Living, Loving, Laughing, Caregiving

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 caregiver alone. 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. Healthy caregivers make better caregivers.

This program is designed to strengthen the family caregiver so that we can live a calmer, healthier, and dare I say it, a more joyful life while serving as a family caregiver. A friend of mine called me America's caregiver. Do you think I ought to claim the title? Peter Rosenberger, America's caregiver.

I don't know, it kind of has a nice ring to it. You know, Washington could do worse than to listen to this program and learn some principles about how to stay strong and healthy. One of the things we talk about here on this program, a lot, boundaries. Do we need boundaries as a caregiver?

Of course we do. And it's important to keep those boundaries and maintain them and regularly inspect them. You don't respect what you don't inspect.

You can write that down. You don't respect what you don't inspect. And as caregivers, we have to inspect our boundaries. We have to make sure we have good emotional boundaries with other people that are toxic to us. Good boundaries with our loved ones, whether they're healthy or not. Boundaries are important. And it's not just boundaries. You have to inspect those boundaries with vigilance. You have to be on top of this. I got a lot of rancher friends out here in Montana, and I've got a guy that's going to put some cattle up here on my father-in-law's property. I've been working with him to get ready for that.

He'll be coming out here end of May, 1st of June. What do you think we got to do? Fences. We got to make sure all the fences are okay. Cows, get out. If you got goats. How many of you all raised goats? You ever been around goats or sheep? If they can get out, they will. They will find us. Goats are the most mischievous animals.

They're cute as buttons to look at, but they will get into all sorts of things. So we have to be vigilant. If you have any kind of livestock, that's part of being a good steward.

I love when the farrier comes out here to work on the horses, and he helps teach me some of the things he's doing as part of just good husbandry with the animals. That's part of the original task that we were given as mankind through Adam. Adam's our federal head. That's the way God works. People get mad. They say, well, if I'd been in the garden, I wouldn't have said, well, yeah, you would have. I wasn't there.

I didn't do it. Well, you weren't at the cross either. Paul makes that very clear in Romans 5. In Adam, we all sin.

He was the perfect representative for all mankind. And that sin, there's three imputations. His sin was imputed to us. Our sin was imputed to Christ, who paid the penalty, and Christ's righteousness was imputed to us. So there's that federal system of how that worked with the first Adam and then the second Adam, the greater Adam, which is Christ.

But I digress into theology. The point of it is a stewardship. We were designed to be stewards and we were designed to work in harmony with that. And look at what a mess we've made of it. How do we get back? How do we, how do we come back from that?

Well, it starts by going back to God's word and understanding our original design and who we are in him. What is our responsibility now? And the caregiving world is an amazing crucible to learn these particular things. There's nothing like taking care of somebody with severe disabilities for an extended amount of time to bring the gunk up that's in your own soul, give you an opportunity to deal with that, which we're going to talk about here shortly, and learn from it and learn these principles because the only way to survive in this are these principles. Not because I came up with them, even though I am America's caregiver.

No, I'm just kidding. Not because I came up with them, because this was in scripture. We don't have to flounder around and wonder what to do. We know what to do.

We just don't like it. We all know that scripture, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. How long, what is the longest time you've gone keeping that scripture? Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge them. What's the record in your life for maintaining that scripture?

I think I went 10 seconds one time, trust in the Lord with all your heart. We can't do this. We can't. Anybody that says they can and they do, they'll lie about other things too.

You cannot do this on your own, but you were never intended to do this on you. You do it under Christ authority, not yours. That's that imputation of righteousness. His perfect life was imputed to us. So therefore we rely on his righteousness, not our own.

All right. You're tracking with me now. You see how this applies to us as caregivers. So when you are taking care of somebody, when you are doing something and you feel it well up within you, that you are just about ready to lose it. That's when you anchor yourself back into his perfect righteousness. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths.

If you don't know what to do as a caregiver, stay in that verse. And if you have to repeat it to yourself all day long, that's a good start. Now ask me how I know these things.

Peter, America's caregiver, how do you know these things? Because I have failed at it miserably for so long. You know what the good thing is about beating your head up against the wall? You know what the good thing about that is?

