The Fog of Caregivers

This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Truth Talk Live. All right, let's talk. The truth is, I can't hide it, I can't hold it. A daily program powered by the Truth Network.

This is kind of a great thing, and I'll tell you what. Where pop culture, current events, and theology all come together. Speak your mind. And now, here's today's Truth Talk Live host. Welcome to Truth Talk Live.

This is Peter Rosenberger. Glad to be with you today. Eight six six three. 34 Truth eight six six three four eight 7884 if you want to be a part of the program. 866-34-TRUTH.

Let me ask you a question before I. Go any further because I want to address a couple of things today, and you can always call in. We'll talk about something else if you want, or whatever's on the topic for today. But In your worst moments. And by the way, don't let the voice fool you.

I got a little bit. of something going on and it makes me sound like Bill Clinton and I'm very sorry for that. But it's excuse me. But if you um in your worst moments Is there a particular hymn? that you think about praise chorus, hymn, song Um a congregational type of psalm.

or him. There's a lot of stuff by artists out there. um that are are wonderful songs, but is there something like If you were in a situation where there was a real bad circumstance going on. And the people were kind of in stun in the room. Maybe there's just a handful of people, maybe there's a couple dozen or whatever.

and you wanted to lead them in a song. What would that be? What would that song be? And I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. And I have a very specific reason for asking this.

So if that's something comes to your mind. eight six six thirty four truth eight six six Three, four, eight. Seventy eight eighty for and we'll talk about that here in a bit when I take your calls. Last week, I was on the program, and a caller called in. He was talking about something going on with his sister.

I put this out on my Substack, caregiver.substack.com. You can go listen to it. If you want and it sparked a conversation that I thought maybe this audience Might want to revisit a few things on it and talk about this. On my radio program that I do for family caregivers. I uh that that airs on this network on on Saturday afternoons.

I talk about this topic a lot. It's called the the um Fear, obligation, and guilt the fog of caregivers And um it it it's one of those things where It's so akin to driving in a fog. What do you do when you come to a fog?

Well, you slow down. Do you turn on your high beams or your low beams?

Well, you turn on your Low beams. You don't throw on your high beams because it'll just glare back at you.

Well, I came to understand that caregivers Have a fog of their own, and it's not limited to caregivers. And it's one of those things where people get disoriented in this. And The fear, obligation, and guilt. And last week, the conversation involved obligation. Whereas somebody feeling obligated to go and take care of somebody.

And we talked about that a long time, and I want to revisit that. How do you know when you're feeling obligated?

Well, your language changes.

So let's just take that particular Uh, topic right there, obligation, your language changes. I have to, I must, I'm supposed to, I should have. I'm required to. Have you ever felt like somebody was doing this to you? Putting this obligation on you, do you do it to yourself?

Well, I'm supposed to. I have to, I'm supposed to. I must. I should have. Fear, obligation, and guilt, the fog of caregivers.

And I learned that this is pretty much a. Human. condition issue for everybody. In the caregiving world, We see these things manifest a little more quickly because we're dealing with. a crisis every day.

If you've taken care of somebody with a chronic impairment, Aging parent, somebody with dementia, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's.

Somebody with um trauma, somebody who has addiction issues.

Somebody who is a child with special needs. If you've done any of this for any length of time, you understand what this does to you. As a human being, it forces things to the surface, it exposes things in yourself. And we get into that fog of caregivers where there's a lot of fear. Have you ever felt that way?

You ever felt that you were just paralyzed by fear? You just, oh, what are we going to do? How are we going to do this? What are we going to do? This, I remember, um.

some years ago before this very large surgery for my wife, It was going to be a nine hour surgery, a big surgery, biggest surgery she's ever had, and that's saying something. And we were going to go down to Denver. for this because we couldn't do it here in Montana where I live. When we lived in Nashville, we did a lot of things over at Vanderbilt. But this is the kind of surgery you need to do at a teaching hospital, a big hospital.

hospital like this. like Denver has and we didn't have anything like that in Montana that could handle it. And so we're going down there, but we're not going down there till November.

Well, this is September. And my wife was just, you know, one evening, she just, she almost just kind of had a meltdown. She's like, I can't do this. And because Mm-hmm. The Lord had worked enough in my life at that point.

