of Scripture and the depth of it, and it starts to make sense. Oh, this is what He means.

This is what this means for us. You remember when Thomas didn't believe that Jesus was raised from the dead? And Jesus said, He said, I won't believe it until I touch the scars in his hands and his side. I'm not going to believe it. And Jesus shows up a week later, and He says, here, and showed him his scars.

Touch it right here. And I thought about that for a minute, and I realized, wait a minute, Jesus was raised from the dead, and He still had the scars. Why is that important? My wife has a lot of scars. She had a terrible car wreck. Her scars are temporary. She's not going to have them for eternity. But Jesus' scars are eternal. That means something.

All of a sudden, that's a game changer. Realize, wait a minute, those scars speak for eternity. And we somehow think that we're lost in the thicket of what we're doing as caregivers when it is so dismal for us, when it is just screaming at us. We're so weary. We're so discouraged. And then we realize, wait a minute, this is temporary.

We have the perspective of eternity. And we have to recondition our mind to step back a little bit from this and say, okay, I don't like this. I'm not going to like it.

I have no intention of liking this. But I'm going to trust Him in it. There is a difference, isn't there?

There's a big difference. And this is how we can walk calmly through these things. This is how we can speak calmly to people around us. And I think we spend an awful lot of time and a lot of energy trying to get out of this thing or feel better in it.

Is that the goal? For us to feel better? To be out of pain? Gracie lives with pain all the time.

She has not known a day of it since Reagan's first term. Sometimes she tells me she's in pain when she's dreaming. She was dreaming that she was in pain. So she can't get away from it.

And it's significant. You don't have the kind of massive injuries that she had. One report later, the surgeon that was on call, we knew him for his entire career.

He's already retired, I think. And he was a resident there and he told her prosthetist later, the guy that makes her legs, that they stopped counting at 200 breaks. Well, you don't have that kind of trauma and not have significant pain. Is the goal for her to be out of pain? She can be out of pain right now. They can give her enough drugs. They can numb her up. They could sedate her. They could do all kinds of things, but she wouldn't be able to function. So being out of pain is really not the goal for her. To be able to function with the pain is the goal. Can you function with whatever heartache you're going through? What does that look like to you?

How do you do that? And this is where scripture looms so large in our life, being able to help direct us to these things. What does scripture say? Thy word is a lamp into my path, to my feet.

Not a searchlight, lamp. We're not going to see everything, but he does and we can trust him. Remember that walking along that stream and you're in that thicket. And it's so easy to become disoriented when everything is so close and it's wrapped around you and you just can't see.

And this is the way we are in our caregiving journey. Think about walking through that and people could call to you, but you've got to go to them. You've got to step away. You can hear the voice.

You can't see them, but you can go to it. How is that different from our Christian life? That when it's so close on us and it's so smothering to us and we're so lost in this, but that's when the voice of God calls to us through scripture, whispering, saying, you know what?

Come over here. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart. Lean not unto your own understanding and all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths. Those kind of verses that are all through scripture start to make sense, don't they?

When you think of that disorientation that we feel, thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Isn't that great? This is Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberg and this is the show for you as a family caregiver. Healthy caregivers make better caregivers.

We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver on American Family Radio. This is Peter Rosenberg and this is the show for you as a family caregiver. All right, let's go to the phones here and let's go to Cindy in Texas. Cindy, good morning. How are you feeling? Good morning. I'm feeling great. Great to be alive and great to be in the heart and have Jesus in my heart. Well, indeed, indeed.

Well, tell me what's on your mind. Do you know the song that we did this morning? I'm not sure it's the exact title, but it sings the words are, his eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me. That is the exact title. You were on it?

I mean, you were on it like a hobo on a bologna sandwich. That's it. Now, do you know who wrote it? No, I do not and I wasn't going to Google and find all that up because it was written from the bottom of someone's heart. My understandings, I was exposed to that song as a young person and I was just thinking about some of the journey that my family's on right now.

It's a little tougher than it was yesterday, a little tougher than it was the day before, but we know that the streets of glory will be our path soon enough. So, with that said, it's my understanding that the sparrow, and I don't know a whole lot about birds except they're pretty, they fly and so on and so forth. I think the sparrow is one of the basic, it's not in the canary family, it's not in the bluebird family, it doesn't have those beautiful characteristics. It's just kind of an everyday bird and it's kind of like the story rolled out that no matter how hard it is to find your grain, how hard it is to find your bird bath or your water, however hard it is for the sparrow, God loves that sparrow and God will take care of that sparrow. And so that was my understanding.

