Boiling Points and Gaslighting

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. Welcome to Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberg and I'm so glad that you are with the program today. This is the program for the family caregiver. For those who are putting themselves between a chronically impaired loved one and even worse disaster. You're doing it without training often. You're doing it without pay, usually.

And more than likely, you're doing it without a lot of sleep. If that sounds like your life, then you are in the right place. And I'm very grateful. I'm very, very glad that you're here with me today. Hopeforthecaregiver.com.

Hopeforthecaregiver.com if you want to see more about what we do, why we do it, how we do it, and the driving force behind it. 65 million Americans and counting are doing this every day on some level. Some people say, well, I'm not doing it like you're doing it.

Well, that doesn't mean anything. You're still doing it. I wrote a book a while back called A Minute for Caregivers when everyday feels like Monday. There are just one minute chapters.

I know my audience. We don't have a lot of time to read things and I put things very concisely that you can pick up, put down. I didn't even put a table of contents in this book. You can just flip to any page.

And you'll find something that's going to help you as a caregiver on that page. And my publisher did something kind of different. They put these little grayed-out balloons over the takeaway sentence from each of those chapters. So the chapter's only one minute.

You literally can... I timed them. And then there's a takeaway sentence from each of those just to hang on to as a caregiver. Something just...

It's called just-in-time stuff, you know? What you need for that moment on demand of helping you as a caregiver get to a place of safety where you can just mentally cool your heels for a minute and catch your breath and find a little bit more stability because it can be unsettling to be a caregiver. And I thought I would share one of those with you in this opening block and it's called When Caregivers Reach the Boiling Point.

You know anything about that? When caregivers reach the boiling point. Does that describe any of you all here?

It certainly describes me. Every caregiver recalls moments when harsh words flew from our mouths. Words we desperately wish to reclaim. Emotions often churn in our hearts like a blender on puree and for caregivers the top seems to fly off and create a mess.

How many of you all have had a blender go off with the top go off and it just makes a mess? Whether expressing frustration or just reaching a boiling point, we can quickly find ourselves spewing words like a fire hose, often destructively. Arguing with an impaired loved one suffering from dementia, mental illness, or addiction is pointless. Unleashing our vexation on family, friends, co-workers, or medical providers only heaps more guilt and sorrow on our already bruised hearts, yet we still need to express ourselves.

The healthier outlet for those feelings is with a trained mental health professional, support group, even a virtual one, clergy, or a trusted friend. We may have to hold our tongues between those moments, albeit with great effort, and it does take great effort. However, and here's that balloon moment, the takeaway, the good news is that we rarely need to make amends for something we didn't say. We don't have to apologize for something we didn't say. How many of us can recall words we wish we could take back?

I know I do. And Ambrose Bierce, the writer said once, speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret. Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret. And you know when we're angry it gives us that burst of energy and things come out in rapid fire succession and sometimes we're extremely clear and we will make great speeches when we're angry and we will regret them. And that's the, sadly it's the human condition, but as caregivers we have this intense chronic stressor that forces these things to the surface. I've said this many times on this program over the years, there's nothing like caring for someone with severe disabilities to expose the gunk that's in one's soul.

Some people have a lifetime without the kind of stressors that we have as caregivers to smooth out some of those rough edges. We don't. And it's going to come out and just, it's going to erupt. It's like that geyser down at Yellowstone that I talked about, it just erupted a week or so ago and it just erupts and there's a lot of destruction with it.

You can learn a lot from watching a geyser or a volcano. And that's what happens to us. And I get it.

I'm guilty of it. This is the story of my life. I've told you often that I'm going to write a book one day called Cringe, My Life as a Caregiver, just all the cringe moments of my life. But you know, the good news is, is that as believers we have been crucified with Christ. We no longer live, as Paul says in Galatians, the life we live in the body as caregivers, the way we speak, our conversations, we live by faith in the Son of God. So even the most mundane things that we think that go on in the body is an act of faith as believers that we're doing. The life I live as a caregiver, the life I live while I'm cleaning the bathroom, the life I live when I'm doing the dishes, when I'm doing the laundry, the life I live while I'm holding my tongue and watching what comes out of my mouth, I live by faith in the Son of God.