It feels really good when you stop. I told you guys this last week, I would love to tell you that I'm wise. I would love for people to look at me like they look at some of these great teachers out there and they have all these books and shows and they sit there and they look very serious. No, that's not me. I'm just so tired from doing it wrong that I finally just said, whatever.

You know, I would love to tell you I was like some of the great heroes you read about in scripture, but the closest one I could identify to is Jonah. You know, no, I'm not doing this. No, I don't even like these people. Good, good riddance. Go ahead and burn these people with God said, go do it. Then he gets mad because he sits out under a bush with the sun and then some insect or something comes and eats that and he's just miserable.

Yeah, that's my guy. When I get to heaven, I'm going to meet Jonah and say, dude, thank you for putting it all out there because it gave people like me hope. You know, I would love to tell you that I bring more to the table, but I don't.

The only thing I bring to this equation is the sin that required by salvation. Everything else is him working in me so that I see these truths, but it takes for me and some people does it, but for me it takes a long time and I, I've never said in my life, wow, I sure am glad I learned that the easy way because I don't think I ever have. My dad's listening to this program right now. He'll tell you.

He's probably just nodding right there. Mom and dad both. I push buttons. I strain against stuff.

If there, if there's a rule or there's a boundary, Oh, forget it. I'm not, you know, I'm not the guy. I remember I was doing some TV stuff for AARP one time and they, they looked at the, the, the people that were over it looked at the director and they said, don't try to script him.

He cannot be scripted. Do not try. And you know what? They're right.

I was coming down to American family association last year to do a video project here for this network. And they called me like months out and said, we haven't gotten your script. I said, well, that's because I'm not on the airplane with the Delta napkin yet. I mean, you know, that's, I don't script. I pushed the boundaries.

I I'm this way, but there's a point where you just get so tired. You just say, whatever, just whatever. So again, I would love to tell you that I have done this methodically.

No, I haven't. I've just run full speed into a brick wall so many times and I realized, Oh, Hey, there's a brick wall there now. And you know, it's all good.

The point of it is the principles I talk about on this program are biblical principles. I have exhausted going down so many bad roads. I'm not a there, there kind of guy. I'm a, Hey, don't go down there.

That's a bad place. I've been down there and here's where I found a solid ground. Here's where I stand.

And I'm telling you, you could stand on these principles as well. And we're going to talk about that more when we come back. This is Peter Rozenberger. This is America's caregiver. This is hope for the caregiver.

We'll be right back. Welcome back to hope for the caregiver with Peter Rozenberger. This is the program for you as a caregiver, America's caregiver reporting for duty.

Sorry. That just makes me laugh. I'm glad you're with us. Hope for the caregiver.com.

Hope for the caregiver.com. If you want to tell your story, be a part of what we're doing. Uh, see what we have out there. I've got books, music, just articles, all kinds of things that are available for you. Our podcast is free.

I hope you'll take advantage of it. And I, I I've got like 800 episodes out there. I remember when I first started doing this thing, they, they said, you know, you're not going to be able to fill up an hour talking about being a caregiver.

Well, that was over a decade ago. And, uh, that was, it was, it'll be 12 years this summer and I've got 800 something episodes and it was just, you know, we're just scratching the surface because I don't think we can plumb the depths of what we could learn about ourselves, about life, about love, about God, our faith, all these things in this context of being a caregiver, because there's nothing like what we do when you have this relentless dynamic going on of caring for someone else with severe needs and you're having to constantly die to yourself. This is where I believe our growth, our maturity, our life.

And you, again, I look back at that scripture from Proverbs three, chapter Proverbs three, five through six, trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not to your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths. And yet how many of us can do that? How many of us can do that?

I mean, I literally don't think I could do that for a minute. I really don't because I keep constantly being distracted into my own thinking. And I don't know about you, but my best thinking caused a lot of messes.

Y'all have just no idea. So again, the only reason you should listen to me on this program is that I've been doing this so long that I've had ample opportunity to make so many mistakes that you don't have to make. You do not have to bang your head against the wall at the same level that I did. Here's what I've learned from this and I'm offering it to you with the hopes that you will take a leap of faith to realize you don't have to go down all these paths that I did. You don't have to beat your head up against the wall to the degree that I have.