He's got a lot more work to do. But at that point, I had a moment of grace. That he provided to me. And I looked at her and said, We're not doing that tonight. And she was afraid of something that was happening a couple of months from now, but I said, We're not having surgery tonight.

We're just going to deal with today. We're going to deal with right now. And this is what Scripture tells us to. But we don't live like that. Naturally, do we?

We live as a fearful people. We're afraid of this, and so we surround ourselves with things that make us feel less fearful. Money You know, success, busyness, distraction, noise, whatever we can. But in those moments when it kind of hits us. The fear kind of grips at our hearts.

Have you found this to be true in your case? What do you do with that information? What do you do with that? What does Scripture say to do with this? And then that obligation.

which these these imposed burdens on ourselves. Fear, obligation, and guilt. And then guilt we know about but let me but let me define guilt though. We all feel guilty. at any given point for breaking God's law.

clear commandments in Scripture. And if we're feeling guilty for breaking those, then guilt is doing the job. that it guilt should be doing, because we are guilty. We recognize the guilt.

Now, what we do with that guilt is The second step here. I'll talk about that in a minute. But sometimes we equate things as guilt when they're not really guilt. What are you guilty of? I feel guilty.

If I'm not you know, if I if I want to sit down and watch a television show uninterrupted for an hour.

Well, there's any Moral infraction? Are you really guilty at that point? Is that a courtroom moment? Or are you grieving this? Does it just Where are you?

And you feel Guilty for wanting to do something that would give you some relief. I get this a lot with people who reach out to me and they said, you know, one lady wrote me, she said, I feel guilty. My father is ninety four years old. He's suffering. My mother's dead.

I'm... The only one that's here for him. And I feel guilty for hoping he'll go home and be with Jesus.

Now let me ask you a question. What is she guilty of? She's not wanting to kill him. She just wants the suffering to be over. Is that a guilt issue?

Or are we mourning the affliction? Are we grieving over this? Do you see how easily these things can get all whoppy-jawed with us? That we could go in all kinds of different directions and get ourselves torqued up, but we haven't really owned what's happening here. That's why I call it the fog of caregivers.

fear, obligation, and guilt. And if you go headlong into a fog, What in your car w without slowing down. without turning on your low beams, what do you think's going to happen?

Well Somebody's going to end up in a ditch.

Somebody's going to end up hitting a tree.

Somebody's going to get hurt.

So we got to slow down, and we're going to talk about this because last week sparked this thing, and I thought, well, I think I left some things unfinished. And I want to talk about this, and maybe this will apply in your situation as well: that fear, obligation, guilt, that fog of caregivers. What do we do to get through this? How do we get through this? What are your thoughts on this?

And also, if you've got a hymn that comes to your mind, 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Rosenberger. Glad to be with you, 866-34-TRUTH 866. three four eight seventy eight eighty four And did you hear Chuck Swindles at?

About saying no to people. We talked about that last week on the program. Saying no. No is a complete sentence. And that's boundaries.

That's when that obligation. Takes a hold of you and you start Feeling that pull of I'm supposed to, I have to, I need to, I should. And we talked about that last week on the program. In the last block, I talked about the fear, obligation, and guilt, the fog of caregivers because I see this so much in my fellow caregivers. And we get lost in this thing.

And how do you deal with this? We get paralyzed with fear. And if you look through all of Scripture, the most repeated command in Scripture is to fear not. Don't be afraid. If you translated it to Southern, it'd be y'all settled out.

But it's the most repeated phrase in Scripture. Fear not, because God knows we're afraid. And and and we're afraid of everything. at our core. We think we're not.

And we want to live our life thinking we're not. We want to be in charge of everything. That's why we surround ourselves with things that make us feel strong. But when you're dealing with somebody who has a chronic impairment, when you're dealing with somebody who's suffering, when you're dealing with somebody who is in tremendous pain and distress, all that stuff gets stripped away, and you're just left with these raw things: this fear, this obligation, this guilt. And we have to understand what's happening there.

And if this is something you've been dealing with, I'd love to hear about it. 866-34-TRUTH-866. 3487884. And also, in the next block, I'll get into why I'm asking for: is there a song that comes to your mind? If you're in a place where Things just fall apart.

