The Comfort of Gratitude

This is Peter Rosenberger and one of the reasons I wrote my new book A Minute for Caregivers is because I remember the sinking, despairing feeling of struggling as a caregiver. No one knew what to say to me. I didn't understand and others didn't understand me.

For decades I foraged along and tried to find my path through this medical nightmare that Gracie and I have endured for nearly 40 years. And I've learned to speak the language of caregivers. I speak fluent caregiver. No pastor, no counselor, no medical provider, no friend should ever throw their hands up and say I don't know what to say to that caregiver.

Because I do. Give them a copy. This book is called A Minute for Caregivers when every day feels like Monday. They're easy to read, one minute chapters that speak directly to the heart of a caregiver and you can get them wherever books are sold. A Minute for Caregivers when every day feels like Monday. Friends don't let friends care give alone.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is A Minute for Caregivers. Chapter 105. The Comfort of Gratitude. Resentment can lead even the best of hearts into poor judgment, wrath, and even self-destruction. For caregivers, the fight against bitterness remains perpetual.

Maybe family and friends left us out to dry. A bad medical call. An employer fired us in a vulnerable moment or a drunk driver caused incalculable pain. There seems to be no end to the opportunities to hold a grudge. Some caregivers even resent themselves while others shake their fist at God. Regardless of the resentment's object, the one who carries the hatred pays the highest price. The only antidote to the poison of resentment is gratitude, what Cicero called the virtue from which all others spring. Gratitude always leads to peace of mind, but bitterness only swindles serenity by deceitfully making us feel powerful in our wounded hearts.

Thanksgiving is not simply a meal, nor even a holiday. It's a way of life that refuses resentment's tyrannical hold on our souls. While incurred wounds are real and painful, they can only fester when we nurse them with the septic cloth of resentment. Thankfulness washes those wounds clean and allows them to heal. Hannah Whiteall Smith said, The soul that gives thanks can find comfort in everything.

The soul that complains can find comfort in nothing. This is Peter Rosenberg, and that's an excerpt from my new book, A Minute for Caregivers When Every Day Feels Like Monday. There's more at Hopeforthecaregiver.com.

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. 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, 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. 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. 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.