There's Always A Caregiver

This is Peter Rosenberg and I'm so glad that you're listening to this podcast. If you're finding it meaningful, I want to ask you for two things. Would you mind sharing it with someone?

Would you mind telling somebody you know who is struggling as a caregiver about this program and what it can mean for them? We have over 800 episodes, more than 250,000 downloads. The need is massive. I can't do it on my own.

I'm still a full-time caregiver. But I'm putting it out there as best as I can. And I can use your help in sharing it with others. The other thing is, would you consider helping support what we do? If you like what you're hearing, if you're finding it insightful, if you're finding it encouraging, please help us do it more. We can't do it alone. We ask that you help us. Stay with Hope.com slash giving.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the program for you as a family caregiver. Glad to have you along with us. If you're not a caregiver, you'll get something out of the program.

But I'm not here for you. I'm here for those who are taking care of a chronically impaired loved one, putting themselves between that loved one, an even worse disaster. Sometimes we're doing it without any kind of training, without any type of compensation.

And we're running on a deficit while we do it. Does that describe you? If it does, you're in the right place. Now, you will get something out of this program if you're not a caregiver. And pay attention because if you love somebody, you will most likely be a caregiver.

If you live long enough, you will need one. Those are the facts. And this program is designed to strengthen those who are taking care of someone who is unhealthy, someone who is struggling. How do you help someone stay healthy as they take care of someone who is not? That's what we do on this program. Glad to have you along. Hope for the caregiver dot com. I want to touch briefly on something. There'll be a lot more information coming about this.

I'm not going to add anything to the investigation or to the challenges, but I will tell you something I have learned. Whenever you see someone who is deranged commit an act in public like we did last week with the assassination attempt against Trump, you will find an overwhelmed, overmatched, or out-powered family caregiver. Every time I go back to look at the situation with Nicholas Cruz down in Florida who shot up the school many years ago. Now, the cops were called 39 times to the home. My first question was, well, who called the cops? This kid had an adopted mother who was overpowered by her son with mental illness issues, and the cops repeatedly came out to the home. We don't have that kind of record yet of what's going on. It'll all be forthcoming of this young man who took out a fireman and nearly killed the former President of the United States.

There's a lot of stuff about the Secret Service and all that kind of stuff. But for this program, for what I do, pay attention to a family member or family members who recognize that this kid had problems and were unable to mitigate those problems. Or they themselves did not have enough awareness to recognize that there was a problem.

And that signifies yet another subset of issues. But just watch that because that's the driving force of why I do this as a caregiver. Because I have seen how overwhelmed and how befuddled people can become when they're dealing with people who are out of control like this with mental illness issues. You can't tell me that this young man was not mentally messed up. You don't do what he did without some type of spark of mental health issues. I mean, it just doesn't happen. There's always something. Now you can say, well, he's driven by hate or ideology or this or that, whatever.

That's for smarter people than me to deal with. I can just tell you there's somebody in this guy's orbit, whether it's his parents or whatever, who either recognized that he had problems but didn't have the wherewithal to deal with that, they themselves had problems, or he was in some kind of environment that was unable to deal with what this guy had. Just watch and see.

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I don't think I am. It happened in Duvallie. This young man who shot up the school there had a grandmother that was overmatched by him.

He ended up shooting her. His mother was an addict. And so you had a grandmother that was trying to stand in the gap for her daughter who was an addict and her grandson who had mental health issues.

The list is incredibly long of this sort of thing. And it's tragic, but it reinforces my desire to continue hammering this issue out when you see somebody who is acting out inappropriately at whatever level, long before it gets to where we saw last week. When you see somebody acting out inappropriately, look to the right or left behind them and you'll see a caregiver. You'll see somebody that's in his orbit or her orbit that is either clueless or overwhelmed, but they recognized that there was something going on. They knew it was a problem.