That you, if you were going to lead a group of people in a song, or one person or couple of people or couple of dozen people. in a song. In that moment. When it's tough, when it's brutal, What would that song be? What would that hymn be?

What would that chorus be? What has what has done that for you? 86634 TRUTH 866-348-7884. If you Find yourself in that fog of caregivers. That fear, obligation, and guilt.

And let me tell you about obligation. It takes about s just microseconds to turn into resentment. And One of the things I started seeing at the beginning of when I started doing radio for caregivers, which was Many years ago Um was The goal for each of us as caregivers is to outlive our loved one. We can't guarantee that we will. But that's the goal.

I was at the doctor the other day and they asked me, Do you have a living will? And I said to the doctor, I said, let me tell you something, dog. Y'all's job is to keep me alive till at least one day after my wife is with Jesus. After that all bets are off. I'm going skydiving without a helmet, you know but but until then, you do what is necessary to keep me healthy and strong.

So I could take care of somebody who is not. But our goal is to out outlive them. But what good does it do to take them all the way? To the cemetery. If our fists are clenched.

I don't want to stand at a grave. With clenched fist.

Now why would I be doing that? Because of resentment. And that resentment is fed by obligation. Resentment at friends and family didn't help the way. We thought they should.

Resentment at medical providers who maybe made a mistake or a drug driver that hit them, resentment at ourselves, resentment at God. But you can't push a wheelchair. With clenched fist.

I'm a pianist. I can't play with clenched fist. We are not called to live with resentment. And yet we do. Why is that?

Because we get lost in that fog of caregivers' fear, obligation, and guilt. And that obligation leads us into thinking, I have to, and therefore I resent having to do it. And that resentment can become Visceral. At times. Mark in Jacksonville, Florida wants to weigh in on this.

Mark? Welcome to the program. What do you know about Mark?

Well, I wouldn't know anything about, like you said, caregivers when someone's sick or anything, but I've I've done the yes all the time, you know. When you're asked to do something, or you just volunteer right away. Oh, like what Dr. Did you hear Chuck Swindall's ad? No, unfortunately, I missed it.

Oh, yeah, because he said that. He said, Do you have trouble saying no? And I thought that was interesting on today's topic. But go ahead. I'm sorry.

Sorry to interrupt. Oh, no, nothing at all. It's your show, man. No, no. But.

Yeah, it's It's well I had a I have a hard time saying now. Doing things. I would volunteer a lot for a lot of other people for the church, and I enjoy doing it for the church for a while. And I just did it all the time plus sixty hours a week at your job. And for a minute.

I kinda had that Why, you know, that bit of resentment of why no one else is stepping up, or why does it always have to be me? And um that can actually just extro relationships. At that point. always saying yes can hurt a relationship just as much as always saying no. I found.

Did you ever find out why you had a hard time saying no? I g I guess it's I I guess as far as feeling is I didn't want to upset somebody. I didn't want to you know, we didn't want to let anybody down. In a way, Because I you know, I can't I don't it kinda you know, I kind of feel guilty about li knowing I could have done something and I didn't. You know.

And that's probably why I always thought that's my thing. And uh I'm only human. Right, and I I guess that's why I always had a hard time saying no. And I still sort of have a hard time. Seeing that was the thing.

Well, that fog of caregivers that I talk about-fear, obligation, and guilt-that's what. That's where we get lost in this, and that's what drives that. And part of that is because, again, we're afraid of what other people might think, we're afraid of letting them down, you felt obligated, and then you felt guilty if you said no. Fear, obligation, and guilt. Fog of caregivers, you get lost.

So. Um How do you navigate through that? What do you do? What's the what?

Well, and then I will, so I will tell you: if you were on a plane or on a ship, boat. and he came into a fog What would the captain or the pilot do? to get through that fog.

Well, he'd sound his horn and he'd t turn on his floodlights. And anything else? We have modern tools at our we have modern tools at our disposal. Oh, you're talking about your we're talking about, you check your radar, I guess, and check your uh beacons. Or your GPS.

Or you can GPS. I didn't think about that. I'm used to the other way of doing things. You're old school, Mark. That's okay.

