An Exceptionally Well Lived Life

Welcome to Hope for the Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the program for you as a family caregiver. Why do we need a program for family caregivers? Well, I'll tell you why.

I'll give you 65 million reasons why. Because that's how many right now in this country are serving a chronically impaired loved one. That's a lot of people. That's one-fifth of the population of this country are dealing with this and more are going to continue to do so. You multiply that across the world and you're dealing with enormous numbers of people who are straining under the challenges of caring for an impaired loved one with some type of chronic issue that's not going to get better. Somebody asked me the other day, you know, aren't parents caregivers? We're kind of caregivers, aren't we, as parents or grandparents?

No. The tasks intersect but with a child there is the expectation that the child will grow and gain agency and independence and be able to go off and take care of themselves. When there's a chronic impairment that expectation is gone. It's not going to get better. It's not going to change.

In fact, it may very well get worse. It doesn't mean that the individual is suffering in the sense that they are in pain and distress physically all the time. I mean, think about it with a child with autism, for example, or Down syndrome. There are certain challenges and emotional things and so forth that people go through with it of accepting and dealing with those kinds of things.

But there's not chronic pain involved like somebody who has orthopedic trauma, for example, like Gracie does. And so there's just various kinds of suffering, different kinds of suffering, but the challenges themselves are not going to go away and somebody is going to have to stand in the gap with that individual. Are you that individual that's doing that? Are you the one that's standing in the gap? If so, you're in the right place and I'm glad that you're here.

If you're not the one who's standing in the gap, give it time. You most likely will be because if you love somebody, you're going to probably be a caregiver. If you live long enough, you're going to probably need one. So this is why I do this program because I understand after four decades of this how difficult the journey is to care for somebody with a chronic impairment. I've learned this the hard way in very difficult challenges.

Lots of hospital rooms, lots of late night, lots of dealing with logistics and doctors and pharmacists and all that kind of stuff. When you have somebody with the kind of challenges my wife does, 86 surgeries facing down the barrel of the 87th coming up, you learn a few things about life, love and faith. Where is God in all this? What does it look like to be a believer when dealing with this relentless onslaught of challenges?

What does scripture say about it? How do you have a marriage? How do you carve out those things? These are all things that we explore on this program and I'm really glad that you're with us. I have a lot of resources that I do for my fellow caregivers. One of those is at my Substack page, caregiver.substack.com. And I have a lot of material that I put out there, audio, video and print. Some of it you have to subscribe for, others you don't. It's just free content I put out there. Every Monday I put out one based on my last book which is called A Minute for Caregivers When Every Day Feels Like Monday. And there's one out there today that I think you all might find very meaningful.

The title is called Are They Seen? Hardly the stereotyped, smiling, uniformed women pushing the elderly in the park. Family caregivers are an often overlooked army orbiting every type of chronic impairment. That's you.

That's me. We don't look like uniformed attendants pushing the elderly in the park, I promise you. Trauma, disease, including addiction, disorders, mental illness. Look closely and you'll see a caregiver. Caregiving affects every demographic, even children, without respect for race, religion, gender or economy.

And ask caregivers how often they get to a park. Admittedly, it's challenging to know what to say to this unpaid and mostly untrained workforce of 65 million Americans. Caregivers themselves struggle with identifying their own needs and a loved one's challenges often overshadow the caregiver's struggles. Sadly, not knowing what to say leads to nothing said, which perpetuates the isolation. But just a few words could make a huge difference in engaging the weary heart of a caregiver. People have often asked me, you know, I don't know what to say. What do you say to a caregiver? So I'm going to give you some words. This started so long ago for me because I understand what it's like to not be seen. And even though people could see my body, they could see my face, they didn't see my heart, they didn't understand what was going on in me and I didn't have the vocabulary to express it very well.

That's changed now. I've literally written the book for caregivers, written several of them and got more coming. And if you don't know what to say to a caregiver, I do.

Use my words until you are able to land comfortably with your own. You could start with this. I see you and I see the magnitude of what you carry and I hurt with you.