There is nothing like the blazing scrutiny of your character that comes into play when you take care of someone with severe disabilities. The longer you do it, the more you see of the things in your life that drive you to your knees. You just cannot go any other place. And at that point you have to make a decision. Am I going to rail against that which brings me to my knees, which brings me to the foot of the cross, which leads me to cry out for a savior? Because it's hard to cry out to a savior that you don't think you need. And that's what that verse in Proverbs says, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Well, I'll trust him with this stuff. Lord, I got this stuff.

And he said, no, no, no, all of this, all of this, lean not on your own understanding for any of this. But see, we don't do that. But when we get into a situation where we're facing dire circumstances on a daily basis in the caregiving world, this is where it happens for us. We're seeing someone suffer all the time.

We're going through crisis after crisis. You can't plan. You have to be flexible. You've heard me say it, blessed are the flexible for they should not be bent out of shape. I don't think that's actually in scripture, but you get the point.

I mean, I'm like Gumby here. And this is what happens to us as caregivers. And we are constantly confronted with our own need of a savior. And now we can fight it just like Jonah did and others that you've seen in scripture and in the history. You could fight this, but God in his mercy allows these things in our life to break us down, not to have some kind of, well, you're going to get your breakthrough.

That's what they say on the health and wealth shows on the prosperity doctrine. Oh, you're going to get your breakthrough. You're going to get, no, no, we've already got our breakthrough. Our breakthrough is at the cross. The question is, are we going to understand it? Is it going to break through our sin and our hard hearts so we understand just how important the cross is? I've told you all, I've been studying theology now for some time, and I've got a tutor.

I've got several guys that just bang on me pretty hard. And then I listen to a lot while I do all my caregiving tasks. And I've come to two conclusions. You ready for them? Here it is. Sin is a bigger problem than we think it is. And the cross is a bigger deal than we could ever imagine. That's it.

That's what I've got. That is where I am anchoring myself to realize sin is a bigger problem. And the cross is a bigger deal. So I don't give myself the quarter that I think I deserve. My pastor out here, who I'm very fond of in Montana, he says, we're vindication specialists. We will vindicate anything.

We will justify anything that we think we deserve. But this stuff has a way of bubbling to the surface when you're in this pressure cooker of being a caregiver, because you're constantly having to think about somebody else. And you don't realize how self-centered you are until you are put in a situation to think of someone else. Now that's the bad news. Here's the good news. God knows this. And he uses these things. Johnny Tada says this so beautifully.

He uses what he hates to achieve what he loves. There are too many people out there that are talking about how we can be exalted. You know, we're going to have this and all these blessings and all these things. And some people call it the theology of glory.

Is it somehow that God's using these things to break us down so that we're going to get this big breakthrough, we're going to have this and this and this, and we're going to have a bit of heaven on earth? What do you think about that? Do you think that's accurate? Do you think that's realistic?

I heard this one TV preacher, somebody sent this clip, and I'm not going to mention any names. I'll let you all figure it out. But he was bragging about having a 40,000 square foot home. 40,000 square foot home. He's bragging about it. I would no way impugn that somebody who's doing this is such and such way. I just got to ask you one question about that. If that's how he wants to spend his money, that's fine. That's how he wants to spend the money that he raises from a congregation.

That's between them and him. But ultimately it's between this guy and God. How would you like to answer for that to God?

How would you like to stand before God and say, here's what I did with it? I'm not comfortable with that. I really am not.

I'm not comfortable with that. I'm not impugning on having nice things. I'd love to have nice things too. I'd like to have all kinds of things. What is nice?

What is so forth? But again, commit your way to the Lord. Lean not on your own understanding and all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path. And if God wants me to have certain things, that's God's business.

But did I do my part, which was to commit my way to him? Ultimately money and things as caregivers, this is that could make our lives a little bit easier. It could take away some of the headaches that we have, but ultimately in our world as caregivers, that's not going to be the answer. And we all know this. And that's why it's an empty promise when we see those kinds of things. And if something about it just kind of catches us because it's like, oh yeah, well, what would we do if we had, you know, this much money in the bank and we could do this and this and this, that's great. But it comes up short when you deal with some of the things that we deal with because we know that that's not going to solve it. And nothing was more clearly communicated to me about this subject than when we were in Nashville, when we lived there for many years and there was a very well-known guy and I'm not going to, I'm going to be very vague about this because I don't want to cause any problems.