It's all right. But your GPS, you don't have to pull out a sexton like they did in the 1800s, but you could check your GPS. And I thought about this: well, what is GPS? It's a global positioning satellite. It helps us get oriented in space and time.

By calibrating with something that is external of us.

Something that is external of us.

Well, what's external of us in the spiritual world. Oh, you got God, you got the Father, you got the Word. You got the Word of God. And so when you look at I I look at GPS grace Purpose Stewardship. And let's take obligation, for example.

Obligation, and I wrote about this many times. I've since been on books. It's on my substack, caregiver.substack.com. It's everywhere. I got it all over the place.

There's not going to be a test on it if you just want to follow up with it. But it's um An obligation, for example. Where I have to, I need to, I'm supposed to. What happens if you replace the word obligation With stewardship. What what what changes in that?

Pardon? I didn't consider that. That's an interesting change in demand stewardship. That's what I learned to do. Because I say no to people because I'm saying yes to taking care of my wife.

I have a stewardship responsibility to her. Not to all these other things and other people's feelings and expectations and demands and so forth. You see the difference? I'm staying focused on what God has called me to steward right here in my hands. We'll talk about this when we come back.

866-34-TRU. Thank you, Mark, for the call. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Rosenberger. Glad to be with you, 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-78804.

I appreciate Mark's call the other day in the last block. That that is uh again. Bringing this issue to the forefront, how about saying no? You heard Chuck Swindahl's ad recently in this program, and you can. Hear that, this is a common theme on people.

We get pulled into these things and we don't know how to extricate ourselves because we feel obligated. That fear, obligation, and guilt, that fog that I attribute to the fog of caregivers, but it really goes beyond that, it's the human condition. And It's that sense of I I have to, I'm supposed to. And what it does is it leads us into resentment. As opposed to the word stewardship, I use a GPS, grace, purpose, stewardship, GPS.

That's how you get through a fog. You calibrate yourself to something else. And what does Scripture say? Stewardship, do what is at your hand to do. To be faithful to what God has given you and put in front of you, to be a good steward of this.

You see stewardship all through Scripture. You see it modeled, you see it defined, you see it enacted out, and stewardship. It was our first job in the garden. That was Adam's first job. Take care of the guard.

Name the animals. He was a steward. I don't own it. And I've had to learn that very painfully in my circumstances. I d I deal with a medical catastrophe.

But I didn't do this to my wife, and I can't undo it. I don't own this. Here's a test for you. If you're if you're driving, just keep both hands on the wheel. Keep them at 10 and 2, just like they taught us at Driver's Ed.

Some of you took Driver's Ed. Look down at your hands. How many of you see nail prints? If you don't see mailprints, this ain't yours to fix. You may be a steward of it.

you may be tasked with being faithful in it. But you're not tasked with owning it. When it comes to these things, like what I'm talking about with these, if you've got somebody who has Alzheimer's. that you're taking care of. If you've got a loved one that's got a drug problem or an addiction issue.

of some type of alcohol or whatever. You don't own that. You can't make em stop. You see where I'm going with this?

So what is your responsibility? And that's a better question. What is my responsibility? And that's how we start navigating through this fog. And remember I talked about turning the the the the lights down a little bit lower.

Don't put on the habeems. Why? It's going to glare back at you. What does that look like? spiritually.

When we're trying to look too far down the road We don't know what's coming down the road. In Deuteronomy Uh The Lord says th those mysteries belong to him. And you got all these people who want to come up and give you a word from the Lord, and they're going to prophesy this, or this is going to happen, this is going to happen. We don't know, all we have is today. Jesus said Don't worry about tomorrow.

Tomorrow? Where is it sufficient for itself? This is the day that the LORD hath made. And we're going to do the best we have with what we have. It doesn't mean we don't plan.

But we don't live in the wreckage of it. of our future.

Okay, we we plan for the future, we just don't live out in the wreckage of it. That I go back to the story with my wife. And it it was fear-worthy. I mean, she was getting ready to have a nine-hour surgery.

Well, it was it was two months away, but she was already anticipating how difficult this was going to be. How frightening it was going to be. And it was. And I didn't put my hand on her back and say, they're there. I didn't even say it's going to be okay.

