November 2, 2023 • 30 mins
In this episode, special guest Roscoe Robinson shares his powerful story of how he lost his father and how he overcame adversity and trauma.
Roscoe Robinson is the founder and CEO of Roscoe Robinson Enterprises. Roscoe is a man whose desire is to see people walk out their God-given identity and purpose. He has a Bachelor's from the University of Texas San Antonio and a Master's of Education from Relay Graduate School of Education. He is an author, minister, public speaker, and entrepreneur.
Roscoe Robinson is the founder and CEO of Roscoe Robinson Enterprises. Roscoe is a man whose desire is to see people walk out their God-given identity and purpose. He has a Bachelor's from the University of Texas San Antonio and a Master's of Education from Relay Graduate School of Education. He is an author, minister, public speaker, and entrepreneur.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:54):
Hello and welcome to all beautiful soulsout there. You're listening to the Restore
My Soul Podcast. Princess Millon's yourfavorite grief coach and emotional wellness specialist.
In this space, we will helpthose who struggle with grief and loss and
have real conversations about how to overcomeit in every area of life through our
(01:14):
personal stories, practical information, andwisdom from Princess and her special guests.
We are here to educate, inspire, and empower you with the strategies you
need in your emotional healing journey.We do not offer medical advice, but
we believe that we can all learnto heal by creating a mindset to grow,
pass our pain and push toward ourpurpose. Our goal is to remind
(01:38):
you that grief is a journey andyou do not have to walk it alone.
No matter what the pain or lossis, you can be restored and
live fully in your purpose. Butlet's push through the pain together as we
share our stories of resilience in oneepisode at a time. Well, welcome
in everybody to another episode of RestoreMy Soul Podcast. We are here to
(02:02):
inspire and educate you in your emotionalwellness journey. I am your favorite grief
and emotional wellness specialist, Princess Millan'sand your host today and I'm so excited
about this episode. I just believethat grief is a journey, right,
and we don't have to walk italong. So that's what we do here
(02:22):
on Restore my Soul. We areall different in what we've been through,
but I believe that we can alllearn to create that mindset that will push
us into success in our emotional wellnessjourney. So I am so excited about
this episode. I have a specialguest. My special guest is so very
(02:43):
dear to me and very very specialto me. Roscoe. Roscoe Robinson,
excuse me, is in the buildingtoday. Roscoe is the founder and CEO
of Roscoe Robinson Enterprise and also RoscoeRobinson Foundation that he started for you.
(03:05):
Roscoe is a man who desires isto speak and to see people walk out
there God given identity and purpose.That's what he does, right. He
has a bachelor's from the University ofTexas, San Antonio and a Masters of
Education at Relay Graduate School of Education. And he is an author. He
(03:30):
is a minister. He is anempowerment speaker. He is an entrepreneur.
So I just want to welcome tothe podcast today, Roscoe Robinson. Thank
you so much for being here.I'm so excited for this episode. Yes,
Princess, thank you so much forhaving me here on your platform.
(03:53):
I'm so excited to share my storywith your try today. Excited, excited,
absolutely, So let's just go intoit. Let's get into it.
So. I know that we're goingto talk a lot about your story and
you know, using the power ofyour voice and overcoming adversity and trauma.
(04:14):
But I want you to just kindof start and tell everybody what your story
is and how were you able whatkind of things that you had to push
through in life and overcome and howdid you overcome it. That's a great
question, a loaded question, butI'm ready to share with your community today.
