Sunday's Topic - With Marilynn and guests Tom and Bev Rodgers - Rodgers Christian Counseling Services.
- Purpose of the organization
- What are you most now dealing with now -- anxiety!
- Expand on other difficulties folks are dealing with - half a dozen learned emotional fears!
- Great insights and conversations w/David
Beverly and Tom have been professional counselors for over 40 years. They own and operate Rodgers Christian Counseling and the Institute for Soul Healing Love in Charlotte, North Carolina. Both have their PhDs in Clinical Counseling.ht
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hi everyone, I'm David Chadwick and this is News Talk eleven,
ten ninety nine to three WBT. Welcome to the show.
In case you don't know, this is a faith and
values program that tries to intersect faith and values with
what's going on locally and globally. It's been a pleasure
doing the show now for almost twenty six years. Thank
you for listening. Also, many thanks to Perry's Fine Jewelry
(00:29):
for your sponsorship of the show. Without you, I could
not do this on a weekly basis. I'm so proud
and honored to have my name attached to your particular enterprise. Well,
I have a very special show for all of you today.
I have my wife Marilyn in studio with me. Marilyn,
good to have you back with me on this show.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Thanks David, it's good to be back.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Well.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
I always enjoyed that forty seven years of marriage. We've
learned a lot through the years and we love sharing
it with people as well. I have also in studio
with me, Tom and Bev Rogers. Many of you know
of them, especially if you are of a Christian persuasion.
They have over seen and operated Rogers Christian counseling services
(01:09):
here in the Charlotte Metrolina area for now over four decades,
and it's just been a pleasure getting to know them
more and more through our common association with Moments of
Hope Church now, but even more particularly our common relationship
with Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior. They have
been counseling people for so many years. I just thought
(01:29):
I'd get them on the show and ask them one
blunt question and then we'll talk about it for the
next hour. And that question is, what are you guys
mostly dealing with in people that you're counseling with Right now, Tom,
I'll turn to you first. What would your answer be?
Speaker 3 (01:45):
I would have to say anxiety is probably the number
one issue that we deal with, really, yeah, so much
so that I kind of have a process of dealing
with that pretty quickly. The definition of anxiety is generalized fear.
What that means, I think is that we learn a
particular fear in a certain context, but then we internalize
(02:06):
that fear. We say, yes, this fear is true about me.
I'm abandonable, I'm rejectable, I'm a failure, or whatever it
might be. The more we internalize it the more we
generalize it, which means if it's true in one context,
it's true in all contexts. And that generalized fear becomes anxiety.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Well, if I'm right, could I say it this way?
I've often wondered if anxiety is a belief something bad
might happen to me, fear is a belief something will
happen to me that's bad. Is that too simplistic? Or
does they kind of get at what you're talking about?
And I think they're both. They're cousins, Yeah, they really are. Yeah,
the kind of one goes with the other. They're very
(02:45):
kindred spirits, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
What we generally do, what I like to do, is
to help them trace back the fear to where it
came from. And many of these fears are developmental, which
is the first two four seven years of life right
in there. And these fears are learned, internalized, they're adapted
to and it's almost an unconscious response, just stimulus response
kind of thing. But I think it is related to
(03:08):
a specific fear. And once we name that, because the
fears are very basic, half a dozen emotional fears I
call them abandonment, rejection, unworthiness, inferiority, inadequacy, failure, slash success,
and insecurity. Those are generally the most common learned emotional fears.
(03:30):
And I always say it that way. They're learned, they
can be unlearned. That's the good news. Bad news is
they were learned about thirty years.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Ago, and the more you repeat them, the more entrenched
they become in your soul, and the more difficult it
is to deal with them.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
And we just identify with it and take ownership of
it and act as if it is true. So what
I do is I try to help them understand that
number one, the fear is learned, it's not innate. And secondly,
it can be challenged, it can be changed. So I
develop a hypothesis and if then statement. So the if
then statement it as if these fears are learned, and
they're not innate, they're not hereditary, they're learned, they can
(04:05):
be unlearned, and we can challenge them with four questions.
Question Number one, if the fear is learned, where did
I learn it? And they'll struggle with that a little bit.
You know, it might be past relationships, and I say, well,
it could certainly be relationships, but I think it goes
back farther than that the origin of it. And I'm
kind of applying to to family of origin in some way.
(04:28):
So the question number one, if the fear has learned,
where did I learn it? Number two, if the fear
has learned, who were what taught me? And that one
kind of amuses me because they stumble with the first answer.
With the second answer, they just they're all eyeballs and
they kind of I don't know, I say, well, it's
door number one or door number two, maybe both, But
they didn't mean to. They probably just taught you.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Their fear is that mom and dad, Mom and dad,
Oh those are two doors out.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah. Well, and we say this that blame is not
our game. You know, you don't go to counseling to
blame anybody. But you want to see why you do
what you do. And often it's a solid, honest look
at family of origin. You know, sometimes it's sense of omission,
it's commission. It could be environment. You know, you could
feel very different. Maybe you're an Irish Catholic who grew
(05:14):
up in a Protestant neighborhood. But these are things we
call them soul wounds, and those soul wounes then get reinforced.
The more we think a thought, the more the dendrites
are the thought trees grow. So you have anxious, fearful
thoughts and you keep thinking them and thinking them, and
what happens is a tiny little road becomes a super
(05:35):
highway in the brain. So you're growing these negative thoughts
and your brain automatizes them. So no matter what I'm thinking,
all of a sudden, if I hear something about the world,
you know, I love the whole notion of we need
to be prepared, not scared. And I think that your
radio show helps us do that.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Well, I hope. So that's what I desire so much.
And I know that if God can use this in
any possible way in somebody's heart, I'm so grateful for
that to happen. Is it as simple as saying we
need to train our brain. I mean, I've often taught
in counseling theory that you are what you think. Rational
motive theory, rational theory, all of that kind of thing. Tom,
(06:16):
we only got a minute, But what do you think
of that?
Speaker 3 (06:18):
I think we can certainly train the brain, we can
certainly change what we believe. So I go back to
my little hypothesis, Where did you learn the fear? Who
are taught you? Question number three is important. What message
does this fear give you about you? I'm not lovable,
I'm not worthy, I'm not good enough, I don't have
what it takes. And then I say, okay, in light
(06:38):
of the Word of God, is that message really true?
When we take them back to the Word of God.
We're fearfully and wonderfully made the image of God and
all that we help them learn through scripture to push
a wave from the negative thoughts and build positive thoughts
that they are true.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
So it really is being transformed by the renewal of
your mind. Let's seize on that when we come back,
because I do really believe you are what you think.
I'm David Chadwick. This is News Talk eleven, ten ninety nine,
three WBT will be right back. Hi everyone, and I'm
(07:45):
David Chadwick and this is News Talk eleven, ten ninety
nine and three WBT. Welcome back to the show. If
you're just joining us. I have as my guest today
my wife Marilyn, who is in studio with me, and
Tom and Bev Rogers who oversee Rogers Christian counseling here
in the city. And by the way, I think they'd
be more than happy to talk to any of you
(08:06):
who might need some counseling help. Bev. Let me turn
to you, how in the world could someone contact you
if they are interested in just sitting down and unpacking
some of the stuff you're talking to.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
You certainly can go to Rogers Christiancounseling dot com, or
there's also a number listed if you google us that
you can call us. And we have other folks that
we've trained in the model that we use that can
help this world. That's aching, Yeah, very much aching.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
And I want to stay clearly as a pastor for
over four decades that there is nothing wrong. There's everything
right with sitting down with somebody who's skilled like you
guys are unpacking your emotions, letting someone who is not
associated with you here from a blank state what you're
saying to help you get in touch with what's going
on within you to be healed. So let's let's jump
(08:55):
back into In the first seven we were talking about
the way you help people unpack what's going on emotionally
inside of them, and it sounded to me like you
really are talking about Romans twelve, where we are transformed
by the renewal of our minds. That you know that
old statement, you are what you think. You know, a
lot of people say you are what you eat. I
say you are what you think. That your thoughts then
(09:16):
motivate your feelings, and then you respond to your feelings
with behavior. So if you want to change behavior, don't
try to change feelings. Change what you're thinking. Am I
on the right track.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
You're absolutely on the right track. And not only change
what you're thinking, change what you're saying to yourself about yourself.