The young girl that shot up Covenant School there in Nashville where we used to go to church. The same kind of thing. There's always somebody who has struggled to take care of this person to get them help or whatever and was just overmatched by their sickness and their condition, whether it's mental health or alcoholism or addiction. There's always a chronic impairment and there's always a caregiver.

And I would ask you to please be on the lookout for that. Look to see families in your community who are struggling in your circle, not in your community, just in your circle. If you see them struggling, ask the caregiver, are you okay? Are you doing all right? Do you have everything you need to deal with this set of circumstances? Do you feel overwhelmed?

How do you feel? Ask them and give them my book. If you don't know what to say to a caregiver, don't worry about it.

I do. Give them my book. It'll walk them through what it looks like to settle themselves down so that they can get in the frame of mind to ask for help better, to implement that help better, all those kinds of things. This is what I believe we have a responsibility to do. And it's the human condition. I go back to what I've said many, many times after studying a great deal of theology and doctrine, after the benefit of wonderful education, I've learned two things.

Sin is a bigger problem than we think it is. I was out on the horse the other day and I was FaceTiming with my buddy, Hank, and I was not on the horse named Hank. We do have a horse out here named Hank, but I was not riding Hank. I was talking to Hank, but I was riding on Marley and Marley is a beautiful mayor, but as my farrier friend who works on her says, she's insubordinate.

And I have been taking steps to subordinate her, if you will. And I told my friend Hank, while we're talking, I said, this is part of the curse. He said, what do you mean? I said, well, we were designed to be vice regions of this planet. God gave mankind the dominion over all the animals, over everything here on this planet. And because of sin, that's gone.

We don't have that. If you'll notice, Jesus did have that. When Jesus showed up, a fish came to the shore with money in its mouth. He told them to go get the colt that had never been ridden before. Well, I don't know about you, but I don't particularly want to get on an animal that's never been ridden before, but it didn't bother Jesus. He didn't have to worry about it because he had dominion over all this.

He told the wind and the waves to be still, and they did. You know, we were given that, but sin corrupted this. And so as I was telling my friend Hank while I was riding, I'm sitting on this horse and I'm trying to help train her, but this is part of the curse. And I was having a theological conversation with the horse and singing that line from Joy to the World, far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found.

Go back and look at the text. It's a great text. And then when I'm pulling weeds or I see thistles, I just say the same thing. That's part of the curse. And the fall of man and the sin in this world is a bigger problem than we think it is, you all.

We've got to see this. Unlike what the Pope said recently, we are not basically good people. Our hearts are not.

The heart is deceitful. It's exceedingly wicked, Scripture says. No one seeks after God, Scripture says. The only ones who come to God are the ones that he draws. And anyone who tells you differently are either ignorant or lying to you that they're not studying their Scripture because this is what Scripture says. So when somebody said, Well, trust your heart. No, no, no, no. Don't trust your heart.

Trust His heart. The world saw again last week that sin is a bigger problem than we think it is. But our mandate from our Savior is to tell the world that the cross is a bigger deal than we could ever imagine. And that is hope for the caregiver. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio. This is Peter Rosenberg and this is the program for you as a family caregiver. So glad that you're with us. Hope for the caregiver dot com.

Hope for the caregiver dot com. I want to pivot back to the last block where I talked about this young assassin who tried to take out Trump, who did kill Corey Comforatory. And that family, I don't have the words to speak to their grief.

I just groan with them. Which, you know, I'm comforted by the fact that the Holy Spirit groans on our behalf. And this man died a hero. He lived a hero. He died covering his family.

I mean, what a picture of an extraordinary life. And as more and more stories are coming out, I still go back to there's always a caregiver when you have something like this. And this young man's parents were desperately looking for him, saying to law enforcement, hey, we've got to find this young man. And you know that they knew something was wrong and they've known it for some time.

Now, whether they acted on it or they didn't act on it, I don't know. I'm not here to speculate. I'm just telling you, there's always a caregiver.