(04:36):
Well, my name is Roscal Robinson. Little about myself. I am
from Memphis, Tennessee. Have beenhere for the last nine years. Grew
up in a small town called Huntsville, Missouri, about two thousand people,
very very small town. That's whereI grew up high school, elementary,
middle school there. And my storyis a story where I grew up in
church I knew that I grew upin church and went to church all the
(04:59):
time. I knew the the Godof my grandmother and my mother, but
now I didn't have a proper personalrelationship with God. So I was good
at sports and just kind of goingthrough the motions going through sports. I
had a very traumatic experience that happenedto me at the age of seventeen years
old. At seventeen years old,on Christmas Day two thousand and seven,
(05:20):
we were at my grandfather's house.We had opened the presence up and had
Christmas dinner, and my father hadwent home because he had a work work
early in the morning. So meand my mother coming home. It was
a snowy I member snowy, verycold and drizzly day. And I get
there and I see all the lightson in the house and the first person
who walked in the house was me. I walked up the stairs to find
(05:43):
my father on the sofa going intocardiac arrest with the phone in one hand,
saying phone in one hand with nineone one on it. So at
that moment I tried to CPR onit treats CPR on and my said,
Dad, come back, come back, come back, come back, Come
back. Mother. She's passed outon the living room floor behind me while
I'm trying to do CEPARD them.My uncle who lives across the street,
(06:05):
he runs over, she tries todo CPR them. Then the ambulance come
and then the rest of the familycomes, and it was like a blur
all of a sudden, He's goneout of my life. He passes away
through that time, and all Icould think about during that time was he
would never see me graduate college.He would never see me get all these
awards, say go to high school. And also I began to blame myself
(06:30):
because of his death. I beginto think about was out there earlier?
Why did I do more CPR pusheson his chest that could have saved his
life. So during that time itbecame a whirlwind. I began to act
out from this experience that I hadfaced during this time with my father,
and I begin to get real madat God. Sometimes when we go through
(06:54):
trauma, we're mad at people,and number one, we're mad at God.
God, why do you take myfather? He's doing good? And
little backdrop my father had he hadhe had done some drugs in the past,
and at this moment he had beencleaned up, he had went to
rehab and now he's living right foryou, gud, Why do you take
my father? So I was soso broken, a broken little boy.
(07:15):
I was seventeen, I remember,and at that time I began to act
out by drinking alcohol every night,sneaking up, sneaking away from home.
I'm begin to get really heavy ondrug use, smoking weed, popping painkillers,
stealing from my mother money. Mymother wanted to send me away for
to live with my auntie, whowas intent EXAs during that time, being
very promiscuous, just doing all thesethings to try to satis try to see
(07:42):
that boy that was in my heart. And during that time it took it
took time for me to do that, because I was seventeen. I graduated
when I was eight. About eighteen, I went off to college. And
still I'm still I'm still displaying behaviors, but I'm covering it up with religion.
I'm covering up the grief and thetrauma with religion. Come on,
(08:07):
I'm going to church, I'm partof the part of youth groups. I'm
preaching, I'm teaching. But stillI'm displaying the behaviors of my trauma and
my grief because I did not sitdown and talk with a licensed spiritual feel
counselor to help me walk through thattime. I remember I went to a
counselor, and I remember some ofmy family was like, you not crazy.
(08:33):
You just need to pray. Wow, And that's sometimes what we hear
a lot of times in the blackcommunity. Oh, you just need to
pray. Just pray your grief away. You should pray the trauma way while
we have a you are right now, your brain is not functioning right,
and you need to go. Justlike when we go to a doctor for
somebody with a heart issue, wego for our feet. Our brain is
(08:56):
an organ that we need to talkto someone about to get clinical therapy and
steps on how I can overcome thistrauma. And also this trauma affected me.
It affected me because I was notable to trust people. In the
back of my mind, I thought, if I get too close to people,
they're gonna leave me, just likemy dad. Oh wow. I
(09:18):
couldn't get close to other other othermale leadership, other male leadership, because
if I get too close to them, they don't leave me, just like
my father. And it became adysfunction. Sometimes our dysfunction becomes normal,
normalized because we normalize it, andthen people around our circle begin to know,
(09:41):
Oh, you're going through grief.It's okay to feel like that way.
It's okay to feel like that way. But when is it gonna change?
I had to make it in mymind. This happened probably eighteen.