That's the practical application of this. We're all familiar with these scriptures. But when it comes to living it out, particularly as caregivers, behind closed doors, this is where the battle is fought. And so the next time you're cleaning up a mess, whether it's an emotional mess or a literal mess, can you remember that verse? I have been crucified with Christ, I no longer live. The life I live in the body, I live by faith. The life I live as I'm cleaning up this mess, the life I live as I'm holding my tongue, the life I live by thinking of Christ as I serve someone who is severely disabled, who is maybe not being very gracious to us, who is maybe being demanding. And think about how we are to Christ, what He did for us.

We were certainly not gracious. I saw a quote the other day from Spurgeon, had he not chosen me, I most certainly would not have chosen him. This sin nature in us makes us all Pelagianist, which is, that's a longer conversation about a theologian who was considered a heretic, who said that somehow we will figure this out basically. I'm paraphrasing for all you theologians, please don't hold it against me. But somehow we're going to figure this out.

Somehow that spark is in us and we're going to give it enough information, we'll figure this out and we'll come to God. No, we will not. We will not. Scripture does not teach that. No one seeks after God. Scripture says, go back and look at Psalm 14.

If you don't believe me, just go take a look at it. We won't do this on our own. And that's why we need a Savior. But we have a Savior and we don't have to do this on our own. And that is the great news of the gospel. We can do these things.

We can control our tongue. We can back away from these things because of the gospel. Because we belong to Christ.

Because of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. That is hope for the caregiver. That's hope for this caregiver to know that I can do this. I can do everything God has asked me to do through Christ.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. 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. Glad that you are with us. We are in election season, by the way. I don't know if y'all know this or not, but I don't know if you pay attention to the news. But we are in the throes of it and it's going to be a brutal season and there's a word that keeps coming to the forefront of just about every conversation that you see on the news if you're a political junkie.

And I confess, I am. I am a political junkie. Now I try to distance myself from it a little bit. And you kind of have to because it is a cesspool. I've got a family member who is involved in a lot of stuff with these political figures and he often asks if he can come out here and just, he said, I live in such a horrific world of all this stuff. It's so toxic and I need to come out there and just put my hands in the dirt and just build some fences, you know, kind of thing. And we're always happy to have somebody come out here and help build fences. There's a lot of fences in Montana that we're going to run out of fence material before we run out of Montana and there's a lot of work that has to be done.

So I'm happy to help with that process with him. But it's, you know, the culture of our society is just so acrimonious and it's really ugly and you're going to start hearing more and more stuff and I'm stunned when I turn on the news just the flippancy of the lies that come out. It just drips out of the media and I'm not talking about necessarily just left wing or right wing.

I look at all of them just kind of like, ugh, you know, but it's important for us to stay engaged. If we don't stay engaged as believers, then where's the salt and the light going to come from? It's not going to come from the world. So we have a responsibility to speak into this, but we need to be, as scripture says, wise as serpent, gentle as doves. And part of that is being forthright and clear in our thinking. How many scriptures come to your mind when we talk about your mind? Like do not be conformed to this world, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Let this mind be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus.

That will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee. There's a lot of stuff about our mind and I sadly think that we as Christians have not trained our minds with the best stewardship that we should. And as caregivers, we sometimes give ourselves the excuse of not pushing ourselves mentally because we're so busy trying to survive and that's got to stop, okay? I'm telling you with four decades of experience, I do not get an excuse to just shelf my mind until my caregiving responsibilities abate. I don't get to do that.