We do a lot of self talk, don't And if
it's negative, then once again those those tiny little roads,
and your brain becomes super highways, and you actually grow dendrites.
They look like thought trees. And the more I think
a thought, the more the taut trees get bigger and bigger,
(09:47):
until I've got this tangled forest of negativity.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
And so as the roots go deep, I bed get
entangled in your soul.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
And so I say, as a man thinketh in his heart,
so is he be transfer in formed by the renewing
of your mind. Now here's what's amazing. Neuroscience is the
hottest thing now, and they're studying the brain, they're scanning
the brain, they're looking at everything in neuroscientists go, this
is amazing. Did you know that you can be transformed
by your thoughts? Did you know that you can take
(10:18):
thoughts captive? Yes, we do. It's been in scripture. So
we say now that neuroscience is finally catching up with scripture.
And if you think positive thoughts, now you have to
think them a lot. There's a neuroscientist called Caroline Leaf,
and she said a minimum of eight times a day,
listen the sole ones that I've had in my life.
(10:41):
And I grew up in an unsaved family with lots
of abuse. That eight times a day didn't do it
for me, and so I just thought, you know, Caroline,
I'm gonna probably have to do it twenty or thirty.
So I just did twenty or thirty times a day.
The next book she came up with, shees, now there
are those of you who could be really wounded, and
you're going to have to do it a whole lot more.
(11:01):
And instead of doing it for twenty days, why don't
you do it for a year. So I encourage people
who have the deep, deep soul wounds from childhood, the abuse,
the addiction, the trauma, you know, some serious PTSD that
God does not want you to live there. You do
not have to wear that anxiety, that fear, that hurt
like an old, tattered shawl. He wants you to be
(11:24):
transformed by the renewing of your mind. So you continue
to say it. Even people God don't believe it. I'm
like you, will you keep saying it, You'll believe it.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Well. You know, Satan's a sorry rascal because what he
does is he sets traps for us, and we fall
into those traps and temptations, and then once we're ensnared,
then he keeps telling our minds how stupid we were
to get entrapped in those particular problems. And he's relentless
in his condemnation. That's why when we come to faith
(11:52):
in Jesus, that verse in Romans eight one is so powerful.
There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
So if you hear that voice in your mind telling
you how all of you are, I keep telling people
that's not Jesus, that's not Jesus. He would not do
that to you. Maryland.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
What are your thoughts well, I just said, listening to
both of you, I would think that our listeners who
are struggling with any of this are beginning to feel
a flicker of hope that, oh, maybe this is not permanent.
Maybe I can unlearn what I've learned. And I also
remind we all know this, but we are body, soul,
and spirit, and so this anxiety makes its way not
only into your brain, chemistry and all that, but your
(12:26):
whole body. And so for somebody that feels like this
is only physical, I need I need every dry I
can find to get well. This should probably give them
hope to think that, you know, maybe we can start
here and work our way through and take care of body,
soul and spirit, and maybe we actually can get set free.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Tom of your thoughts, Well, I was just thinking in
the Romans eighth passage.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Oh what wretched man that I am? Who can ever
solve these people?
Speaker 3 (12:52):
I love?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Good?
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I want to do, I can't do good.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
I want to, don't do the very thing I don't
want to do. I end up doing. Wretched man that
I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?
But thanks me to God, it's implied through Jesus Christ,
our Lord. That's the end of chapter seven.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
That he gives us a new identity, and it.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Follows into chapter one. You always say, therefore, therefore the Bible,
you know what it's there for. There is therefore now
no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who
are not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.
For the law of the Spirit of Christ has set
me free from the loss and and death. And he
just goes into that whole process of being renewed and
(13:30):
strengthened by the Word of God, by scripture, by relationship
with God, by prayer. And the end of chapter eight
he's absolutely a statica. You know, you can't contain himself.
I neither heithe, nor death, nor things above nor things below.
Paul just calmed down.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Just take that.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
I helped him to develop a library of scripture that
they can recall when the negative thoughts come. You go
right to the spirit, you go right to the Word
of God. Jesus quoted it when he was tempted. It's
good enough for me, and we begin to fill our
mind with the truth of the Word of God. And
Jesus said, you'll know the truth, and the truth will
set you free and always with Christian people. And I say,
(14:07):
and the scripture says it's free. Indeed, we are free. Indeed,
that's like a triple exclamation.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Absolutely completely.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Well, as you counsel people regarding their hurts and pains,
you take them back in their past and who the
person was and maybe planned to those seas, the experiences
they had, and why they're there, and then you try
to help them walk through the healing process. How long
does a process take them for someone to move toward wholeness.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
That's an interesting, interesting question because we tend to say
it takes as long as it takes, but you're going
to have to cooperate with the process. And so there's
a lot of yes butters, Yes but you don't know
I was abused, Yes, but you don't know that I
was left by my husband. Yes, but he cheated on
me absolutely. And then the big one is yes, but
(14:56):
we don't know if we're going to have another hurricane.
We don't know if there's going to be another you know, global.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Infection, Yeah, pandemic.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Yeah, pandemic and so so, and they'll say these are real, Yes,
they are real. And I think that's why they say.
The average fifty year old is walking around with the
same anxiety that a mental patient had in the nineteen fifties.
Really is that sad.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Where they would maybe put them in an asylum and
really treat the problem absolutely and.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Do whatever medications were available, which were very limited. But
now we're walking around that way. Our children are walking
around that way. I mean, our little grandsons had to
wear masks. You know that that's something that stays in
the back of their minds, and so we do help
them walk through that pain and take the Lord to
(15:50):
the healing. Now we see non Christians, and you know,
we're not preaching I say that all the time. You're
not going to get shamed, you're not going to get
preached it. But you're going to get loved, and you're
also going to get introduced to the love of this
divine creator that cares so much for us and loves
us so much. And so sometimes it's difficult for them
(16:13):
because they have trouble believing that, See, bad things are
going to happen to me, because I've been bad and
they've always happened and God wasn't there. And you have
to really begin to show them, actually show them the
positive and that God has been there all over well.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
And in Christian theology, you know, Jesus said, when you pray,
pray like this our father and a lot of people
didn't have a good father. And when they hear you're
supposed to love a God who's a daddy, wait a minute,
my dad was abusive, or he was absent, or whatever
the case may be. And so you've got to retrain
their brain to say, yeah, that's right, this is a
very fallen world. Teach them a little bit of the
(16:51):
biblical understanding of Gendesis three, but then try to say,
but that was not God, that was the evil one
who made this world the way it is. There is
a lovingly Daddy whom you can know and will bypass
all of those memories of your bad earthly dad, if
you'll just allow that to happen. Tom and my too simplistic.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Oh not at all, David, and I think it is
a difficult thing. It's interesting. I did contemporary of prayer
for a while and it was suggesting you just kind
of empty your mind and you focus on the presence
of God, and then you have a word that brings
you back. If your mind wanders, you don't condemn yourself.
You just come back to an awareness of his presence.
And the word that the Lord gave me to kind
(17:30):
of bring me back was the word father, which had
a double meaning for me because I believe that I
could always come into the presence of our heavenly Father
and he would be there to greet me, to affirm me,
to love me and all that. But Dad didn't do that,
so it created this conflict and I had to kind
of renew my mind with a different concept of father
from my earthly father, and then learn to forgive him.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Well, let's talk about that on the other side of
the break, as well as what did COVID do to
people and anxieties. David Chadwick will be right back. Hi everyone,
(18:46):
I'm David Chadwick and this is News Talk eleven, ten
ninety nine to three WBT. Welcome back to the show.
And if you'd like to hear this program in its
entirety with Tom and Bev Rogers looking at counseling and
the anxieties of the world today, please go to WBT
dot com, scroll down to the weekend shows look for
the David Chadwick Show. You can hear it from beginning
to end as a podcast. Tom and Bev. It's great
(19:07):
having you with me. Marilyn, my wife is in studio
with me as well. It's interesting all four of us
around the table have postgraduate degrees in counseling. So let's
just talk some more about wrapping up this idea of
just retraining your brain, retraining your thought life, trying to
identify the lies of the enemy who's talking to your brain?
(19:28):
And I cannot but think here of Psalm forty two
where David said, why are you so downcast? Oh my soul?