Any time you see something like this, there's always a caregiver. And they are outmatched, overpowered, overwhelmed. Who was going to speak to them in a way they could understand? Not that we could solve the problem because we can't. Not that we can fix their loved one because we can't. But what we can do is give them a fighting chance to be able to ask for help from the appropriate sources, to give them the opportunity to get a clearer head, because that's what they need. This is what all caregivers, this is what the human condition is. We need to be able to think clearly. And we can't when we're inundated with all this stress and strain and heartache and grief and resentment and fear and guilt and all the things that are plaguing us as human beings.

But particularly those of us who are in this circle of someone who has a chronic impairment. And if we don't give them a fighting chance, what happens? And yeah, it doesn't necessarily mean they're going to have a nationally seen tragedy like this.

But it doesn't necessarily mean that it won't either. And there are tragedies every day. We as Christians have a responsibility to speak into this. Jesus was extremely clear on this. Sick, naked, hungry, thirsty, prison stranger.

And the whole meaning of Luke 14. Go out to the highways and the byways. Find all these people that are basically disenfranchised, that are crippled, that are blind, that are lame, that are not. Find them. Bring them into the kingdom. In other words, find people who are devoid of hope and provision and sustenance. And bring them into the kingdom. That in a sense is what he is saying.

And if you're doing it unto them, you're doing it unto him. And I don't see that as being front and center in our efforts as believers. And so I want to challenge each of you in this audience. There are a lot of you who have listened to this program for years.

Some of you maybe just the first time. Okay, I get that. But I'm still going to challenge you.

I want to challenge myself. Be cognizant of an opportunity to speak ministry into someone's life. To point them to the Savior.

To point them to the gospel. Jesus said, preach the gospel and make disciples. He didn't say go out and get everybody saved. Okay, now that may shock some of you all. But that's not what he said.

I'm just telling you what he said. Preach the gospel. Let him worry about the saving part.

Let him worry about all that. We are to preach and to teach. We are to go out there and share the good news. Very simply put, we are sinners. We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we're sinners. Do you understand that first? Original sin. That's what this means. We are sinners.

We are not born with the ability to not sin. Okay, that was lost in the garden. There are three imputations. And by the way, I'm giving you a little bit of a crash course on some things. Simply because the more you know, the more simply you can share it with someone else. The more we understand it, the more we can help others understand it better.

Three imputations that were given. When Adam sinned, we all sinned. Scripture says this very clearly.

You all know this. When he sinned, his sin was imputed to all of us. Paul talks about this very clearly in Romans. When Christ went to the cross, our sins were imputed to him. He took on sin. He who knew no sin became sin for us. Okay, that's the second one. But then here's the third one.

And this is the good news. His righteousness was imputed to us. God works on a federal system where he has a representative who represents and satisfies the legal contract here, if you will. That's not exactly the best term, but you get the point. In Adam's case, we were all under his sin.

And people say, well, that's not fair. I wasn't at the garden. No, you weren't. But you weren't at the cross either. We owe an infinite debt because of our sin. Sin is an infinite offense against God. We owe an infinite debt because of sin, this infinite offense, against an infinite God. And the penalty is an infinite punishment. That's the bad news.

Here's the good news. An infinite God made provision to pay that infinite debt to himself on our behalf. That's the gospel. There's an old song we used to sing probably in vacation Bible school. I owed a debt I could not pay. I needed someone to wash my sins away. You remember that little chorus?

Let me go to the caregiver keyboard here. You remember that little chorus? Anyway, that's the gospel. And until we get this into our bloodstream, it's very difficult for us to be able to minister to people who are in dire circumstances. It's always about the gospel. It's always about the gospel. If you cannot tie in as a pastor your message to the redemptive work of God through Christ on the cross, Christ resurrected, Christ ascended, if your sermon is not reflecting that every time, I question whether or not you know the gospel. Every part of scripture points to this. And if you don't think so, I challenge you to read scripture a little more accurately and thoroughly. Because it is always pointing to Christ.

