Episodes
Friday Jun 10, 2022
Mercy for an Overwhelmed Caregiver
Friday Jun 10, 2022
Friday Jun 10, 2022
In Uvalde, the shooter’s grandmother faced the rage of a troubled grandson and, according to multiple reports, a daughter with a history of drug use. At least one incident required law enforcement to the home of the shooter’s mother – and neighbors and relatives knew of the turbulent relationship between son and mother. Mental issues and drug abuse create a toxic brew of chronic impairments that will not resolve independently. Those challenges hopelessly outmatch even the best of grandmothers.
In the case of Nicolas Cruz, who killed students at Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, law enforcement made 39 visits to the gunman’s home – most of the calls seemingly from his mother. A few months following his mother’s death, Nicolas Cruz massacred 17 people.
Sometimes, a family caregiver is the last line of defense between a killer and society.
A caller to my show for family caregivers discussed her mother’s increasing dementia. As the story unfolded, she related how her drug-addicted brother habitually stole from her mother and acted abusively towards her. The caller then shared that her brother, although a felon, kept a firearm under his bed and that she regularly feared for her safety. Asking why she didn’t call the police about her dangerous brother, she finally broke down and sobbed on the air. Through tears, she shared that her brother threatened that if she called the police, he would expose moral issues she had before becoming a Christian.
Her embarrassment and shame compromised her safety from an armed and unstable brother. Gently explaining to her the nature of Christ, who forgives, redeems, and never blackmails, I encouraged her to protect herself and her mother by calling the authorities – that day.
A year later, she phoned the program and sounded like a different person. After calling the police, her brother was arrested and entered a treatment plan. With exuberance in her voice, she shared that she and her brother have started the path of reconciliation. While her story took a better turn, many caregivers living close to an armed and disturbed individual suffer tragic outcomes – like what happened in Uvalde.
Despite the best political minds and arguments, the human heart remains outside the jurisdiction of any legislation. The Ten Commandments contain no ambiguity and came directly from God, yet politicians today think their laws will triumph where God’s did not.
Monday Aug 12, 2019
When the World Throws Death as a Solution, We Can Speak Life.
Monday Aug 12, 2019
Monday Aug 12, 2019
Portion of HOPE FOR THE CAREGIVER Monologue 8/10
"...The whole point of this is to speak clarity to a caregiver so that we're not floundering around wondering, you know, where do we go next? What do we do? What's going on? And I go back to this whole thing with gun safety.
I think a lot of people rush to push their political ideology and very few people are rushing to push this in a ministry capacity, and if you think about this, with all of our [United States’] clergy combined, even those from different faith, we can still ask the same question, are the firearms secured?
Think about praying with the mother in despair over her addicted child. You don't have to wait for legislation. You could go ahead and ask the question now, hey, does this kid have access to guns?
And you know, you're not going to stop it. I mean, somebody just went on a rampage with a knife. I mean, we can't exactly go out there and pass legislation to get to knives.
Well, we can, but legislation doesn't do anything, y'all know that and even if it does, it's still not going to do anything until they pass it—I'm talking about something today, right now that you could do.
Think about, think about if this man yesterday who shot and killed his wife and then killed himself over healthcare issues down in Florida. If somebody spoke life to this man, what a different outcome that would be. You can't insure it. You can't make it happen that way, but you give them a fighting chance and you know, results are in God's department, but we have a responsibility to be stewards of this message. Are we just glad we got our salvation, glad we got our knowledge —and then everybody else is just on their own.
I mean, don't we have to be responsible with the information that God has entrusted to us to be the light of the world? And if we're not going to speak light into these situations, who, who are they going to listen to? You know, when you've got states passing medically assisted death and they're all just gung-ho to, to pass that so that you know, physicians could provide drugs that go ahead and take a patient out. How big a leap is it for a caregiver to go ahead and just take matters in their own hand and say, okay, let's just be done with this? When you got a governor of Virginia who is a doctor himself saying that if a child with special needs is born and it's severely deformed, we're going to put the child aside and make it comfortable and then we'll let the mother make the decision on whether or not we'll execute the child.
How big a leap is it for a family with a special needs child that has pushed him to the breaking point to go ahead and just end that child's life? Don't tell me it doesn't happen, it just happened in Oregon a year ago this month. Well, the 28-year-old girl who took a gun and shot her child and then turned the gun on herself. Over in Dixon, Tennessee, a father of a special needs boy, if nonverbal Autistic boy, beat him to death and the mother watched. Then he told the community that child ran off, which happens with Autism. There's a lot of problems with elopement.
There are dark thoughts that that get into these people's minds, to all our minds. [It] is scary. It gets into all our minds and if we're not hearing words of life on a regular basis, who are we listening to? What are we listening to?
The world is increasingly throwing death as a solution to us. Think about it. Look at all the headlines. Don't just take my word for it. Look at it yourself. The world is throwing death as a solution. Medically assisted death, abortion. When Roe versus Wade was passed and set up as the law of the land …and I watched Bill de Blasio this week argue about it— and he was asked point blank by Sean Hannity, "Do you believe that an abortion, that a woman can have an abortion all the way to the moment of birth … and he wouldn't answer the question, he would just simply say, "I believe in Roe versus Wade."
Well, I don't believe in Roe versus Wade! I believe that our Savior bore the penalty of death and we don't need to use death as a solution. But these people are not going to be content until they can eliminate by killing anything that makes them feel uncomfortable or in any way unpleasant.