I have to push myself all the time to keep my mind sharp and part of that is knowing your scriptures and understanding what the word of God says and being able to speak clearly and discern what's going on. And you're going to hear this term called gaslighting. You already hear it a lot. Do you know where that came from? There was a movie that was based on a book a British author wrote and I think it was a British film and it was back in the 40s and this husband who appeared to be nice and sincere, they had gas powered lights in the home. That's what they used to do back then. And he would turn down or turn up the lights to confuse his wife who was very wealthy and he was trying to basically have her committed, make her think she was insane so that he could get all of her money and he was seemingly a caring, doting husband but what he was doing was very manipulative and he was purposely doing things that would make her question her own sanity. And so he would turn the lights way up and say, are the lights brighter? No.

The lights are same. You know, that kind of thing. That's where the term came from. Gaslighting. He's manipulating through deceit to get them to question their own sanity.

Get her, in this case, her and this is what you see on the media and if you learn to discern what they do, you won't be hooked into their stuff. There's a lot of things like medias will say, the journalists, it's hard to call them journalists because they're really not, they're really scribes for their agenda. But they will say, well you and I both know or as you well know and then they'll finish that. No, I'm not agreeing with you off the top.

You state what you believe and then I'll respond to it. But when your journalist says, well as you and I know or as we both know or as you well know, that is a hook to get you into manipulation. Now, why am I telling you this? Because this happens all the time for us as caregivers, particularly those of you who are dealing with somebody who is an alcoholic or an addict. There is a gaslighting effect going on because alcoholics lie.

That's what they do. Addicts lie. Their addiction is more important to them than the truth. Their addiction to them is more important to them than their relationships. And until they are able to surrender that and reach the point where they turn themselves over to God, that will continue.

And those of you in a relationship with somebody like that, it's important that you understand it. And it's important to see what's going on in the world around you. And I'm not doing this just for your own benefit. I'm dealing with this for the, I'm talking about this for the benefit of people in your circle, people that you will have access to, to be able to speak, to educate, because that is our primary purpose on this planet is to export the things of God.

Jesus said, go ye therefore into all the world, preach the gospel and make disciples. Well, how are you going to do that if you're not able to communicate to people with clarity, with understanding and cut through all the gaslighting that's going on? And you will see a lot of this in this election season. Everybody's got to spin. In fact, they call after a debate and things like that, they call it the spin room. They're spinning the truth. They're gas. They're still gaslighting. They're trying to tell you something you didn't hear. Are you going to believe your lying eyes kind of thing. And so we have got to be aware of this as believers to speak with clarity into the midst of all this murkiness.

I'll give you an example. When it comes to the theological things, when God is love, how can you preach a God of love? He's going to send people to hell.

As sinners, we have no place but hell as our destination. It is only by his mercy that he redeems. He is not obligated to show mercy. His justice is obligated to show punishment and wrath. Do you understand the difference?

So you see how that language is co-opted? Yes, he is a God of love. He's also a God of justice, and that justice cannot overlook sin. And if we don't know how to say these things with clarity to people, then we're just going to be promulgating this cheap grace gospel, and that grace was not cheap. That grace is never cheap. It came at an unfathomable cost, and we were rescued by a savior who paid the ultimate cost, just like Aslan said to Lucy in the line of the witch in the wardrobe when she begged him, she said, can't anything be done about Edmund?

And Aslan said to her, all shall be done, but it may be harder than you think. Do you see the clarity now that has that? And so when people come to you and say, well, I think it doesn't matter what we think. If somebody opens up a phrase, well, I think your opinion, however important to you, does not trump scripture. What does scripture have to say about it? If we do not constantly anchor ourselves in scripture, we are easily pulled into the weeds on all kinds of crazy stuff. People come up to you and say, well, the Lord told me, wait a minute, hold on, let me get my pen and paper, because you're having divine revelation I need to add to scripture. Because you're saying God is telling you something, and that is in addition to scripture, are you saying that you have more information than scripture?