And if you do want to write a letter, send it to Peter at the internet.google. But Gray and I, our youngest son, Gray, uh, we were out, um, in the south part of Nashville and kind of upscale shopping area. And there was this big office building where this guy's place was. And out front he had, there was a red Corvette with his name on the license plate. And the guy was, I knew the age of the fellow and, and he was, he was well known and he had a red Corvette, you know, he's in his fifties or so with his license plate name on his license plate.

You know, the stereotypes, I don't even have to discuss it, but you know them. But our son looked at me and he says, dad, if you ever get a bunch of money, are you going to buy a red Corvette and put your name on the license plate? And he was being a little bit sarcastic, but he still, the question was out and without even thinking, I didn't even have to think about it and respond. I said, no, I can't fit your mom's wheelchair in that.

And it brought home to me the reality of our life as caregivers. Certain things are going to dictate to us. And I'm going to ask you a hard question.

I'm going to ask you a very hard question. Okay. Now it's just you and me. Nobody else has to see or know this.

It's just us. Okay. Can we possibly look at the things in our life that are so hard that drive us to our knees, that keep us from buying a red Corvette with our name on the license plate. Can we look at those things as mercies from God, as mercies from God. Are we willing to look at those things in that light that maybe God in his mercy has provided such boundaries as we talked about the last block in our life, knowing our proclivity to go into self exaltation, because I got to tell you, that's exactly what I'm learning to do, to realize that God in his mercy keeps me tethered in this lane. Like the hymn writer stated so beautifully and come thou found of every blessing, one of the 25 hymns that every Christian ought to know, prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it.

Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart. Oh, take and seal it.

Seal it for thy courts above. Are we prone to wonder? I know I am. And I'm asking you as America's caregiver, I'm asking you, would you be willing to consider that what we call a burden may indeed be a mercy. 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. This is the program for you as a family caregiver. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. I hope you'll go out and take a look at our site. We do have a lot of stuff out there for you and friends don't let friends care give alone. All right. I foraged for a lifetime to learn these things. You don't have to.

It's there. And if you don't know what to say to a caregiver, don't worry about it. I do. If you're a pastor, counselor, medical professional, and you know a caregiver who's really struggling and you're really at a loss for words, I know what to say to them. Point them to this podcast, point them to my book, whatever you got to do. There's so much out there that I've put for my fellow caregivers and I speak fluent caregiver. Okay? So don't strain over this. There's no excuse anymore for people to not know what to say to a caregiver.

I have settled that. I mean, my new book is called a minute for caregivers in one minute chapters. I will teach you how to speak caregiver if you want to. And if you don't want to, but you know somebody who is struggling as a caregiver, they can have the book and they will understand it immediately. Okay. That's my commitment.

So hopeforthecaregiver.com. If you want to see more information about that, while we're on the subject of speaking fluent caregiver, I was talking to a friend the other day, taking care of her elderly husband who has Alzheimer's and she was excoriating herself for losing her cool at times. Now, I know that this audience is filled with people who have never lost their cool while caregiving, right?

Each one of y'all are just the model of sainthood when it comes to this, but all the virtue of those of us who've never stumbled in this area, not withstanding, let me talk about the principle. So I was talking to her and she was frustrated. You know what I say about the way we caregivers talk to ourselves.

And I've said this for years. I wouldn't be around somebody who treated me the same way I treat myself. And I asked her, I said, okay, let me, let me stop you right there. What would you say to someone who is doing exactly what you're doing?

And she stopped for a moment, big tears filled her eyes. And she said, I would say, bless you. And I said, well then why are you taking this liberty here to self flagellate? I just like to use high dollar words when I can.

Why are you beating yourself with a whip like those guys do in those, you see them overseas and in various areas where they go through and they just whip themselves in the back to try to some, I don't know what they're trying to do, but why, why would you do this? And she looked up at me and she, she didn't have any words. And I said, I understand about looking at our job performance as caregivers.

We all have things that we just cringe over. I get that. I said, but what about your attendance record?

