Asking Better Questions

According to latest figures from the CDC, approximately one million Americans are injured annually as a result of falling on ice and snow.

I'm Peter Rosenberg, and as a caregiver for my wife for more than 35 years, I understand the importance of helping someone with a mobility impairment get in and out of the home safely, particularly in inclement weather. And that's why this winter I'm using HeatTrak. They're snow and ice melting mats that you just plug in and they provide you a safe walkway to your garage, to your mailbox, to your deck, to your business. Whatever the need, HeatTrak has a mat that will fit that need and make sure that you can get in safely during snow and ice.

You don't have to plow, you don't have to shovel, and you don't have to worry about falling because you're walking on something that is safe and secure and dry. This winter, let's stay out of the emergency room. Let's make sure we're safe. Go to HeatTrak.com. You know, these make a great gift as well. During inclement weather, let's stay out of the emergency room and enjoy the winter instead.

Go to HeatTrak.com. Welcome to Hope of the Caregiver. This is Peter Roseberger. This is the nation's number one program for you as a family caregiver. More than 65 million Americans right now serve as a caregiver.

Are you one of them? And if so, how are you doing? What's going on with you? How's your health?

How's your heart, emotionally and spiritually? How are all these things working together for you to stay strong and healthy as you take care of someone who is not? I'm bringing 35 years of experience to help you stay strong and healthy in that process, things I've learned the hard way.

I don't think I've ever learned anything the easy way. And that's okay because, you know, that's just life. We are glad that you're with us. Whether you're taking care of somebody with Alzheimer's, whether you're taking care of a special needs child with autism, or whether you've got somebody in your family that's an alcoholic or an addict. As long as there's a chronic impairment, you're a caregiver.

And there are things that we fall into, traps that we find ourselves in, and they're matters of the heart. In all of my years as a caregiver, I don't recall really struggling that hard on apprehending the task of caregiving. I learned how to give injections. I learned how to deal with insurance companies. I learned how to deal with doctors.

I learned how to do all these things, and I haven't had anybody take that knowledge from me. Where I have struggled in all of my years is the things that keep eluding me of peace of mind, staying firm in calmness, being able to think clearly in the midst of a crisis, dealing with the rage, the resentment, the despair, all of these things that trouble the human soul. But as a caregiver, we're living in kind of a crucible, if you will, where these things just continue to have heat, bringing things to the boiling point. For us as caregivers, it's relentless. It doesn't go away. And except, well, we actually do know when it goes away.

The only way it's going to go away usually is through a funeral. The question is, whose funeral? Ours or our loved ones? And what kind of shape are we going to be in if we outlive them? And we can't guarantee that we will. And do we need to be miserable until such a time as that happens?

And I would say to you, no, we don't. But in order for us to navigate through this smoothly, we're going to have to change the way we think about certain things. We have a demandingness that we go through as human beings to always want to know why, always want to get this thing figured out. A friend of mine a long time ago told me, get comfortable with ambiguity.

And I've never forgotten that phrase. I realized, you know, it's OK for us to not know why on some things. And there has to be better questions that we can consume ourselves with in this journey as we look at very painful things in our lives. And so I asked my longtime friend, you've heard him before on this program, he's a frequent guest on this program, Rabbi Eric Walker, Messianic Rabbi Eric Walker, who has, with me, shepherded me through a lot of things and going back into scriptures and seeing things from a different perspective, from the Jewish perspective of, OK, what does this mean? And if you remember, Jesus didn't have the New Testament. He was the New Testament. He looked at what we call the Old Testament.

Those were the scriptures that he referenced and fulfilled. And so we want to explore that from the context of all these things we deal with in the human condition as amplified in a caregiving circumstance. So, Rabbi Walker, it's always a pleasure, Eric, to have you here. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me, Peter.

Always a blessing to serve the caregiver community. All right. Well, let's jump into it.