Do you see how important it is to be precise in our language? So when somebody comes up to you and says, well, the Lord told me that you're going to... I told you this story. These ladies came up to Gracie and I when Gracie was wrestling with her first amputation, and they said, the Lord told us that Gracie is going to be healed in June, and she's not to do the surgery.

It was scheduled for March, back in 1991. And if you do the surgery, you're being disobedient. Well, we were in our twenties, we were kids. I didn't know how to respond to that. I do now. And that's why I want to make sure that every one of you all are better equipped. So you don't have to fall prey to people who will gaslight you, who will make you question your faith, make you question your sanity, all these things. I want you to understand what scripture says, not what knuckleheads say.

Did you notice how the restraint that I just used with my brain had a collision with my mouth? And that is an evidence, that is evidence of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. But these people will hurt you. People will say things to you that will hurt you. They will lie and they will deceive and they will often use things of scripture to do so.

They will twist things around. It is the oldest playbook in Satan's game plan to question the veracity of the word of God. Hath God said? If you go back and look at this, this is exactly what Satan does. Questions the word of God. And if you start questioning the word of God, which is truth, go back to gaslighting. If you start questioning what is true. That poor woman saw that the lights were brighter.

Somebody turned them up. She shouldn't have listened to that guy. She should have believed what she was seeing right in front of her. And what we have as believers is scripture right in front of us. And if you are confused and if you are uncertain, if you are unclear, go back to scripture. And anybody that is in your circle that advises you or encourages you or whatever that you've got that you look to for counsel, if they're not anchoring in the truth of scripture, flee them. Get away from them. Because they're just going to give you pablum. Unless they are anchored in the very truth of scripture, there's no other place to go.

How do I know this? Because I've failed miserably in all of these areas. And I listened to people that I shouldn't have listened to.

I got hooked into things that I shouldn't have gotten hooked into. But I'm here with a lot of scars on me from going down some very painful roads to say to you, my fellow caregivers, back away from that. Go back to the Word of God. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end.

That word have I hid in my heart that I may not sin against thee. Do you see how all these things start settling us down as caregivers? This is really important for us to understand. So I'm asking you to watch these kinds of things that are hitting our society. Watch this terminology so that we can be healthier as caregivers and healthy caregivers.

Say it with me. Healthy caregivers make better caregivers. That is hope for the caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us.

This is Peter Rosenberger. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. Hopeforthecaregiver.com. A lot of stuff going on out at that website.

I hope you'll take a look and check it out. We've got our Substack page. We've got the blog post. We've got books. We've got audio.

We've got video. We've got all kinds of things we'd love for you to take advantage of to go out and strengthen you as a family caregiver plus our podcast. You can listen to wherever podcasts are distributed.

They're everywhere. There's over 800 episodes. I put this program out and other things that I do, bonus things. It's a free podcast, so please take advantage of it. Caregiving's hard. Why do it alone?

Friends don't let friends care give alone. I hope you will take advantage of that. I've tried to put out a lifetime of experience to offer a lifeline to fellow caregivers. You can follow along on all of our social media accounts, Facebook, Hope for the Caregiver. There's a Facebook group, Hope for the Caregiver. There's our Xfeed, Hope for Caregiver.

That's the number four, Hope for Caregiver, LinkedIn, YouTube page. It's all out there. We're everywhere that stuff is. I would welcome you joining with us. The Facebook group is a private group that you have to join just to answer a few questions. I administer the group, so we keep things on the rails there, but it's just a great place to connect with other caregivers. Like I said, I've got it all out there.

Please take advantage of it. Don't try to shoulder this burden alone. It's just too difficult. I want to go back to what we were talking about in the last block about gaslighting. And I know what you're saying, Peter, what does that have to do with being a caregiver? Well, people are going to try to gaslight you as a caregiver. Maybe your loved one's doing that.

Doctors, friends, pastors, who knows? There's lots of people in our lives. The truth is very difficult to discern sometimes with certain people, particularly the media right now.

