Things To Keep Caregivers Safer

This is Peter Rosenberger and I'm really excited to tell you about my new book. It's called A Minute for Caregivers When Every Day Feels Like Monday.

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This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the program for you as a family caregiver. We're so glad that you're with us.

Hopeforthecaregiver.com. Good morning. I realize that when some people hear this program, they don't hear it in the morning time. It airs in the morning, but it also is rebroadcast and we also have the podcast with it. But I've gotten out of the habit of saying hello a lot, particularly when I answer the phone. I just say good morning or good afternoon or good evening.

And you know why? Because we get a lot of those spam calls that come in about your extended car warranty or this or that ever. It's all fraud stuff. And if you say hello, it is programmed, the algorithm when it hears hello, then it will launch into the spiel. But if you say good afternoon or good morning or good evening, it doesn't recognize those words and it takes a minute for it to kick in. And that's how you always know that you're dealing with spam and mostly fraud or certainly potential fraud.

There's a couple of other things too. I thought I'd just, I'm just open the program with this and then we'll get into some other matters, but I thought you might want to know this. There's a big scam that goes out there and somebody will call an elderly person and they'll answer the phone and say, grandpa. They'll say, you know, the person will answer the phone, hello. They say grandpa. And then they, the elderly person will respond with, well, is that you? You know, John, whatever the name is.

Yeah. And then you see how they trick you like that. So I had, I had somebody call up and I answered the phone, good afternoon. And he said, grandpa. And I said, is that you, David?

Well, my oldest grandson is eight and his name is not David. And so, cause I, I was aware of this and I like to josh with him. Gracie's like, why do you do this? Well, I'm always on Bluetooth and doing chores or, you know, doing the dishes or whatever so I can be hands-free.

And so sometimes it just gives me a nice diversion to, uh, stick it to telemarketers. So I had this guy call and he said, grandpa, I said, is that you, David? He said, yeah. I said, how are you doing, David? He said, well, I'm, I'm not doing too well. And I said, what's the matter? And he wanted to tell me the sob story about how he's in jail.

He had a car wreck and hit a lady who is pregnant and, uh, he's in jail and he needs money, you know, this whole thing. And I, I just strung him along for the longest time. And I said, oh man, that is really tough. You got some help. You got legal counsel. I mean, I just, I kept him on the phone for a very long time because I think they get punished if they're on the phone and they can't close the deal.

At least that's my hope. And so I'm just that kind of guy. And finally at the end, he wanted, he wanted to give me the place to send the money and so that he could get the money to help him with it. And I said, well, I don't see how any of this is my problem.

You're on your own. And I hung up on him after keeping him on the phone all this time. And so I just want you all to be aware there are these kinds of scams out there. If you're not susceptible to it, you may have a family member that is, you know, you've all heard of the ones with the IRS calling and they, they've given you, they're going to issue a warrant for your arrest in three months.

I had this guy call me up and say that, that he was going to be sending a warrant out for my arrest within three months. And I started coughing and gagging like I was throwing up. And then I stopped again and acted like I was kind of tearing up. And I said, I just found out I only got three months to live. And you're the only person that's called me. And you must be a really special person. You know, I just went through this whole drama with him and kept him on the phone for a long time. And then finally he just hung up on me because I just, I just kept him going until about how special he was to call somebody who was in dire straits to warn him of this. But I, you know, and I get the guys with the extended car warranty, all this stuff, but I, I have fun with it.

I josh these people, I wish I should record them and play it for you guys. Cause y'all probably get a big hoot out of it. But the main thing is though, for you to be aware that that's what's going on. So when you say hello to somebody and you hear them come on with their spiel, they're recognized that the word hello coming out of your mouth. So be sure to be aware of that. And if you don't want to change the way you answer the phone, that's fine. But that's what I did. I just say good afternoon or whatever. And that way I'm not having to worry about that.

