Caller Struggles Post Caregiving

If this song has meant something to you that we did today, his eyes on the sparrow, feel free to 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, 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 nine 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 just 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? 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. Well, I was watching one out on my deck. I was sitting there and I looked at it and there were actually two of 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 or birds or whatever you call it. I don't know what they are, but 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, 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 even 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 out 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. 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 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. 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. 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. 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 other ones like it, but I know about this one, 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 limb, whether from a loved one who passed away or somebody who outgrew them, you've donated some of your own. How do they do that? Where do they find them? Please go to standingwithhope.com slash recycle. Standingwithhope.com slash recycle. Thanks Gracie.