How's that looking? And she kind of sniffed a little bit and she said, well, I show up every day. I said, yeah, you do. So I say that to you all in this audience, how's your attendance record? You show up every day, don't you? You may show up swearing under your breath and cussing and fussing. I understand that, but you still show up.

And then I want to step further. And I shared with her something that I think that there's many here in this audience who might want to hear this, that may, may need to hear this. And I, I looked at her and I said, have you made amends to your husband?

She said, yeah, you know, apologize and try to make amends. Yeah. And I said, have you shared it with God?

Yeah. Now what does scripture say about confessing our sins? If we confess our sins to one another, he is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness, a broken and contrite heart the Lord does not despise. I mean, I can go through the list of scriptures of coming to God repentant. And I said, do you know what God does with our sin?

He, he removes it. That's the whole point. Well, I don't, I don't feel, I mean, I still feel guilty. Well, I understand that those are our feelings, but I'm not going to use my feelings to in any way question the word of God.

And I have learned over the years that sometimes I have to say it over and over and over until I am standing solidly on what scripture says and not at all on what I feel. So I asked this woman, does your husband recall this event? She said, no, you know, with dementia and Alzheimer's, a short term memory is, is rather challenging.

She said, no. I said, so what you're telling me is that your husband can't remember the event that you're tearing yourself up about. And God states that he chooses to forget it. He removes it. So why are you carrying it? Your husband can't remember it. God chooses to forget it, but you're the one carrying it.

And I watched her kind of tilt her head up, her shoulders squared up. She said, never thought of that. Take a minute. Let's think about that. Why are we carrying it?

This guy can't remember it. And the one who redeemed us chooses to forget it to remove it. We allow the feelings of cringe that we all have over our mistakes.

And as I said, the last couple of blocks, I've got ample of them. Okay. And if I allowed myself that indulgence to go back and just wallow in this, I wouldn't be able to, I wouldn't be able to look at the mirror. I wouldn't be able to come to this microphone.

I wouldn't be able to do anything. There's just too much. There's too much. I remember one time I was out weeding in the garden with Gracie. It was during a very painful time in our life. And I was coming to some realities about my desperate need for a savior that I had never been willing to face before. And I'm pulling all this Bermuda grass.

And every time I would get a handful of it or get a strand of it, there would just be more and more and more. And finally I just stopped and I just broke down right in the garden. Gracie's sitting on her.

She has a little wheeled thing that mom and dad gave her. And she was sitting there and I looked up and I just tears from my eyes. I said, it's too much. I can't get it all.

And I wasn't talking about the Bermuda grass. And Gracie very quietly said, I know, I know. And that's why we have a savior because it's too much.

And we run to him because it's just too much. This woman and every one of you in this audience would put your arm around this woman and comfort her and encourage her. And with everything in you that you will understand, point her back to God's forgiveness. She lost her cool with her husband with Alzheimer's.

Now we're not here to minimize or maximize sin. That's not the point of it. This is something that troubled her greatly.

And her heart hurt. I get that. You get that.

We all get this. What do we do with it? What do we do with our guilt?

What do we do with these things? And if you don't anchor yourself in the truth of what God says, then you're going to have to come up with a plan B of what to do with this. And we'll try to make ourselves feel better. How many of you all have spent enough time trying to make yourself feel better? I mean, how's that working for us?

It doesn't work too well for me. But scripture says that's not how you deal with this. It's not about you feeling better.

It's about being better. And part of that journey of being better is resting on what he says, taking him at his word, running to him, understanding that this is one more area of our life that has to be crucified. You're not going to hear this on a lot of, sadly, Christian television shows, you're not going to hear this on a lot of pulpits, sadly. And part of it is, is that the crucible we live in as caregivers, as I said in the previous block, it forces this stuff to the surface. Other people may have months, years, decades without having to deal with some of the kind of drama we deal with in a week or sometimes daily. Now we can rail against that, or we could see God's purpose in it. And we can run to him and say, okay, here's one more thing, Lord, that needs to be dealt with. The theological term is called sanctification. The graphic term is called crucifixion.