If I hear a long pause at a kind of a click or something, I know it's spam. And so this is all going on. And so many of our seniors are susceptible to this. You know, I grew up in a different age than my parents did. And my mom and dad will talk to anybody on the phone. And we had this actually happen with my dad that pretended to be one of my nephews. Well, he called him grandma.

He didn't pretend to be a nephew, but he just said, grandpa and my dad identified, is that you? Yeah. And he was in a jail and that kind of stuff.

And so they're very tricky. And the heart of man is exceedingly wicked, scripture says. And the world we live in right now is filled with people who think nothing of it. In fact, delight in harming others. If you look at Proverbs 2, verse 10, starting in verse 10, for wisdom will enter your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

Discretion will guard you. Understanding will watch over you to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things, from those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, who delight in doing evil and rejoice in the perversity of evil, whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways. Does that sound like our society now?

Of course, this has been around for a long time. There's always those who would lie in wait to do harm, to steal, rob and plunder and even murder. And we need to be aware of this. We need to be wary. And as caregivers, we need to protect the most vulnerable among us because these people out there planning, they're counting on confusing the elderly with their speech and to make sure they built them out of their life savings.

I have a friend of mine whose father was conned out of a great deal of money. Scripture in Proverbs 2 is telling you how to deal with that because we'll gain wisdom will enter your heart, knowledge will be pleasant to your soul, discretion will guard you, understanding will watch over you. That's the promises of God. And sometimes that wisdom and that discretion and that knowledge and that understanding all come from family members who step up to care for us.

And so it's important right now as we're getting older, let's designate those around us who can do that, who we can trust with our estate, with our financial planning, with all those kinds of things so that if something does happen and we are incapacitated in some way or we're limited in some way, it's always good to have checks and balances in play to protect us because the heart of man is exceedingly wicked. There's a reason we need a savior. We are fallen people. Jesus didn't trust his heart to anyone. Go back and look at the text.

He didn't. He knew the heart of man. And so if you think about this country the way it was founded, we have this elaborate system of checks and balances. Why do you think we have that? Well, the framers of the Constitution, most of them, if not all of them, came directly out of the Reformation. They look back at their history of when all this started and what happened with the Reformation, which says in one of its tenets that man is totally depraved. And the founders of this nation knew that.

That was ingrained into them that you can't trust people. You have to have somebody watching over things, checks and balances. So we put it in there. Now we've gotten away from that in our country where we have this horrible monstrosity of a government that is, you know, run amok. The checks and balances aren't there like they used to be. There was a hope that the First Amendment with the freedom of the press would provide yet another check and balance. The Fourth Estate is called to monitor the actions of our government.

But now, for the most part, the media is the press agent for the government. And we've got a mess on our hands. We all know that. We may not have a lot of power over that, but what we do have power over is when we answer the phone or when our loved ones answer the phone or open suspicious emails that we do everything we can to protect them and ourselves.

Okay? A little safety tip brought to you by Proverbs 2 where it says, Wisdom, knowledge, discretion, understanding to protect you from those who speak perverse things and leave the path of our brightness. So check it out for yourself. And while you're in the book of Proverbs, read one a day that corresponds with the day of that month. So on the first day, you read the first Proverbs, so on.

It's God's NBA for wisdom. This is Peter Rosenberger. We'll be right back. This is Peter Rosenberger, and I hope you're enjoying this podcast. If you are, would you consider helping us do more of it and do it better by going out to standingwithhope.com slash giving standingwithhope.com slash giving. Thanks so much. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the program for you as a family caregiver, hopeforthecaregiver.com. While you're there, check out the new book that I have coming out. It's called A Minute for Caregivers. When every day feels like Monday, you get a free preview of it.

Just click on the tab there. With your permission, I want to jump back to what we were talking about in the last block about safety, which is a huge issue for us as caregivers. You know, just answering the phone can be dangerous these days. There are other dangers out there.