I spent, here's the setup. I spent, I don't know how many years, asking why God, why God, why God. And to my recollection, I don't recall any circumstance where God ever just showed up and said, OK, I'll answer all your questions now. And I had to make peace with that. I had to make peace with ambiguity, had to shake hands with ambiguity and realize that God is not going to answer my questions.

And I kept saying, get me out of this, get me out of this, get me out of this. You and I talked about this, that scriptures bring a different perspective to this. So jump right in.

What are your thoughts as you hear somebody say these things as we go back to the Word of God? It's like any scenario where somebody asks the question and you get the response. That's not the right question.

That's not the question you're supposed to be asking. The human condition says we want to get out of something and we're going to get it up quickly. And we go to the Lord and say, Lord, get me out of this. And like you said, a veil of silence falls and covers you. But God really is saying to you, Peter, you're asking the wrong question. The Word says ask and will be given unto you. But you've got to have clarity is what you're asking for. And you're asking to get out of the circumstance that God has allowed you to be in. It's his permissive will that allows things to happen to you.

And so when we look at God's sovereignty, he's sovereign over the problems. But what's he trying to refine the problems or is he trying to refine you? In that refinement process, he doesn't want you to ask him, how do I get out of this? He wants you to ask him, Lord, what do you want me to get out of this?

What do you want me to learn? Then you draw closer to hear that still small voice as he whispers in your ear, this is what I have for you in this moment. Astonishing when we ask the right questions, how God is so quick to answer.

And the silence that we hear is a barometer. I'm not asking the right question. I need to change my question. And that's really the lesson here is are we asking the right questions? Peter, asking how to get out of something that God allowed to happen is like saying, God, you made a mistake. Like Moses saying, I can't speak. And God says, who made your mouth? You know, and that brings me to a great point because one of the things I looked at that God never asked the wrong question.

No. He always asks the right question. And in his questions become the truth is revealed. If it was obvious… Is that a fair statement?

Yes, very much so. If it was obvious to Jesus that a crippled man was crippled, why did he ask him what he wanted? You see, if we're not in harmony with God, in harmony with the Messiah, and we're on the same page with him, so he's going to ask a probative question.

What is it you want? Man might have said, I want wealth. Man might have said, I want that woman.

Man might have said something else. But no, it confirmed what Messiah thought is he wanted to walk. He wanted to see. He wanted to do whatever it was that he could not do. But Jesus still asked. Was he not omniscient? Did he not know? Well, I love that when he asked the woman who touched me.

Well, not the woman, he asked his disciples who touched me. Now, the fringe of the garment, Peter, is called tzit, t-z-i-c-i-t, t-z-i-c-i-t. Look at it in my mind. It means wings. So she touched his wings. Now, he's not an angel, but read Psalm 91. Under the shelter of his wings. So all this is reconnecting back to the supernatural provision of God in touching his wings. So you look at this fringe, at the hem of his garment. It wasn't a sewn hem like we think about a robe or just a garment. He was an observant Jew wrapping himself with a four cornered garment with fringe on it.

Wings. We're going to talk some more about this. This is Rabbi Eric Walker, and we're discussing how we as caregivers and really as human beings can retrain our minds to ask better questions.

We spend a lot of time in the juvenile world, the childish, not childlike, childish place of petulance of get me out of this, get me out of this. But God has something else in store. And in the process, we learn more about him as we discover him deeply in these things. This is hope for the caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger.

We'll be right back. He'll give you hope for tomorrow, joy for your sorrow, strength for everything you go through. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the program for you as a family caregiver. We're so glad that you are with us.

That is my wife, Gracie. He'll give you hope for tomorrow. He doesn't always give you answers.

He is the answer. And whether or not we trust him is the challenge for us as human beings, and it is the human condition. And that condition is relentlessly amplified in the caregiving journey.

And 35 years into this now, I'm seeing these kinds of things with a level of clarity that I couldn't have when I was a young man when I started this out. If we have something bad happen to us, then we've got to dispel that as quickly as possible. First off, we classify it as bad, and then it could be something that's painful and heartbreaking, but we've somehow equated that with the level of God's displeasure. And God allows all kinds of very uncomfortable things. As I said to my father the other day, he doesn't seem to be uncomfortable with our discomfort.