As a child, I haven't been exposed to the music and the words in a long, long time. But I can promise you... That's why I brought it back up. Actually, the reference is Matthew 10 29-31. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny, yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your father's care. That's the reference.

Well, it is. And so when you sing this song, his eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me, and the chorus that I played, I sing because I'm happy. I sing because I'm free. His eye is on that sparrow, and I know he watches me.

But that's the chorus of the song and I wanted caregivers today, and myself, I include myself in that, to when things get gnarly, when things get weird, that we remember that particular phrase. His eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?

In other words, they're almost worthless, yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside of your father's care. And so if God is watching the sparrow, how much more so you? And all the stuff that you're going through with your family that was pretty painful yesterday and may be painful today and may very well be painful tomorrow.

And so how much more so? And what does that mean to us? And that's where the author of this text, her name was Sevila Martin, and she wrote this lyric.

And I'll share this with you, Cindy. Why should I feel discouraged? Why should the shadows come? Why should my heart be lonely and long for heaven and home? When Jesus is my portion, my constant friend is he.

His eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me. And Sue, I love what she says there, it says, why should my heart be lonely and long for heaven and home? And she's not saying that we don't want to go to heaven, that we don't want this all to be over. But what I would like for us to see as caregivers and as believers in general is that we grow up a little bit in our theology, that we're not so busy trying to escape this planet, but we're trusting in God while we're here, even with painful realities. That we can be at peace on this and reflect God's glory and God's provision and God's faithfulness in the midst of whatever we're dealing with. And that's our charge. And this is what scripture says throughout all of scripture, be still and know that he is God. He's not necessarily just, okay, you're saved and now let's get you off to heaven and be done with this crazy place. We have a purpose here.

We have a plan here. And Paul says, I can be content. I've learned to be present. I mean, to be absent from the body is present with the Lord, or you know what?

I can be content right here. To live as Christ, to die as gained. And so do we incorporate that into our daily walk as caregivers, as believers to recognize, okay, are we just so busy praying for the rapture that we're missing out on the opportunity to walk with God in these things and learn more of him and discover more of him and trust more of him in it.

And that is a very difficult thing to do. And so that's why you see a lot of people get out there and they preach about stuff. You're going to get your breakthrough. You're going to get this, or God's going to deliver you from this. You're going to get your breakthrough. You're going to get your breakthrough. You hear that a lot on television, Cindy? I don't spend a lot of time with television.

I spend a lot of time with ASR radio. Well, good for you. But that's where a lot of these people come in is they want to tell you, you're going to get your breakthrough. And what grown-up theology is, is saying we've already got our breakthrough. And this is where we learn to be adults as Christian, to say we've already got our breakthrough. And that was done at the cross. And he is sanctifying us. He is working in these things right now and revealing more of himself in it.

So true. So that we can trust him with this. And so that's why I wanted to say, now, there's a story behind this, and I'm going to share that in just a moment here, but Cindy, I want you to know how much I appreciate you calling, how much I appreciate you taking the time. And you got it right, Cindy, you got it right. Good job on that. And are you going to sing it for us?

No, no, no. There's a lot of grief right now, and that just doesn't go for a good song sometimes when I'm thinking too much about the grief. Well, I understand that, and that's why I let Gracie sing it. And when she sings it, it just, I don't know, there's something about something wonderful happens. But I loved these old songs, and I love them so much, and I thank you all for letting me just play them for you and introduce them to you and reintroduce them to you. So, Cindy, thank you so much for the call on this.

And these songs really have great depth to them. Now, there's a story behind this, and I'll, before I go back to the phone lines, I'll tell you the story here. Sevila Martin was vacationing, and she was somewhere, I think, in New York or something. And she got to be friends with another couple. And the woman that they met was bedridden.

I think her name was Mrs. Doolittle. And she was bedridden for nearly 20 years. And her husband was crippled.

And he was back and forth from his business in a wheelchair and taking care of his wife. It was a very tough situation they lived with. But despite all that, they were living this really meaningful life. They were happy.

They were enjoying life. And the Doolittles were just a stunning couple. And Sevila Martin, as Mrs. Doolittle, how are you doing this?

What's the secret of you being so hopeful and bright in all these things? And Mrs. Doolittle simply said, his eyes on the sparrow, and I know he watches me. And so that's where this song came from. And it came from Sevila Martin engaging with and becoming friends with and observing a couple going through really difficult, difficult things.

Bedridden and crippled. And that song has gone on to inspire how many? I mean, untold millions. I mean, think of all the people that have recorded that song and performed the song. I think it was associated early on with Ethel Merman.

