Without Understanding, Help Remains Elusive

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. 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. More than 65 million Americans right now are serving as a family caregiver. Are you one of them? Well if so, you're in the right place. Now you may be asking yourself, Peter, what's the difference between a caregiver and a family caregiver?

Well, I'm glad you asked. Usually the difference involves a paycheck. In a nutshell. And I've got people that contact me all the time and they try to somehow connect to the program and they say, well, I'm a caregiver. You know, I have children or I've got my employees and things such as that.

No, that's not it. And I'm not diminishing the responsibility and the work and the task that overlay this. But that's not what I'm talking about. A caregiver is somebody who cares for a chronically impaired loved one. That this thing most likely will not get better.

In fact, most likely it will get worse, but not always. And they have to think sometimes beyond their own grave. And they're doing it virtually with no pay and no training. Now I would imagine most people in this audience have been approached by somebody selling life insurance. I mean, is that a fair assessment?

Would all of you kind of nod your head and say, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we don't like to think about it all because it's one of those things that it's a responsible thing to buy, but it's not a pleasant thing. It's not like you get to drive it home that day. You know, it doesn't have that new life insurance smell to it. But what is the one thing that every life insurance representative will ask of every potential client?

What's the one thing it's without fail. If something happened to you, what would happen to your family, your wife, your spouse, your kids, your state, all of those things. Now, if you buy their product, you can have peace of mind knowing that in the event of your demise, somebody will show up with a check and they will have some type of monetary assistance aid security in the event of your demise as the major breadwinner or the minor breadwinner. Either way, you get to have peace of mind that night after you sign up for life insurance, you get to have peace of mind knowing that you did what was necessary with the resources that you had. We're all familiar with this.

Now, what if that same life insurance representative showed back up again the next day and said, what happens to your loved one in the event of your demise? You said, well, I just took care of that yesterday. I just wrote you a check yesterday.

No, no, no, no. That was yesterday. Now we're going to do it again today. And we're going to do it again the next day and the next day and the next day.

And this is going to go all the way until one of you all dies. That is what it's like to be a caregiver. That is the reality of our life. It weighs on us.

We don't get that. Hey, I wrote a check and I took care of it. No, we have to constantly be thinking what needs to happen to make sure this person is taken care of in case something happens. Not only if I die, if I sprained my ankle, if I'm in a car wreck, if I get the flu. Caregivers don't get to call in sick very easily.

It just, that's just the way it is. And that's what a family caregiver is. Somebody who is locked in on this and has to show a level of responsibility that is quite frankly beyond the pale. And that's why you see so many caregivers who are frazzled. They don't get sick days. There's no human resources for them to go and sit down and find some kind of program.

It's us. And oftentimes we're ill-equipped for the job. Oftentimes we were trying to juggle three or four things at one time. And that is why I do this program. Knowing that this is not something that is a one and done with us. We can't write the check yesterday and then go on with our lives.

We've got to do it every day. So how do you help that person? Well, in order to help that person, you've got to understand that person. You've got to understand what they're feeling. You've got to understand the frustration, the despair, the rage, the resentment, the guilt, the obligation, the fear, all of the above. You've got to understand it and be able to speak clearly to it. If somebody is standing in the path of danger and you want to get them away from that danger, but you do not speak their language, all your yelling, everything you're saying is not going to work. You're going to have to try a different way of communicating. And this is where the gap happens for so many caregivers because people are trying to communicate, but they don't understand the language. Caregivers aren't understanding. They can't process it.

What's happening is not sinking through. And it takes somebody who understands the language to be able to speak to a caregiver, say, you're in the path of danger. Let's move over here. You don't have to freak out. You don't have to get real weird.

You just gently move over here and get out of the way. And that's what this program is. I speak fluent caregiver. So I want my fellow caregivers to understand somebody really does understand what you're going through, really does understand the feelings that you have and has learned to deal with those things in a way that is productive, that is responsive instead of reactive. Now, by the way, that's a total disclaimer.

That's not 100 percent true all the time. Okay, let's let's be clear. But now that I see the path and I want to point as many of my fellow caregivers as I possibly can to that path so that you have a fighting chance to deal with the stress that you're dealing with. I cannot in good conscience just say, well, brother, I'm going to pray for you.

How many times have you heard that? I'm glad people pray for me. Thank you. Because that's important.

It really is. May I read a verse to you, actually two verses from the book of James chapter two verses 15 through 16. Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, go in peace, keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?

At what point do you think James is trying to make here? We talk in this Christian ease sometimes in our culture. Oh, God love you. I'm going to pray for you brother. When somebody is bleeding out and I go back to the paramedics that rescued Gracie by the side of the road over 40 years ago. She's bleeding out. She's broken.

Her body is broken. And first they put out the fire. And then the paramedics, the truckers did that. That's why I love long haul truckers. So for you truckers that are listening, just know I'm very grateful for you.

I really am because I can't think of how many lives truckers have saved by stopping and doing what is necessary. And then they got the paramedics and the paramedics showed up and they said to Gracie, hang on, we're going to get you to safety. We're here. We're going to get you to safety. It's going to be okay. Hang on. Help us here.

We're going to get you to safety. That's what James is talking about there. They didn't say, well sister, we're going to pray for you. They didn't ask her if she knew the doctrine of justification or if she'd been baptized. They didn't ask her any of those things.

They didn't criticize her at all. They just gave assurance of their presence and repeatedly said, it's going to be okay. We're going to get you to safety. Hang on. Hold on. Helps here.

You're not alone. We're going to get you to safety. Hang on. Helps on the way. Hold on. Over and over and over again until they got her to safety.

That is what it looks like to help a caregiver. Hang on. Hold on. We're going to get you to safety. You're not alone. It's going to be okay. Helps on the way. Hang on.

You're not alone. And that is hope for the caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger.

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. 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. I had tools everywhere, limbs everywhere, feet boxes and so forth. I was doing all this myself and I'd make the kids help me.

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. 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. 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. She's used some of her own limbs in this outreach that she's recycled. She's been an amputee for over 30 years.

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. 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. They've had amazing times with it and I've had very moving conversations with inmates that work in this program. 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. 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.