But we've got a lot of negative self talk going on.
I think it's a lot from the enemy who tells
people how awful they are, they don't deserve to live.
You're giving them spiritual acls so they can put them
on the sidelines and are not effective for the Lord.
But on the other hand, we need to say, Gosh,
we believe in a Jesus who's good. Why are you downcast,
(19:49):
oh my soul? You put your hope in God, So
BEV just any thoughts you have on that area. Then
don't want to turn to COVID.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
It's a scripture that I have in my office. Why
are you downcast. Oh my soul, hope thou in God.
And I think we talked a little bit about our
notions of God and getting a real clear picture of
his love.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
He loves is, he's kind, he's gracious. You know. Look
at that Exodus thirty four passage. I think it's verse
six that describes who God is, compassionate and gracious. That's
whom we should love and worship, I think, and.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Really beginning to see him that way and then treat
ourselves that way. See I say, see yourself through God's eyes,
and see yourself as God sees you. Oh he thinks
I'm bad. He thinks I'm a bad guy, And I say,
oh no, he doesn't. You may have learned that, just
like you learn to talk bad about yourself. But no,
He does not want you want to shame you, or
(20:42):
punish you, or bring bad to you because of your behavior.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Marilyn Well, I was.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
Just thinking too, sometimes if we get really tired of
blaming ourselves, we'll just decide to blame the parent. And
I was so glad earlier you were saying you don't
want to cause somebody to feel bitterness toward a parent.
To understand why it went amok. But what can happen
if people get locked into well, I'm not the problem now,
it's my parents.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Is that a healthy way to live? Does that make
them feel better? I see this all the time. Now,
this is an epidemic where children, adult children are firing
divorcing their parents. And it's a book in both Tom
and I that we want to write. We have grandkids,
so it makes it a little harder because we like
to play with their grandkids. But they're divorcing their parents
(21:31):
and then blaming them and sending them this rash of
text about how horrible they've been and how terrible and
they need to repent and take their side. It's been
tough for these parents because they will say it's as
if my son, our daughter has died, except they hate me.
They hate me, and they're burning me in effigy every
(21:52):
chance they can get. And we say, over and over,
blame is not our game. No, you're just gonna end
up better and angry. And we cannot control our parents.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
And bev what they do with the question, how do
you handle the commandment that says you shall honor your
mom and dad? And this is the only commandment that
comes with a promise that you'll live long in the land.
There's got to be something very powerful when we honor
our moms and dads. People ask me, then, what if
my parents weren't very good? I don't see that parenthesis
(22:24):
in the commandment. I mean, you're still to honor them.
How did you get into this world except through them?
At least pray for the salvation of their souls, or
pray for God to change their hearts and perspective, and
at least give them the chance to become the person
you want them to be. But otherwise, it just doesn't
do you any good to have that kind of bitterness.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
I had a chance to really flesh that out, David,
And for a long time I was bitter with my
father because he had many many affairs and broke of
our family. Mom and Dad divorced after twenty five years.
I was very very angry with him, and it hindered me.
He was not invited to our wedding and want him
to be there. And over the years we kind of
(23:03):
resolved our relationship. But I had to make a distinction
between responsibility and blame because he was responsible, and I
have to give him responsibility for some of the negative things.
I learned a deep insecurity, fear of inadequacy and failure,
those kind of things that he passed on to me
that were kind of his legacy his life. So I
(23:23):
had to give him responsibility but not blame. So what
I did was I kind of gave the responsibility to him.
I dealt with the effect of that, and then I
moved toward learning how to forgive him, because I believe
that forgiveness offers us an opportunity to pardon someone who's
offended us, and it offers us freedom from bitterness and resentment.
So when I could forgive my dad and move to
(23:45):
praying for him rather than judging him, it opened the
door to an amazing healing with him, and it manifested
if I could share very quickly. It manifested in a
week before he died. This has been about ten years
ago now, and we'd had a pretty good relationship, but
Dad and I were still estranged. He was very much
(24:05):
estranged from the Church and Christians. There are all hypocrites
in there. And I said, well, Dad, there's a lot
of hypocrites that don't go to church too. I'm not
confined just to church, but my stepmom called, and he
was in the hospital. The hospice was coming in and
we knew the end was very, very close. Would you
come out? He was out in Los Angeles. I'm here,
(24:26):
so I fly out there. I go in to meet him.
My sister and her husband are there from Oregon. She's
always been a little angry with me. So I walk in,
Hey have everybody? How you doing? My sister said, we
stayed with him last night. You're staying with him tonight. Well,
nice to see you too, But I didn't mind because
I really want to spend some time with him. So
(24:47):
Saturday night I stayed. Sunday morning, I got up, I'm
getting ready and taking a shower and all that, and
and I felt like the Lord just gave me the opportunity.
I wanted to read scripture to my dad, but I
didn't know how he'd take it. So I came out.
I said, Dad, I'd like to just share with you
a little devotional and scripture. Can we do that? Yeah?
So I do the devotional. It has some passages dealing
with the peace of God, and there were some passages
(25:10):
of Scripture there, but I thought, I don't want to
do those. I want to do John fourteen, and John's
my favorite book in the Bible, and I love his
candor and his honesty, and you know, so I start
reading John fourteen. Let not your heart be troubled, neither
let it be afraid. You believe in God, believe also
in me. In my father's house or many mansions. If
(25:32):
it were not so, I would have told you, and
I go to prepare a place for you. And if
I go to prepare a place, I'll come again and
take you to myself where I am there you may
be also. I start reading this scripture that I know
by memory, and I look down and my dad is crying.
And it's not just little tears. My dad was not
a crier, but it was just flowing out of him.
(25:52):
And he said, that was my favorite scripture when I
was growing up and I was a young man, that
was my favorite scripture. I thought, this cannot be a coincidence.
So I read it again. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. Believe in God, believe also
in me. And I said, Dad, you're getting ready to
go meet God. Are you ready to meet him? He said, son,
(26:15):
I want you to know that I took care of
that a while back, and I'm ready to go home.
That was a Sunday, Sunday afternoon. Monday, we moved him
into hospice. Tuesday morning, I came back home, and Friday morning,
just before dawn, my dad, who had spent eighty seven
years as bitter as he could be, died peacefully in
(26:36):
his sleep and went to be with the Lord. And
I felt like that whole thing happened because way way
back there, I had given him responsibility but not blame,
and I forgave him and God gave me the opportunity
to close the deal.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Well, it's been very meaningful for me to think about
with people in those situations. You know, if I had
been raised in his home, with his influences, what happened
to him, I'm very capable of responding to life just
like he did. Yeah, there's really an empathy factor that
really does help you from him, folks.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
It sure does. It's almost a key. Now that's tough. See,
let's say you've been sexually abused, or you know, you
were prostituted. Even there some women that are just really
severe wounds, and I don't think I could ever find
in my heart. In my heart and plus he won't
hear me. He won't hear me. Ooh, that's hard because
(27:28):
of what I tell parents to do. If you're capable,
listen to your grown children. You know they maybe they
have a perspective that you like brother Moore and you
honored him more, and then you look back and you go,
are you kidding? I really tried hard to honor you?
But there could be times when they you know, we
picked the other one, or oh, we're going to go
(27:49):
to this particular play or whatever because you know, you
know she's going to be a star in this or whatever,
and so you just say, I really want to hear
it from your perspective. Now, then there's those really sick
parents who can't who can't.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
But it sounds like you know, not only does this
give people hope, but listening to you, Tom, it was
certainly healing for your father, but it was also healing
for you. And had you clung to any kind of
bitterness or blame, I don't think you would have felt
very peaceful or well.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
No, I wouldn't have. And it just freed me so
much to the point that I could then share with
him truly the message of the gospel and live it
out with him, and he died in a peaceful place.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
That's a miracle.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
It was a miracle.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Well, I think it was Nelson Mandela and he probably
barred it from somebody else. But he said that holding
onto bitterness is like drinking arsenic and expecting the other
person to die. It's an often quoted statement, but it's
so powerful. Bitterness only hurts you at the end of
the day, and God's grace through Jesus is supposed to
absorb that bitterness and allow you to be set free
(28:53):
so you can live in that love. And we're also broken,
and this world's so broken. We do hurt each other,
and at some point we've got to walk in that
grace that we've received from Jesus in order to be
free ourselves.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
So, you know the last part of that story that's
very interesting to me. Monday night, we were with my dad,
my sister and I on either side of his bed
and we're just talking. It's about midnight, and he begins
to cry and he said, I know that I deeply
hurt you. Guys. I never meant to hurt you, and
I'm so sorry, and both of us at the same
time that hesitating and said, Dad, that's okay. We forgave
(29:26):
you a long time ago.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
I had already done it.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
And then I said something that surprised me. I said,
I want you to know we're proud to be your children.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Wow. And I've still got to ask about COVID. We'll
do it in the last segment. But thank you guys
for sharing that and being so vulnerable. I'm David Chadwick,
will be right back.