Whitney Houston did an amazing version of it. I mean, it's just, but think about all the recordings and think about how many people have heard this and see how many people have been ministered to by this and recognize it. So when you see this, why should I feel discouraged? Why should my heart feel lonely and long for heaven and home? When Jesus is my portion, my constant friend is he, his eyes on the sparrow and I know he watches me. This song did not just come out of a nice piece of poetry.

It did not just come out of somebody sitting down saying, oh, this sounds real nice. This song came from somebody who observed two individuals with debilitating physical conditions, just like what you and I as caregivers have to watch. And she observed this and she observed the light of Christ in their life. And the answer was very simple, his eyes on the sparrow and I know he watches me. Whenever I am tempted, whenever clouds arise, when songs give place to sighing, and we just heard that from Cindy, sometimes the sighing is so difficult that you can't sing the songs. When hope within me dies, this is on the third verse, I draw the closer to him from care he sets me free, his eyes on the sparrow and I know he watches me. How many of you all right now are finding that your songs are giving way to sighing?

That you are unable to even sing like Cindy when she just called. The grief is just too close. When hope within you dies, I draw the closer to him from care he sets me free.

That's that perspective I was talking about. We are in the thicket. It's so close, it's so claustrophobic that we start flailing around. And how do we orient ourselves? How do we draw closer to Christ? How do we anchor ourselves in this? This is the message of this show. Hope for the caregivers, that conviction that we can live a calmer, healthier, and dare I say it, a more joyful life. And we're going to talk about that more when we come back. And your call is 888-589-8840.

888-589-8840. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver.

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 Caregiver.

I am Peter Rosenberger. This is the show for caregivers about caregivers hosted by a caregiver. And we are grateful that American Family has seen fit to put this on the air. So thank them. Next time you talk to someone at American Family Radio, if you find this is helpful to you and this show is meaningful to you, thank them. They saw what I was doing and they said, look, family is the middle name of American Family Radio and the family caregiver is an at-risk individual.

And so we're grateful to be here. 888-589-8840. 888-589-8840.

888-589-8840. If this song has meant something to you that we did today, his eyes on the sparrow, feel free. Give me a call and tell me why.

I want to, we had a caller just a little bit ago and she just called and she said she likes the chords that I use. And I want to explain something to you. For those of you who don't know anything about music, I'll try to make this brief so it won't bore you. But there's a reason I do the things that I do with these songs. And so when you sing, when you do this song.

And that's the way I've heard a lot of people play it sadly. But when I play it, I wanted to tug at your ear a little bit and you may not necessarily know what I'm doing, but it's going to feel different and it's going to hopefully touch your heart in a way that it's going to make the music come a little bit more personal, more alive. It just tugs at your ear differently. And so I put in different kind of chords.

And then I throw in this, it's called a flat 9 chord. And so I do those things hopefully that will freshen the song up a little bit and not just clunk it out. And so that you will find it different and maybe drive home the text a little bit better and you'll remember that.

And you'll go through the day and my hope is that as you go through the day and you'll find things that are unpleasant that you have to deal with, that you're struggling with, that you'll remember this text. His eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me. Now that is sound scripture.

Okay? That is sound scripture. His eye is on the sparrow, Matthew 10. They're sold for, you know, two for a piece of copper, for a penny.

And how much more so are you worth? Can you hang on to that today when it gets very claustrophobic, when you get closed in, when you're struggling, when you're hurting, when you're wondering does God even know you exist? Can you hang on to that and just sing that little melody?

His eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me. Let's go to Melissa in Texas. Melissa, good morning. How are you feeling? Good morning to you. How are you? Well, I'm just lovely.

Tell me, how are you doing? Well, I am more blessed at the moment than I was when I first woke up because I've never heard your program before. I took care of my stepdad, my mom and my sister.

I've lost them all in the last four years and it's just me now. My mom loved that song. Oh my gosh, she loved that song as she played piano. So I feel like God's working through you and I'm so grateful the radio show is allowing you to help all of us out here because now I feel like now I'm having to take care of myself by myself. And your wisdom and your strength is just, it's a blessing. Thank you so much for what you do and I will say my prayers for you and your wife as well. Well, thank you, Melissa. I do appreciate that very much and you know, my mother loves that song and I think so many of our mothers love that song and our fathers and it's amazing how a song like that became wrapped into the fabric of our lives, isn't it?

Yes. And I love playing, I wish you could hear Gracie sing it. I do have a recording of her somewhere singing it, but I couldn't find it, but I may have her sing it tomorrow at church. When she sings this, we slow it down.

