Do You Feel Seen?

Do you see, do you see all the people sinking down? Don't you care, don't you care? Are you gonna let them drown? How can you be so numb not to care if they come?

You close your eyes and pretend the job's done. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberg. This is the show for you as a family caregiver. This is that song by Keith.

I just love it. I've always loved that song. And for those who don't know who Keith Green was, do yourself a favor and go out and Google. I know they got the Jesus music documentary out right now and he's mentioned a little bit.

I haven't seen it yet, but I heard he's mentioned a little bit in it, but he was such a powerful voice. But that song is one of the reasons I do the show. Do you see, do you see? And caregivers aren't seen.

I know this from experience. I can't tell you how many people have asked me how my wife is doing. I can't count them. But I can count the ones who ask about me.

And I'm 35 years into this. How about you? And so when I realized that this invisible army of people who are caring for chronically impaired loved ones, some of them dealing with just horrendous circumstances. Who's going to recognize these individuals? Who's going to speak to them?

Who's going to communicate with them? How are they going to understand? It would take somebody that speaks fluent caregiver because we have our own language. It's difficult to talk to a caregiver sometimes if you don't know the journey, if you don't know the language, if you don't know the scenario. People don't know what to say. And so caregivers just plodded along, struggled along, limped along, often in isolation.

I've said this many times. Caregivers can feel isolated in a crowded room and we can feel isolated on a crowded pew. And so when I envisioned this show many years ago, I was determined I was going to speak directly to caregivers.

And it's not that I don't want to speak to other people with it, but it's just this is who I see. This is who I am. And so when I do these songs for you and everything that I do on the show, it is a reflection of my own journey. I had to get to the point where I was doing our song for today. This is the day.

We will rejoice. And be glad in it. It's one thing to sing that at a church with people on drums and guitars and everything else. It's another thing to sing that as your wife goes into surgery for the 81st time. It's another thing to sing that as you're holding the hand of somebody who is slipping away. It's another thing to sing that if you have a child with autism who is just having meltdown after meltdown.

I was talking with friends of ours yesterday who they have a special needs son with very dire circumstances. And it's relentless. He's 20 something years old and it's relentless. And I'm not here to to try to bolster you up and say, you know, come on, you know, suck it up and let's go.

No, no, no. I want to. We got to start from the inside out. We got to go all the way down to the core of who we are and deal with that fear and deal with that heartache and deal with that sorrow and speak life to it. It's way down inside us.

And so people come up and they throw surfacing things at us, you know, and it doesn't stick because it can't because it's not penetrating all the way down to the core. And that's why I do the show. That's why I write books.

That's why I write a column. That's why I do all the things that I do is because I know from personal experience what it's like to have people throw a basket full of platitudes at me and none of it stick. And I also know what it's like when people came along and they spoke life to me and they spoke right down to the very core of who I am and helped me walk through this and get stronger and healthier. And so when Keith Green sings that song, do you see?

Do you say, yeah, I do. I do see it. And I see it around because I am that and somebody saw me. Several somebody saw me.

And I want you to know that somebody sees you. All I'm doing is what Paul talked about in Corinthians, all for the same comfort that I myself have received from the God of all comfort. And hopefully you will do the same as well to others that you see. But we're not going to come and grab people.

I tell this to my Pentecostal and charismatic friends. Don't go and grab people, start prophesying over them. Just sit with them. Just be with them. They're already just so on edge. You can send them right off the cliff. Just be. I've had people come up, do that to me and they just want to just shout at me the blessings of God.

No, it doesn't work that way. He's very calm. He's very quiet. He's very gentle. And if you look through scripture, you'll see that there's the words like steadfastness, mercy, grace, loving kindness. Don't be afraid.

Be still. These are permeated through all of scripture. Because he knows that we are fragile, freaked out, messed up people. And if we could just calm ourselves down or allow, more importantly, him to walk us through calmness.

You heard what Geneva said, that she would read the twenty third Psalm and her husband, even in Alzheimer's, would join in. He leads me besides still waters. He restores my soul. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear what? No evil.

For what? Thou art with me. He is with us in this. It doesn't seem that way at times. I know that.

For heaven's sakes, I know that. And there are times when you just hang your head and you're just so weary and you're so beaten down and you're so discouraged. And in those moments, he is there.

I promise you he is. Because I have experienced this more times than I can count. It doesn't necessarily go away. It doesn't change the reality of our journey. In the sense that these legs don't grow back. Her pain hasn't decreased.

I don't know why that God has not seen fit to alleviate this from her. I really don't. And as I told you in the last block, I'm becoming a little bit more comfortable saying, I can't know why. I can't. I don't have it in me to process that.

And so I have to make a decision. Am I going to trust? Am I going to trust God in this? And there are people that, like I said, they just throw out platitudes. And you hear this a lot of times from pulpits and everything else. We just trust God.

Just trust God. You know, that sounds really nice when you're not having to schlep through all this stuff that Gracie and I do. That's a good Yiddish word, by the way. I like that word.

With a last name like Rosenberg, I'll throw in a Yiddish word every now and then. That is not an easy thing to say to people. But when you hear people like Geneva who were married 71 years and cared for her husband with Alzheimer's for the last seven years of it.

And when you hear the joy, the vibrancy and the excitement in her voice. That's different. That's something the world does not offer. Don't take my word for it. Look at what the world offers for about five minutes every day on the news or whatever. And you'll see, no, the world doesn't offer that. You can't fake it for 71 years. OK, you can't.

It's not possible. But what you can do is anchor yourself in these truths so that when you are going through those tough times and when those tough times seem to stretch on beyond the horizon. That you're not swept away. This is the day. This is the day that the Lord has made.

So many of us as caregivers, see if this applies to you. I know it has to be. We either romanticize or regret the past or we fear or fantasize about the future. And scripture tells us to live here in this moment. This is the day that the Lord has made. And this day may contain very painful things for you.

But scripture doesn't qualify that. It just says this is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.

And my hope is, is that this little course that is so familiar to so many of us will stay with you not only today, but throughout the week and beyond when you are faced with very, very difficult things. I struggle to say this, but I'm going to say it anyway. Anybody else that tells you that, you can raise an eyebrow.

I know because I've done it. And say, you know, well, that's nice for him to say. But those of you who listen to this show regularly and for those of you new that don't know, you've learned a little bit today.

You know my journey. That would be like Geneva saying to you that you can have an enduring marriage. Well, if somebody says it's been married for three years, it's no big deal.

But somebody says it's been married for 70 years. You're going to listen. And when a caregiver tells you that you can trust God in these things, that's been doing it for 35 years. Hang on to that. Those of us with scars and experience down this road, we have learned a few things. And that he is faithful. And this is the day that you can rejoice in it.

Period. This is Peter Rosenberger. There's more at HopeForTheCaregiver.com.

Hey, this is Peter Rosenberger. And are you enjoying this podcast? Do you find these episodes meaningful?

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