Speaker 5 (30:14):
If you walk tids sick, you're gonna walk cow you.
If you wont Tim now, you're gonna walk cow free.
Because at the mincher of his day, at the butcher
of his day.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
At the bencher of his day. Hi everyone, I'm David
Chadwick and this is News Talk eleven, ten ninety nine
Free WBT. Welcome back to the show with my friends
Tom and Bev Rodgers who oversee Rogers Christian and counseling.
That's a wonderful ministry they do with those of you
who are hurting inside. Just want someone on one time
to process your emotions, try to get healthy and well.
Bev one more time. If they want to make an
(30:55):
appointment with you or Tom, how could they do.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
So they can go to Rogers Christian Counseling dot com
or RCCA dot com. They can make an appointment online
or they can call the numbers there they can call,
and we have many people, including Tom and I that
would be there to help.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Well. You guys do a great service to the community.
Who knows the hundreds thousands of people you've helped through
the forty two plus years of doing this ministry here
in the city. I'm just honored to call you, my friends.
Bev real quickly because I've teased it twice. We need
to at least address it before the show ends. COVID
What did it do to people here?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
It scared them to death. It just scared them to death.
I think people backed away from faith. I think they
began to think far more calamitous thoughts. You know. Part
of anxiety and fear is thinking calamitous thoughts. You know,
it's this, instead of God's got this, He's under in control,
it's this is terrible, calamity is going to happen. Is
(31:50):
I'm catastrophizing it's going to happen again?
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Al must prophesy your own downfall y.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yes, yes, and then think it over and over and
over and it becomes stuck there, and so that's part
of our anxiety and part of our depression is so high.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
I go back five years, even this record.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Numbers yes, and we when COVID hit, we got so busy.
We worked solidly through COVID doing telehealth and it was
quite effective. But we were so shocked at how many
people called us because they were scared to death, literally
scared to death of what was going to happen to them.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Well, I got a feeling we need to have a
whole COVID show just listening to some of the things
you've said, even off air to me and Marilyn about
how problematic that was and how that just devastated so
many people. So why don't we do that. Let's have
a COVID Part two with Tom and bella Road. I'll
make sure that happens. But Marilyn, you had a question
about marriages that I thought was really important.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
Well, and it is related to COVID, because I know
of at least one marriage that I pretty much feel
broke up over the disagreement over the shots. One of
the couple got a shot, the other didn't, and then
there was anger that erupted and BEV you said, you've
seen that happen with other couples, and I'm just thinking
to myself, who would have thought the types of thing
marriages are dealing with nowadays?
Speaker 2 (33:05):
And that's one of those post COVID things that really
surprised us too, Marilyn, that that couples would you know,
arguing over the vaccine, you know, fighting over the vaccine,
fighting over you know, things that they had heard. You know,
one is listening to one side and one is listening
to another side, and so, uh, you know, we managed
(33:26):
to help them work it out, but man, it was tough.
I mean, you know, money, in laws, roles, these are
the things we dealt with your children, and so it
was like, wow, and tell me and I would talk Africa.
Can you believe that? How do we help them? And
so we said, just like any other issue, you're going
to have to find a way, and they know, oh,
(33:49):
I'm dead, said on it. And so far we didn't
have anybody divorce over it. But I did know that
there were some divorces over the fact, and you heard Marylyn,
I did the one that I but then I had
another woman. It was an acquaintance that said, if my
husband gets this shot. I've already decided I will divorce him.
I quote an exactly quote, and I think obviously there's
(34:11):
more going on in that marriage just the shot. But
it just tells me that, you know, marriages are already
under fire today. And isn't that an example of one
more way the enemy would want to just tear apart couples.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Well, his name means the divider, and and Tom is
Trump derangement syndrome a reality? I mean their marriage is
We've heard that actually those political differences causes great stress
on marriage. Is that true?
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Well, I'm sure it is in some homes. Yeah, sadly,
I generally don't get stuck on that one very much.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
I was just more curious.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Seems that I get them.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
I don't know if I hint that way. I just
refirmed she.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Enjoys the political fight.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
But it's good for mayor and the phones. Let's not
forget what fuels that. We haven't even mentioned that.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
That's a whole nother subject.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yes, just like television started spreading couples apart because men
were glued to it when they came home from work
in the forties and fifties, Well, now they're glued to
their phones and then now children. I mean, they all
are really separating.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Thems well and in a very general sense. Guys, if
they come in, they typically are pointing at one another.
You know, they're diagnosing the marriage or whatever in terms
of what the other person doesn't do or does do.
And we try to kind of convert that quickly to
what part do you play in the trouble in the
relationship what we call a power struggle, which is a
movement based on fear. So what we want to help
(35:36):
them do is take ownership of what they feel, and
we begin to talk about that and share with each
other rather than accusing one another. And that tends to
diffuse that whole thing wanting to blame on each other
and being divisive and all that.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Well, if you can just get well from that, that's huge.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Yes, yeah, we both couples, Both members of the couple
bring in their own wounds. They then start to blame
the other person if they don't sense that other person
can be Jesus and kill their wounds. And when it
doesn't happen, and indeed the wounds even get deeper, it
only exacerbates the marital difficulties that already exist.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Well, and nobody can wound you like your partner. When
people say this like everybody loves me, you know, and
that work loves me, I, well, you're paying them to
do that. If you're the CEO, you're paying them to
love you. But I have to say that that because
your partner wounds you doesn't necessarily mean that the marriage
is over or that it's a terrible partner. That that
(36:32):
person has that power because you love them so much.
I say all the time. If your husband says I'm
not going to earn, your neighbor says, well, I don't
want to eat dinner with you because you planted your
flowers too close to the line in my house, then
you got WHOA, that's really sad. Your mate says, I'm
eating upstairs, I don't want to eat with you. That
can be crushing. So they have such meaning to you,
(36:55):
they have the power to hurt you as well.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Yeah, and if you've lived together for any number of years,
you know where the other person who spots are and
you know how to touch them.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
There was this very interesting interaction though. We found that
people many times have very similar wounds and fears but
different adaptations, and once we help them begin to take
ownership of that and talk about that and share with
each other. This relationship that re wounds them with their
reactivity becomes one that heals them with their responsiveness. So
(37:24):
we trade our reactivity for responding to each other in
a healing way and to have the unique ability because
they can rewound each other that they have the potential
of healing each other too.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
That gives hope.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
That gives hope.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
And it's Jesus. It's Jesus, it is.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
And when you have Jesus at the center of a relationship,
am I too trite just to say? He does draw
you closer together?
Speaker 3 (37:45):
Absolutely, and he can heal You're closer to him too.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Yeah, And it is that triangle that if Jesus is
at the top of the triangle and the two individuals
at the bottom, the closer they get to the top,
the closer they get to one another. That really isn't
just trite Christian needs.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
That is just that's who he is.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Yeah, Well I've learned over the forty years plus. I
was twelve and we started by the way. I believe
God is always faithful, But I've learned two things. It's
going to be his time and it's going to be
his way, and sometimes healing may be different than we
have preconceived. But God's always faithful and he always loves us,
(38:26):
and we can trust that.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
And he is Jehovah wrothe God, our healer. He does
want to heal our wounds.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
They have one more time if they want to talk
to you guys. How can they talk to you.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Rogers Christiancounseling dot com and they're all the information they need.