Because, I mean, raise your hands. Do you trust the media? Do you trust journalists? Do you trust the news? Who do you listen to that you trust, you feel like is being accurate or truthful with you?

ABC, CBS, Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, who do you trust to deliver accurate news? Every time I turn it on, I'm just kind of amazed. I watch them manipulate and take things out of context or just nowadays they're not even taking it out of context. They're just out and out lying to you. You see it almost every broadcast. If you're really doing a fact check, remember that lady who Mary Poppins her way through the misinformation thing and she sang that tune about that.

It was the most cringing thing of all. But if they had somebody really fact checking journalists, and that's part of the reason we're in the situation we're in as a country right now. We have several reasons, but one of them is we have a media, a journalist profession that's not doing their job. Because their job is not to be liked by the people in power. Their job is to question the people in power. That's the whole point of the First Amendment.

And we're not using that properly because we have people that have abandoned those ideals. The second reason, and I love that Joe Biden came out the other day and wanted term limits for the Supreme Court, but he didn't want term limits for Congress. And I wrote about this a while back about when these people stay in Congress too long. My brother was telling the story once of Strom Thurmond, a senator from South Carolina many years ago, who was in his 90s there, and he was at a reception and they looked over and he's stuffing buffalo wings down in his coat pocket, and the sauce was dripping out of his coat pocket.

AIDS quickly ushered him away, and the guy was fourth in line to the presidency at that point. And then you have, you saw the thing with Dianne Feinstein and so many others who stay on, we got a congressman from Georgia who was concerned about Guam tipping over when we put too many Marines on it. Go look it up. Don't take my word for it.

Just go look it up. He said the word. He was concerned that the Marines, there were so many Marines being stationed on Guam that it would tip over. So you got that problem going on with Joe Biden's coming out and saying we need to limit the Supreme Court because, as Karine Jean-Pierre said the other day, that they are a threat to democracy. Everything's a threat to democracy that they don't agree with. Have you noticed that? And so that's the kind of thing that you're going to see more and more with gaslighting and trying to tell you that you really don't know what's going on. And I will tell you one of my first, not first experience with this, but one of the most glaring experiences I had with this was in a church conflict. There ain't no fight like a church fight.

This was some years ago and I remember going to one of the elders of the church and I said, look, what's going on? He said, well, it's complicated. I said, no, my wife's medical history is complicated. Read me into this. I think I can keep up. I've done pretty well with that. I've navigated through all that quagmire of 100 plus doctors in 13 different hospitals.

I think I can keep up. So he said it's complicated. I was talking to another elder and he didn't want to tell me anything, by the way. This guy didn't want to bring, he didn't want to go there.

He kind of kind of huffed a little bit. So I went to another elder. I said, what's going on? He said, well, you don't know the history. I said, well, the church is only 25 years old and I've been here 15 years of that. So what am I missing? You know, and I'm engaged in the church.

And I realized those two statements are really foundational when people are trying to gaslight you and tell you things that keep you in your place. You're not smart enough because it's too complicated. You're just not smart enough. You need to leave that to us.

Or you're not important enough, you don't know the history. You see what they did there? And that's the kind of thing that happens. And then there's a third tool that they use, and I want you to see these things because once you see it, you can't stop seeing it.

It's there in front of you all the time. And the other one is, these people, when they're trying to do these things, they will accuse you of what they do. So every time you hear them saying, well, you are, or he is, they're saying, really I am.

Okay, follow that bouncing ball a little bit. So they are accusing you of what they do. And that is how they manipulate the conversation. And as Christians, we're called upon to be gentle as doves, but wise as serpents. Well, are we handling these kinds of things with wisdom? Are we speaking into these things with wisdom and discernment and understanding? Or are we just constantly playing defense? And if you'll notice something about Jesus, and I didn't really see this until I started doing a deep dive, God, throughout the entire Old Testament, and then when Jesus comes on the scene in the New Testament, but if you notice, God doesn't play defense.