And because he understands there's a greater work going on that he is involving himself in in ways that we can't even see or really even process. And when you deal with the relentless journey of caring for someone who is impaired on any level and the dynamics that come to the surface with that, these kinds of things are what keep us up at night having conversations with the ceiling fan. And so where do you go for that? I mean, I know who to call and ask on how to deal with a particular, you know, situation with an insurance company. I know where to get medical supply.

But when you have matters of the heart, where the heart is truly struggling, where do you go? Now the world would like to offer this and this and this and this and this. We've seen that. We know what the world offers.

I've seen it myself. I've had lots of different counselors and all these kinds of things and they give me a lot of good advice on some practical levels. But they don't speak to the core of what's going on with me. Why is God doing this? Why does he allow these things?

Where is he? What does it look like to trust him in this? And so the only place to go, if you want to know what God has to say, is to his Word where he's already said it. And it crosses over into every human condition we can deal with as a caregiver on a heart level. If you have despair, Scripture speaks to that. If you have rage, Scripture speaks to that. If you have just depression, resentment, all these things, whatever you're troubled with in your heart and your soul, Scripture speaks to it. Now the question is, do we want to listen? And I asked a friend of mine who's walked with me through a lot of these things.

We've pounded out very complex things and he's taken me into some deep waters with it. And that's my friend, Rabbi Eric Walker. And we've explored these things, the same Scriptures that Jesus quoted extensively, as did Paul, and as did all this, because that was what they leaned on. It was the Hebrew Scriptures that we call the Old Testament. But it is the very Word of God. What does it have to say about this?

What does Jesus have to say about this? And so we were talking about this in the last segment of the question we always ask, how do I get out of this? If you notice that all of our medicine, if you go to a grocery store or pharmacy, whatever, it's always extra strength. There's no more regular strength, anything, maximum strength.

Whatever will kill the human body, back it off a little bit, that's what we want. Getting out of pain at all costs, getting out of discomfort at all costs, but that is antithetical to what Scripture teaches. There are some things we need to learn in our discomfort. And in our distress, we cry out to him, he hears us, and he ministers to us in it. But he doesn't necessarily take us out of it.

He says he'll be with us. So, Eric, continue on with that thought. Take us deeper into that, what Scripture says, and what are your thoughts on this? Peter, that's a great question, and as you were talking and describing this, the Lord just spoke to me and said that no greater gift than this than for one man to lay down his life for another. And so the sacrifices that a caregiver makes is putting another person first.

Paul says to esteem the other more than yourself. And so caregivers are not volunteers, they're like you were. Circumstance rose up, and you had some knowledge, but not full knowledge. You were in love, as many people are, and then situations change and something happens. And I think God looks at the caregiver as the most fertile tree in his orchard.

Because you're put in a circumstance where you cannot put yourself first, no matter how hard you try. And when you finally come to the reality of God speaking to you, you realize you have to come to the end of yourself to begin a life with someone you're caring for. And so the fruit that you're bearing is good fruit because the tree is so important to God's economy. 65 million of these trees out there, Peter, bearing fruit for the kingdom. And what does God do when a tree bears fruit? He prunes it so it will grow more fruit. It will bear more fruit. Pruning feels like discipline. And when we're pruned and you take those clippers to the rose bush, the rose bush screams out and says, oh my goodness, you're killing me.

Two months, three months down the road, it's full of blooms looking out there saying, look at me. Look how radiant I am because I'm now bearing the benefits of this pruning because God wants more from me. And he wants more for me. And the more I do with him, not for him, but with him, we're able to bear more fruit for the kingdom. And so when I look at you and Gracie, and I know the troubles you've been through, I know the challenges you've been through, you've shared everything with me. Yet, it's such a bond between the two of you that it provokes people to jealousy when they see that incredible bond that is beyond all comprehension. It's beyond all natural understanding of that gift of compassion that God has so lavishly poured out on you.