They can connect online or they can use the telephone
number and call and we would be more than happy
to help.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Common dev Rogers Rogers Christian Counseling. Great to have you
on the show. Can get you back. We got so
much to talk about yet, but I pray God will
continue to bless you your ministry as you bless other
people as well. I'm David Chadwick. This is News Talk
eleven ten nine nine three WBT Meryland. Thanks for being
with me, Tom and def you as well. I look
forward to talking with you all next week.
Hi everyone, I'm David Chadwick and this is News Talk eleven,
ten ninety nine to three WBT. Welcome to the show.
In case you don't know, this is a faith and
values program that tries to intersect faith and values with
what's going on locally and globally. It's been a pleasure
doing the show now for almost twenty six years. Thank
you for listening. Also, many thanks to Perry's Fine Jewelry
(00:29):
for your sponsorship of the show. Without you, I could
not do this on a weekly basis. I'm so proud
and honored to have my name attached to your particular enterprise. Well,
I have a very special show for all of you today.
I have my wife Marilyn in studio with me. Marilyn,
good to have you back with me on this show.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Thanks David, it's good to be back.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Well.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
I always enjoyed that forty seven years of marriage. We've
learned a lot through the years and we love sharing
it with people as well. I have also in studio
with me, Tom and Bev Rogers. Many of you know
of them, especially if you are of a Christian persuasion.
They have over seen and operated Rogers Christian counseling services
(01:09):
here in the Charlotte Metrolina area for now over four decades,
and it's just been a pleasure getting to know them
more and more through our common association with Moments of
Hope Church now, but even more particularly our common relationship
with Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior. They have
been counseling people for so many years. I just thought
(01:29):
I'd get them on the show and ask them one
blunt question and then we'll talk about it for the
next hour. And that question is, what are you guys
mostly dealing with in people that you're counseling with Right now, Tom,
I'll turn to you first. What would your answer be?
Speaker 3 (01:45):
I would have to say anxiety is probably the number
one issue that we deal with, really, yeah, so much
so that I kind of have a process of dealing
with that pretty quickly. The definition of anxiety is generalized fear.
What that means, I think is that we learn a
particular fear in a certain context, but then we internalize
(02:06):
that fear. We say, yes, this fear is true about me.
I'm abandonable, I'm rejectable, I'm a failure, or whatever it
might be. The more we internalize it the more we
generalize it, which means if it's true in one context,
it's true in all contexts. And that generalized fear becomes anxiety.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Well, if I'm right, could I say it this way?
I've often wondered if anxiety is a belief something bad
might happen to me, fear is a belief something will
happen to me that's bad. Is that too simplistic? Or
does they kind of get at what you're talking about?
And I think they're both. They're cousins, Yeah, they really are. Yeah,
the kind of one goes with the other. They're very
(02:45):
kindred spirits, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
What we generally do, what I like to do, is
to help them trace back the fear to where it
came from. And many of these fears are developmental, which
is the first two four seven years of life right
in there. And these fears are learned, internalized, they're adapted
to and it's almost an unconscious response, just stimulus response
kind of thing. But I think it is related to
(03:08):
a specific fear. And once we name that, because the
fears are very basic, half a dozen emotional fears I
call them abandonment, rejection, unworthiness, inferiority, inadequacy, failure, slash success,
and insecurity. Those are generally the most common learned emotional fears.
(03:30):
And I always say it that way. They're learned, they
can be unlearned. That's the good news. Bad news is
they were learned about thirty years.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Ago, and the more you repeat them, the more entrenched
they become in your soul, and the more difficult it
is to deal with them.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
And we just identify with it and take ownership of
it and act as if it is true. So what
I do is I try to help them understand that
number one, the fear is learned, it's not innate. And secondly,
it can be challenged, it can be changed. So I
develop a hypothesis and if then statement. So the if
then statement it as if these fears are learned, and
they're not innate, they're not hereditary, they're learned, they can
(04:05):
be unlearned, and we can challenge them with four questions.
Question Number one, if the fear is learned, where did
I learn it? And they'll struggle with that a little bit.
You know, it might be past relationships, and I say, well,
it could certainly be relationships, but I think it goes
back farther than that the origin of it. And I'm
kind of applying to to family of origin in some way.
(04:28):
So the question number one, if the fear has learned,
where did I learn it? Number two, if the fear
has learned, who were what taught me? And that one
kind of amuses me because they stumble with the first answer.
With the second answer, they just they're all eyeballs and
they kind of I don't know, I say, well, it's
door number one or door number two, maybe both, But
they didn't mean to. They probably just taught you.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Their fear is that mom and dad, Mom and dad,
Oh those are two doors out.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah. Well, and we say this that blame is not
our game. You know, you don't go to counseling to
blame anybody. But you want to see why you do
what you do. And often it's a solid, honest look
at family of origin. You know, sometimes it's sense of omission,
it's commission. It could be environment. You know, you could
feel very different. Maybe you're an Irish Catholic who grew
(05:14):
up in a Protestant neighborhood. But these are things we
call them soul wounds, and those soul wounes then get reinforced.
The more we think a thought, the more the dendrites
are the thought trees grow. So you have anxious, fearful
thoughts and you keep thinking them and thinking them, and
what happens is a tiny little road becomes a super
(05:35):
highway in the brain. So you're growing these negative thoughts
and your brain automatizes them. So no matter what I'm thinking,
all of a sudden, if I hear something about the world,
you know, I love the whole notion of we need
to be prepared, not scared. And I think that your
radio show helps us do that.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Well, I hope. So that's what I desire so much.
And I know that if God can use this in
any possible way in somebody's heart, I'm so grateful for
that to happen. Is it as simple as saying we
need to train our brain. I mean, I've often taught
in counseling theory that you are what you think. Rational
motive theory, rational theory, all of that kind of thing. Tom,
(06:16):
we only got a minute, But what do you think
of that?
Speaker 3 (06:18):
I think we can certainly train the brain, we can
certainly change what we believe. So I go back to
my little hypothesis, Where did you learn the fear? Who
are taught you? Question number three is important. What message
does this fear give you about you? I'm not lovable,
I'm not worthy, I'm not good enough, I don't have
what it takes. And then I say, okay, in light
(06:38):
of the Word of God, is that message really true?
When we take them back to the Word of God.
We're fearfully and wonderfully made the image of God and
all that we help them learn through scripture to push
a wave from the negative thoughts and build positive thoughts
that they are true.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
So it really is being transformed by the renewal of
your mind. Let's seize on that when we come back,
because I do really believe you are what you think.
I'm David Chadwick. This is News Talk eleven, ten ninety nine,
three WBT will be right back. Hi everyone, and I'm
(07:45):
David Chadwick and this is News Talk eleven, ten ninety
nine and three WBT. Welcome back to the show. If
you're just joining us. I have as my guest today
my wife Marilyn, who is in studio with me, and
Tom and Bev Rogers who oversee Rogers Christian counseling here
in the city. And by the way, I think they'd
be more than happy to talk to any of you
(08:06):
who might need some counseling help. Bev. Let me turn
to you, how in the world could someone contact you
if they are interested in just sitting down and unpacking
some of the stuff you're talking to.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
You certainly can go to Rogers Christiancounseling dot com, or
there's also a number listed if you google us that
you can call us. And we have other folks that
we've trained in the model that we use that can
help this world. That's aching, Yeah, very much aching.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
And I want to stay clearly as a pastor for
over four decades that there is nothing wrong. There's everything
right with sitting down with somebody who's skilled like you
guys are unpacking your emotions, letting someone who is not
associated with you here from a blank state what you're
saying to help you get in touch with what's going
on within you to be healed. So let's let's jump
(08:55):
back into In the first seven we were talking about
the way you help people unpack what's going on emotionally
inside of them, and it sounded to me like you
really are talking about Romans twelve, where we are transformed
by the renewal of our minds. That you know that
old statement, you are what you think. You know, a
lot of people say you are what you eat. I
say you are what you think. That your thoughts then
(09:16):
motivate your feelings, and then you respond to your feelings
with behavior. So if you want to change behavior, don't
try to change feelings. Change what you're thinking. Am I
on the right track.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
You're absolutely on the right track. And not only change
what you're thinking, change what you're saying to yourself about yourself.
We do a lot of self talk, don't And if
it's negative, then once again those those tiny little roads,
and your brain becomes super highways, and you actually grow dendrites.