It's gonna change. Yeah, goahead, No, I was just saying
that, you know, grief canhide, right, grief can. Grief
can hide behind so much, itcan hide behind you know, we go
(10:05):
back to work, you know,after the funeral, after the things that
we lost, we go back towhat we call normal. But what we
don't realize that it won't be normalagain. It won't be the same as
before what you lost or who youlost. Right, And so what I'm
hearing you say is grief can hide. It can hid behind your service.
(10:26):
Even in the church. And Ibelieve a lot of people struggle and they
have the same mindset that maybe ifI just work enough, maybe if I
just go to church enough, maybemaybe if we I doce a certain thing
enough. I even seeing people exercisea whole whole lot to fill a void.
And I think you said the earlierto feel that void that is unfeelable.
(10:52):
The only one that can feel thatvoid is God himself. So this
is such a powerful and a powerfultestimony of you being seventeen years old and
being that broken little boy, thattraumatic experience that brought you, you know,
so much pain and so much grief, and the things that you had
(11:13):
to even work out and a lotof times we massed those things. I
heard you talk about that, Socan we can you talk a little bit
more about you know, when youhave a traumatic experience in your life,
what does that look like in termsof things people may not recognize, you
(11:35):
know, they may not recognize itas grief, but these are the things
that might happen or you might doas a result of the grief and the
loss. What did you do?What happened? The question, Well,
what I remember, going just goingback, what I did during that time
was I was always acting like Iremember what I acted like. I was
(11:56):
always joyful, but I was isolated. People didn't see that I was isolating
myself doing the grief and trauma.I would be the life of the party
and act like I was okay,but down the side I knew I was
I was, I was broken,I was grieving the loss of my father,
and I used the external things.I used the works, doing works
(12:20):
and just doing things, going involunteering and going helping the homeless and helping
the elderly to not really sit downand deal with those emotions. So a
lot of times, what grief does, what trauma does, it makes you
numb. So one of one.I remember my sister said one time to
(12:41):
me when I was in my earlytwenties, when I had lived with her
for about a year. She said, she said that you have become She
said, you since dad passed away, you are non emotional. That's a
sign something that happened. I'm notemotional. For example, if someone I
hear somebody, oh they died oror something, I'm like, oh,
and it did not And it waskind of weird that that did not affect
(13:03):
me. Or I hear a storyon the news, or I hear something
online and all this stuff was like, Oh, I've been through Trumba already,
so that's that's normal. Nothing nothingaffected me. For people, people
can say stuff to me or evenabout me. I mean, you shouldn't
worry about people can say stuff tome and I was just it was like
a blank a blank steir of ablank wall wall in front of people.
(13:28):
Those were some of the signs ofthe dysfunction that I had built up a
lot of times. It was acoping mechanism. So coping mechanism is I'm
gonna build up these walls so you'renot gonna get in my fortress. You're
not gonna get in this fort thatI have built around me. So I'm
gonna I'm wanna deflect everything you tryto throw at me, if you try
(13:48):
to love me, if you tryto care about me, if you try
to get me in spaces where Ihad to be vulnerable, I couldn't be
vulnerable, transparent. I'm gonna runaway from those those those environments because I
want to be safe. I wantI want to be in my own space
and not think about what happened,not process the blood of Jesus during that
(14:16):
time, in process what happened,what happened during that time. So that's
what I really the dysfunction. Ireally began to learn and what really really
helped me was I think about thisscripture. It talks about it talks about
confess your sins for one another,that the one who could spiritual will restore
(14:37):
you. And I think a lotof times we think healing comes healing only
comes from God God, but healingcomes through people. Healing comes from one
on one discussions trauma. Yeah,that a person restores, a person helps
me to get restored. God says, okay, you told me about it.
