No Shadow of Turning

Welcome to Hope for the Caregiver, here on American Family Radio.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the program for you as a family caregiver. More than 65 million Americans right now are doing this, serving as a family caregiver.

What's a family caregiver? You know, because I had somebody ask me the other day, well, I was a caregiver. I was a nurse for X amount of years.

And I don't know how many years. I love that. You know, I have a great respect for nurses. And when they asked me this, they said, what's the difference between that and a family caregiver? I said, a paycheck.

It's just that simple. You're not getting paid to be a family caregiver, most likely. And you are doing this out of love and out of lack of training, just out of a sense of responsibility. There's a relationship charge that you're caring for a chronically impaired loved one, whether it be a parent or a child or friend, special needs family member.

There are lots of different scenarios. And it's not that people in the medical field don't give care, because they do. That's a job. That is their profession.

That is their career. And I applaud them and could not do what I do without them. Some people say, well, I'm a parent, and that means I'm a caregiver. For a season, your duties as a parent will intersect with many of the duties of a caregiver. But the difference between a family caregiver and a parent is that there is the expectation that the child will grow up and function as an adult at some point and take more and more responsibility and gain more and more independence.

And be able to improve in their journey of self-reliance. Family caregivers know that for their loved one, that's not usually the case. And it will result in a great deal more monitoring, assistance, help, care, and not a few nights of heartache and tears. So the needs are just different. So it's important to know who it is you're talking to when you address these topics, because the needs are different. And that's what I spend a lot of time with on this program, is talking about the core needs of a family caregiver. I don't get into a lot of the specifics of caregiving, the task of caregiving. I mean, every now and then, we'll have a program that will talk about certain tips, like dealing with doctors and so forth. Last week, we had some financial planning tips, and those are important. Those are very important. But the core need of a caregiver is what serves as the driving force for this program. If you're not a family caregiver, you will get something out of this program. And I'm grateful for that. But I do this for the family caregiver. And this is the person that's often ignored, often unseen, often disregarded.

How many times as a caregiver have you been asked how you were doing versus how many times have you been asked how your loved one is doing? Those numbers have a pretty big gap in them, don't they? And this is not about castigating other people or in any way impugning or diminishing one group at the expense of another. This is just me focusing on one group of individuals who I believe that the Lord has laid on my heart to reach with the same comfort that I myself depend upon.

Paul said this in Corinthians. He said, comfort one another with the same comfort you yourself have received from the God of all comfort. Well, if I'm to do that, then I need to explain what that comfort looks like to me. I need to give a clear picture of how I've been comforted in my journey of 37 years now as a caregiver and what that looks like so that my fellow caregivers will understand that same comfort. The comfort I've received as a caregiver is very specific. The comfort that I have come to understand and receive and lean upon is all rooted in the God of all comfort, as Paul says.

Same source. But comforting me is not using a generic template that goes for every situation. I am a unique individual with a very defined set of needs. You are a unique individual with a very defined set of needs.

And if I come to this with a broad brush and just try to paint everybody the same way, how many are going to fall in the gap? For those of you parents, you have more than one child, you're going to talk to one child differently than the other. And yes, you're going to have some of the same shared values, but you have to recognize this child has a personality that's different from this child.

And that's the way we all are. With family caregivers, we have shared values and shared needs that are common to the human condition. But we also have very specific needs that are descriptive of the journey of family caregivers. People who are thrust into this journey without any training, people who volunteer for this with nothing but love and a lot of zeal, but no idea of what this is going to cost and how to deal with the cost of it.

Not just financial costs, but career and everything else. Special needs parents have a very specific set of needs that others in the caregiving community don't have. The moment you get a diagnosis, for example, from a doctor over a special needs child, whether it's autism or Down syndrome or whatever, children are living longer with things that in the past they didn't. And so now parents have to think way beyond their graves from the moment that diagnosis comes. These are fairly startling moments for an individual. And to speak with clarity into those people's lives requires a different vocabulary and insight. And that insight doesn't come with a broad brush.

