"He's Got This, Answer The Question"

Welcome to Hope of the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberg and this is the program for you as a family caregiver.

Healthy caregivers make better caregivers. How are you feeling today? What's going on with you? Those of you who are regular listeners, of course, know the sound of our theme song. I wrote that with my friend Chris Latham many, many years ago. He actually wrote the melody while working the 10 Leslie's at Opryland.

You know those old timey cars at the amusement parks? He was working that while he was in college at Belmont. I was in college at Belmont and I was writing this groove well over 30 years ago on a guitar. And I've sat there and played this on the keyboard at his studio and then he laid down the guitar track and we did all this. Y'all have lyrics.

You know what? You guys, if you want, you go to Hopeofthecaregiver.com and send me in some lyrics of what we want this theme song to be. But anyway, that's our theme song for those of you who are new to this program and we welcome you.

We're glad that you are here. I launched something a couple of years ago that just was heavy on my heart to do, and it's a caregiver support group that meets once a week. And I put out a sign in front of our church here in Montana, this little tiny town, and people started trickling in. The first couple of weeks nobody showed up.

It was just me. So I had a support group of one and over the years more and more people have come and we just sit around, have a cup of coffee for about an hour and a half and we build one another up as caregivers. We speak fluent caregiver around the table.

I didn't have anything like this. To my knowledge, there isn't much like this for caregivers to have a weekly support group that is just focused on the caregiver. There are all kinds of support groups out there for, you know, family members with Alzheimer's or various different diseases and afflictions, traumatic brain injury, so forth. But there's not one that's just a caregiver focused support group that I know of, so I started one. We have a really, really good time in this group.

It's not what you think. I mean, there is laughter. We cut up. I mean, we do all kinds of things and it's just an eclectic group of individuals who share the journey of being caregivers. And for 90 minutes a week, we sit around a table and speak fluent caregiver to one another. And it's just a great way to fellowship and we build one another up. And from what I can hear from all the folks that go to this group, they say we leave each meeting better than when we got there. And to me, that's the most rewarding thing to hear. But I wanted to share with you, and I got permission from him, and I'm going to share his name.

It's a friend of mine who is taking care of his wife with Alzheimer's. And I wanted to share with you something he said the other day that I thought would really resonate with you all. Okay. It certainly inspired, encouraged me, strengthened me. It was something with such clarity that I thought, wow, I've got to share this on the air. And I asked him if I could. I told him I wouldn't use his real name. Let's just call him Ted Nugent.

No, I'm just kidding. But his wife with Alzheimer's peppers him with questions throughout the day. And that's not uncommon when you have somebody with dementia.

And it just is relentless. Recently, he had to go on a trip to Salt Lake. He took her with him and back, and he was not prepared for the very long ride where she just constantly asked questions. He said, I was exhausted when I got back.

One of the things I do in this group is I go around the table and I just ask people to check in. How are you feeling? Just like I do here on this program. How are you feeling? What's going on? And there's a variety of things. And when he mentioned what was going on with his wife and the constant question, it sparked another question. So I went around the room and I asked each one there, what does solid ground look like to you?

And got a variety of answers. But then this man said this. He looked at me, he said, she kept asking me the same question. And in my heart, I sighed for a moment. And then I said to myself, he's got this.

Go ahead and answer her question. And that solid ground to me knowing that he's got this. And I thought, what a tremendous statement of faith to look at somebody who is suffering from Alzheimer's, who continues to ask the same question over and over and over. He's, you know, he's exasperated and some of you all really know what that's like.

Okay. And he stopped himself from getting agitated. And he said, he's got this.

Answer her question. He's got this. And I thought that is a worthy goal for all of us to aspire to, to we get to that point where we see the constant reminders of the disease, of the affliction of the impairment. We feel the agitation.

We feel the exhaustion and the weariness of it. And yet he wrenched his mind and his heart and his spirit into that great statement of faith. He's got this.

Go ahead and act on it and just be kind and answer her question. What do you think about that? Isn't that a marvelous moment? And we all just kind of stopped for a moment. And it reminded me of a great scene in the Lord of the Rings. I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan and Aragorn, who would be the King of Gondor and Aelmer, who's the King of Rohan, were in this horrific battle and they met each other on the battlefield.

Aragorn had come from the south, Aelmer had come from the west, and they met each other on the battlefield. And there was just carnage. Everything was going on. And they took a moment. They were just these great warriors. And they took a moment to lean on their swords and catch up. In the middle of this battle, they just talked to each other. They're just kind of leaning on their swords for a moment to catch up while the battle raged around them. And then they went back to the battle. And to me, that's what it felt like when I listened to this man.

That we're going to take a moment, we're going to lean on our swords, we're going to catch up, strengthen one another, and then get back into the battle. He's got this. Go ahead and answer a question. What can you look at in your life? What is going on in your life today, right now, this morning, that you can look at and anchor yourself in the truth of God's Word that says He's got this?

This is not caught, God, by surprise. One of the things that I experienced during this last surgical jaunt with Gracie that was so intense, two months in the hospital and Christmas, New Year's, her birthday, you know, all of that was in the hospital. And it's a bit challenging. It's a bit daunting to do what we do.

And certainly for as long as we've done it. But I was faced with that same question myself. Do I believe this? And if so, what are the implications? I've been asking that myself a lot lately.

And I've been asking this of my fellow caregivers. And I've, frankly, been asking this of my fellow believers. Do we believe this? And if so, what are the implications? Should there not be some type of manifestation of our belief?

And I'm not talking about going out and having a parade out there in front of the church or whatever. I'm just talking about should our spirits not be more settled? Should there not be some manifestation of peace in our lives of contentment, of resolve, if we really believe what we say we believe? So when I heard this man say this around our table at the caregiver support group, he's got this.

Go ahead and answer her question. He's talking to himself. He's preaching to himself. Martin Lloyd-Jones said we should preach to ourselves daily.

And I think that's part of our journey as caregivers. Are we preaching to ourselves? If our soul is cast down within us, do we preach to ourselves? And not a three-point sermon that does an exegesis of this. I'm talking about just that simple admonition that this man gave to himself in the face of his wife's Alzheimer's. He's got this.

Go ahead, answer her question. That is hope for the caregiver, that conviction that we could live a calmer, healthier, and dare I say it, a more joyful life, even while serving as a caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger. 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. 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 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 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.

Obviously 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