But no people, God uses peopleto help us heal. And a
(15:01):
lot of times we run away fromthe people because there's people in our lives,
someone maybe who's on here listening.There's people who in your life that
want to get closer you want tohelp you. They've been ordained, they've
been sent by God to help youin the trauma, and you keep pushing
(15:22):
away. And what it is doingis is called you to go around and
cycle after cycle after cycle, andyou have to make it up in your
mind. In this season, I'mgoing to let my guard down. I
want to say, let a spadebe a spade and tell my truth and
be vulnerable and get killed by Godso you can be the great man and
(15:43):
woman of God that God has calledyou to be, and to walk into
who you call to be. Becauseone of the tactics of the enemy is
to mess up your time to keepstealing time from you season after season.
By all love with God says,he's a demer of time. He reem
the time for you if you say, hey, look this is what I
(16:06):
am. Sometimes we gotta be realwith our trauma. We gotta say,
oh, I'm dealing with grief.No, I'm dealing with grief. It's
stronghold of grief. You have tocome down in the name of Jesus.
I want to get help. I'mwant to deal with this. We got
to playing around with these areas ofour life. And that's what God wants
to make us. God wants tomake our souls hold, our mind,
(16:30):
our and our emotions hold. Wecould be spirit filled, teaching, preaching,
doing conferences, all these things inour souls be broken, absolutely absolutely
broken. And that that is sopowerful because a lot of times and is
(16:52):
in I believe that's important to hear, especially a mass point of view of
how how we can how grief canrun away, run rapid in our lives
and people not even know right andsometimes people look at what we do,
they look at what we say,how we act, how we encounter them.
(17:15):
And even after a traumatic loss,you know, they'll look at what
you're doing and if it seems normalto them, right, it's like,
you know, they must be sostrong. Right, That's what I got
a lot when my son passed away. You know, Oh, she's so
strong or she No, I'm dyingin the inside. I'm just coping.
(17:41):
As you say, we do thingsto cope, and we want to go
back to that normal place. Butthere is no normal place anymore. We
have to put on the strength ofGod and get into his counsel But I
believe just what you said that weare God's hands and feet on the earth,
and we have anointed the hands ofhis people right to do his work,
(18:04):
and that work being that soul carework that we need from our therapists,
our counselors, the people that aresent and anointed to help us in
this area. Right, And thenwe you know, we can't shy away
from that. But I believe alot of times, Roscoe, how while
we shy away from that is becausein our community, and our Black community
(18:26):
is we did not grow up ina environment many of us where therapy and
counseling was normal. We were justkind of indirectly taught to get over it
or we were indirectly taught that timewill heal our wounds. Well, yes,
(18:48):
time will do that, but yougot to do some work behind it,
right. It's you know, faithwith our works. Is that That's
what the word says, Right,we got to put work behind what we
are asking God to do in ourlives. And if we want him to
cancel that stronghold of grief, thatlost, that trauma, that pain,
(19:10):
that thing that is still hindering usin our walk and in our purpose,
we got to make sure that weput the work behind it. And that
is so I always want you know, my audience is mostly women who I
serve and who I talk to,but I always want to hear from men
(19:32):
and how they respond to grief becauseit can look different, right, it
can look different, and we haveto kind of know and embrace those differences
that we have when we have thesethings in our life. But this is
such a powerful testimony, I justwant to ask you one more question as
(19:56):
it relates to how you have youuse your voice, the power of your
voice right to overcome the trauma andthe adversity that you had to face all
of these years, right since seventeenyears old, tell us about how you
(20:17):
use the power of your voice rightto release those things that's happened in your
past. So the power of myvoice, I've been able to use it
by the words as we speak.Life and death is in the power of
our tongue, and those who lovewill eat the fruit of it. So
(20:37):
I had to speak life over mymind because during that time I dealt with
For years, I dealt with heavydepression. People didn't know it, but
I dealt with a very heavy repression. I would go on go on a
stage, speak powerfully the anoint tobe there, and I go back in
my room and shut the door up, the covers over my head, blackening
(20:59):
out the windows, all those things. It's about three year process. Three
years, and I would say Iwas probably clinically depressed during that time I
had and I had to speak lifeover myself. I had to look in
myself in the mirror and say,Mighty Man of God, rise up from
this place. You are going togo forward. You, I said,
I speak joy on my life.I speak clarity of my life, focused
(21:23):
over my life. And I hadto repeat these affirmations even when I didn't
feel the joy, even when Iwas having depression. I was having anxiety
even when I had sickness in mybody, a sickness in my body.