I remember when she got in the studio and recorded this many, many years ago and we just set, we slowed it down a little bit and let her just kind of breathe those words out. Why should I feel discouraged? Why should the shadows come? Why should my heart be lonely and long for heaven and home? And then I love the second verse, let not your heart be troubled. His tender word I hear and resting on his goodness I lose my doubts and fears. Though by the path he leadeth but one step I may see his eyes on the sparrow and I know he watches me. And that's the whole point of what we're talking about with the scripture. We're only going to see sometimes one step at a time. And as you took care of your family, Melissa, there were times when one step and you were doing good to see one step at a time weren't you?

Yeah. But here you are and you know what? It is your time to take care of you and to be a good steward of you and you for a season you went through this very difficult time and right now though it's a time for you to rest in knowing that you know what? He knows who you are. He knows where you are. He knows what you've done.

And he knows how well you did it and how poorly you feel like you did it and how much you beat yourself up for it when you felt like you didn't do a good job. And there's so much grace that is available to you. And I'm hoping that today that, Melissa, that you can just rest in that grace. You took care of your family. Honor your mother and father that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord gives you. You honored them.

You did it. Well, they took care of us for heaven's sake. Sometimes I wondered how somebody couldn't even want to. Well, there's a lot of sadness out there for folks. There are people that did not have good family situations.

They were abused or abandoned and then their parents get to a point where they're feeble and there's unresolved issues and those are painful things. But what you do does not reflect on how well you were treated. What you do reflects on who you are as a person and what God is doing in your life. What are you going to do this afternoon, Melissa? What you got planned?

Nothing. What do you like to do? I can listen to the radio all day long.

Well, what do you like to do besides listen to the radio? Watch the birds. Watch the birds? Yeah. Is there a park where you can go do that? Uh-huh.

Why don't you go out and watch them? And you do this also. Write down the different kinds of birds that you see. Are you pretty good at recognizing different kinds of birds?

Yeah, my mom and I used to do it a lot. Write down all the different birds you see and just have that time just looking at God's creation. Do you have a lot of hummingbirds around you?

Not as many this year as we normally do. I was watching one out on my deck. I was sitting there and I looked at it and there were actually two of them and I was watching them.

I got a picture of it, which is not an easy thing to do sometimes. But I was watching them and they're just exquisite animals. Birds or whatever you call them.

I don't know what they are. They're birds. They're exquisite birds. And it's fascinating to watch them and to see just the way they hover there.

And it was stunning to watch that. And I really admire people who understand and study birds and so forth. But even that, as exquisite as that hummingbird is, how much more so are you exquisite Melissa?

How much more so? And how much more so does your Heavenly Father think of you and consider you? And as you watch all those birds today, if you take a notepad or whatever and write down all those things and just remember that as wonderful as they are, your Heavenly Father values and steams you that much more. And think about those times you had with your mom and the things that she shared with you and the times you had with them and enjoy that moment. Get outside and look at them and just enjoy the moment and keep a journal on it and then maybe ask the Lord to give you a scripture or something that would tie all that together. Maybe it's the same one of Matthew 10 where he says, you know, they only cost a penny for two of them.

But ask him to show you, you know, how much more valuable you are to him. How about that? Do you think you knew that today? You're wonderful. And I really admire you and your wife too. Where do y'all go to church? Where are you located? We're in Montana. We're way up in a little town in Montana.

I live 10 miles from a paved road. We're way out here. And the other night our power went off. They had a pole that went down and there was an accident.

A truck hit it and power was off for about five or six hours. So Gracie and I just got out in the truck and we went out in the forest. We were backed up to National Forest. And we went out there and we looked at deer.

It was just beautiful. We saw all kinds of deer. There's a moose that hangs up. We didn't get to see the moose. Now a couple times we've come home and we've seen larger animals. There was a mountain lion sitting on the gate one time.

That was not good. I didn't get out of the car because I'm not a total idiot. But we love to be able just to look at what's going on around us and see it. And you see exquisite beauty all around us. Now I want to leave you with this because we're right up against the break. I mean the end of the show.

But I want to leave you with this. Scripture says that all creation is groaning in anticipation of the total redemption that God's going to do. But there's exquisite beauty. But there's groaning.

And I'm up here in the Rockies. There's exquisite beauty everywhere I look. But it's also groaning according to Scripture. And there's pain and sorrow and there's groaning but there's beauty. And I would say to you Melissa that even in the midst of the difficult journey that you've had there's exquisite beauty in the midst of that. Can you hang on that today and go and look at those birds and write that down and write down all the birds that you see and just remember how much more exquisite you are than that. I've got to go. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. This is the show for you as a family caregiver. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. We'll see you next week.