I said we're not there yet. please don't confuse that moment. of grace And Settled understanding as consisted in my life, because she would tell you the opposite. And but every now and then, you know, a blind squirrel's going to find a nut. It's one of those things that I'm learning.

that we deal with right here and right now, and what are we stewards of to date? Does that resonate with you? 866? thirty four truth eight six six three four eight seventy eight, eighty four, so many of us live in the wreckage of our future. There was a famous quote.

I can't remember who it was. I don't know if it was. Blaise Pascal, or somebody like that. She said, um I suffered many terrible things in life.

Some of them actually happened. You know, we torture ourselves with things that haven't even happened. Because we live in fear.

Well, what does scripture say about fear? The Lord hasn't given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and what? A sound mind Fear. cripples us. What do we do with it?

And what I learned in the GPS. Grace, purpose, and stewardship. Purpose. I have purpose. And, more importantly, God has purpose.

Now, my question to you is. if fear is gripping you. And there are a lot of things in this world that are frightening, that are very fear worthy, if you will. But if fear is gripping you. Where's your confidence?

Where's your confidence? Finish this scripture if you know it. The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run into it and they are If our confidence is in our own abilities, Then we might as well go ahead and succumb to fear. But as believers, that's not where our confidence is, is it?

What did Paul say? He who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it. What did Jude say?

Now, unto him who is able to keep you from. Falling. If he can save you. He can keep you. The night that Jesus was betrayed.

And there were two people that betrayed him that night. One of them he said, Go, and what you must do, do quickly. And that was to Judas. But then what did he say to Peter? This is really, really important.

I want you to think this through with me. What did he say to Peter? He said, Peter, Or Simon. Satan has asked for what? Permission to sift you.

Satan has asked for permission. Satan didn't ask for permission for Judas, did he? There's no record of that. In fact, Scripture goes on to say that Judas was a devil from the beginning. But he had asked for permission.

For Peter. And why is that important? Who do you belong to? And then Jesus went on to say. But I have prayed for you.

Now why is that important? Because we have a great high priest, the book of Hebrews says. who intercedes for us. The Spirit groans on our behalf. And then he went on to say, and when you come through this, not if, he didn't say if.

He said when?

Now, where was Peter's assurance?

Now, he didn't quite understand that until. Really, by the shore of Galilee, and then ultimately at Pentecost. And that's when Peter started to really grasp a hold of what was going on. when the Holy Spirit fell on them at Pentecost. Where's the confidence?

And it's not that we walk around with arrogance. In fact, many times we're going to walk around with tears. Because the more we walk with Christ, I think the more we see how broken everything is. But then we run back to Scripture. Run to Christ.

And recognize that he He who began a good work. is faithful to complete it. I love in that him, um This is my father's world. You know that one? Um I love that hymn, too.

You see, as my fathers were. And though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet. Third verse. Jesus who died shall be satisfied. The hymn writer knew this.

The hymn writer understood this. They anchored themselves on it. I'm not saying there aren't fear worthy things. But let this mind be in you, which is also Finish the sentence. In Christ Jesus.

Jesus did not want to deal with what he was getting ready to deal with. You saw that in Gethsemane. And it was it was pretty It was about his agonizing for him, and that's where our redemption really. I mean, you think about it, if you really think about it, that's where it happened right there in that moment when he said, nevertheless, thy will be done. He knew it was going to be painful.

He knew what it was going to cost him. He knew it. He wouldn't Just, you know. rose colored glasses here. But he set his face like flint.

and purpose to do the will of the Father. That's where our confidence is. And that same spirit. that strengthened and equipped him to go to the cross, is available to you in whatever you're dealing with.

So, if you need to say no to something, it's not because you're being afraid or you feel obligated, you're going to be resentful if you do none of that stuff. None of that stuff. You're not guilty, all that kind of stuff. You say no because you have purpose that God has given you in stewardship of what you have where you are.

So if somebody comes to me And they say, Peter. We have a program at the church, and we want you to start doing. You know, going over here and helping out this particular person, they got a special needs family. And you need to go over there and help them do that.

Well, I'm going to say no. You know what? because I have all the stewardship I can handle right here. Where I am. It's not that I don't want to.

But if I compromise what God has given me to do and put in my hands. that I am not being a faithful steward to what God has given me to do and be faithful in my hands. Do you understand the difference now? I'm not doing that anything out of obligation. I'm doing it out of stewardship.