Do you notice that? Go look at a situation where God is playing defense. God's not there. Jesus never went on defense.

And he's not trying to say, well, you know, just, you need to understand. No, he is speaking with clarity, and I love the word kairos, because that's the Greek word for time, appointed time. And you'll see that in Scripture a lot, at that time, at that time, this was not reactive.

This was deliberate, intentional, decreed by God. We are the temples of the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit resides in us. We have the truth of God in Scripture.

Are we just casually in a relationship like that? Or are we able to go into this world addressing the issues that Paul talks about in 2 Timothy 3? Paul was saying, understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty, for people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure. I mean, the list goes on and on. I mean, Paul was pretty exhaustive in this list of, this is what you will find, the human condition on full display. And a lot of people think, you know, I'm a sinner because I sin.

No. You sin because you're a sinner. I sin because I'm a sinner. We are sinners and we don't realize how big a problem this is. And even saved from the wrath of God through the redemptive work of Christ, we are spending a lifetime in sanctification.

That's a word we don't talk about a lot because that's when people get nervous. But God is interested in a pure and holy bride. Is He coming back to one? Well, He is, and He's going to make sure of it, but it's going to be uncomfortable for a lot of people. We have a responsibility to study and show ourselves approved, to be able to speak with clarity the truth of God to a world that is openly now, I mean, without any reservation, railing against that truth, just like they did with Jesus. And Jesus said it's going to be just like it was in the days of Noah.

So that's the bad news. The good news is our God is sovereign. If He is Lord at all, then He is Lord of all.

And He didn't ask us as consultants, He asked us to be obedient. So are we going into these troubled places? Are we going into this quagmire stuff? Are we going to be arguing and trying to be amateur apologetics, you know, professors? Or are we going to go in there with the calmness and assurance of the gospel and speak with it and let God deal with the results of it? I mean, I know there are some people who like to argue and they get into the matters of the faith and they want to argue. If you want to see an example of that, just go out on X, what used to be Twitter, and you'll see it.

There's just constant argument. I don't think that that serves any of us well. You don't need to get embroiled in that sort of thing. We have work to do. There are people's lives who are in shambles. As a caregiver, you know this. You don't need people to argue with you about the things of God.

You need people to walk with you and minister to you the things of God and speak with clarity into your distress. See, that's the whole point of this. I'm not here just wanting to make sure caregivers don't die. You know, that I'll say, okay, here, take care of yourself. I mean, any idiot can tell you that. You need a special kind of idiot to tell you the things I'm telling you.

No, I'm just kidding. We're not here to talk about the basics. We're here to grow up and be adults so that not only can we strengthen ourselves like David did at Ziklag in the Lord, but we can be a source of strength and comfort to others.

As Paul says in Corinthians, comfort one another with the same comfort you yourself have received from the God of all comfort. That's the point. We can't do that if we're so twisted around because we've been gaslit by a bunch of people, that we've been deceived by a bunch of people. We don't know what's truth. We don't know what's right. We don't know what's up.

We don't know what's down. And once we understand those basic, firm principles, how firm a foundation is Jesus our Lord, that great hymn, then we can go into this troubled world and speak with clarity and point people to Christ with clarity. People whose lives may be like yours and mine have been in dire circumstances as caregivers. This is Peter Rosenberg and we'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberg. That's my wife. And we're trying to get her over a little bit of a hurdle right now that is our immediate goal so that she can get out and start recording some more music. And I've got a bunch of songs waiting on her, so I appreciate your prayers for her. You know, she's a remarkable woman. If you want to learn more about her, go out to the website, hopeforthecaregiver.com. You see a little bit more of her story, her book. And I stand in awe.