Passion. And this is what Jesus did. I think caregivers are probably more Jesus-like than anybody else in our society. And the fruit that you bear is so glorious, it's so wonderful, it's so rich. You love the unlovely. That was our Messiah.

Look at Isaiah 53. Is that not the wounded condition that caregivers provide for? Wounded. Rejected by man. Sporned.

Nothing about it would make somebody want to choose that circumstance. That was our Messiah. And caregivers are extravagantly created in that image. And so as I'm sitting here, the Lord's speaking to me, Peter, and telling me that this is a message of hope and encouragement to caregivers everywhere.

That when you look in the mirror, you're seeing a reflection of God. And when you don't think you can do one more thing, remember that next step that Jesus took carrying that cross. The same step that Isaac took walking up that mountain carrying the wood for his offering. He was no young boy.

He was 30 something years old. It's a lot of wood to carry. It required a donkey.

It probably weighed the same amount as the cross that Jesus carried. We know what that walk was like. Not 39 lashes, but 39 lashes with a cat of nine tails.

Nine times 39. But he was scared. Yet he took that walk for us the same way that you take Greece and you walk for her. This is so much in the image of Messiah, what he's called us to do, that he gave us 65 million living examples on the face of this country to look upon and say, if I want to know what the example of Messiah is, it's right there. Esteeming the other more than yourself.

Selfless love. And not cursing the obstacles that come in your path. I know that brings to a point there that you brought out is that we sometimes curse the very thing that God is using to teach us. And we become resentful and we are, if I could just get out of this, if I could just have this removed. And Paul discussed that, whatever his thorn in the flesh was. But we somehow think of these things as these are obstacles to our own happiness.

And you said something a minute ago. He wants more for us and more from us. And we are that we can possibly understand and what we think will will bring us the joy, the satisfaction. It is it's elusive. It's not even real.

It's a mirage. And I've learned this over the years is that, you know, you take away the stress. I've seen this with with other caregivers, too. If they have a reprieve for two or three, four days. They don't know how to function very well. Because they're not used to not having that that constant challenge.

And I've seen this with family, with those who lost a loved one, they've been taking care for a long time. And they didn't know what to do with the quiet, with the silence, with the absence of the journey, however painful it was. And part of that is, I think, Eric, is that we we somehow think that we cannot have an abiding, joyful, abundant, meaningful life of purpose in the midst of great suffering and sorrow and challenges. It seems counterintuitive to us. Why do we always go to the punishment?

Why do we always go to that place where we think that God is pouring out some kind of wrath and that you were uniquely chosen to be beat up on because of something that you've done? You know, Paul writes in Second Corinthians 517 that anybody who's in Messiah is a new creation. The old is gone.

The new has come. I'm in Messiah every time I wake up. And when I wake up in the morning, I'm not the same creation I was who went to bed. I've lost cells. I've lost hairs and I've grown new hairs and I've lost cells and I've created new cells in my body.

I haven't. God has. All of that makes us a new creation in Messiah. We're going to talk some more about this in our next segment. This is Rabbi Eric Walker joining me. He has been with me on many occasions on this program and I've been on his program as well as we've explored these deep things.

It's hard for us as caregivers to wrap our minds around some of these things. But scripture gently leads us down this if we're willing to learn. Are we willing to have our minds transformed by the renewing of our minds? Are we willing to do that?

And that's what we're going to talk about some more when we come back. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the program for you as a family caregiver. By the way, we have a whole lot of things to offer you that are free of charge. You can go out to our website, Hopeforthecaregiver.com, subscribe to our podcast we have. We're getting close to almost 700 episodes out there that you can take advantage of.

Go back and listen. It's a library of all kinds of things by topic. We have written articles. There's a book that's always available. The audiobook is available.

All these things are available. Please take advantage of it. Don't try to do this by yourself. I did this for a long time by myself. Nobody knew what to say to me.