You often have to get the tiny brushes out for these kinds of things, and that comes from staring at this problem for a long time. When you're tethered to this particular challenge for a lengthy period of time, you become very familiar with the issues. And this is what I do on this program, and I'm very grateful that American Family Radio and all the affiliate networks that carry this program see value in this. It's a very unique program addressing a very underserved population. The people who push the wheelchair, the people who stay up late at night doing laundry, get up early in the morning start planning meals and change beds and clean house and make doctor's appointments and count pills and advocate for doctors and go to the pharmacist and work two jobs and all the things that we as caregivers do to the point where we become very weary and we wonder where is this going? How are we going to do this?

All the fears and the doubts. So you see, if you are a medical professional who has a job as a nurse or physician at a hospital or other things, the task and the passion often intersect with a family caregiver. The difference is that the hospital is usually not going to go out of business.

And the job demand is great for people who have skilled labor and are educated who can do these things. But caregivers, we wonder if we're going to go out of business. Can we make these ends meet? Can we do this?

Can we function like this? Our own health suffers. And yet we don't get sick days.

We desperately need a vacation. What does that look like for us as caregivers? What are all these things doing to our hearts? And so that's why we do this program, because I speak fluent caregiver. And as I'm on the back end now of my fourth decade of a medical nightmare, I've stared at this mountain for a long time. And I have a fierce desire to reach my fellow caregivers and to communicate to them in their isolation.

The same comfort that I lean upon every day. And when I say every day, I mean every day. So we're going to talk about that a little bit more when we come back from the break. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the caregiver. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberger. Glad to have you with us. Hope for the caregiver dot com. Hope for the caregiver dot com.

Couple of just programing notes and information for you. If you want to go out to Facebook, you can join our group, Hope for the caregiver. We also have the Facebook page, which is just a public page. But I have the group, which is private, and I administer it and try to keep things from going off the rails. And I'd love to have you be a part of that.

Just go out today and ask to join. And I usually try to approve those things pretty quick. Couple of qualifying questions. So make sure you answer those and follow along. And this this broadcast I put out there and other special things, videos, just different things. And I'm going to be also doing some stuff on the group where I'm giving away a copy of my book, Hope for the caregiver, special copies of it and things like that.

So take advantage of that. It's a free group and the podcast is free, of course. And everything we do is just try to push into you as a family caregiver. And if you find value in what we're doing, feel free to help us do it better.

You can do that at Hope for the caregiver dot com and you'll see the button for donate and it goes to the giving page. This outreach is part of standing with hope. It's the ministry that's over all of this that Gracie and I started many years ago. And we have two program areas. One is the family caregiver outreach and the other is a prosthetic limb outreach that we do in West Africa.

We've been doing that since 2005. Gracie, when she lost both of her legs, wanted to do something extraordinary, which she has done, which is to create a way to share the gospel in a very unique platform. As I said in the last segment, we comfort one another with the same comfort that we ourselves have received from the God of all comforts.

Well, Gracie understands the value of quality prosthetic limbs. And so we use this as a way to share the gospel. And that is something you can take a look at. We could also recycle prosthetic legs. We have an agreement with a prison in Arizona where inmates will disassemble them for us. They volunteer to do this and we take the components, all the parts that can be recycled and we send them over to West Africa. We're also getting ready to treat our first patient in Cameroon. We've treated patients in Togo and we've treated patients in Nigeria. We had a patient we treated in Kenya. But most of our work is focused in Ghana. In fact, I want to talk about that a little bit.

Once while I was in Ghana with the team. And what I'm about to share with you all is going to be a little bit on the heavy side. So bear with me.

Just stay with me. There was a little boy that we treated for a prosthetic leg. He was four years old. And he was involved in a automobile accident.

I think a car hit him as he and his mother were crossing the road. And he lost his leg and we put a leg on him. And it's always such a joy to treat children like that because it is fun to watch them get up and they go from zero to 60 with a prosthesis. Whereas adults, it takes a little longer to get used to it. Kids are turning cartwheels within seconds.

It's pretty exciting to watch the transformation. One of the team members was particularly touched by this little boy and his story. And he asked me, where was God while this kid got hurt? And it tumbled out of my mouth. I really didn't process it.

I just answered because I really believe this, I know this, and scripture backs this up. He was there. He watched it happen.

And he didn't flinch. That's hard to hear, isn't it? I love that movie, The Passion of the Christ, and I try to watch it at least once a year, particularly around Easter. But there's always this one scene that I have to look away. It's too graphic for me. And you may be familiar with it. It's the scene where he's being whipped and the barbs on the whip grab a hold of the guy playing Jesus.