We're getting ready to celebrate our 38th anniversary, which is quite astonishing given the things that we have endured as a couple. And so anyway, I brag about her a little bit. I also want to brag about her vision of standing with hope in the prosthetic limb ministry she created in their patients every week getting a new leg because of her, because she trusted God with her pain. And you can see more about that as well. Just go to Hope for the Caregiver.

It'll take you to standing with hope and you see all those kinds of things. And we regularly supply the clinic we work with in Ghana with carbon fiber and we buy resin there locally. We can get it there in Ghana locally.

We send supplies over prosthetic socks, components from used limbs. By the way, sorry if I sound so congested. We've got a lot of smoke out here and so forth in Montana's fire season, so I apologize for that. I'll get it worked out.

Don't adjust your dial. I've got Bill Clinton talking to you, I promise you it's not. But we send over supplies and I've got a big shipment of things going here right now. You can be a part of this. You can go to Hopeforthecaregiver.com and you can see where it says to donate. If you want to be a part of this, if you give monthly, we've got a special gift I've been giving out and people have been getting them and everybody that's got them has just loved them.

They said they're just really beautiful. And that's our caregiver calendar for 2025. And I am quite proud of it. People love the pictures I take out here in Montana where we live. And so I put together a caregiver calendar that's got quotes on every picture for every month except for one.

And there's a reason I did that. It was for May and it was Memorial Day and I just felt like it didn't need the quote. And I put a quote of things I've said over the years and this is just pictures of where we live. The front cover of it is our driveway. And I think you'll be quite moved and if you want to be a monthly supporter of this ministry, we'll send you one of those.

Okay? So you can go out there today and get involved. We also have a Healthy Caregivers Make Better Caregivers Tumblr that I made. And there's a lot of things you can do. People give away different kinds of thank you gifts and I wanted things to be very personal from us of things that reflect who Gracie and I are.

And in the past we'd given away a copy for a CD and things such as that. So we want to do something to show our appreciation of you helping us do what we do. Couldn't do it without you. And I do thank you. And I thank you for the calls and the letters that we receive. I got to talk with the listener this week who's going through some very difficult things with his wife.

It's very challenging. And we take that sort of thing seriously here. And I get it. I actually called him up.

We talked for a while because he warranted a call. I can't do that for everybody. You know, I'm still a full-time caregiver. But I try to do it as best as I can because I know how lonely I felt. When nobody knew what to say to me.

Nobody knew how to speak to me. And I'm changing that. And I'm giving that vocabulary to my fellow caregivers and to people who love caregivers so that they have the words of knowing what help looks like. And I learned that. You know what I learned that from? It may surprise you, I learned that from Jeff Foxworthy. His comedy, he said he knew he was onto something with You Might Be a Redneck when he saw people in the audience, like wives hitting their husbands saying, you do that. Or husbands either elbow their wives and say, yeah, that's you, that's you. You know, like, you know the old one, if your mom or your sister ever got their hair caught in a ceiling fan, you're probably a redneck kind of thing. And he saw people were elbowing each other, self-identifying as such.

But nobody had ever said it. And I thought, you know, as caregivers, how many of us don't really know that that's what we are? And that's why when I've explained this in many interviews that I've done with folks in the media, I explain why I call people in relationship with alcoholics or addicts caregivers. They've never thought of themselves as such, but I do because it's a chronic impairment.

Wherever there's a chronic impairment, there's a caregiver. And I am determined to speak to those individuals the same way I wish people had spoken to me. But they didn't have the words.

They didn't have the vocabulary. And I'm changing that. And if you don't know what to say to a caregiver, don't worry about it, I do. That's what my book is all about. And I'm writing more and I'm very pleased to say that I've got a... There's a magazine that LifeWay puts out called Mature Living. And they are making me a featured columnist for 2025. I've been writing as a guest columnist, but now they want me to be a featured columnist because they really want to take on this challenge to reach family caregivers. They recognize the need is growing and so they've asked me to write an article every month.