I had to forage for it. I'm determined that I'm going to speak into my fellow caregivers with some hard-won insights in a way that makes sense. I speak fluent caregiver. I've learned to speak fluent caregiver. But the greater news is that it's our Savior's native tongue, and that's who He is. And He's the ultimate caregiver of a wounded bride.

As I've taken care of my wife with great wounds to her body and her heart and her soul, I'm reminded that our Savior cares for His wounded bride, and that's us as believers. And so I want you to take advantage of exploring this. Don't isolate yourself and let yourself be engulfed in dark thoughts with this thing.

I've done that. It's not a good place. I'm not a there-there kind of guy. I'm a, hey, don't go down there. I've been down there. That's a bad place.

Don't do that. You know, I am the wily coyote of caregivers. So take advantage of this at HopeForTheCaregiver.com. We're talking with my longtime friend, Rabbi Eric Walker, and we're exploring what the Word of God says about these things, about the conditions of the heart. Yes, finances are a problem for us as caregivers, and they certainly make some things easier. But I have talked to more caregivers who have great resources.

Money is not an issue with them. And yet they are taught by guilt, by obligation, by resentment, by despair. And what do you think speaks to those things more than the Scriptures do? Nothing. And so let's go back to the Scriptures, but this time let's go back understanding what the real issue is with us.

We're asking the right question. God, what would you have me learn in this as opposed to God get me out of this? Am I going to be like Balaam? You remember the prophet Balaam who cursed his donkeys, beaten his donkey. But the donkey stopped. He thought the donkey was the obstacle. The donkey saw the angel. Finally, the angel let the donkey speak and said, hey, why are you beating me? That's one of the craziest stories in the Scriptures. But there's a great teachable moment in there of that we are beating and cursing the very thing that's saving us from being cut down. That donkey knew not to go any further. And I look at the precedent of Scripture using great wisdom and great things, God using a donkey's jawbone to do things.

That gives me hope for my program. So he's once again using the jawbone of a donkey. And I'll just leave that there. But anyway, alright, Rabbi Walker, Eric Walker, what are your thoughts on this as we continue this discussion of exploring what Scripture says to the human condition that we as caregivers find ourselves in and we're struggling, get me out of this, get me out of this. We curse the obstacle. We don't know how to even think properly of this.

We don't know what to ask. What are your thoughts on that? Take us back to Scripture. Peter, the Word says, nachamu ami, comfort my people.

God sent the great comforter, the Holy Spirit, to us because it was His desire to be comforted even in our affliction. But most of us, when we come across an obstacle, we curse the obstacle. Our statements are, oh no, not again. Oh, I just thought we were past that, and now this. And we go into this despondent persona that curses the obstacle instead of embracing the obstacle and say, wait a second, what's on the other side of this obstacle that God wants me to persevere through so I can grab my breakthrough on the other side of that wall? Our blessing is on the other side of breakthrough.

It's not on this side. We go back to the tree. If the tree is not growing, it's dying. If it's not putting down its roots deep, it's going to be blown over by the storm. And so God's going to continue to put obstacles because He wants perseverance, and perseverance builds what?

Strength. And so as we persevere through these obstacles, we need to embrace and say, Lord, I know you've equipped me for this because you would not take me here if I was not able, through your strength, to pass through. Go around, climb over, break down, so I can grab that blessing on the other side of breakthrough, knowing that as I navigate through these obstacles, that there will be another obstacle, maybe not in sight, but one that's coming, as long as I'm moving forward and not backwards. Paul says, not that I've accomplished all this, but this I do, forgetting what's behind.

I press on to the prize that waits for me in this aisle. Didn't work out for Lot's wife either, looking back, did it? God doesn't want us looking back, He wants us looking forward. If we're looking back, our heads are turned away from Him, and all I can see is the back of our head. He doesn't know if we're engaged in sin, because that's the same looking seed when we're in sin, the back of our head. You know, that reminds me of a scripture in Isaiah 43, because this came to mind because I was talking about this the other day on the show. It says, forget the former things, do not dwell on the past, see I am doing a new thing, now it springs up, do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. And if one thing that caregivers can understand is wilderness and wasteland, it looks bleak at times, but God is not limited by what we call bleak. And these are hard truths, Eric, I'm not going to dance around that. These are hard things to understand when you're in the throes of it, particularly. And I think about all the family members out there who are taking care of an alcoholic or an addict, when the behavior is so aberrant and so out of control. And wasteland is a great word, because it just seems like this is not going to end well.