I beginning to say what God saidabout me, and I realized the first
thing, the first thing what happenedwhen you go the grief is the enemy
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wants to shut your mouth up.He wants to muzzle you. He wants
to muddle you because he knows ifyou open your mouth and speak, because
words are activated, words give power, words cause things that were not as
is. It speaks it to thefuture. Your words have power, so
if I can shut them up,they will always be in that place still.
(22:07):
So I begin to learn, okay, even to like my voice.
For a long time, I didn'tlike the way I sounded. I didn't
like the way I sounded. Ididn't like to hear myself recorded and all
those things. And I had toremind myself God made me uniquely made.
I was uniquely made by God.In this voice, my voice is attached
(22:30):
to someone's freedom. My voice,when I open my mouth and speak,
is attached to someone's freedom. Ihave a whole people who are waiting for
me to speak. We can't letthe dysfunction, just like Moses. Moses
said God, I have an impediment. I can't speak. But he was
(22:52):
the only one that could deliver thechildren of Israel. Only his voice could
activate him, activate what they neededto walk in their freedom. There's some
people on here today that you onlywhat you say, your story, your
testimony is about to lead a groupof people into freedom and freedom for their
general not just for them, butfor their children's children. When you open
(23:12):
your mouth up, it's just notfor you, it's for a whole generation
of people. And once I understoodthe power of my voice, I begin
to go for it. And that'swhat I do now. God be gonna
deal with me. About about twothree months ago, he says, I
want you to help men activate thepower of the voice to speak, make
impact and income. That's who I'mcalled to is to for men pacifically to
(23:33):
open their mouth up, because specificallyfor men, men have been shown I'm
not gonna show emotions. I'm notgonna speak with how I feel, And
I want to help men be ableto go through the show their emotions,
be vulnerable, be transparent, andget the healing that they need. So
when the men can be in position, the men could be in position to
(23:56):
do what they've been called to do. But it was a prime I had
to be doubting myself. I hadto renew my mind and say, hey,
roscar, you were made for thismoment. You were made for more.
You were not made to be depressed, you were not made to be
a trauma. You may be scarf. Now you have a scar. You
said, get that keep God,begin to deal with me. Get that
healed. You know, when youhave a scar, show other people your
(24:19):
scar. Hey, I've been throughthis. You can do it now.
Because I went through the process.I went to do the pain. And
God to turn your pain into profitand said, turn your into profit.
That's what a lot of you needto do, is turn your pain into
(24:44):
profit. It did I make whatdid not make sense? It's gonna give
you sense. It's gonna make youmoney. It's gonna make your income.
Your boy's gonna make you Your voiceis gonna be being sure because your voice
gonna make you income. Because whenyou speak, there's gonna be a demand
for when you speak. Because yourtraumatic experience go a lot something to somebody
else to connect it to their destinyto the future. And that's what I
(25:08):
had to learn was I had toopen my mouth up, even when I
didn't feel like it, even whendays I woke up, I was tired,
I had a busy schedule, Iwas sick in my body. I
begin to I begin to be consistentno matter what, no matter what the
environment is, no matter what it'sgoing on, I want to open my
(25:30):
mouth and speak, because if Idon't, someone's life is on the line.
I remember one time, go ahead, no, that is so good.