It's Jim Caviezel. And he grabs a hold of kind of where his ribs are and just rips the skin. And I can't watch it.

It's just too much for me. But we serve a God that doesn't flinch. And he sees all this. When Gracie, 40 years ago this year, slammed into that concrete abutment, she put her head down on the wheel. Fell asleep. All these truckers were trying to wake her up.

And she hit that thing and the car flipped in the air and all these things happened. God watched that happen. He doesn't look away.

He doesn't flinch. I don't understand that. I can't process that very well.

But scripture backs this up. I was feeling particularly low this week. And I called a friend of mine, a very close pastor friend of mine. And I said, look, you have said often that my program and my writings and our conversations bless you with the things that I say to you. And you've been encouraged by the words I've given you. I need you to give them back to me.

I need to hear from somebody who understands the level of what I carry and has walked with me through enough of it that I don't have to explain it. That you see it for what it is. And he did, by the way. He was the dearest man I know. And I'm grateful to have him in my life because I need to hear it. And these are things that we talked about.

He said, you know, God doesn't flinch. I think about the surgeries that Gracie's had. She's had now 85 that I can count. We had a busy year last year with four more that she had.

So her total count is up to 85. How many of you all been in surgery? How many of you all have been in an OR when they're doing surgery? And an audience this size, I know that there are a lot of you that have. And to someone who's not used to that, it can be pretty grisly, pretty gruesome.

I'm a music major. So there are things that go on in an operating room, things that have been done to my wife on the surgery table that I couldn't handle seeing. I couldn't.

I couldn't even look at the tools. I know about them. I've been around enough of this.

So, yeah, I got the picture. But I would rather not be there. I just don't have it. Some people have it.

I don't. I remember having this conversation with her neurosurgeon a year ago when she had this very large back surgery, about nine hours. And we're in pre-op together and just going over some stuff and Gracie's there and I looked at him and said, well, you nervous? Because I knew it was going to be a nine hour surgery. That's a long surgery.

And of course he was wearing a mask, but his eyes lit up. He said, no, no, I love this surgery. It really helps people. I love this surgery. And I never thought of it that way before. This is his job.

This man loved to do this procedure. I'm over there praying. Gracie's praying.

We're scared. I mean, before, I don't think Gracie will mind me telling you this. Before we left Montana to go down to Denver for this thing. I'll never forget it.

It was a year ago right now, today. I was loading up the car to head to the airport and went to go get Gracie and she looked at me and she had big tears in her eyes. She said, and she was just shaking.

She said, I can't go. I'm so, I'm so scared. And she said, I've been throwing up.

I'm so scared. And my heart just broke for her. And I, and I, I understood I was scared too. But we, we punched through it and we, we got to the airport and had a friend of mine call on FaceTime just to kind of help settle her down.

And we got through it, got there. And then some friends of ours in Denver met us there at the hotel. And again, just kind of settled her down and got some Chick-fil-A. That always helps. And we don't have a Chick-fil-A anywhere near us in Montana.

So when we go to Denver, we binge. And juxtapose that against this surgery. I said, I like this. I like this surgery.

I'm excited about this because it really helps people. And I realized the supreme confidence he had in his skill and his training. He knew what he was doing. And the instruments he were using to me looked positively ghastly. Medieval.

They looked awful. But in his hands, they were absolutely appropriate. State of the art. And he knew exactly what he was doing. And he did it. And he accomplished the mission. We're heading back down to see him for a follow-up here.

And I expect a good report. We've got a long ways to go to recovery. A lot of physical therapy still. But in his hands, things that looked horrible were being used to do something extraordinary. To help somebody who was broken so long ago. This guy was a toddler when Gracie got hurt. So all these many years later, all the skills and things that he brings to the table are being used in a way to help Gracie better carry this awful burden that she has to carry. And I'll just never forget the look on his face.

No, I'm excited. I love this surgery. It helps people. And as I've thought about that and thought about that and thought about that over this last year, I realize how much more so does our Heavenly Father know what He's doing. I heard my pastor out here in Montana said this, if I had all the power that God has, I would change a lot of things.