They look like thought trees. And the more I think
a thought, the more the taut trees get bigger and bigger,
(09:47):
until I've got this tangled forest of negativity.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
And so as the roots go deep, I bed get
entangled in your soul.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
And so I say, as a man thinketh in his heart,
so is he be transfer in formed by the renewing
of your mind. Now here's what's amazing. Neuroscience is the
hottest thing now, and they're studying the brain, they're scanning
the brain, they're looking at everything in neuroscientists go, this
is amazing. Did you know that you can be transformed
by your thoughts? Did you know that you can take
(10:18):
thoughts captive? Yes, we do. It's been in scripture. So
we say now that neuroscience is finally catching up with scripture.
And if you think positive thoughts, now you have to
think them a lot. There's a neuroscientist called Caroline Leaf,
and she said a minimum of eight times a day,
listen the sole ones that I've had in my life.
(10:41):
And I grew up in an unsaved family with lots
of abuse. That eight times a day didn't do it
for me, and so I just thought, you know, Caroline,
I'm gonna probably have to do it twenty or thirty.
So I just did twenty or thirty times a day.
The next book she came up with, shees, now there
are those of you who could be really wounded, and
you're going to have to do it a whole lot more.
(11:01):
And instead of doing it for twenty days, why don't
you do it for a year. So I encourage people
who have the deep, deep soul wounds from childhood, the abuse,
the addiction, the trauma, you know, some serious PTSD that
God does not want you to live there. You do
not have to wear that anxiety, that fear, that hurt
like an old, tattered shawl. He wants you to be
(11:24):
transformed by the renewing of your mind. So you continue
to say it. Even people God don't believe it. I'm
like you, will you keep saying it, You'll believe it.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Well. You know, Satan's a sorry rascal because what he
does is he sets traps for us, and we fall
into those traps and temptations, and then once we're ensnared,
then he keeps telling our minds how stupid we were
to get entrapped in those particular problems. And he's relentless
in his condemnation. That's why when we come to faith
(11:52):
in Jesus, that verse in Romans eight one is so powerful.
There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
So if you hear that voice in your mind telling
you how all of you are, I keep telling people
that's not Jesus, that's not Jesus. He would not do
that to you. Maryland.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
What are your thoughts well, I just said, listening to
both of you, I would think that our listeners who
are struggling with any of this are beginning to feel
a flicker of hope that, oh, maybe this is not permanent.
Maybe I can unlearn what I've learned. And I also
remind we all know this, but we are body, soul,
and spirit, and so this anxiety makes its way not
only into your brain, chemistry and all that, but your
(12:26):
whole body. And so for somebody that feels like this
is only physical, I need I need every dry I
can find to get well. This should probably give them
hope to think that, you know, maybe we can start
here and work our way through and take care of body,
soul and spirit, and maybe we actually can get set free.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Tom of your thoughts, Well, I was just thinking in
the Romans eighth passage.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Oh what wretched man that I am? Who can ever
solve these people?
Speaker 3 (12:52):
I love?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Good?
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I want to do, I can't do good.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
I want to, don't do the very thing I don't
want to do. I end up doing. Wretched man that
I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?
But thanks me to God, it's implied through Jesus Christ,
our Lord. That's the end of chapter seven.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
That he gives us a new identity, and it.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Follows into chapter one. You always say, therefore, therefore the Bible,
you know what it's there for. There is therefore now
no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who
are not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.
For the law of the Spirit of Christ has set
me free from the loss and and death. And he
just goes into that whole process of being renewed and
(13:30):
strengthened by the Word of God, by scripture, by relationship
with God, by prayer. And the end of chapter eight
he's absolutely a statica. You know, you can't contain himself.
I neither heithe, nor death, nor things above nor things below.
Paul just calmed down.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Just take that.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
I helped him to develop a library of scripture that
they can recall when the negative thoughts come. You go
right to the spirit, you go right to the Word
of God. Jesus quoted it when he was tempted. It's
good enough for me, and we begin to fill our
mind with the truth of the Word of God. And
Jesus said, you'll know the truth, and the truth will
set you free and always with Christian people. And I say,
(14:07):
and the scripture says it's free. Indeed, we are free. Indeed,
that's like a triple exclamation.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Absolutely completely.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Well, as you counsel people regarding their hurts and pains,
you take them back in their past and who the
person was and maybe planned to those seas, the experiences
they had, and why they're there, and then you try
to help them walk through the healing process. How long
does a process take them for someone to move toward wholeness.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
That's an interesting, interesting question because we tend to say
it takes as long as it takes, but you're going
to have to cooperate with the process. And so there's
a lot of yes butters, Yes but you don't know
I was abused, Yes, but you don't know that I
was left by my husband. Yes, but he cheated on
me absolutely. And then the big one is yes, but
(14:56):
we don't know if we're going to have another hurricane.
We don't know if there's going to be another you know, global.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Infection, Yeah, pandemic.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Yeah, pandemic and so so, and they'll say these are real, Yes,
they are real. And I think that's why they say.
The average fifty year old is walking around with the
same anxiety that a mental patient had in the nineteen fifties.
Really is that sad.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Where they would maybe put them in an asylum and
really treat the problem absolutely and.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Do whatever medications were available, which were very limited. But
now we're walking around that way. Our children are walking
around that way. I mean, our little grandsons had to
wear masks. You know that that's something that stays in
the back of their minds, and so we do help
them walk through that pain and take the Lord to
(15:50):
the healing. Now we see non Christians, and you know,
we're not preaching I say that all the time. You're
not going to get shamed, you're not going to get
preached it. But you're going to get loved, and you're
also going to get introduced to the love of this
divine creator that cares so much for us and loves
us so much. And so sometimes it's difficult for them
(16:13):
because they have trouble believing that, See, bad things are
going to happen to me, because I've been bad and
they've always happened and God wasn't there. And you have
to really begin to show them, actually show them the
positive and that God has been there all over well.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
And in Christian theology, you know, Jesus said, when you pray,
pray like this our father and a lot of people
didn't have a good father. And when they hear you're
supposed to love a God who's a daddy, wait a minute,
my dad was abusive, or he was absent, or whatever
the case may be. And so you've got to retrain
their brain to say, yeah, that's right, this is a
very fallen world. Teach them a little bit of the
(16:51):
biblical understanding of Gendesis three, but then try to say,
but that was not God, that was the evil one
who made this world the way it is. There is
a lovingly Daddy whom you can know and will bypass
all of those memories of your bad earthly dad, if
you'll just allow that to happen. Tom and my too simplistic.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Oh not at all, David, and I think it is
a difficult thing. It's interesting. I did contemporary of prayer
for a while and it was suggesting you just kind
of empty your mind and you focus on the presence
of God, and then you have a word that brings
you back. If your mind wanders, you don't condemn yourself.
You just come back to an awareness of his presence.
And the word that the Lord gave me to kind
(17:30):
of bring me back was the word father, which had
a double meaning for me because I believe that I
could always come into the presence of our heavenly Father
and he would be there to greet me, to affirm me,
to love me and all that. But Dad didn't do that,
so it created this conflict and I had to kind
of renew my mind with a different concept of father
from my earthly father, and then learn to forgive him.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Well, let's talk about that on the other side of
the break, as well as what did COVID do to
people and anxieties. David Chadwick will be right back. Hi everyone,
(18:46):
I'm David Chadwick and this is News Talk eleven, ten
ninety nine to three WBT. Welcome back to the show.
And if you'd like to hear this program in its
entirety with Tom and Bev Rogers looking at counseling and
the anxieties of the world today, please go to WBT
dot com, scroll down to the weekend shows look for
the David Chadwick Show. You can hear it from beginning
to end as a podcast. Tom and Bev. It's great
(19:07):
having you with me. Marilyn, my wife is in studio
with me as well. It's interesting all four of us
around the table have postgraduate degrees in counseling. So let's
just talk some more about wrapping up this idea of
just retraining your brain, retraining your thought life, trying to
identify the lies of the enemy who's talking to your brain?
(19:28):
And I cannot but think here of Psalm forty two
where David said, why are you so downcast? Oh my soul?
But we've got a lot of negative self talk going on.
I think it's a lot from the enemy who tells
people how awful they are, they don't deserve to live.
You're giving them spiritual acls so they can put them
on the sidelines and are not effective for the Lord.