This is going to end tragically. But God says, I'm doing a new thing. In those situations of fear and trepidation and uncertainty, we're actually paying homage to a false god, Pam. You know, Pam was half man and half goat. It was in Pam's grotto that Jesus asked, Peter, who do the people say that I am?

It was right there at the Temple of Pam, where people were making living sacrifices through a hole in the ground called the Gates of Hell. And he says to Peter, who do you say I am? He said, you're the Messiah, the Son of God. He said, that could only be revealed to you by my Father in Heaven. I tell you that on this rock, I will build my church.

Well, you're there in a place called Banias, which is the headwaters of the Jordan River, one of the three main tributaries. And the water's rushing around you, and you see Pam's temple, and you realize that every word that begins with P-A-N pays homage to this false god. Panacea, panic, pandemic, all this pays homage. And so when people have these panic attacks, or they're looking for a panacea, that one ultimate solution to all of their problems, they're turning to a false god for that answer, not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And it's stunning the amount of spiritual warfare that's done to those who have a victim mentality, and feel like they are lesser than, or they've been chosen for an appointed punishment for something that they did, because they don't understand God's grace, his forgiveness, his compassion, his long suffering, his willingness to sacrifice his own son so that we could have a relationship with Sar Shalom, the Prince of Peace. You know, I'm reminded when you were saying that, it took me a long time to embrace this concept I'm about to share with you.

And I struggled a long time with it because I look at the panacea, if you will, that we always seem to be as a culture going towards. If it feels bad, get rid of it. Kill it. Destroy it. Euthanize it. Abort it.

Whatever is causing you inconvenience from self-actualization, let's get rid of it. That's our culture. That's what the world offers. God says, trust me in it and share in the sufferings of Christ. And part of the sufferings of Christ, and if you look at this, that you see this groaning, this groaning over this world. Jesus looked out over Jerusalem. You could picture him just groaning, oh, I want to just grab you and hold you. Because he saw, he knew what was coming for Jerusalem not long after his death.

And the Holy Spirit is groaning. And I remember doing an interview when Gracie first, she was the first one in our county that was diagnosed with COVID out here in Montana. And it was an odd way she got it when she went to go get her prosthetics worked on in Billings. And evidently she got it there because we lived 10 miles from a paved road.

COVID didn't make its way up here on its own. And I did an interview with Shannon Bream on Fox News, and she was just on the program recently, on this program. But I shared with her some thoughts that I had that as I look around in Montana where I am, it is spectacularly beautiful. But scripture also says that all creation is groaning. And yet I see beauty, but it's groaning.

But I see beauty, but it's groaning. And I shared this on Fox that that is the hard thing for us to wrap our minds around is that it seems contradictory that we have all this brokenness and yet there is great beauty that we can also see as we embrace the brokenness. And I think this is what Jesus, when he sees us, that's what he sees. He sees that we are broken. He has done the unthinkable to redeem us, and yet he sees beauty and exquisiteness in us, so much so that he laid out his own life.

Is that a fair representation? Beauty from ashes. That's what the Word of God says. Beauty from ashes. And so when we look at the sequoia, the giant redwoods in California, if you understand their ecology, their seed dynamics, is that it requires fire on those pine cones to heat up the resin within those giant sequoias, in those pine cones, to burst the seeds forward. It takes the heat of the fire.

It has to reach a certain temperature. You know, I just was in Yellowstone with my sister and her family just recently, and we see still evidence of the fire back in 1988. I remember when that happened. My in-laws lived out here, and we see the evidence of the regrowth of what that fire did. We don't like the fire, but we see the value that God uses through this. We're talking with Rabbi Eric Walker. This is Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger.