That's how you navigate through these things. And so we get ourselves twisted up in all kinds of knots. Because we're not using a GPS. We don't know where we are in space and time. We're drifting a fog.

And that's where The scriptures come into play and start giving us clarity of thought. Of what we're called to do. We don't have to worry about these things. This is what Jesus was saying. You don't have to worry about this.

You don't have to worry. He told the guys, you don't even have to worry when you're called in front of the rulers. Don't worry about what you're going to say. My spirit will be there with you. You don't have to worry about it.

We can go in confidence. 866 34 TRUTH 866-348 7884. This is Truth Talk Live, and I am Peter Rosenberger, and we will be. Right back. Truth taught.

Live America.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Rosenberger, 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. We've been talking about the fog of caregivers, which applies really to all of us. That disorientation we feel when we get in situations where fear and obligation and guilt, fog, F-O-G.

Or are crippling to us. And we get ourselves into all kinds of knots and pretzels and things such as that. Because we get off track and we're not Calibrating externally for what's going on. We we g d do you remember the remember when uh JFK Junior had that uh plane crash and and he killed he and his wife and his sister-in-law? He was not instrument rated from what I understand, he was visual rated.

And he was flying up along the coast there. towards Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket or someplace. And I've talked to a lot of pilots about this. And they can be disoriented up so quickly. And you think you could look down and see the lights and so forth.

Well, there weren't a lot of lights. and they flew right into the ocean. We get disoriented. We have to have something external from us. Scripture says it very clearly.

Lean not on your own understanding. No. I'll put it to you more bluntly, whose understanding do you want to lean on? Yours or God's. It could not be more clear.

And so that's why we have to go back. to scripture. to orient ourselves when these things get very, very, very gnarly.

Okay, and if you want to see more about this, write this down. Caregiver. Dot substack Dot com. That's my sub stack page. Excuse me.

I'm sorry, I sound like Bill Clinton, and I apologize for that. I do not mean to. But uh something's got a hold of my Throat, my vocal cords here. And I'll try to get this cleared up, but go to caregiver.substack.com. That's my substack.

And I have video, audio, print, everything out there. And I talk about this and so many other things related to this, of orienting us, of finding solid ground in the midst of craziness. These are things that I learned the hard way over 40 years. That's why I asked about the hymn early on. I don't know that I'm going to be able to get to that, so I'll save it for next week.

So, that's something you think about a hymn, because I've been doing a series on this and talking about hymns or songs. When things go completely. Bonkers. and if you were in a room with one person, yourself, Or 20 people, and you were going to lead them in a song or hymn, what would that be? And so, if you want to think about that for next week, we'll get to it.

But in the meantime, Mike from Dayton wants to weigh in on this. Mike, What do you know?

Well, I was going to do a hymn. Do you want to do that? I'll do the hymn. If you've got a hymn, Mike, you have followed the instructions beautifully. And we're going to put you down for all kinds of special Bobby Dilbler is going to bring all kinds of gifts and prizes.

He's going to give you a gift certificate to White Castle. I don't know what he's going to do.

So, anyway, or you go to McDonald's and order from the supersize menu, whatever you want. No, thank you. But tell me the hymn. Tell me the hymn. How great thou art.

How great thou art. Okay, now, why is that one? When things are going bonkers, why do you go to that one?

Well, I go to that one because in the first verse, it says how great the stars are, how great. the um rolling thunder and how powerful the universe displayed.

Okay? And then it goes into chorus. How great thou art. And then the second ones is you if you ever went into a woods, You hear the birds, you hear the sweet trees, you see. the mountains and the brooks and breeze.

Oh, how great thou art, you know? And then the third verse Oh yeah. Um it talks about Jesus. And he sent his son and how he died and on the cross. And he took away our sense.

how great thou art. And then the fourth verse Um Okay. It's saying When Christ shall come. Yeah, thank you for figuring that out for me. With shouts of acclamation.

Yeah. Can ball. Anyway, sorry about that. No, and um you know it's filling our heart filling our hearts. with a humbling of a board.