None of which are a lot of fun, you know, none of which are a lot of fun. And yet you see in scripture where this is modeled so beautifully by so many people, but the apostle Paul just hooks it when he said, it's just nothing that I bring to this. It's worth anything. You know, he kind of started off his ministry and he was talking about his credentials and he was a student of this guy and he did this and this. And by the time he gets to the end of his ministry, he's writing the book of Philippians, I think, you know, but he's, he's like, I'm the chief of sinners. I don't bring anything to this. As Martin Lloyd Jones says, we only bring the sin that requires our salvation. That's all we bring to salvation is the sin that requires it. Now the question is, are we willing to have that level of a conversation with God, that level gut level with ourselves and with God? No, we're not willing to do it.

And that's why I said in the last block in his mercy, he brings things as a catalyst to that conversation because nothing in me wants to have that conversation. I don't want to do that. I want what I want. I'm like Veruca Salt and Willy Wonka.

I want it now. You know, that's me. Okay. That's me.

I'd love to tell you it wasn't, but it is. And God in his mercy says, you know what? I'm going to do something more in your life.

I love you too much to allow you to wallow in this level of self fulfillment, self-anggrandizement. God may choose to do all kinds of things. For some people, he may choose to give them a 40,000 square foot home like that TV preacher was talking about.

There are some TV preachers that have private jets. They may choose to do that. That's not my issue. My issue is what do I do with what I have right here? Can I see more of him in this than I would without it? That's a hard question, isn't it? But that's the question I believe as caregivers we're invited to explore.

If you want to explore it a little further, then you're just going to have to wait until after the break. This is Peter Rozenberger. This is Hope for the Caregiver. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rozenberger. This is the program for you as a family caregiver. Yeah, I know it's a little bit of a tough conversation topic that we're having today, but I am convinced that this is the battle for us as caregivers, particularly if you don't see any end in sight in this. Some people may do this for six months. Some of us will do it for years, and some of us will do it for decades, and some of us will do it for a lifetime.

And if we are not mentally engaged in the principles of this journey, then we're going to spend our lifetime coming up with tips and so forth, but we're going to live a life of just constant reacting. And I don't know about you, but I know for me, I have reacted enough. I'm like a nuclear reactor, or as my wife says this, nuclear. George Toby Bush says that too. And I laugh at Gracie every time she says it.

She said, that's the way you say it. And I'm like, no, it's not, but that's okay. We've had this ongoing conversation now for our entire married life on how to pronounce the word nuclear. But if you want to say nuclear, that's okay with me. It's nuclear.

I'm sorry. So before you get all thinking, gosh, Peter's got really heavy today. Just remember, I'm laughing about how to pronounce nuclear with my wife who has pronounced it nuclear for as long as I've known her. And I am laughing about that because I know that we are not bound to the challenges that we have.

Do you understand this? Gracie and I have learned to laugh, cut up, forge a life together. We've been married for almost 40 years. We have children, we have grandchildren, we have things that we've done with our lives in the midst of all these things. We haven't waited to get through it.

We have trusted God in it, however poorly at times. Okay. Make no mistake about that. I do not hold myself as the model for this is how you do it.

Y'all know me better than that by now. But I go back to Jesus's own words. He said, I've come to give you life and life more abundantly. Now, do I have to wait until we are in heaven and Gracie's body is restored and perfect and there's no more suffering and I'm not a caregiver anymore before I have an abundant life? It's a good question, isn't it? Do I have to have all the accouterments of fame and fortune in this life in order to have an abundant life? Do I have to have the 40,000 square foot home and the private jet in order to have the abundant life in this life?

That's also a good question. And I use that with the 40,000 square foot home with that TV preacher simply because it represents the extreme of what we think, okay, if we had this, well, if we had this, if we had this. But what the gospel is, is that we have Christ. We have Christ in a hospital room. We have Christ in rehab. We have Christ in divorce court. We have Christ in a morgue. We have Christ in prison. We have Christ no matter where we are, no matter what we're doing, no matter what is going on in our life. If we have Christ then we have abundant life. That's the gospel. And Paul just nails that down in Romans 8. I consider that our present sufferings, the things we're going through right now, are not worth comparing with the glory that's going to be revealed in us. That's what Paul is saying. And it's not meant to be some kind of delusion that we say, oh, yeah, we're going to, and people do that. They come up to say things like this when you're struggling, oh, you're going to get crowns in heaven. That's not, I don't think what he's talking about here. And I'm not doing what I do and nor is Gracie enduring what she endures so that we can get a crown in heaven. This is where we are, but we're invited to trust him in it. And in the process, what we've discovered is the abundant life is not on the other side of this that is unattainable to us now, unless we have certain things, but that we can be filled with life and excitement and purpose. And we could argue over how to pronounce nuclear.