Start with that. That is how you approach a caregiver who is struggling under a very difficult burden. Words can offer little to ease a caregiver's challenges.

It's true. Yet being seen, appreciated and respected by others does wonders to bolster caregivers' weary hearts. And it's all about equipping them to endure, to be strong. William Blake once wrote, Can I see another's woe and not be in sorrow too? Do we see another's woe?

If not, I've got to ask you, why not? Because our Savior sees ours. And if we are to bear the name of Christ, then we would be well served to see others' woes so that we may better serve Him and minister to those in those woes. And that's from my book, A Minute for Caregivers, when every day feels like Bundy. I hope you'll get a copy of it and share it with somebody else too. Maybe your pastor or counselor.

I don't want anyone to be without a vocabulary to minister to this vast group of people who desperately need it. And I'm going to recognize one particular caregiver in the last part of this block and then the rest of the program I'm going to talk about that journey. And that is my mother. My mother listens to this program every week. And she and I talk after the program and she tells me what she thinks of it. And she tells me what she thinks of my work.

She's an extraordinary woman. But she's been taking care of my father. And she's had a lot of help. And my son lives there with him.

Our youngest son does and has helped. I have two brothers and a sister that live in town with her. And we've had people coming in. But mom's borne the brunt. And she's been taking care of my father. I just returned earlier this week. We buried my father.

And it's been quite a journey. Mom got to wake up with dad on his last day. She sat by his bedside in her recliner as he was breathing his last. And the last morning they had together, they woke up holding hands.

66 years of marriage. Mom doesn't have very good vision. She can't see very well. But what she's able to see with her heart is extraordinary. And she took care of our father.

And did an amazing job. And we're rallying around to take care of her. Because we all see her.

And mom, you're listening to the program right now. And I want you to know that you may not be able to see very well. But we see you. And we see the magnitude of what you've carried. We hurt with you, but we rejoice with you in an exceptionally well-lived life.

Not just of dad's, but of yours. And I could not be more proud. Anything that I do on this program and my books and everything else, please know that I do them. Because you modeled for me. And I'm most grateful. I thank you all for allowing me a personal moment. And I'm going to take some more time on this program. It's my show. So I think I'm going to take some time to talk about two people that I admire most in this world. And that's my parents.

We'll be back in just a moment. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Hope For The Caregiver. Welcome back to Hope For The Caregiver.

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the program for you as a family caregiver. And today I'm going to do something rather personal to me. And I'm going to talk about my father. We had his service last Sunday.

And it was a service that was so fitting for his life. I want to tell you a little bit about my family. I have four brothers and a sister.

She's the baby. We all talked several times over the last, actually, we talk all the time regularly. We try to get together on Zoom meetings and phone calls and so forth.

We talk individually. Then as a group we kind of get together because we live all over. I have one brother lives in Utah and another that lives in Washington, D.C. Three that live in South Carolina. Three siblings live there. And then I live in Montana. And my one brother in D.C. is often overseas.

He works for the State Department. And so he is not close by, but he has been as of late. And so that's been great to have that. But we're a very close family. We get along and we're in agreement on most things. Not everything, of course. But that's a real testament to our father because one of the things we've said to each other is that none of us had unfinished business with him.

Not a lot of people can say that. And it was deeply moving for the six of us to come together and recognize that everything that needed to be said with our father had been said. Everything we needed to hear from him had been said. None of us looked over our shoulders and wondered, did he love us? Did he approve of us? None of us.

I have no memory of that. In fact, I will tell you that I have no memory of my father ever saying that something was his. That's mine. That's mine. Other than referring to me or one of my siblings. We were his.

We belong to him. Again, not everyone can have that. Now Dad didn't have a role model as a father. He didn't come from a very good family situation.

And nor did my mother, for that matter. Which is sad. But the two of them have a life that is the envy of so many. Married for 66 years.

Their anniversary was just two weeks ago. And they have six children. All of us are married. All of us are believers.