You know what I mean? Proclaiming how God, how my God, how great thou art. Because of what Jesus done for us. Give me a scenario where that has happened, where you pulled that one out in the midst of something pretty rough. Yeah, um I was in the Marine Corps and I was you know, getting blamed for something I didn't do.

And um for for some reason that was my dad's favorite verse. and it came to mind over and over again. And no matter what was going to happen at it at this Yes. hearing and all this stuff that was going to happen in the Marine Corps. I thought I was going to get court-martialed and put in jail and all this stuff.

And none of that happened. But I kept putting my faith in God and I said, God, you know, you're okay, you're going to take care of me. And no matter what the circumstances is, No matter what happens, I'm going to be taken care of. And kind of lived by that my whole life after that event. You know what I mean?

I trust in the Lord with all my heart, and lean not on my own understanding, and all your ways acknowledge him. and he'll treacher pass. And uh, you know, that's you know That's very clear. That is why it's my favorite verse. Uh, my favorite hymn.

And um It was my dad's, and that's why it came to mind. My dad kept telling me this is a great Great song, and I listen to it over and over again. And uh I understand why he thought that, because that was how he lived. you know so Do you know the story of David at Ziklag? David and Zig Lag.

David at Ziklag. Do you know that story? It's worthy of your time to read it in 1 Samuel. And there's a moment when David and his men were out fighting, I believe, and the Malekites came. and captured Their camp.

took everything. I mean Donkeys Everything, kids, women, everything. Just cleaned them out. And David's own men. They got back and they saw this and they just they were all just As we would say down in South Carolina.

Torah. And they were tore up. And They were looking at picking up stones to kill it. His own men were. They were so distraught, And then it says something really astonishing there, and David encouraged himself in the Lord.

And I We don't know any more than that. But I would imagine that it is reasonable to deduce from Scripture that David probably. Fell down on his knees. and sang hymns to God, sang praises to God. Glorified God.

He encouraged himself in the Lord. He spoke. The Psalms that he'd been writing and other scriptures that he knew. And that's more than likely what he did. encouraged himself In the Lord, and the men dropped their stones, and they all wept with him, and then they went and went after the Malachites and took care of the business and got everything back.

That's the lesson. That you just described with your time in the Marine Corps when things got so bad. that your own team was getting ready to P potentially uh really come after you. And all you can do in those moments. is stop and remember that and sing those hymns, How Great Thou Art, O Lord My God when I an awesome wonder.

consider all. When we realize who our faith is in, And it's not how much faith you have, it's the object of your faith.

Okay, you don't have to squince your eyes real tight and pretend like you got faith. You just say, Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. That's my favorite prayer in Scripture. Lord, I believe.

Help my unbelief And that's what you did, Mike. That's what you did. And you encouraged yourself in the Lord, and He does have it.

Now, it doesn't mean that he's going to necessarily um pave the road for us. You know, we've been on a journey of 40 miles of bad road for a long time. My wife and I, and it's off-road, and we got. I mean, you know, very much left of the vehicle at this point. And he hasn't certainly seen fit to pave that road and make it smoother.

But what he does is, he accompanies us on the journey. And I've got an article out there. On my substack, that I'd love for you to take a look at caregiver.substack.com. and it talks about having a picnic in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Sometimes the valley goes on for a long time. And he says, thou preparest the table before me in the presence of my enemies. And you know, when the valley goes on beyond the horizon, at some point you're gonna have to stop and you know have have a bite to eat. even in the valley of the shadow of death. And he never promised that he would make it short.

He just promised that he was with us. And he was with you in that moment, Mike. Yeah, I agree. And you know, when you feel like your life's on fire, you know. And and you don't know what to do, you need to stop and drop and pray.

You know what I mean? and seek after God. You know, uh instead of trying to fix it for yourself. You know, um You know, that's been my go-to. And it's been working out for me ever since.

Thank you for helping me with I'm taking care of my father-in-law, and you've been great. I've been listening to you and looking at your sack your pages online.

Okay. Thank you. I'm grateful that it's helping, Mike, and you're absolutely right. Stop drop and roll. When you're on fire, stop, drop, and roll.

And that's the whole message of it. That's why these hymns, these songs anchor us in that moment. And we'll talk about that next week. This is Peter Rosenberger, caregiver.substack.com. We'll see you next time.

Uh