We'll be right back. He will be strong to deliver me safe, and the joy of the Lord is my strength. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the program for you as a family caregiver, and I'm so glad we're ending on that song coming in for the bumper. That is Gracie, my wife, with Rust Half, and that is from her CD Resilient. You can go out and get a copy of that today. You can download that song wherever downloads are done, and you can go out to our website and see if you want to get a copy of the CD.

It will tell you how to do that. I love that because the joy of the Lord is our strength. I had a friend of mine, a pastor, who told me not too terribly long ago, because I still struggle with this, and I'm just being candid with you all.

I still struggle because I think, gosh, I haven't achieved this, and why am I still just trying to keep my nose above water? And he said perseverance is his own success, and I really subscribe to that for us as caregivers, that we are persevering through this, and the joy of the Lord is our strength in this, that we're not just doing this and depleting everything we have, but we have an inexhaustible supply of strength that comes from the joy of the Lord. Not the happiness that we all seem as a culture determined to fill our lives with is happiness, but joy, which is this almost indescribable sense of all, the work of God in our life, and just to be with him in his presence, and the peace, the calmness, the acceptance of trusting him, and his hand of sovereignty in this. All of those things blend together to strengthen us in this journey, knowing that he who began a good work is faithful to complete it to the day of Christ Jesus, as Paul said.

I have my longtime friend, Eric Walker, Rabbi Eric Walker, here with us today, and we're going to end on that note. We started off with, so many of us asked, how do I get out of this? And then the question becomes reframed, what do I get out of this? That we're going to stop cursing the obstacle, stop beating the donkey that is stopping because the donkey sees an angel like Balaam's donkey did, and we can't, so we just beat the donkey. We're going to stop with the cursing of the obstacle and ask a better question, Lord, what do I get out of this? Lord, how can I grow in this? How can I experience your joy in this?

These are much better questions for us as caregivers, as human beings. And take us out with that, Rabbi. All I can hear is, my God will provide for all of my needs according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus. My God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to the shed blood of my Messiah, provides for all of my needs according to his riches and his glory.

Let the trees of the field clap their hands. Let all creation sing glory to God in eyes. And so Peter, I think about the refiner's fire. There's no burning off of the dross unless the crucible gets hot enough, unless it separates the impurities from the perfect. It has to go through refiner's fire. You can't rub it out. You can't press it out.

You can't beat it out. You have to put it into the flame. Silver, the silversmith can't just leave it and set it and forget it. He has to work that silver until he can see his reflection in it.

That's when he knows it's ready. And so we have to embrace the refiner's fire and say, Lord, whatever it is you want for me, not from me, for me. As I stated earlier, God doesn't want you to do more for him. What does God need?

My father owns a cattle on a thousand hills. What does God need from you? He wants to do more with you. Invite him to your table.

Invite him to your problems. It's not that he's surprised by that, but Jesus asked the obvious questions. The man was a paralytic. He could not walk. He asked, what do you want?

He wants to walk. Yeah, I knew that, but I want to hear him ask. I want to hear him say it out loud because the power of life and death is in the tongue. Speak it. Take it out of that secret place and make it known through prayers and petition.

Not a written petition with a bunch of signatures on it. Your voice is your petition before God. God's plans are perfect for you. If we would just allow the perfection of his was so narrow-sighted, was so short-sighted, we can only see so far. We can't see past the horizon. Nowhere in the world can any man, woman or child see past the horizon.

It's the same for everybody. The only one that can see the whole picture is God. No man can see past the horizon, so we're limited by sight.

But if we walk by faith and not by sight, and this is what God is telling us to do, to walk by faith, not by sight, it can look impossible, but that doesn't make it impossible. You don't have the power to determine what's possible or what's not possible because you're not the creator. You're the creation. You didn't make all this. I didn't make all this.

We are but dust. And that's what Job discovered. And I'm always struck by that God allowed 30-something chapters of bad theology to be on display as Job and his friends try to wrestle with why God was doing what he was doing.