We run the danger of being misled by not only the world, but within the church. I'm going to paint a picture for you, and then you tell me how you would respond. Years ago, this was 32 years ago, Gracie was struggling with the decision to have her right leg amputated. Now this leg was horrifically disfigured and injured in her car accident. Gracie would tell you herself that many of the problems she struggles with today physically are a result, a direct result of all the attempts to try to save her legs. They were so damaged, but at the time, prosthetics had not quite taken the exponential turn that they have now. Nobody wanted her to... She was a young woman and didn't want her to have to face life without legs, yada, yada, yada.

You know the story. Anyway, but the decision point had finally come. I mean, something had to be done. She was wrestling with this, and then she set the surgery date. The surgery was in March. This was in February when these two ladies came to Gracie.

We didn't really know them that well. They had a word from the Lord, and according to them, the word that the Lord spoke to them was that Gracie was in rebellion to allow this surgery to proceed that God would heal her in June. The surgery was set for March, and God would heal her in June, but she was not to have her leg amputated. She was to wait until June.

All right, I want to stop right there. What would you say to this woman or these two women? Gracie was 25. I was 27. We were children, and this was not our first surgical event, but this was certainly... The stakes were getting higher, and we were struggling. Both of us were trying to figure out what's the right thing to do, what's the wrong thing to do, all this kind of stuff, and here come these two women saying that they had a word from the Lord.

Well, that should have been my first clue. Now, to her credit, and well, actually to both of our credit, we went to our pastor at the time who then told these ladies, called up and said, don't talk to these people again. Do not talk to Peter and Gracie again. They got all bent out of shape about it.

It doesn't matter. I appreciated our pastor intercepting them with that because we were still dealing with the whole trauma of leading up to this and afterwards. These two women were just wildly inappropriate. They had a word from the Lord. Well, I don't want to... They got a word from the Lord.

Well, that sounds really good. The Lord told me something. When you hear that, what does that make you think of? I mean, because when I hear that, I hear the word of the Lord came to so and so, Samuel or the prophets of old, and they would say, thus saith the Lord. That's scripture. That is canon. That's scripture.

Well, what do these ladies have? I mean, should we be writing this down and adding it to the Bible? You see how dangerous that is? They've got a word from the Lord. I didn't, but they do. They have a special dispensation from God to have scriptural revelation to them, but I don't. Is that what they're telling me? Is that what people tell you?

I got a friend of mine who told me the other night. He's got a friend that he's been talking with who is in that community where they speak very freely about getting words from the Lord, and his wife is going through some kind of cancer treatment, and people at church came up to him and said, we got a word from the Lord. She's healed that don't have to worry about all that.

He's listening to them, and then she is listening to him saying, well, I want to be a submissive wife. They have diverted the cancer treatments that the doctor has prescribed because people in the church said he had a word from the Lord. I don't know these people. I'm just relaying what my friend told me. I don't think it's going to end real well for these folks, and it has nothing to do with faith in God's ability to heal, God's desire to heal, God's provision in all these things. It has nothing to do with that.

It has something to do with people who say they have a word from the Lord, and they use that as an authority to speak things into others' lives that if they don't come true 100% of the time, they are a false prophet. Now just dealing with the issue of Gracie's legs, let's just put it in context here. Gracie's legs were so damaged, it would take no less of a miracle to restore her leg than it would be to remake her leg as an amputee.

Okay? So either way, if she's removing something that is causing her such pain and distress under the advice of good, sound medical care, that is not a moral sin type issue. That is not being in rebellion. That is taking a damaged limb that is beyond repair, irreparable, and going to trained professionals and asking for judgment, insight, wisdom, making the decision to live a better quality of life without that limb. It is not a lack of faith.

It is actually more faith because you're trusting that God will sustain you even without that particular limb. Okay? But these ladies had a word from the Lord. So they said, did they?

What do you think? Have you ever had anybody come up and tell you that? Say, God told me to tell you this and this and this. What they're saying is, thus saith the Lord. Does that in any way maybe raise a red flag to you that maybe they're using the Lord's name in vain? In Exodus 20 verse seven. Now this, I'm going to read for this from the Amplified Bible. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. That is irreverently in false affirmations or in any ways that impugn the character of God. For the Lord will not hold guiltless nor leave unpunished the one who takes his name in vain, disregarding its reverence and power.