But if I had the wisdom that God has, I would change nothing. In the hands of God, things that appear horrific, terrifying, gruesome, can be wielded to achieve amazing outcomes. And Joni Eareckson taught us a book, When God Weeps.

She has a statement that I think she attributes to someone else, but I can't remember who that was, so I'm just going to attribute it to Joni. That He uses what He hates in order to achieve what He loves. And so we look at things in this world and we see all this brokenness. And it's there.

There's no doubt about it. But before we panic and freak out and wonder, where was God? Where was God? Where was God? We can be assured that He's right there. He knows exactly what He's doing. If I could give my trust to this man, to go in there with these tools and everything else, to do things to my wife that I couldn't handle watching, how about trusting a good and loving God?

We're going to talk about that when we come back. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. Don't go away. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the program for you as a family caregiver. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. If you want to be a part of the program, if you have some comments or thoughts, go out there.

There's a little form you can send a message to me and I will try to respond very quickly. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. We're talking about trusting God in the midst of brutal things. Go back to that little boy in West Africa that got a prosthetic leg.

He was hurt as a four-year-old. And my friend said, where was God in this? God was watching. God is not surprised. We cannot sneak up on God.

He was watching when Gracie slammed into that wall. His spirit is everywhere. Where can we go?

You ever read Psalm 139, 7-12? Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you're there.

If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there your hand will lead me and your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, surely the darkness will overwhelm me and the light around me will be night. Even the darkness is not dark to you, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to you. The implications of that text are astounding to me, and I have to go read it in a bunch of different translations if you'll indulge me.

That was in the New American Standard. This is the message. Is there any place I can go to avoid your spirit, to be out of your sight? If I climb to the sky, you're there. If I go underground, you're there. If I flew on morning's wings to the far western horizon, you find me in a minute.

You're already there waiting. Then I said to myself, oh, he even sees me in the dark. At night, I'm immersed in the light. In fact, darkness isn't dark to you.

Night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to you. And I was really struck by this. And I remember Gracie, when she gave up her right leg, years later she told the story of facing that journey.

And she said, I didn't know what was on the other side of that operating room door, but I knew who waited for me there. That's extraordinary faith. And I confess that I don't always rise to that occasion. I don't always share that same level of conviction. And I've struggled with this over the years. I've stood in hospital rooms and I've wondered, God, are you here?

Do you see this? I remember one time Gracie's in her room in the hospital and she was groaning. I mean, I don't know if you've ever listened to somebody groan in agony for hours and hours. I honestly can't remember what this surgery was for, but I remember putting my hand on her left leg and it felt just as hard as rot because she was straining so hard. And she couldn't even articulate words. She was just in agony. And I stood next to her hospital bed. The lights were off in the room because the lights really hurt her eyes and it just caused her to stay anxious. And so it was dark in there and I remember just lifting my face up to the ceiling and I was so frustrated and I was so angry and I was so, I don't even have the words.

And I just hurled my thoughts to heaven. Do you see this? Do you see what is happening to her? Are you pleased with this? Do you recognize how painful this is for her?

Can you give her some relief for a few moments? I won't tell anybody and that way it doesn't thwart your will. That doesn't sound very spiritual, does it? And I remember leaving, a nurse came in and I left the room and there was just a dark cloud over me. And I was furious. I was so angry.

I could not wrap my mind around why this was happening and how God could allow such a thing. And I have watched that scenario play over and over and over so many times in these decades that I've been doing this. I don't have the same response because I've walked this now for so long.

I don't have the same rage. But I've grown with Gracie and sometimes I just hang my head and I don't even know what to say. And He sees that and He's there. Psalm 139 says He's there. That He is already there waiting for me for the next time that happens.

Do you see where I'm going with this? Our God sees this. He watches this. And He does not fail. His faithfulness doesn't stop at the operating room door. His faithfulness and His goodness and His mercy doesn't stop when we are faithless, angry, raging, despairing.

Thou changest not. Thy compassion they fail not, as the hymn says. In fact, I'm going to go to the caregiver keyboard.

There's an inmate named Carl down in Texas who sends me beautiful letters and he loves the caregiver keyboard. Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father. See here's what we're talking about right here.