All of our spouses are believers. They have 17 grandchildren. About, I forget, well over half of the grandchildren are married, I think. And then there's now 26 great-grandchildren.

And that's just going to grow exponentially. I think there's 68 of us total. 40-something were at the funeral. Not all of the great-grandchildren and the grandchildren's spouses could come in. Out of the grandchildren, three of 17, three of them were not able to come.

But the representation was strong from every family. And it was a service that Mom was very firm on some things. And I hope Mom doesn't mind me sharing these things.

If she does, it's too late. She wanted a private graveside service. And she didn't feel, nor did the rest of us feel, that it was necessary to bring in another pastor. The six of us did this. And I had one brother that officiated at the graveside, but we all participated. And then we all did the service. But she said, I want to have the burial first, and then we're going to go have church. Then we're going to worship. We're going to rejoice.

And we're going to give God the glory. And I thought that was really wise and appropriate. It was just Mom and her children and her great-grandchildren she wanted at the graveside.

And I really respect that. And it was well done. And there were very moving things said by the family there. Dad lived an exceptional life. And my brother-in-law and my four brothers and I were pallbearers. And we carried our father as he had carried us for a lifetime. At the service, I did all the music.

I did a prelude music and I did songs that he'd been singing for these last several months. Even as Parkinson's just slowly chewed away at his mind. And what a mind my father had.

Oh, an exceptional mind. He had his doctorate in ministry, Master of Divinity, and he'd been a minister for many, many years. And he had a keen mind for reading, studying, and connecting dots.

A very wise, keen mind. And he spoke with such precision into people's lives. And the last several months, though, Mom said he started singing more and more of the Simple Praise songs.

And so I wanted to do some of those things. My friend Alan Knoll, he joined me on the soprano sax. Alan and I have been playing music together for decades. And he lives there and loved my father. And I knew Alan's parents very well.

They've gone on a long time ago to be with the Lord. Alan's a little bit older than I am. And I was playing and he touched me. It was the first prelude song I did. And I stopped in the middle because I saw the hospice attendant that had taken care of Dad at the home.

And it really had meant so much to Mom. And he came in and I went and stopped the music and got him to come up and sit at the choir loft with me and Gracie and Alan and my best friend. Jamie that was there and several others right there in the front of the church.

I wanted him there. And he's got an amazing voice and he would sing along with us during the prelude stuff. And then we did Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus. Alan was singing that with Dad just the Monday before he passed away. And Dad was not responding but Alan was singing it with him.

And I did several other songs that Dad loved and then Alan did a solo piece on Amazing Grace just him on the soprano sax. It was just very moving. And then as my family came in I played it as well with my soul. They brought my family in and the whole congregation just broke out spontaneously singing it as well with my soul. Before the service even started as the family was coming in. The family started doing it. It was just really beautiful. And that's one of the things that my mother wanted.

My sister told me that too. They wanted to have church. And so we sang that. Then my brother Richard welcomed everyone. My brother Tom gave the invocation and then we opened up with Greatest High Faithfulness, one of Dad's favorite hymns. And I got to tell y'all I laid into it.

I mean I really did. I did not hold back because he wouldn't want me to. He loved that hymn. Then each of us took a portion of Dad's life. He had a lot of titles. He was a pastor. He was a chaplain in the Navy. Each of us took an aspect of his life and we shared our commentary on that and our relationship with our father. And it was really quite moving. We didn't compare notes either by the way.

That's important because there was a common thread that went through the whole thing. And I'll tell you that in a minute. My sister, when she got up, she referenced Psalm 118, 1-29, and she did this with our mother. And she went down and my mother can't see very well and she doesn't stand very well either. And as I call up Mom sometimes, how you doing Mom? Well I can't see too good. I can't hear too good.

I can't walk too good but I'm doing pretty good. Now you know where I get my humor from. Not from Dad.