I was just saying, you know, the power of your voice,
and that was just an encouragement tome, Roscoe, because I was a
person and still almost like I've juststill it's a little deliverance that has to
(25:53):
take place with me. Still manabout you know, liking the sound of
my voice and you know, justwanted to speak or hear myself or whatever
the case is. But that wasan encouragement for me as well, that
the power of your vote, thatsomebody is waiting on your voice, right,
somebody is waiting on your voice tospeak so that they can be healed,
(26:17):
set free, and delivered for real. So as we end this broadcast,
maybe one more minute, just encourage. I want you to encourage the
men that are going to watch thisbroadcast. Speak directly to the men,
just a one thing to encourage themToday. Man, it's time for you
(26:41):
to take your wife of position thatGod had created you on earth to do.
He has created you to lead,and God wants you to know that
God he loves you. He hasa purpose. He has a plan for
your life. No matter what traumaticexperience you have been through, no matter
what the burden the weight of itis, God can set you free.
God wants to use your voice tochange your son's life. He wants you
(27:04):
to change your community's life. Hewants to change the whole environment that you
are in life, because when youspeak, things begin to change. When
we speak, men speak of life. We speak life into things and we
make them live. We are theones who give Men. We give identity.
Men, we give identity because ourvoices have power, Our voices carry
(27:27):
authority. Now I want to encourageyou men to take back back your rightful
position of authority and speak the identity, especially to our young men who need
role models, who need mentors totell them who they are, not what
everything else is going on, butwho they are, so we can raise
up godly young men in this nextgeneration to take over and do what they've
(27:51):
been called to do. So men, it's time for you to rise up
and to speak. Well you heardthat word of encouragement. Thanks so much,
Roscoe. Oh my god, thisis just such a powerful episode.
I know that it is going tobe such a blessing to everybody who listen
to it, mail or fear Maale. But before we get out of here,
(28:11):
you know, I want to wantyou to tell everybody how to connect
with you and how to reach outwith you. Yes, you go on
my social media I am Rosco J. Robinson on all platforms Facebook, YouTube,
TikTok and Instagram, as well asyou can go to my website I
(28:32):
am Roscoe Robinson dot com. Youwill see how to contact me. You
will say see my books, youwill see my merch my services on that
website. I would love to connectwith you and can wait to see you
all soon virtually. Well, thankyou again, Roscoe for being here.
It was an honor and a pleasurefor you to share your story on this
(28:52):
platform. And I don't know,I think we just scratched the surface.
You might have to come back.I don't know, okay, but I
know that through your ministry, throughwhat you're doing. It is blessing so
many people. So thank you forbeing on here to share your story and
I know we'll talk soon. Yes, thank you so much, thank you,
(29:15):
Thank you all right, everybody,thank you so much for joining us
on this next episode. On thislast episode of Restoring My Soul Podcast,
I hope that you were blessed byRoscoe and his testimony. I want you
(29:37):
to invite you to follow me onall social media at Princess Miller's and my
website at Princessmillings dot com. Makesure that you still understand that grief is
a journey. You don't have towalk that thing along. We're here with
you one episode at a time,and we will see you in the next
(29:57):
episode. Thank you for joining anotherepisode of Restore My Soul Podcast. Be
sure to listen and watch each weekas we continue the conversation on how to
bounce back from the setback of griefand loss and to become resilient so that
you too can thrive in life.Don't forget to like and subscribe so that
(30:18):
you don't miss out on any newepisodes, and share this with as many
people as possible so they can beencouraged in their emotional wellness journey. We
invite you to follow Princess Milions onall social media platforms and on the website
at princessmilims dot com. Thank youfor listening and we'll see you in the
next episode of the Restore My Soulpodcast
Hello and welcome to all beautiful soulsout there. You're listening to the Restore
My Soul Podcast. Princess Millon's yourfavorite grief coach and emotional wellness specialist.
In this space, we will helpthose who struggle with grief and loss and
have real conversations about how to overcomeit in every area of life through our
(01:14):
personal stories, practical information, andwisdom from Princess and her special guests.