It's nuclear. We can argue. We can have fun.

Now we can laugh. We can cut up. We could fall in love. We can make music.

We can tell jokes. We can live life with excitement and passion knowing that he who began a good work in us is faithful to complete it to the day of Christ Jesus. That our confidence is in that, not in something we can attain. I don't have to go get a 40,000 square foot home in order to look like I'm successful or feel successful or be successful. I don't have to have those accouterments that the world says, we've got to have this. And now, sadly, a lot of people in the church say this. I don't have to have that.

Gracie will look at you in the eyes. She says she doesn't have to have legs in order to sing praises to God. How's that for taking it to the next level? Martin Luther said, let goods and kindreds go, this mortal life also, the body they may kill, God's truth abideth still. Nothing is worth grasping except Him. And don't you think He knows this?

C.S. Lewis talked about this. It's not a megalomaniac thing on God's part. He knows that the only good is of Himself because He is good. Why would He give us, as Jesus said so beautifully, what father is going to give his son a stone if he asks for bread? I saw somebody post the other day. He said, what father would his son ask for a donut when he give him a scone?

I thought that was pretty funny. But the point is, is that we're sinful people. We're not going to give things like that.

That's not normal. And we're sinful people. We're still going to give good gifts to our children because the people we love, how much more so does our heavenly father give? And this is the point Jesus was making.

You have no idea. And that's what faith is about, but it's not a leap into darkness. It's a leap into the light that we can abandon all these things. We don't have to strive. We don't have to have everything perfect. We don't, as Gracie would tell you, we don't even have to have legs for her to be able to praise God. We don't have to stop caregiving in order for us to live a life of substance and purpose. We don't have to have the things that the world would tell us we have to have in order to be happy. This requires an enormous mental shift from what we're told by so many.

I was told this by a lot of people. I believed it in my own heart that if we just get through this and then we can get on with life. But I've shared with you many times here on this program, this is my life and it's not a bad life.

It's a hard life. But the rewards that I get for living the life that I live are extraordinary because I get to see more of Christ. I get to see more and understand more of what His word means, of what the cross means. I told you at the beginning of this thing, sin is a bigger problem than we think it is and I get to see more of my sin too. But God in His mercy also, He stays His hand so I don't have to see all of it. I mean it would annihilate me if I saw it for what it really is.

But He lets me see enough of it to bring me to my knees. But then I get to see the cross in ways that I would have never seen before. Mercy there was great and grace was free.

Pardon there was multiplied to me. There my burdened soul found what? Liberty at Calvary. I love that hymn.

I would play it on the caregiver keyboard but it's not hooked up right now so you're going to have to bear with me. I'll get that fixed next week. But isn't that a great hymn? Mercy there was great and grace was free.

Pardon there was multiplied to me. There my burdened soul found liberty at Calvary. Is your soul burdened? Where do you find liberty? Where do you find the release of that burden? Where do you go? What do you do with your guilt? What do you do with all this anxiety and this distraught state that we find ourselves in as caregivers?

What do you do with this? I have, again, I've tried to deal with it in a lot of different ways. But God in His mercy brought me to my knees. And as I was pulling those weeds, like I said in the last block, this is too much. It's too much. And Grace said I know.

It's too much. That's why we have a Savior. And in God's mercy He will allow us to see enough of our need. He doesn't annihilate us, but He allows us to see enough that we cry uncle and wonder of wonders. That's when you start living. That's when you start laughing, singing, praising. Yeah, there's still going to be tears. I'm not an idiot.

Well, there's some people who probably disagree with that. But that's when you can start laughing about nuclear versus nuclear. Because you realize this is not the end of the story. It's only the beginning. It's only the beginning. And that, my friends, that is hope for the caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberg. Hey, this is America's Caregiver. I'm going with the title. It's Hope for the Caregiver. Hopeforthecaregiver.com.

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. 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. 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 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.