And I've actually got one in October, another one in December, and then my regular column starts for January. So you can go out to LifeWay Publications right now and if you want to get that magazine, I would highly recommend it. There's some great stuff in there and I'm very honored to be a part of that journey with them to write to my fellow caregivers. To my best abilities, I'm going to push back against the thought that, well, I don't know what to say to a caregiver so I just won't say anything. I'm not going to accept that because I do know what to say to a family caregiver. I do know what to offer. And if you don't, read my book, listen to my show and you'll learn because it's not about going in there and solving their problems because we can't.

You can't solve my issues with Gracie any more than I can solve yours. That's not the purpose, that's not the goal, that's not feasible. That's an issue only God can rectify. But we can build one another up, we can encourage one another, we can point one another to safety with clarity and compassion the same way we want people to do for us. Just point me to safety.

Tell me where solid ground is. What does the gospel mean? How can I trust in a good and loving God when I see such suffering? These are questions that caregivers have. Are we prepared to answer them? Or are we just going to simply wring our hands and, well, I'll pray for you brother.

You know, James talks about that in the book of James when you say to somebody, be warm and filled with the Spirit but you don't give them what's necessary for the body. You as a caregiver understand what it's like to be in such distress. Otherwise you wouldn't be listening to this program. You understand it. Now what are we going to do about the others who haven't heard what we're talking about here?

Who don't know? Who are just like you and me beforehand? Are we going to speak to them?

And if so, what are we going to say? I'm not doing this just so I can hear myself talk every week. I'm doing this because I feel an urgency and a sense of obedience.

Scripture says, comfort one another with the same comfort that we ourselves have received from the God of all comfort. Gracie did this with prosthetic limbs. She understands how quality prosthetic limbs can change an amputee's life. And so she helps provide a limb even from her broken body and points people to Jesus.

Same thing with this program. Now what are you doing? Where does God have you? Who is in your sphere of influence? Who can you minister to? Who are you lifting up? Who are you pointing to Christ? The more you do it, even out of your distress, I promise you, the more crystallized your thinking will be, the stronger your faith will be, the more passionate you'll be about serving God because you'll strengthen yourself every time you do it. David did this at Ziklag. I've told you this. I said at the last block, I love that story, that his own men were going to stone him and yet he strengthened himself from the Lord.

He encouraged himself from the Lord. You don't need to go look for people. They're all around you. You just need to be willing to see them and speak to them and ask them, how are you feeling? Sometimes it's just a simple thing of looking at a caregiver and saying, I see you and I see the magnitude of what you carry and I hurt with you. I mean, if somebody said that to you in your distress, how would you feel about that? How would you respond to that?

It would have pierced all the way to your heart and it would have moved you to tears because somebody saw you. Let's export that. Let's do this for others.

That's the whole point of this. The more we give it away, the stronger we become, the more peaceful we become, the more focused we become, the more we give it away, the more we export this great news, the more settled our hearts become, the more we're able to plow into the lives of others the great news of the gospel, the healthier we become. Healthy caregivers, say it with me, healthy caregivers make better caregivers. This is Peter Rosenberg and this is Hope for the Caregiver, hopeforthecaregiver.com.

Thanks for giving me the hour today. 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 Core Civic. 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 Core Civic came along, I was sitting on the floor at our house or out in the garage and we lived in Nashville and I had tools everywhere, limbs everywhere and feet, boxes of them and so forth.

I was doing all this myself and I'd make the kids help me and it got to be too much for me. So I was very grateful that Core Civic stepped up and said, look, we are always looking for faith-based programs that are interesting and that give inmates a sense of satisfaction and we'd love to be a part of this and that's what they're doing. You can see more about that at standingwithhope.com slash recycle. So please help us get the word out that we do recycle prosthetic limbs. We do arms as well, but the majority of amputations are lower limb and that's where the focus of Standing With Hope is. That's where Gracie's life is with her lower limb 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. Take my hand, lean on me, we will stand.