We are here to educate, inspire, and empower you with the strategies you
need in your emotional healing journey.We do not offer medical advice, but
we believe that we can all learnto heal by creating a mindset to grow,
pass our pain and push toward ourpurpose. Our goal is to remind
(01:38):
you that grief is a journey andyou do not have to walk it alone.
No matter what the pain or lossis, you can be restored and
live fully in your purpose. Butlet's push through the pain together as we
share our stories of resilience in oneepisode at a time. Well, welcome
in everybody to another episode of RestoreMy Soul Podcast. We are here to
(02:02):
inspire and educate you in your emotionalwellness journey. I am your favorite grief
and emotional wellness specialist, Princess Millan'sand your host today and I'm so excited
about this episode. I just believethat grief is a journey, right,
and we don't have to walk italong. So that's what we do here
(02:22):
on Restore my Soul. We areall different in what we've been through,
but I believe that we can alllearn to create that mindset that will push
us into success in our emotional wellnessjourney. So I am so excited about
this episode. I have a specialguest. My special guest is so very
(02:43):
dear to me and very very specialto me. Roscoe. Roscoe Robinson,
excuse me, is in the buildingtoday. Roscoe is the founder and CEO
of Roscoe Robinson Enterprise and also RoscoeRobinson Foundation that he started for you.
(03:05):
Roscoe is a man who desires isto speak and to see people walk out
there God given identity and purpose.That's what he does, right. He
has a bachelor's from the University ofTexas, San Antonio and a Masters of
Education at Relay Graduate School of Education. And he is an author. He
(03:30):
is a minister. He is anempowerment speaker. He is an entrepreneur.
So I just want to welcome tothe podcast today, Roscoe Robinson. Thank
you so much for being here.I'm so excited for this episode. Yes,
Princess, thank you so much forhaving me here on your platform.
(03:53):
I'm so excited to share my storywith your try today. Excited, excited,
absolutely, So let's just go intoit. Let's get into it.
So. I know that we're goingto talk a lot about your story and
you know, using the power ofyour voice and overcoming adversity and trauma.
(04:14):
But I want you to just kindof start and tell everybody what your story
is and how were you able whatkind of things that you had to push
through in life and overcome and howdid you overcome it. That's a great
question, a loaded question, butI'm ready to share with your community today.
(04:36):
Well, my name is Roscal Robinson. Little about myself. I am
from Memphis, Tennessee. Have beenhere for the last nine years. Grew
up in a small town called Huntsville, Missouri, about two thousand people,
very very small town. That's whereI grew up high school, elementary,
middle school there. And my storyis a story where I grew up in
church I knew that I grew upin church and went to church all the
(04:59):
time. I knew the the Godof my grandmother and my mother, but
now I didn't have a proper personalrelationship with God. So I was good
at sports and just kind of goingthrough the motions going through sports. I
had a very traumatic experience that happenedto me at the age of seventeen years
old. At seventeen years old,on Christmas Day two thousand and seven,
(05:20):
we were at my grandfather's house.We had opened the presence up and had
Christmas dinner, and my father hadwent home because he had a work work
early in the morning. So meand my mother coming home. It was
a snowy I member snowy, verycold and drizzly day. And I get
there and I see all the lightson in the house and the first person
who walked in the house was me. I walked up the stairs to find
(05:43):
my father on the sofa going intocardiac arrest with the phone in one hand,
saying phone in one hand with nineone one on it. So at
that moment I tried to CPR onit treats CPR on and my said,
Dad, come back, come back, come back, come back, Come
back. Mother. She's passed outon the living room floor behind me while
I'm trying to do CEPARD them.My uncle who lives across the street,
(06:05):
he runs over, she tries todo CPR them. Then the ambulance come
and then the rest of the familycomes, and it was like a blur
all of a sudden, He's goneout of my life. He passes away
through that time, and all Icould think about during that time was he
would never see me graduate college.He would never see me get all these
awards, say go to high school. And also I began to blame myself
(06:30):
because of his death. I beginto think about was out there earlier?