And when God shows up at the end and he speaks to Job, he asks the right questions. Where were you? Where were you? And it gave Job the perspective of dealing with the Almighty in a way that he did not expect.

Where were you? And when you start to see in the question that God asks of us, I love that. He says, stand up and I'll address you as a man. And it's a magnificent place and it doesn't ease a lot of our fears and doubts and pain, certainly, of things. These are humbling things that we have to deal with as caregivers, particularly when we have to watch others suffer.

And these are very humbling things and perspective generating if we allow them. And, you know, I had to come to a place where I realized for Gracie, for example, she has a Savior. I'm not that Savior.

Not as her husband, not as her caregiver. And I have to take my hands off whatever God is doing in this thing and serve in a way that he directs. I get that right sometimes. I get it really wrong a lot of times, but that's where grace and mercy are extended. And as I hear you say these things, and I know that there are those listening today who are struggling in this area, they look at that their lives are so defeated because they just wake up every day to new task or the same task and more misery. But then I'm reminded that scripture says each morning I see new mercies. And these are things that I wanted to offer to just my fellow caregivers to say, look, there is a different perspective here. But unless you've done this for a long time, you may not see these things and we need people around us that can help us see.

We need people that help us tear up the roof and lower us down to Jesus. I've had to have people like that in my life that I just couldn't see it. And sometimes I didn't want to see it, Eric. I didn't want to see it. I just wanted God to fix it. I wanted it to be done.

I mean, what good is this, God, to allow somebody to suffer on this level? And I struggled with all those things and I went through those dynamics. And so I'm offering these things that I've struggled with over a lifetime to my fellow caregivers to say, OK, does this make sense with where you are? Do you understand what I'm saying to you now?

And do you feel less isolated to know that others are or have and are struggling with these same things? And here's what we're learning from it. And here's what I am gleaning from this journey.

And the thing that I'm gleaning is that it is possible. This is the whole point of hope for the caregiver. It is possible for us as caregivers through Christ that we can live calmly. We can live healthier and we can live more joyful life in the midst of the brokenness that we see every day. But we cannot do this on our own.

Close us out. But God, all things are possible. Without God, you can make progress on your own.

You'll never go as far. You'll never find that peace that passes all understanding. Even in your circumstances, you can have peace.

You can have perfect peace. But God is in charge. And if you share the gospel with your loved one, or you yourself need to hear that God has a plan for your life, but it takes a decision on your part.

If you're willing to give up, give up to him your agenda. Take his yoke, his teaching towards light and easy. And then you don't have to worry about tomorrow because tomorrow has its own problems.

And Jesus said in Matthew 6, Why do you worry about tomorrow? What can you do? You can't add one hair, one dark hair to your head, Peter. My brilliant white hair.

My arctic blonde hair. That's it. Well listen, I have so enjoyed this and I've got another topic that we're going to get into next time. I cannot help but think when this show airs, the reason I'm doing this with you right now is because I'll be with Gracie in Denver as she goes through this very, very, very, very serious surgery. And so I'm going to be listening to my program that morning, not as the host. I'll be listening as an audience member to these words because I know it'll be airing right after the surgery. And we are going into the biggest surgical event she's had since her car wreck 38 years ago.

And this will be her 82nd that I know of. And so these words mean something to me. The worst kept secret is that the whole reason I do this program is to speak to my own heart like David did at Ziklag and just encourage myself and the Lord as I continue on my journey as a caregiver and it brings me a great deal of comfort and joy to know that other caregivers respond to this and are able to glean as well the truths of God through this journey. Eric Walker has been a great friend through this and we're going to have him on some more. He's at ignitinganation.com.

You can go out to his website, ignitinganation.com to learn more of him and get a hold of his vast library. This is Peter Roseburger. We'll see you next time. 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, do 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. These men are so glad that they get to be doing, as one man 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 legs. 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, 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 limb, 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 them? Oh, please go to StandingWithHope.com slash recycle. StandingWithHope.com slash recycle. Thanks, Gracie.