It starts right in Genesis, goes all the way to Revelation. And the more we understand this, the more effectively we can point people to Christ in the midst of their distress. Whether they're wringing their hands over a 20-year-old would-be assassin of the President of the United States, or whether they're a family member struggling with an alcoholic or an addict in their home, or whether somebody's taking care of somebody with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, whatever, it doesn't matter. Whatever the chronic impairment, there's always a caregiver.

And if there's always a caregiver, then you're going to find somebody who is plagued by fear, obligation, and guilt. And if you can't go into that with the clarity of the gospel, then what are you doing? If we can't walk into this boldly, that doesn't mean we have to walk into it brashly, or come up with some kind of great words to say, because we may not know the words. We can groan with them. But if we, like the Apostle Paul talks about, have been crucified with Christ and no longer live the life we live in the body, we live by faith in the Son of God, if that is indeed a description of who we are, then we can go into the most horrific of circumstances with confidence knowing that even through tears and groaning, God's great gospel will never come back void, will never be futile. He tells us this.

We can do this. We don't have to be responsible for results. They may not receive it. They may not like it. They may revile us. They reviled our Savior. Why wouldn't they revile us? But I see nowhere in scripture where we are absolved of the responsibility of speaking into those situations, of ministering to people like this.

There's going to be more coming out about this family of this guy that tried to kill President Trump and did kill Corey Compertory, and the politicians and the pundits and the media and everybody else, they're going to do all these kinds of things. But I'm speaking to you as a fellow believer. What is our responsibility? What is our charge from our Savior? He came into our messed up world and dysfunction and sin and sickness.

He did that for us. Are we withholding that from people? Are we timid about this? I saw a post on social media that was rather an indictment. There are a lot of people in the pro-life evangelical world who are dismayed by a lot of the secular influences in the Republican Party now, particularly with the softer stance on pro-life, particularly with the introduction of a few more things from Sikh and Indian and everything else, other religions. And I get that dismay.

I get it. But the indictment was from another evangelical who said, we've abandoned our post and spent more time on megachurches and inviting people to movie night at our megachurches versus going door to door, going into people's lives, being involved, putting our shoulder to the wheel, getting sweat in the game of changing the culture of this country. We cannot isolate ourselves in our megachurches. We cannot isolate ourselves in our nice, comfortable church surroundings. That does not in any way mesh with what Jesus said. He called us to go into the ick and it's uncomfortable and it's unpleasant. But he did that for us.

Is the servant greater than the master? This is what we're called to do. And if we don't like it, take it up with the one who called you to do it.

I'm just simply telling you what he said. I'm not here to debate the issue and he's going to hold us into account for it. So if we're not happy with where we see things going in this culture, what are we doing about it? I mean, that's that's a good question when you say I know this network is doing something about it.

I mean, the folks at AFR, man, they're putting it on the line every single day, 24 seven. And they will die on this hill of speaking truth to a world that loves the lies. We're not going to help people. We're not going to be able to minister to people. We're not going to be able to help those families with a troubled family member.

If we're not willing to boldly go in and share the gospel. This is Peter Roseberger. That's hope for the caregiver.

We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Roseberger. This is the program for you as a family caregiver. I think I've made the case of what a family caregiver looks like. We we seem to just think we're dealing with people in nursing homes, and clearly that is just not the case. You see it in the White House with a president who is feeble and the first son who is an addict.

And you see the the dynamics of what a caregiver's played out. You see it when you have these horrific events where a deranged individual does things and you're going to find out more and more. The parents of this kid are quite frankly over powered or over matched by the challenges that he was facing. They were simply it was just beyond their abilities to deal with. And they obviously felt this way calling the law enforcement to look for him. They knew something bad was up.

And this more and more stuff is going to come out. There's always a caregiver. There's always a caregiver when it comes to any type of horrific event like you see.