I get it from Mom. But she went down to my mother and she held the microphone there and they read Psalm 136. And every line has a refrain after it. So the first line is, give thanks to the Lord for He is good. And then the refrain is, for His steadfast love endures forever. And my sister had the entire congregation repeat that after she and Mom would read the line, the first part of it and then everybody would say, For His steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord of Lords, for His steadfast love endures forever. To Him alone who does great wonders, for His steadfast love endures forever. To Him who by understanding made the heavens, for His steadfast love endures forever. And it just became this crescendo throughout the congregation of saying this.

Making a statement. And then my brother John spoke. John's a builder and he talked about the foundation that God built in his life through the ministry of my father. The foundation of the word of God.

Of understanding this and how important a foundation is. And my brother Richard is an academic. He's got his doctorate in education. He talked about it. My brother Jimmy's a counselor.

My brother Tommy's a diplomat. With just various components we all wove in on how our father shaped us and then I spoke about him as a pastor. And I'm going to share that in the next block because it's a longer story of how he shaped my life. And set the table for all that I do for the family caregiver.

Whether this program or anything else. If I am successful at all. If I have any kind of impact then my father deserves the acknowledgement for that. Because I learned from a man who knows how to pastor. Dad was also a chaplain in the United States Navy. And he loved the Navy. Retired full bird.

06 captain. And at the graveside my niece played Eternal Father Strong to Save which is the Navy hymn. She played it on solo violin.

Dad was a violinist and she did a marvelous job. It was so beautiful. And I thought we'd go out on this segment to the strains of the Navy hymn. In honor of my father Chaplain Burrell Rosenberger Captain United States Naval Reserve. This is Eternal Father Strong to Save. It's the mighty ocean deep Its own appointed ministry For hear us when we cry to thee For all those in memory of the sea Amen Jesus, our King, our only choice of way. Pray thus from life to heaven in praise. Pray all the lives with love and praise divine. And glory, God, and praise He evermore.

Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger. That is the national hymn. God of our fathers whose almighty hymn. My father loved that hymn.

He would always stand at attention when this hymn was played. The text is God of our fathers whose almighty hand Leads forth in beauty all the starry band Of shining worlds and splinters through the skies Our grateful songs before thy throne arise. And the last verse is refresh thy people on their toilsome way.

Lead us from night to never ending day. Fill all our lives with love and grace divine. And glory, Lord, and praise be ever thine. What a great text. And my father loved that hymn.

He loved so many hymns. And today I'm taking a moment. It's my show. When you have your own show you can talk about your dad. But today it's my show and I'm going to talk about my dad. I revered my father and knowing that he is with our Savior and the Savior he served so faithfully for his 60 plus years in ministry. He was an exceptional man and I had the privilege of speaking at his funeral just earlier this week.

And I talked about his role as pastor and I referenced a story of when I went to speak at a group. It was the Huntington's Disease Society of America. Huntington's disease is called HD now is a horrific disease that if any disease represents the curse of sin in this world it is that disease. It was in my father's family on his father's side and it's genetic and it's always fatal. And so there was a great deal of fear in my father's family of who would get this.

Once it's broken it's broken. And so there was that because you don't get diagnosed till later in life and then you may get it but you may already have children at that point and then they have a 50-50 shot of getting it. So this is a horrible disease. And they asked me to come and speak to this group of caregivers and family members with HD and their caregivers. So I went up there and it was a big ballroom at a hotel in Baltimore. And I went down to a meet and greet before the big conference the next morning and saw so many of these families and their loved ones with Huntington's disease. And the suffering was very difficult to describe and the challenges. And I went back up to my hotel room and called my dad and we were talking about it and I said, dad I don't feel qualified to talk to these people.

And my dad was very stoic and he was a ponderer, he was a thinker. And in a rare moment of agitation he about came through the phone and he said, you've been uniquely equipped and prepared by God to talk to these people, to minister to them. And there's nobody in line behind you to do it. Now get down there and do your job. And you know what I said? Yes sir.

