Roll With It

As caregivers, we have so many things that hit us all the time, and we can't always nail these things down by ourselves. Who helps you?

What does that look like? I'm Peter Rosenberg, and I want to tell you about a program I've been a part of now for almost 10 years, and that's Legal Shield. For less than $30 a month, I have access to a full law firm that can handle all kinds of things.

If I get a contract put in front of me, if I got a dispute with something, doesn't matter. I've got a full law firm that can help me navigate through all the sticky wickets that we as caregivers have to deal with. Power of attorney, medical power of attorney, I will.

Every bit of it. As a caregiver, we need someone who advocates for us, and that's why I use Legal Shield. So go to caregiverlegal.com. Look on the left-hand side where it says Legal Shield. Just select it.

It turns purple. It says, pick a plan. It'll give you some options.

If you don't need any of those, don't select them. Check out and be protected starting today. That's caregiverlegal.com. Welcome to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio.

This is Peter Rosenberg. Glad to have you with us. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. This is the program for you as a family caregiver.

I am specifically talking to those who are pushing the wheelchair, those who are staying up late at night doing laundry for a chronically impaired loved one, those who are back and forth to hospitals, pharmacies, rehab centers, and that goes for alcoholics and addicts rehab centers as well. How are you doing? How are you holding up? What's going on with you? I'm doing this from Denver today. I came down here for a follow-up visit with Gracie, my wife, and meeting with her surgeons.

We had one surgeon that gave her a thumbs up on the procedure that was done in December. Yes, you have made progress, but we've got to fix something else. That's part of what I wanted to talk about in my opening monologue with you all today. I had a guy one time was talking to me about his wife, and she had been sick with the flu. He said, the whole system shut down.

I said, what do you mean? He said, well, I mean laundry and taking care of the kids and meals. I had to take off time from work and our physical relationship, the whole thing, everything just shut down. I looked at him with, I'm being delicate. I looked at him with, well, I looked at him.

All right, let's just say I looked at him. I said, well, how long has she been sick? He exasperatedly said, four days.

Well, I did the mental calculation and I'm well over 12,000 days of caring for a wife with severe medical challenges. In a moment of uncharacteristic graciousness on my part, I said, bless your heart. I excused myself from the conversation because I really didn't trust myself to not say anything else sarcastic. That wouldn't have been helpful. I mean, his pain was real and he was really struggling.

I felt for him. I understand that. I recognize that yes, a sickness can really interrupt the entire system.

I kind of feel bad though, the job description that his wife has, but that's not my circus and not my monkeys. I will acknowledge that a sickness can interrupt the entire system. With the flu, you can usually go back to a normal routine. But now as caregivers, you and I both know that there's no going back to a normal routine. We have to define normal in the midst of abnormal. That's the way it is for us as caregivers. It requires a great deal of flexibility. You've often heard me say, blessed are the flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape. That's not scripture, but it's worth remembering.

There was an episode and Gracie laughs when I remember this because I was actually telling her this yesterday because we had to change plans really quickly. We came down here for Denver. I'm actually doing this opening monologue on my phone.

That's why the audio sounds a little bit different. Thank you for your indulgence. We were going to go back yesterday to Montana. Gracie was feeling very poorly. Snow was coming down heavily. They were canceling a bunch of flights, but I didn't get any kind of notification that ours was canceled.

She was struggling a bit. We ended up staying an extra day. I had to change planes. The hotel room we were in was already booked for last night, but they found another room for us. They moved us into that. It was handicap accessible, so I had to move the room, change planes, and make sure that things were done back home when animals were fed.

All those kinds of things. It's that episode of Friends that they were trying to get that sofa up the staircase. Ross kept yelling out, pivot, pivot, pivot, pivot. Do you ever feel like that's our life as caregivers? Pivot, pivot, pivot. We just constantly have to pivot. We are required to be flexible. Otherwise, we're going to make ourselves and others miserable.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. As I was listening to this guy, I realized how fragile his ecosystem was. When his wife got sick for four days, his whole world was rocked. What about your world as a caregiver by all the pivoting that you have to do as a caregiver? How do you handle that?

What do you do? We got this news from the surgeon of what we're going to have to face. I'll give more on this a little later. We're going to have to change some plans. It's got to happen. Don't want it to happen.

Gracie Serling doesn't want it to happen, but our options are thin. You turn into the storm instead of trying to outrun it, because we can. It's exhausting to try to outrun a storm.

You turn into it and trust that God meets you in it. That's our life as caregivers. It takes a while to embrace that.

I admit, it took me a lot longer than it takes most. But here we are. What am I going to do? Am I going to just fight it? Am I going to scream, kick, fuss, throw my hands up and wail like that poor husband did? Or am I going to pivot and ask God for clarity of mind, wisdom, strength for today, bright hope for tomorrow, and deal with it? That's where we are as caregivers. There's a great old song. Well, I say old, but Steve Winwood, just roll with it, maybe. Just roll with it. I love that line. Just roll with it.

Because if we try to fight this, we're going to hurt ourselves. How's your blood pressure as a caregiver? When's the last time you got it checked? How's your body doing? How are you doing? How's your weight?

When's the last time you got a checkup on you? This is how we can prepare ourselves so that we can be flexible. If we are so bent and broken, overweight, struggling to breathe, all these things going on with us, we lose our elasticity.

As caregivers, we need to be elastic. How's your spiritual life? What are your views of God? Are you so rigid and thinking that God has to do it this way, otherwise you're not going to be at peace?

How's that going to help you with your flexibility? Scripture is filled with so many places where God did the unexpected and dumbfounded people, bewildered. They didn't expect it. I mean, go back and look at Abraham and Sarah. So you're going to have a baby. Well, Sarah kept getting older, and she said, this is not going to work. So I got an idea.

I'm going to do this. And she didn't understand that God had a different plan. She wasn't open to what God was doing and to meeting God in it. And therefore, she ended up connecting Abraham up with Hagar, and then they made an Ishmael. As caregivers, I got to tell you, I don't want to make an Ishmael. I've had my share of that. And I don't want to try to create something, a mess that God has to redeem that. And so that requires a bit of elasticity in my heart, where I'm open to see that God may be doing something different here, that I don't have to be so rigid that I'll say, okay, God, I can only be at peace if Gracie's not having a surgery, or Gracie's not in the hospital, or if this or this or this happens.

Just roll with it and trust that He is already in it with you. This is Peter Rosenberg, and this is Hope for the Caregiver. We'll be right back.

If you'll indulge me for just a moment, I have a special need that I would love your help with. We are treating our first ever patient in Cameroon. We've been working mostly in the country of Ghana. We have treated patients from Togo and as far away as Nigeria, who come to the clinic in Ghana. We did one patient in Kenya. But this is our first patient in Cameroon.

We're working with a facility there. And we could use your help in sponsoring this man's leg. His name is Cyril. He's an above knee amputee. And the man who is building it at a prosthetic clinic in Cameroon, his name is Jude. And I read to him the scripture in Jude where it says, Now unto him who is able to keep you from falling.

I said, you understand the origination of your name? It was a guy named Jude who wrote that wonderful passage in scripture. What a great name for a prosthetist. And Gracie and I are asking for your help in sponsoring this leg. If you want to be a part of this, standingwithhope.com slash giving, standingwithhope.com slash giving. I don't normally do these kinds of things, but I would very much appreciate your help in getting this leg for Cyril, standingwithhope.com slash giving.

And we'll give you more information on that as he starts walking and leaping and praising God. 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 Core Civic. And 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. You 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 Core Civic 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.

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 Core Civic 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 conversation 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.