Listen to this. There is no shadow of turning with Thee. He doesn't turn away. Thou changest not. All Thy compassion they fail not, as Thou hast been. Thou forever will be. Great is Thy faithfulness. Great is Thy faithfulness. Morning by morning, new mercies I see, even in a hospital room, even in rehab, even at the cemetery, all I have needed, not all I have wanted, but all I've needed Thy hand has provided.

So we can sing, Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me. This week I was listening to a lecture on YouTube from Dr. Diane Langberg. She's been on this program. And she talked about Isaiah 45 in verse 2, I will go before you and level the mountains. And what Dr. Langberg said is that there is nothing that we will face in this world. No kind of trauma, no kind of abuse, nothing that He has not already gone before us. So as I'm in that hospital room, yelling at the ceiling in my mind, thinking that God has abandoned me, and Gracie, now I understand I have a Savior who cried that out from the cross in ways that I can't even wrap my mind around. It says here in Isaiah 45 in 3, I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name.

She goes on in this lecture, and I really want to encourage you to go listen to it. He meets us in those places. He's waiting for us there. There is nothing that we are facing of any kind of ridicule, trauma, brokenness, heartache, hurt, all those things.

He bore all of that. It's hard for us to imagine that, that I have a Savior that is, as Isaiah said, He's acquainted with grief and sorrow, and He waits for us in that grief and sorrow to meet us, to reveal Himself to us. I'm sharing this with you because as I say these things, I am reminding myself of what Jeremiah said when he wrote this, where this song is inspired from in Lamentations 3.

He said, I remember the wormwood in the gall, and my soul is cast down within me, I think it's verses, but this I recall to mine, and therefore I have hope, great is thy faithfulness. We understand the kind of pain that I'm talking about here as caregivers. And the purpose of me sharing these things with you is because I want you to know that there are people who have walked in suffering that is credible to compare to yours. I am one of those. And I think pretty much all of you can picture me as an angry young man just silently screaming at the ceiling in my wife's hospital room. And if you can't picture that, hang on, because as a caregiver you will.

It's only a matter of time. You do this long enough and you will have moments like that where you just, you can't even see straight. I don't share that because I'm proud of that moment, I share that because that's real. And a friend of mine told me one time, a long time ago, he said, Peter, what you're talking about is real and people need to hear real. He said, I got a buddy of mine that's right all the time, but he's never real.

I'm right rarely, but I'm real. And this is my life. And this is the life so many of you all are living right now.

And you deserve to have somebody who can speak with clarity into that to say, yes, I understand what that feels like. That's why when we read the Psalms, we recognize and we see ourselves in the things that David pours out of his heart. That's why they're there. Because that is a reflection of our brokenness. And how we can pour that out before God and He sees it. Thou changest not. Thy compassion they fail not. There is no shadow of turning with Thee. He doesn't flinch. He doesn't look away. He is with us. And in His hands, even these heartbreaking things that we watch every day as caregivers. And that our loved ones endure every day as caregivers. Even those things, just like those tools in the hands of a surgeon, can be used to bring about healing and healthiness. And He invites us to trust Him.

He doesn't make mistakes. It's hard to see that. The longer I journey in this with the Lord, the more I understand those things. But there's more stuff carved out in my heart that hurts more.

There's more space to grieve. I told you this is going to be a little bit intense. I would apologize for it, but I can't. Because you deserve to have somebody who will speak to you with this level of clarity and bluntness. I'm not going to tell you that this is going to have a fairytale ending. But I will tell you that He who began a good work in you and in me and in Gracie and in your loved one is faithful to complete that work to the day of Christ Jesus. That I will tell you. And I will tell you that there is no shadow of turning with Him.

He doesn't flinch. And He's with you right now. 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 program for you as a family caregiver. Hopeforthecaregiver.com And I really want to thank you all for indulging me for a bit today as I delved into some of these more painful things. But this is the journey for us as caregivers. I told you at the first segment that speaking to the family caregiver is specific to the needs and the cries and the heartaches. And I shared a little bit of mine in a way not to in any way glorify my stuff but to hopefully give you an identifying point. That you can maybe see a little bit of your story in mind. So that you can also draw the same comfort that I draw upon.

It's not me. These are things that I've had to learn over a long period of time through some hard, hard realities. And quite frankly still do.

And will for the rest of my life. But that's the journey for us as caregivers, isn't it? Is that these are not short-term issues that we deal with.