That's the Amplified version. Some people don't even like that, but sometimes it helps me better understand if I read in more than one version, translation, even paraphrase just to understand it. But all the versions that I've read pretty much say the same thing. You shall not take the Lord's name in vain.

He will not hold you guiltless in this. So when you go to somebody and you say, I have a word from the Lord, thus saith the Lord. My father has a policy that if you ever come to him and say, the Lord told me or thus saith the Lord in any way, fashion or form, he will ask you to source it.

Chapter and verse. Because you are using the authority and the name of God to speak and you better be quoting scripture when you do so. Now that's his policy.

I think it's a pretty good policy. And I'm doing the same thing. So when somebody comes to me and says, the Lord told me something, I'll stop them right there. What chapter? What verse? Because they're saying, I have information now from God almighty, the great I am, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Alpha and the Omega. I have information from him that is not in scripture that you don't have.

That's what they're telling me. Now, I understand that people feel impressed about certain things. I understand that scripture is recalled to mind, that they have insights into things and so forth. I get that. And I'm not here to criticize that. I'm just simply saying to you that if somebody comes up to you and they said they have a word from the Lord for you, that's taking the conversation to a different dimension.

And I stop right there. Words mean something. And I think we have a responsibility to be very precise with our words, particularly when dealing with the things of God. God speaks for himself and he has chosen to reveal his perceived will and word for us in scripture. When scripture was canonized back at the Nicene Council, they didn't decide what was scripture. They simply affirmed what scripture says about itself. Scripture speaks to itself. So anything that is contrary to what scripture says about itself, we put aside. That's not scripture.

Doesn't mean there's not valuable historical, even ministerial things in it, but it is not the infallible and errant inspired word of God in its original manuscripts. There is a difference. And it's important that we know this difference. And it's important that we be able to properly discern what is coming at us, particularly in our distress, that when we are most vulnerable, when we are struggling and we're trying to find solid ground and then somebody comes up to us, I got a word for the Lord, like this guy with his wife with cancer. And now she's saying, okay, I'm going to be submissive to my husband. And he said, this person has a word for the Lord. And we're just going to tell the doctors no. Raise your hand if you think that's a good idea.

I don't know what that woman is supposed to go for treatment with her doctors. I can't say, but I could tell you what scripture says about a lot of things here, where it says, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. They like to be in control.

They like to take from you. Just like these telemarketers I talked about in the last segment, they are plotting to deceive. Beloved, 1 John 4, 1, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world. Matthew 24, 24 for false Christ and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. Jesus said that himself. 2 Peter 2, 1, but false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And again, Jesus, Matthew 24, and many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. 2 Timothy 4, 3, Paul saying this to Timothy, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. Be vigilant, have discernment, gain knowledge and wisdom from studying the word of God so that when people come to you, particularly when you're vulnerable, in your distress, when you're hurting, your loved one is hurting, and they say, I got a word for the Lord for you. Raise your hand and say, stop right there, buddy. What's the chapter?

What's the verse? And see what happens. Just challenge them on that. If they become belligerent and condescending when you ask them to source their quote unquote word from the Lord, that should be a huge red flag. Because scripture says that he is near to the broken hearted. Gracie was broken hearted while she was making this decision. These women didn't come with compassion.

They came accusing her of rebellion. What do you think about that? If you've had a similar experience, feel free to write me at hopeforthecaregiver.com under the contact tab, hopeforthecaregiver.com. I'd like to hear your story. This is Peter Rosenberg and this is Hope for the Caregiver.

We'll be right back. 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. 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. 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 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.

I was doing all this myself and I'd make the kids help me and it got to be too much for me. 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 and that's where Gracie's life is with her lower limb prostheses. 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 take my hand. Lean on me. We will stay.