I said yes sir. This is what I shared at his funeral. And his ministry was all about going into the most horrific of circumstances and sharing the gospel. He had such confidence in the redemptive work of God through Christ and the restoration that the Holy Spirit does in the human heart of all kinds of people who were just busted up and broken.

And their lives were just ripped to shreds. And dad would walk into these situations with such confidence, not brashness, but just that calm authority. He was not only a pastor but he was a navy chaplain and he was an officer and he understood authority.

And he would speak with such authority. Dad was, I got to tell you, my dad was not handy with tools. That was not his thing.

He wasn't very good at that sort of thing. He passed that on to me and to some of my brothers, not all of us. But my brother-in-law, and I referenced this at the funeral, my brother-in-law was an artist. He does beautiful work. He takes things that you would think are junk and turns them into just things of beauty. And my father used to marvel at him with all the things that he built, that his son-in-law built. And dad in his humility never really realized that we were marveling at him, at our father who would see beauty and accomplishment and things that we never saw in ourselves and others never saw in themselves.

But he was so confident of the gospel. And I realized that those of us who he ministered to, and that list is very lengthy, are his life's work. We are the display of his life's work and he never meant for us to stay in the workshop but to get out there and display this.

To give glory to God and what God can do with redeemed lives. That was the whole point of his ministry. So when he told me to get out there and do my job, he wasn't interested in me just learning to be a good caregiver for Gracie. He was seeing the work that lay in front of me to go and speak to others. So the reason I'm doing this show, the reason I write books and do all the things I do, is because this man saw this in me and rejoiced for it.

And he pushed me when I needed to be pushed. And I went down and spoke to those people the next morning, about 900 people there, and I've never looked back. This is what I do. This is who I am. And it's because my father about came through the phone, you've been uniquely equipped and prepared to do this job. And there's nobody in line behind you to do it.

Now get down there and do your job. And that was his whole ministry. To go into the discarded lives, speak the restoration of the Holy Spirit that God has done, and then help people take their place to display to the glory of God the healing and the redemptive work. His favorite hymn, and he had so many hymns that he loved, but the one that defined his entire ministry was the old spiritual, There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole.

There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul. I can count on three fingers how many times I've seen my dad cry in my life. I know he cried more than that, but those times I saw it. And one of those times is when Gracie and I recorded a balm in Gilead for him. And he just broke down.

He loved that song so much. That message, so simple. Sometimes I feel discouraged and I think my work's in vain, but then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again. You may not preach like Peter, you may not pray like Paul, but you can share the love of Jesus and share how he died for all.

There is a balm in Gilead. So my challenge to you, as you listen to this program and you've been a participant in all the things that I've been doing here on this program and in my books, is what are you going to do with that? You're not going to stay in the workshop, are you?

You're meant to be on display. Not so that people will applaud you or me, but they'll applaud the work of God. Give God the glory.

Lead us from night to a never-ending day. Fill all our lives with love and grace divine. All glory laud and praise be ever thine. He loved that hymn. And if you don't know what to say to other people, then borrow the text from Dad's favorite hymn and tell them about a balm in Gilead that makes the wounded whole, that heals the sin-sick soul.

This is my wife singing Balm in Gilead. Heal the sin-sick soul. You may not preach like Peter. You may not pray like Paul.

But you can tell the love of Jesus and how He died for all. There is a balm in Gilead to make wounded whole. There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul. Sometimes I feel discouraged.

My days are filled with pain. But then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again. Reminds me, reminds me about a balm in Gilead. To make the wounded whole, there is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul. That makes the wounded whole. We are only eternal, with our own God with peace. For goodness makes my glory fair. I raise my peace. My cross is with Helor.

We journey in this light. The throne obeys on God. The throne obeys on God. When He would sing it, He would just lift up on His tiptoes.

He couldn't get it out strong enough. That last verse, the cross is lifted over us. We journey in its light. The crown awaits the conquest.

Lead on, O God of might. And He was adamant about that to make sure people understood the text. The love of hymns I have comes from Him, even though He was not a professional musician by any stretch. He did play violin, and He loved music, and He loved the hymns, and He loved the great hymns of the church.