By nature, by definition, we're caregivers. And so we're going to be wrestling with these things and they take time to season out. I cook with iron almost exclusively now. I love cooking with iron skillets and I have small ones, large ones, medium ones. And I love cooking with iron. And the thing about those utensils is that you can't put them in a dishwasher.

You don't wash them. You don't treat them like other pots and pans and they take time to season out. And it's a different way of caring for them. Maybe you and I are a little bit like iron skillets.

And the way we care for caregivers is different than you would for other individuals. And things have to season out. But you can cook some really good dishes out of them. I make iron skillet cornbread. I make iron skillet fried chicken.

And I do have a little iron skillet, a little tiny one about, I don't know, six inches. And I make, sometimes I'll do this, I do this for our son and daughter-in-law and our grandchildren over Christmas. My grandchildren, my grandsons helped me make chocolate chip cookies, which I've made for a lifetime. And I make pretty good chocolate chip cookies. And I've cooked them for my sons when they were little and they, I never had any complaints. But this time I did it in the iron skillet and cooking that. And then I topped it off with a little bit of ice cream and his eyes got real big.

I mean, he's 34. He's had lots of my cookies over the years, but his eyes got real big. He said, I'd like some more of this, Dad. So I was all too happy to oblige.

Cooking in iron is different. And for us as caregivers, there are different things that we need and we require. And quite frankly, I believe that you deserve this. I know what it's like to have to toil along at this and forage without having anybody really knowing what to say to me. And I don't want you to have to do that. I can't take away the sting from what you carry. You can't take away the sting from what I carry. But I can speak to you in your heartache in a way that you understand.

That's why I do this program. And like I said at the beginning, if you're not a caregiver, you're going to get something out of what I'm saying. But I'm not here for you. I'm here for that family caregiver who is struggling mightily. Maybe you're in a hospital room and you're.

Silently screaming at the ceiling. Maybe you are having to go down to the jail to bail out a loved one who was arrested for a DUI. Maybe you're at home and you have done as much laundry as you want to do. You're tired and you you've been cooking in and you've got somebody who keeps asking you the same question over and over and over to the point where you feel like you're going to scream. Maybe you are being abused and cussed at by the very person you're trying to take care of. Or maybe you don't want anything to do at all with church folk because too many of them said that if you had enough faith that you wouldn't be in this mess.

Maybe you feel like God has abandoned you or maybe you struggle with wondering if he was even there at all. And into that heartache. I do this program. And I go boldly into it. Because people have boldly come into my. I truly understand what it's like to go for long periods of time and not have people speak to me in a way that got all the way down to my heart.

Because people don't know what to say. And I know that some of you are feeling that way right now. And that's why I did this program today.

Because I have a responsibility and I have a stewardship opportunity to again give the same comfort that I myself have received from the God of all comfort. And along the way people did come into my life who did speak with clarity. It took a long time. And it was a very lonely, lonely, lonely journey.

And sometimes still is. But those treasured friends that I have that understand how to do this, that I don't have to read them into it anymore. I have to explain them. I have to get them up to speed. They just know. They have that intuitiveness. They have that maturity and they know. And they know how to talk to me in a way that I understand. And I know how precious that is to me. And so I want to extend that to you.

And I hope today has been a time in this program for you to hear from somebody who speaks in your language as a caregiver. That is, as my friend said, real. More concerned with being real than I am with being right. And I don't have the bandwidth to argue about these points that I make today in scripture and other things.

I had a guy the other day who wanted to argue with me about stuff. And I just don't have the bandwidth to do it. I don't have the desire. I don't want to do that.

That is not my mission. I am not an apologetics guy. And I admire people that are. But I'm not.

I'm just a guy that takes care of a woman who suffers. And I've done it for a very long time. And in the process I have experienced things of God that I did not expect. And I would be a poor steward of those things if I did not share them. And communicate them to others who are lonely and struggling.

And despairing and fearful. So thank you for trusting me with your pain. Thank you for trusting me with this time. And I look forward to more times together. I won't always be this intense. But sometimes my life is intense.

I did a program a couple of weeks ago and I was talking about addiction and so forth. And a friend told me, he said, man you were kind of harsh. And I said, well it's a harsh world. And people deserve blunt force truth. Not in a way to injure them and to bludgeon them. Because I don't like that. People used to do it to me. But you get down to brass tacks. And you don't waste people's time with trivialities or pandering. I hate that.