But on the other hand, we need to say, Gosh,
we believe in a Jesus who's good. Why are you downcast,
(19:49):
oh my soul? You put your hope in God, So
BEV just any thoughts you have on that area. Then
don't want to turn to COVID.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
It's a scripture that I have in my office. Why
are you downcast. Oh my soul, hope thou in God.
And I think we talked a little bit about our
notions of God and getting a real clear picture of
his love.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
He loves is, he's kind, he's gracious. You know. Look
at that Exodus thirty four passage. I think it's verse
six that describes who God is, compassionate and gracious. That's
whom we should love and worship, I think, and.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Really beginning to see him that way and then treat
ourselves that way. See I say, see yourself through God's eyes,
and see yourself as God sees you. Oh he thinks
I'm bad. He thinks I'm a bad guy, And I say,
oh no, he doesn't. You may have learned that, just
like you learn to talk bad about yourself. But no,
He does not want you want to shame you, or
(20:42):
punish you, or bring bad to you because of your behavior.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Marilyn Well, I was.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
Just thinking too, sometimes if we get really tired of
blaming ourselves, we'll just decide to blame the parent. And
I was so glad earlier you were saying you don't
want to cause somebody to feel bitterness toward a parent.
To understand why it went amok. But what can happen
if people get locked into well, I'm not the problem now,
it's my parents.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Is that a healthy way to live? Does that make
them feel better? I see this all the time. Now,
this is an epidemic where children, adult children are firing
divorcing their parents. And it's a book in both Tom
and I that we want to write. We have grandkids,
so it makes it a little harder because we like
to play with their grandkids. But they're divorcing their parents
(21:31):
and then blaming them and sending them this rash of
text about how horrible they've been and how terrible and
they need to repent and take their side. It's been
tough for these parents because they will say it's as
if my son, our daughter has died, except they hate me.
They hate me, and they're burning me in effigy every
(21:52):
chance they can get. And we say, over and over,
blame is not our game. No, you're just gonna end
up better and angry. And we cannot control our parents.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
And bev what they do with the question, how do
you handle the commandment that says you shall honor your
mom and dad? And this is the only commandment that
comes with a promise that you'll live long in the land.
There's got to be something very powerful when we honor
our moms and dads. People ask me, then, what if
my parents weren't very good? I don't see that parenthesis
(22:24):
in the commandment. I mean, you're still to honor them.
How did you get into this world except through them?
At least pray for the salvation of their souls, or
pray for God to change their hearts and perspective, and
at least give them the chance to become the person
you want them to be. But otherwise, it just doesn't
do you any good to have that kind of bitterness.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
I had a chance to really flesh that out, David,
And for a long time I was bitter with my
father because he had many many affairs and broke of
our family. Mom and Dad divorced after twenty five years.
I was very very angry with him, and it hindered me.
He was not invited to our wedding and want him
to be there. And over the years we kind of
(23:03):
resolved our relationship. But I had to make a distinction
between responsibility and blame because he was responsible, and I
have to give him responsibility for some of the negative things.
I learned a deep insecurity, fear of inadequacy and failure,
those kind of things that he passed on to me
that were kind of his legacy his life. So I
(23:23):
had to give him responsibility but not blame. So what
I did was I kind of gave the responsibility to him.
I dealt with the effect of that, and then I
moved toward learning how to forgive him, because I believe
that forgiveness offers us an opportunity to pardon someone who's
offended us, and it offers us freedom from bitterness and resentment.
So when I could forgive my dad and move to
(23:45):
praying for him rather than judging him, it opened the
door to an amazing healing with him, and it manifested
if I could share very quickly. It manifested in a
week before he died. This has been about ten years
ago now, and we'd had a pretty good relationship, but
Dad and I were still estranged. He was very much
(24:05):
estranged from the Church and Christians. There are all hypocrites
in there. And I said, well, Dad, there's a lot
of hypocrites that don't go to church too. I'm not
confined just to church, but my stepmom called, and he
was in the hospital. The hospice was coming in and
we knew the end was very, very close. Would you
come out? He was out in Los Angeles. I'm here,
(24:26):
so I fly out there. I go in to meet him.
My sister and her husband are there from Oregon. She's
always been a little angry with me. So I walk in,
Hey have everybody? How you doing? My sister said, we
stayed with him last night. You're staying with him tonight. Well,
nice to see you too, But I didn't mind because
I really want to spend some time with him. So
(24:47):
Saturday night I stayed. Sunday morning, I got up, I'm
getting ready and taking a shower and all that, and
and I felt like the Lord just gave me the opportunity.
I wanted to read scripture to my dad, but I
didn't know how he'd take it. So I came out.
I said, Dad, I'd like to just share with you
a little devotional and scripture. Can we do that? Yeah?
So I do the devotional. It has some passages dealing
with the peace of God, and there were some passages
(25:10):
of Scripture there, but I thought, I don't want to
do those. I want to do John fourteen, and John's
my favorite book in the Bible, and I love his
candor and his honesty, and you know, so I start
reading John fourteen. Let not your heart be troubled, neither
let it be afraid. You believe in God, believe also
in me. In my father's house or many mansions. If
(25:32):
it were not so, I would have told you, and
I go to prepare a place for you. And if
I go to prepare a place, I'll come again and
take you to myself where I am there you may
be also. I start reading this scripture that I know
by memory, and I look down and my dad is crying.
And it's not just little tears. My dad was not
a crier, but it was just flowing out of him.
(25:52):
And he said, that was my favorite scripture when I
was growing up and I was a young man, that
was my favorite scripture. I thought, this cannot be a coincidence.
So I read it again. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. Believe in God, believe also
in me. And I said, Dad, you're getting ready to
go meet God. Are you ready to meet him? He said, son,
(26:15):
I want you to know that I took care of
that a while back, and I'm ready to go home.
That was a Sunday, Sunday afternoon. Monday, we moved him
into hospice. Tuesday morning, I came back home, and Friday morning,
just before dawn, my dad, who had spent eighty seven
years as bitter as he could be, died peacefully in
(26:36):
his sleep and went to be with the Lord. And
I felt like that whole thing happened because way way
back there, I had given him responsibility but not blame,
and I forgave him and God gave me the opportunity
to close the deal.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Well, it's been very meaningful for me to think about
with people in those situations. You know, if I had
been raised in his home, with his influences, what happened
to him, I'm very capable of responding to life just
like he did. Yeah, there's really an empathy factor that
really does help you from him, folks.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
It sure does. It's almost a key. Now that's tough. See,
let's say you've been sexually abused, or you know, you
were prostituted. Even there some women that are just really
severe wounds, and I don't think I could ever find
in my heart. In my heart and plus he won't
hear me. He won't hear me. Ooh, that's hard because
(27:28):
of what I tell parents to do. If you're capable,
listen to your grown children. You know they maybe they
have a perspective that you like brother Moore and you
honored him more, and then you look back and you go,
are you kidding? I really tried hard to honor you?
But there could be times when they you know, we
picked the other one, or oh, we're going to go
(27:49):
to this particular play or whatever because you know, you
know she's going to be a star in this or whatever,
and so you just say, I really want to hear
it from your perspective. Now, then there's those really sick
parents who can't who can't.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
But it sounds like you know, not only does this
give people hope, but listening to you, Tom, it was
certainly healing for your father, but it was also healing
for you. And had you clung to any kind of
bitterness or blame, I don't think you would have felt
very peaceful or well.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
No, I wouldn't have. And it just freed me so
much to the point that I could then share with
him truly the message of the gospel and live it
out with him, and he died in a peaceful place.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
That's a miracle.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
It was a miracle.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Well, I think it was Nelson Mandela and he probably
barred it from somebody else. But he said that holding
onto bitterness is like drinking arsenic and expecting the other
person to die. It's an often quoted statement, but it's
so powerful. Bitterness only hurts you at the end of
the day, and God's grace through Jesus is supposed to
absorb that bitterness and allow you to be set free
(28:53):
so you can live in that love. And we're also broken,
and this world's so broken. We do hurt each other,
and at some point we've got to walk in that
grace that we've received from Jesus in order to be
free ourselves.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
So, you know the last part of that story that's
very interesting to me. Monday night, we were with my dad,
my sister and I on either side of his bed
and we're just talking. It's about midnight, and he begins
to cry and he said, I know that I deeply
hurt you. Guys. I never meant to hurt you, and
I'm so sorry, and both of us at the same
time that hesitating and said, Dad, that's okay. We forgave
(29:26):
you a long time ago.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
I had already done it.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
And then I said something that surprised me. I said,
I want you to know we're proud to be your children.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Wow. And I've still got to ask about COVID. We'll
do it in the last segment. But thank you guys
for sharing that and being so vulnerable. I'm David Chadwick,
will be right back.