You go back to shootings in Parkland and Florida and in Uvalde and Texas and I just go down the list. And there's always a family member or some type of guardian or responsible party who is weighing in over their heads. And, you know, I've had law enforcement on this program to come on and talk about things. And domestic calls are some of the hardest things that law enforcement have to deal with because it's so unpredictable.

And one of the things I put this in my book in a minute for caregivers. One of the chapters talks about how if law enforcement, when they're called to the scene of a family that's in distress with somebody who is acting out, whether it's through drugs or mental illness, you know, once things settle down and things are going a little bit better, turn to that caregiver who's overwhelmed by this and let them know it's OK for them to get help for themselves. We may not be able to stop some of these horrific things, but at least we give them a fighting chance.

And not just, you know, turn away. I think we have a responsibility as believers for this. So those are my thoughts on this and we'll be unpacking this more. Buckman in Dayton, Ohio, wants to talk about this.

Buckman, welcome to the program. How are you feeling? Hey, I'm doing good, Peter, and thank you for your ministry, brother. And while I never thought of the full scope of what caregiver means to all different types of families and situations, you have really opened my eyes on that, brother. I come from a family that was dysfunctional, mother worked all the time, had a stepdad that really didn't care a whole lot about I, my brothers and my sister. And long story short, Peter, due to a lack of biblical parenting, I would say, I have two dead brothers due to opiates.

And it makes me wonder, after hearing your ministry, if that had a large part. There was a lot of low self-esteem in my home. The kids, when we were younger, we ruled the house. We stayed out as long as we wanted on school nights.

There was no structure. Like I've said to our brother, Robbie Dilmore, my parents, my mother and stepdad, were basically keisters. Christmas and Easter Christians. I know that's kind of funny. But that's about all the Jesus teaching we got. And I want to say this too, brother Peter, is yes, I was listening to your preamble, as you called it, at the beginning of the program. And yes, we need the churches to step up. We need them to come out of their mega church buildings, and we need to minister to hurt and dying lost people. I myself minister to the LGBTQI plus community.

I try to tell them how valuable they really are. At my day job, I'm a supervisor at a lumberyard, Peter, I brought a lesbian woman to Christ. She cried three times. She did not know how much love God really is. And I realized that these folks are cutting themselves, talking about transgenderism, all these, they're cutting themselves just like the bail worshippers that Elijah fought. They're looking for some kind of God to satisfy them, Peter. Well, the only one that I know of and you know of is Jesus Christ. And if we the church stay in our buildings, these people will continue dying.

We have got to go, we have to leave the 99 and go after the one. Well, he said that very clearly in Luke 14, go out to the highways and the byways. I was listening to a televangelist, I won't mention any names, you can look it up, but he was bragging about his extremely large home. Now, that's the context. Now, I'm not here to tell people they can't have a large home.

Wait, no, no, no, it gets worse. I'm not here to tell people they can't have a large home, nice things, we all like them. And however you want to spend your money, that's your business, not mine.

And I don't have to answer for it, you do. But if you're using the ministry to grow wealth, you're doing it wrong. Now, if you've got money coming in from, there's a lot of ways to grow wealth, royalties from book sales and product sales and intellectual property and so forth, and I'm all for that.

I think you should do it. I want everybody to be as successful as they can in how they've been gifted and the skills and the love they have. But he is a minister, that's what he says, he's a preacher. And this house was in excess, and I'm not going to give the number because if you do a Google search on it, then you'll know who it is I'm talking about, but it's in excess of 25,000 square feet. And he's bragging about this.

You can go out and see it. He's also bragging about his private jet and how much God has blessed him for this. Now, again, I'm not here to impugn that in the same sense that maybe a preacher should be in poverty, I'm not going there. What I'm saying is, one day, he's going to have to stand before our Savior, who humbled himself and left everything to come and give everything to us. And he's going to have to answer for that, and I don't want to be a part of that conversation.