Don't take my word for it. Look at the media every single day. “Well, I wouldn't want to live with this and this and this.”
Well, you don't know what you want to live with! My wife lives with more pain than anybody I know; her body is so broken and yet she has value with what she does, and she trusts God with her pain, and He speaks to her in it.
C.S Lewis said that you don't, suffering is God's megaphone to us. and the world is going to continue to reinforce this [Death] over and over and over, until we get rid of people with disabilities, people who are aging, who have outlived their usefulness according to the world, [or] children that we do not want.
You look at Barack Obama, he said some years ago that if his daughter makes a mistake, he doesn't want her to be punished with a baby. These were his words, they're not my words, they are his words.
And "anything that is undesirable, we need to get rid of." That's what the world says, the scripture tells us something far different ...that we trust God with these things that come along in our lives that are, that are challenging, that are painful.
We hang on to Him in this—not just look for some way to just go ahead and pull the trigger and be done with it. But our natural inclination is to want to be free of all this pain and sorrow and suffering and unpleasantness or fear, whatever it is we got to deal with. So, let's just kill it. We don't have any more money for, to, you know, healthcare, whatever but let's just go ahead and take our own lives and be done with it.
This is happening now. It happened yesterday in Florida. Go look at the news.
So, what are we doing about it? What are we doing about it?
This show is dedicated to speaking to those people who are watching this unfold, who are so discouraged as they watch someone else suffer—to go into that heartbreaking place, and point them to a path of safety.
I get it. I truly get it, but God has not abandoned you. God is not forsaking you. This is not some kind of goofy punishment. He's not arbitrary. He is not reckless. He is not whimsical. He is God all by himself, and He alone is working in ways that we cannot possibly fathom …and so, we learned to trust Him. A lady wrote me last week on her Facebook page. Her husband has seizures all the time, and their nine-year-old boys said, “Why would God do this to us?”
[Music starts]
I remember our nine-year-old asked when his mother (Gracie) just kept going through surgery, after surgery—losing legs and everything else. He said, “How can I trust God with my hurts … when I see what He allows mom to go through?”
And I answered him with wisdom that I didn't know, it wasn't my wisdom and I said, “You know what, I don't understand all these things, but I know that He stretched out his arms and gave his life for us. If he loves us that much, I'm going to trust Him.
This is Hope for the Caregiver; we'll be right back.
Hope for the Caregiver is the family caregiver outreach of Standing With Hope - a ministry committed to the wounded and those who care for them.
Saturday Aug 10, 2019
Can the Church Lead When It Comes To Gun Safety?
Saturday Aug 10, 2019
Saturday Aug 10, 2019
Statistically speaking, someone orbiting an impaired or hate-filled individual attends a church, temple, or mosque. Rather than waiting and debating over what to do, can we not appeal to our clergy who collectively interact and influence a massive number of citizens?
While politicians and pundits speak to and from green screens and platforms, pastors speak to families in dire circumstances. Parents, siblings, spouses, or children struggling with the behavior of someone they love fill pews and kneeling benches across America. As their spiritual needs receive ministering, why not encourage clergy to quietly and privately ask if that loved one or a distressed caregiver has access to firearms?
Gentle guidance from a priest, pastor, rabbi, or cleric connects far greater than a politician running for office.
In 2008, a debate moderator asked two-term Governor, Mike Huckabee, why he felt qualified to run for President. Governor Huckabee’s answered surprised many. “As a pastor, I’ve had a front-row seat to virtually every social dynamic families encounter.”
He went on to relate ministering to families struggling with sickness, unemployment, disability, addiction, and death.
Politicians talk about all those things, but pastors touch them.
Clergy remain an important, but untapped resource in our country’s struggle with gun violence and hate. Sometimes that violence enters the house of worship itself. Yet, congregants heroically return to pews and clergy bravely return to pulpits to stand for something greater.
In our houses of worship, the opportunity arises to not only communicate hope, but safety. If a firearm lies within reach of an impaired loved one, does the caregiver know how to safety and secure the weapon? If not, plenty of others do. Clergy (if unfamiliar themselves) can help connect the proper assistance.
Waiting on Washington to fix or even address issues is rarely timely. Special interests on both sides of this debate consistently wrangle while lives hang in the balance.
“Are the firearms secured?” With that simple question, a Rabbi praying with a mother in despair over her addicted child can offer help immediately. One small question, and a priest can help a caregiving husband seek counseling before taking a gun and doing the unthinkable to his wife, and then himself. With a caring and practical word, a pastor can intercept a single mother at the breaking point with a special needs child. Right now, a caring clergy member can provide a path to safety for a family struggling with an out of control and rage-filled son.
Elected officials answer to donors and often pander. Clergy answer to a higher authority. In the failure of political leadership, spiritual leadership can prevail—while providing better model of caring for all of us.
One small question framed in compassion and wisdom, while collectively asked by an untapped cadre: “Are the firearms secured?”
In the space of seconds, lives can be saved. Maybe more lives saved than by all the media’s outrage or a stack of laws from Congress.
“The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.” - Proverbs 27:12
Peter Rosenberger is the president of Standing With Hope which sponsors HOPE FOR THE CAREGIVER. Your support helps make this broadcast possible. Please consider a tax-deductible gift to this ministry today!