Speaker 5 (30:14):
If you walk tids sick, you're gonna walk cow you.
If you wont Tim now, you're gonna walk cow free.
Because at the mincher of his day, at the butcher
of his day.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
At the bencher of his day. Hi everyone, I'm David
Chadwick and this is News Talk eleven, ten ninety nine
Free WBT. Welcome back to the show with my friends
Tom and Bev Rodgers who oversee Rogers Christian and counseling.
That's a wonderful ministry they do with those of you
who are hurting inside. Just want someone on one time
to process your emotions, try to get healthy and well.
Bev one more time. If they want to make an
(30:55):
appointment with you or Tom, how could they do.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
So they can go to Rogers Christian Counseling dot com
or RCCA dot com. They can make an appointment online
or they can call the numbers there they can call,
and we have many people, including Tom and I that
would be there to help.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Well. You guys do a great service to the community.
Who knows the hundreds thousands of people you've helped through
the forty two plus years of doing this ministry here
in the city. I'm just honored to call you, my friends.
Bev real quickly because I've teased it twice. We need
to at least address it before the show ends. COVID
What did it do to people here?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
It scared them to death. It just scared them to death.
I think people backed away from faith. I think they
began to think far more calamitous thoughts. You know. Part
of anxiety and fear is thinking calamitous thoughts. You know,
it's this, instead of God's got this, He's under in control,
it's this is terrible, calamity is going to happen. Is
(31:50):
I'm catastrophizing it's going to happen again?
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Al must prophesy your own downfall y.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yes, yes, and then think it over and over and
over and it becomes stuck there, and so that's part
of our anxiety and part of our depression is so high.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
I go back five years, even this record.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Numbers yes, and we when COVID hit, we got so busy.
We worked solidly through COVID doing telehealth and it was
quite effective. But we were so shocked at how many
people called us because they were scared to death, literally
scared to death of what was going to happen to them.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Well, I got a feeling we need to have a
whole COVID show just listening to some of the things
you've said, even off air to me and Marilyn about
how problematic that was and how that just devastated so
many people. So why don't we do that. Let's have
a COVID Part two with Tom and bella Road. I'll
make sure that happens. But Marilyn, you had a question
about marriages that I thought was really important.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
Well, and it is related to COVID, because I know
of at least one marriage that I pretty much feel
broke up over the disagreement over the shots. One of
the couple got a shot, the other didn't, and then
there was anger that erupted and BEV you said, you've
seen that happen with other couples, and I'm just thinking
to myself, who would have thought the types of thing
marriages are dealing with nowadays?
Speaker 2 (33:05):
And that's one of those post COVID things that really
surprised us too, Marilyn, that that couples would you know,
arguing over the vaccine, you know, fighting over the vaccine,
fighting over you know, things that they had heard. You know,
one is listening to one side and one is listening
to another side, and so, uh, you know, we managed
(33:26):
to help them work it out, but man, it was tough.
I mean, you know, money, in laws, roles, these are
the things we dealt with your children, and so it
was like, wow, and tell me and I would talk Africa.
Can you believe that? How do we help them? And
so we said, just like any other issue, you're going
to have to find a way, and they know, oh,
(33:49):
I'm dead, said on it. And so far we didn't
have anybody divorce over it. But I did know that
there were some divorces over the fact, and you heard Marylyn,
I did the one that I but then I had
another woman. It was an acquaintance that said, if my
husband gets this shot. I've already decided I will divorce him.
I quote an exactly quote, and I think obviously there's
(34:11):
more going on in that marriage just the shot. But
it just tells me that, you know, marriages are already
under fire today. And isn't that an example of one
more way the enemy would want to just tear apart couples.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Well, his name means the divider, and and Tom is
Trump derangement syndrome a reality? I mean their marriage is
We've heard that actually those political differences causes great stress
on marriage. Is that true?
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Well, I'm sure it is in some homes. Yeah, sadly,
I generally don't get stuck on that one very much.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
I was just more curious.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Seems that I get them.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
I don't know if I hint that way. I just
refirmed she.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Enjoys the political fight.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
But it's good for mayor and the phones. Let's not
forget what fuels that. We haven't even mentioned that.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
That's a whole nother subject.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yes, just like television started spreading couples apart because men
were glued to it when they came home from work
in the forties and fifties, Well, now they're glued to
their phones and then now children. I mean, they all
are really separating.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Thems well and in a very general sense. Guys, if
they come in, they typically are pointing at one another.
You know, they're diagnosing the marriage or whatever in terms
of what the other person doesn't do or does do.
And we try to kind of convert that quickly to
what part do you play in the trouble in the
relationship what we call a power struggle, which is a
movement based on fear. So what we want to help
(35:36):
them do is take ownership of what they feel, and
we begin to talk about that and share with each
other rather than accusing one another. And that tends to
diffuse that whole thing wanting to blame on each other
and being divisive and all that.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Well, if you can just get well from that, that's huge.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Yes, yeah, we both couples, Both members of the couple
bring in their own wounds. They then start to blame
the other person if they don't sense that other person
can be Jesus and kill their wounds. And when it
doesn't happen, and indeed the wounds even get deeper, it
only exacerbates the marital difficulties that already exist.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Well, and nobody can wound you like your partner. When
people say this like everybody loves me, you know, and
that work loves me, I, well, you're paying them to
do that. If you're the CEO, you're paying them to
love you. But I have to say that that because
your partner wounds you doesn't necessarily mean that the marriage
is over or that it's a terrible partner. That that
(36:32):
person has that power because you love them so much.
I say all the time. If your husband says I'm
not going to earn, your neighbor says, well, I don't
want to eat dinner with you because you planted your
flowers too close to the line in my house, then
you got WHOA, that's really sad. Your mate says, I'm
eating upstairs, I don't want to eat with you. That
can be crushing. So they have such meaning to you,
(36:55):
they have the power to hurt you as well.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Yeah, and if you've lived together for any number of years,
you know where the other person who spots are and
you know how to touch them.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
There was this very interesting interaction though. We found that
people many times have very similar wounds and fears but
different adaptations, and once we help them begin to take
ownership of that and talk about that and share with
each other. This relationship that re wounds them with their
reactivity becomes one that heals them with their responsiveness. So
(37:24):
we trade our reactivity for responding to each other in
a healing way and to have the unique ability because
they can rewound each other that they have the potential
of healing each other too.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
That gives hope.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
That gives hope.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
And it's Jesus. It's Jesus, it is.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
And when you have Jesus at the center of a relationship,
am I too trite just to say? He does draw
you closer together?
Speaker 3 (37:45):
Absolutely, and he can heal You're closer to him too.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Yeah, And it is that triangle that if Jesus is
at the top of the triangle and the two individuals
at the bottom, the closer they get to the top,
the closer they get to one another. That really isn't
just trite Christian needs.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
That is just that's who he is.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Yeah, Well I've learned over the forty years plus. I
was twelve and we started by the way. I believe
God is always faithful, But I've learned two things. It's
going to be his time and it's going to be
his way, and sometimes healing may be different than we
have preconceived. But God's always faithful and he always loves us,
(38:26):
and we can trust that.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
And he is Jehovah wrothe God, our healer. He does
want to heal our wounds.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
They have one more time if they want to talk
to you guys. How can they talk to you.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Rogers Christiancounseling dot com and they're all the information they need.
They can connect online or they can use the telephone
number and call and we would be more than happy
to help.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Common dev Rogers Rogers Christian Counseling. Great to have you
on the show. Can get you back. We got so
much to talk about yet, but I pray God will
continue to bless you your ministry as you bless other
people as well. I'm David Chadwick. This is News Talk
eleven ten nine nine three WBT Meryland. Thanks for being
with me, Tom and def you as well. I look
forward to talking with you all next week.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.