I really don't. So as for me, I can't tell him what to do and I'm not telling anybody what to do, I'm just telling you what I'm doing, which is I recognize that one day I have to look my Savior in the eye. And he has gifted me with enormous amount of teaching, enormous amount of pastoral care, enormous amount of people around me who have carried Gracie and I through some very, very difficult things. And one day, I got to look at him and answer for all that he's done, what did I do with that information? Did I just sit there and say, I got mine, y'all get yours? You know, I got my fire insurance, I'm going to go over here and just stay away from all this stuff?

Or did I get my sleeves rolled up and go into the ick of people's lives and be willing to point them to Christ, even if I'm doing it while groaning and weeping with them over their heartache? That's what I've got to answer for. And Bucksman, that's what you've got to answer for.

We all do. We're going to have to look him in the eye, the one who gave everything to come into our ick. And so what I see across the landscape here, this shooting is just another example that there are people in such turmoil, they're so messed up. Sin is a much bigger problem than we think it is.

And it's our responsibility to tell others that the cross is a much bigger deal than they could ever imagine, just like you did with your friend. And just like what happened with you growing up, and yes, the opioids and all that, that was your brother's answer to the pain that they felt was to take opioids. That was their medication. That's how bad their problem was. And family members who have an addict in their lives, they are overwhelmed by this.

They don't know what to do. And to my knowledge, I'm the only one with a national platform that has talked about family members of alcoholics and addicts as being caregivers. But they are.

They absolutely are. If it's a chronic impairment, there's a caregiver. And this young boy, and I'll tell you something else, Buxman, you may not know this, but there was a young guy, it's hard to name, he's a Serbian guy, it's hard to pronounce his name, he was 19 years old. Princip. P-R-I-N-C-I-P. Gavrilo Princip. You know who that guy is?

That I do not know, brother. He was 19 years old, and the driver for this guy was coming, they took the wrong road, and they came down, he assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was the heir presumptive to the throne in Austria and Hungary. This young kid, he was 19 years old, he was so full of hate, he was not very good with a gun, but he had been practicing and hoping to kill a member of the royal family. And he killed this guy because the driver went down the wrong road and brought him face to face. He'd been just thinking about it all the time, and he took the opportunity, shot him, they ended up trying to get to the hospital, they died there on the steps.

A month later, World War I started. A 19 year old kid, we had a 20 year old kid last week, nearly by millimeters missed taking out the former president of the United States and the nominee for this year. And I believe he'll probably end up being the next president of the United States.

We had by millimeters a 20 year old kid. Can you imagine the chaos that this country would be plunged into had he been successful at his mission? We have a responsibility as Christians to speak truth into darkness, and that darkness is great, it is disgusting, it is fearful, it is horrifying, and yet our Savior came into this, he said he has conquered this. Are we going to go boldly into it? And that means going into people's addictions, people's trauma, people's mental illness, people's sickness, cancers, everything with the boldness of the gospel.

And the boldness doesn't mean we don't weep over it, it means that we go in there and we don't shy away from sharing that which we know. Amen, brother Peter, amen to that. Bucksman, I appreciate so much the call, appreciate what you've done, keep praying for that young lady that you were able to point to Christ. Thank you, thank you. And keep praying for that young lady, and well done, and I do appreciate the call. God bless you, Peter.

You too, buddy. This is what I'm talking about, are we willing to get out of our comfort zone? I don't know about you guys, but I would not want to be a part of that conversation. I've got enough that God has had to redeem in my life, and I don't want to give him more to do. And there's already going to be a long line of having to wait while Jesus pulls me aside and says, Peter, we need to talk. There's some things we need to talk about.

I don't want to give him any more. Are we good stewards of the transformative work of the gospel in our own lives by sharing it with others without fear? And sometimes, again, with tears. Can you imagine what these parents are feeling like of this boy who did this? And I don't think it honors God for us to say, well, they deserved it, or they looked down at him. He didn't look down at us.