And He loved to encourage young musicians to participate in church music. And I played many services with Him over the years, and a lot of funerals. And I've come to understand a few things about funerals.

I've played for... I can't even count how many funerals I've played for. I don't play weddings. I hate to play weddings. So if you're getting married, and you're looking for a pianist for your wedding, do not call me, because I won't do it. Unless you have a lot of money, and I still won't do it, because I just don't like to do weddings.

There's too much drama. But funerals I try to do if I can, particularly if I knew the folks. Because that is the greatest time of ministry, I believe, that we can give when people are so focused on what's really life about. And they're faced with their own mortality, and what do they want their life to stand for? My father knew what he wanted his life to stand for, and it did. And his funeral service, it wasn't really a funeral service. It was church.

My mother insisted on that, and so were my siblings. And we were all dealing with unfiltered sorrow, but there was no unsettled sorrow. There was no complicated sorrow. There was no rage. There was no despair.

There was no fear. It was just grief. We mourned, but we were not afraid. We wept, but we were not overcome with fear.

It was sad. We hate death. Oh, I hate death. God hates it more. And He did something about it, so that death as we know it is only the beginning of the real story.

C.S. Lewis beautifully wrote that in the last battle. If you get a chance, go read it. It is extraordinary. O grave, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?

And I, it hurts. I cannot imagine a world without my father in it. But I know that there is a world where I'll be with him in eternity. He was passionate about his family understanding the things of God. And I can't remember any issue that I've ever had in my entire life where my father did not have scripture to address that issue. And it usually was very obscure scriptures.

I mean, things that most people hadn't even heard of. He read through the entire Bible every year in a different translation during his ministry. And at the end, he couldn't read anymore.

His mind wouldn't allow him to do it. And he would sit there and just turn the pages and put his hand on the pages. He would say scriptures to himself.

He was consumed with the Word of God. And so we knew that his service needed to reflect that. We wanted to.

We didn't want to go up there and just wring our hands. And so his five sons and his daughter stood firm on the gospel. And we shared that the church was packed. And we shared it with great zeal. Yes, we had tears, but our tears and our grief were tempered with such gratitude for a life well lived. And it drives home the point for me.

You know, this show is for caregivers. We live with hard things. And yet my father would have you know this.

That's no excuse to not be obedient to the things of God and not live a life of purpose and substance and meaning, no matter how difficult our journey is. The last words he said to me face to face, and I will share them with you, they're words that are burned into my heart. He held me and he said, keep moving, keep producing, keep listening, keep serving. That's a commission.

Just like what he told me. Like I said in the last block, he said, get down there and do your job. Duty was extremely important to him as a naval officer and as a minister of the gospel. We have a duty and a responsibility. One of the things in the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Shorter Catechism talks about man's duty to God. We have a responsibility to duty.

It is not a burden. It is our duty. And he took that very seriously. When Gracie sang that, Bob and Gilead, she ended the service with that. And then we sang Lead on, O King Eternal. I got to tell you, I played, I laid into that hymn and I played it with everything I had.

We didn't record the service. I'm pulling out recordings of other people doing these hymns. But I laid into that because my father would want me to.

He would insist on it. So thank you for letting me share a little bit of my journey for the last couple of weeks. Talk about my mother.

Talk about my family. I'm very proud of them. I'm grateful for them. I'm grateful for my father. My mother asked me to do one song at the end of the service and to bring in a bunch of grandchildren who played instruments and to do this. And I had to, unfortunately, had to decline that request for mom because I didn't have the chops to do it. And the grandkids didn't either.

I mean, it's a big song. But she wanted the Hallelujah Chorus. Knowing that the Lord God omnipotent reigneth sustained her in the dark times. This is Peter Roslamer. This is Hope for the Caregiver. And I end with this for you, mom. And he shall reign forever and ever and ever. I love you and I'm very proud of you. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,