And I bet you do too. You know, nobody wants to hear that kind of stuff. People need to hear something that stiffens their spine. To him from the last block who said, that helps you understand that strength for today, bright hope for tomorrow. That when we see these things around us and they are painful. That we can be reminded of those things. Even if we have to take a break. We have to take a knee. Even if we feel like we're being gut punched. And you know what that feels like. We both do. And so as I share these things, I'm doing this as a way to take a reprieve.

Even if it's just for this one hour. Where you get to hear something in your own language as a caregiver. And you let me know, please go out to my website and send me a message and let me know. Was I ambiguous? Was I not clear?

Did I just miss the mark? Because if you feel like I did, I want to fix that. I don't think I did though. I think that these kinds of conversations are important for me as a caregiver. I need to have them. I need to hear back. I'm going to play this back and listen to it myself. I got to have this.

I got one last request for you though. If you find this program meaningful. Would you send a note or call to the network, to American Family Radio. And let them know that you appreciate it. Would you tell them? Would you pray for them? Would you pray for the network? And the American Family Association?

If you found this to be at all helpful today. Please, please let them know that. And help support this network. They have 24-7 programming that is reaching people that we can't even imagine. Like the man Carl that I mentioned in the last block who writes me from prison. And I am just so grateful to hear from him. And they've been in lockdown but he's still been able to listen to this network. Radio towers and production facilities and all these things that go into this.

It costs money. The American Family Radio know that you appreciate them. Okay? We're going to keep sharing the gospel. We're going to keep pouring into people's lives. And then you keep praying and keep being a part of it. This is Peter Rosenberg and this is Hope for the Caregiver.

We'll see you next time. You've heard me talk about Standing with Hope over the years. This is the prosthetic limb ministry that Gracie envisioned after losing both of her legs. Part of that outreach is our prosthetic limb recycling program. Did you know that prosthetic limbs can be recycled?

No kidding. There is a correctional facility in Arizona that helps us recycle prosthetic limbs. And this facility is run by a group out of Nashville called CoreCivic.

We met them over 11 years ago. And they stepped in to help us with this recycling program of taking prostheses and you disassemble them. They take the knee, the foot, the pylon, the tube clamps, the adapters, the screws, the liners, the prosthetic socks. All these things we can reuse and inmates help us do it.

Before CoreCivic came along, I was sitting on the floor at our house or out in the garage when we lived in Nashville. And I had tools everywhere, limbs everywhere, and feet, boxes of them and so forth. And I was doing all this myself and I'd make the kids help me.

And it got to be too much for me. And so I was very grateful that CoreCivic stepped up and said, Look, we are always looking for faith-based programs that are interesting and that give inmates a sense of satisfaction. And we'd love to be a part of this.

And that's what they're doing. And you can see more about that at standingwithhope.com slash recycle. So please help us get the word out that we do recycle prosthetic limbs. We do arms as well, but the majority of amputations are lower limb.

And that's where the focus of Standing With Hope is. That's where Gracie's life is with her lower limb prosthesis. And she's used some of her own limbs in this outreach that she's recycled. I mean, she's been an amputee for over 30 years. So you go through a lot of legs and parts and other types of materials and you can reuse prosthetic socks and liners if they're in good shape. All of this helps give the gift that keeps on walking and it goes to this prison in Arizona where it's such an extraordinary ministry.

Think with that. Inmates volunteering for this. They want to do it. And they've had amazing times with it and I've had very moving conversations with the inmates that work in this program. And you can see, again, all of that at standingwithhope.com slash recycle. They're putting together a big shipment right now for us to ship over. We do this pretty regularly throughout the year as inventory rises and they need it badly in Ghana. So please go out to standingwithhope.com slash recycle and get the word out and help us do more. If you want to offset some of the shipping, you can always go to the giving page and be a part of what we're doing there.

We're purchasing material in Ghana that they have to use that can't be recycled. We're shipping over stuff that can be. And we're doing all of this to lift others up and to point them to Christ. And that's the whole purpose of everything that we do. And that is why Gracie and I continue to be standing with hope. standingwithhope.com