He condescended to us. Doesn't mean we have to enable, doesn't mean they get a free pass, doesn't mean anything. It just means that are we going to reflect the heart of God into the messy situations?

Are we willing to go into people's ick? Either we believe this, or we do not. I do, and that is why I have hope as a caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger.

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. That is the incomparable Fred Hammond on that great course. Isn't that a great arrangement of that?

And I love those little courses to see what you could do to really lift them up. I remember I played that one Sunday in church, and the pastor told me, he said, when I saw that you were going to play that, I thought, oh, man, he's dragging that thing out from the 70s praise songs. It's going to sound real. And then he heard me play it. I didn't play it as good as Fred Hammond. I'm working on that, by the way. I am working on it. I'm learning how to play a little bit better. I'm taking lessons.

But I love doing, updating stuff like that, because it's a great course. This is the day that the Lord has made. It's a great thing for us to say as caregivers. Do you feel this way?

I mean, you've been hearing me talk about some of the things I've been talking about. This has been a rather serious show, but this is the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. It was the day the Lord has made the day Gracie slammed into that concrete abutment. It was the day the Lord has made when that guy shot President Trump.

Still the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. It doesn't mean that we don't have heartache. It doesn't mean we don't have sadness. It doesn't mean we don't have groaning. It just means that we have a greater hope that transcends all of that.

That is our hope as believers. That our God is an awesome God. I had the privilege of getting to meet and spend a little time with Rich Mullins years and years ago when he was working on that record. No, it was before he did that record. I just got to hang out with him as he was recording. Just a fabulous guy and he wrote that wonderful song. Our God is an awesome God. Then he also did, from Amy Grant's first big record, Sing Your Praise to the Lord.

Come on everybody. Just wonderful artist, songwriter, wonderful guy. He left us with a great library of music and of course the iconic Our God is an awesome God. He's an awesome God no matter what's going on around us. His awesomeness is not tainted by the messed up stuff of this world. In fact, once we see what he's doing with it, it's mind boggling to us to see how he weaves purpose and glory out of the most horrific things. Go back to what Joseph said to his brothers, what you meant for evil, God meant for good. God uses sin sinlessly. Think about that for a moment.

He uses sin sinlessly. That may sound kind of odd to you. You may want to challenge that.

Well, if you do, challenge me. But show me where I'm wrong in scripture. Again, the pinnacle of that is Joseph saying to his brothers, what you meant for evil, God meant for good. And again, the whole thing of the cross. Caiaphas prophesied, he was the chief priest that year, that he prophesied it was better for one man to die than everyone. But he was prophesied, he didn't even know it. He was condemning Jesus to the cross.

That whole machination was done to satisfy their desires, not to accomplish God's purpose, and yet God's purpose was all about that. And that gives me great comfort. That gives me great hope and strength, and that's what allowed Gracie and I both to launch Standing with Hope. Out of the sorrow and the pain of her losing her legs, we created a mechanism for people to get new prosthetics, to be able to walk, to literally stand with hope as we point them to Christ. And we have patients every week that are receiving new limbs or having their limbs adjusted or maintained by the staff that we work with there in Ghana. Trusting in that Savior, that sovereignty, that provision of God, that he uses sin sinlessly, that he is working through things that we consider horrific and sometimes evil, and he will still use those to bring about his purpose and his glory.

That's what gives me the confidence to even come on the air and do this program. You know, think about my journey. It's filled with a lot of wrecks, a lot of carnage, a lot of mistakes. You know, I'm not some scholar. I'm not some insightful church leader.

I'm just a guy who's taking care of his wife for four decades. And I've made every kind of mistake in the book. But I see, I have the benefit now of four decades, and I can see God's hand and his provision. And I can see things that when I was a young man railing against some of these things, I couldn't see it. All I saw was the misery and the discomfort and the heartache and the sadness and the grief and the fear and the guilt.

All of those things. I didn't see anything. I certainly couldn't say, this is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. I couldn't say that for years.

I didn't even want to play that song. Now I do, because I know that every day is an opportunity for me to grow an understanding of what God is doing. I wake up every day excited about going to work, excited about the day.

Every day. Gracie looks at me kind of with a raised eyebrow sometimes. She's like, what's wrong with you? And it's not that she wakes up dour, it's just that I'm excited to go to work. I love going to work.

I love seeing what the day is going to hold. Yeah, I don't always feel great. But that's not the point of feeling better.

The point is being better. And when you have had a transformative encounter with Christ, it changes everything. And there are days that Gracie and I will face that we will weep, we will be frustrated, we will be angry, we will be discouraged. They're coming.

They're going to come. But now I have something that helps me through those things, that helps me transcend that so that I can then in turn help her do the same. I would love to tell you that it's me.

I would love to tell you that I discovered all these things. I haven't. I'm thick-headed as they come. But God, in spite of, or maybe even used by thick-headedness, I don't know, those two greatest words in scripture, but God.

It's not me. And that's why I can join my voice with Fred Hammond. This is the day that the Lord has made. That's why I can go to the caregiver keyboard. You know, that's such a great tune. The simple ones are.

And the simple ones are ones that we remember in the moments when we are faced with distress and those decision points. Are we going to rejoice in this? Are we going to give him the glory in this? We don't have to feign it. We don't have to fake it. We don't have to put on a show about it. When people see it, they know it's real. You know, I don't like it when people pretend to be, oh, God, I'm just blessed.

Blessed, blessed, blessed. And they have these little trite things. We're way past that as caregivers, aren't we?

Way past that. You could smell that stuff a mile away, and I've seen it. I've seen it in so many different people.

And yet I've also seen people in just heartbreaking circumstances who have such a sense of clarity and conviction in knowing their Savior. I'll never forget a lady that called into this program a long time ago when I first started doing this program, many years ago. And I was playing He Touched Me, the Bill Gaither tune. And I was asking people, you know, what was the song? Name that tune, you know, that kind of thing. I ought to start doing that again, don't you think? And she called in, and there was another guy that called in, the pastor, and he was talking about how he was going to use that for his sermon, and he wanted to give me his points, and that was great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, got it. And then I took her call, and she's from North Carolina. I believe her name was Violet. And I said, why is this important to you? Why is this song important to you? She said, oh, because I used to be one way, and I ain't that way no more. Man, I about got choked up. I used to be one way, and I ain't that way no more. That's why we sing, this is the day that the Lord has made. That's why we put legs on people that we'll never meet, that are an ocean away. That's why I come on this program and talk to you, fellow caregiver, caregiver to caregiver.

I used to be one way, I ain't that way no more. He touched me, oh, he touched me, and oh, the joy that floods my soul. Something happened, and now I know.

He touched me and made me whole. Do you know that? As a caregiver, do you know that? I know what you carry is tough. I get it. I know that it's discouraging, and I know the late night conversations with the ceiling fan.

But do you know this? If you don't, today's a great day to start. Today is a great day to start. Thank you for taking the time with me today.

Thank you for listening to me. You can go out to our website, hopeforthecaregiver.com, if you want to see some of the books that I have, the music I have, some other stuff. I'm going to do another CD, but I'm taking piano lessons so I can play a little bit better. I'm not quite up to Fred Hammond's style yet, but I'll get there. And I'm working on some new books that I think you're going to like. You can see my other book. It's a minute for caregivers when every day feels like Monday. And if you want to get involved with Standing With Hope, there's a link there to get involved, and we'd welcome that. We are also giving away our caregiver calendar, and our Healthy Caregivers Make Better caregiver mugs.

There's all kinds of stuff. Take advantage of it, but look and see. Look and see. Healthy caregivers make better caregivers. Today's a great day to start, don't you think?

This is Peter Roseberry. This is 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 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, and 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. 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, 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 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