Why did I do more CPR pusheson his chest that could have saved his
life. So during that time itbecame a whirlwind. I began to act
out from this experience that I hadfaced during this time with my father,
and I begin to get real madat God. Sometimes when we go through
(06:54):
trauma, we're mad at people,and number one, we're mad at God.
God, why do you take myfather? He's doing good? And
little backdrop my father had he hadhe had done some drugs in the past,
and at this moment he had beencleaned up, he had went to
rehab and now he's living right foryou, gud, Why do you take
my father? So I was soso broken, a broken little boy.
(07:15):
I was seventeen, I remember,and at that time I began to act
out by drinking alcohol every night,sneaking up, sneaking away from home.
I'm begin to get really heavy ondrug use, smoking weed, popping painkillers,
stealing from my mother money. Mymother wanted to send me away for
to live with my auntie, whowas intent EXAs during that time, being
very promiscuous, just doing all thesethings to try to satis try to see
(07:42):
that boy that was in my heart. And during that time it took it
took time for me to do that, because I was seventeen. I graduated
when I was eight. About eighteen, I went off to college. And
still I'm still I'm still displaying behaviors, but I'm covering it up with religion.
I'm covering up the grief and thetrauma with religion. Come on,
(08:07):
I'm going to church, I'm partof the part of youth groups. I'm
preaching, I'm teaching. But stillI'm displaying the behaviors of my trauma and
my grief because I did not sitdown and talk with a licensed spiritual feel
counselor to help me walk through thattime. I remember I went to a
counselor, and I remember some ofmy family was like, you not crazy.
(08:33):
You just need to pray. Wow, And that's sometimes what we hear
a lot of times in the blackcommunity. Oh, you just need to
pray. Just pray your grief away. You should pray the trauma way while
we have a you are right now, your brain is not functioning right,
and you need to go. Justlike when we go to a doctor for
somebody with a heart issue, wego for our feet. Our brain is
(08:56):
an organ that we need to talkto someone about to get clinical therapy and
steps on how I can overcome thistrauma. And also this trauma affected me.
It affected me because I was notable to trust people. In the
back of my mind, I thought, if I get too close to people,
they're gonna leave me, just likemy dad. Oh wow. I
(09:18):
couldn't get close to other other othermale leadership, other male leadership, because
if I get too close to them, they don't leave me, just like
my father. And it became adysfunction. Sometimes our dysfunction becomes normal,
normalized because we normalize it, andthen people around our circle begin to know,
(09:41):
Oh, you're going through grief.It's okay to feel like that way.
It's okay to feel like that way. But when is it gonna change?
I had to make it in mymind. This happened probably eighteen.
It's gonna change. Yeah, goahead, No, I was just saying
that, you know, grief canhide, right, grief can. Grief
can hide behind so much, itcan hide behind you know, we go
(10:05):
back to work, you know,after the funeral, after the things that
we lost, we go back towhat we call normal. But what we
don't realize that it won't be normalagain. It won't be the same as
before what you lost or who youlost. Right, And so what I'm
hearing you say is grief can hide. It can hid behind your service.
(10:26):
Even in the church. And Ibelieve a lot of people struggle and they
have the same mindset that maybe ifI just work enough, maybe if I
just go to church enough, maybemaybe if we I doce a certain thing
enough. I even seeing people exercisea whole whole lot to fill a void.
And I think you said the earlierto feel that void that is unfeelable.
(10:52):
The only one that can feel thatvoid is God himself. So this
is such a powerful and a powerfultestimony of you being seventeen years old and
being that broken little boy, thattraumatic experience that brought you, you know,
so much pain and so much grief, and the things that you had
(11:13):
to even work out and a lotof times we massed those things. I
heard you talk about that, Socan we can you talk a little bit
more about you know, when youhave a traumatic experience in your life,
what does that look like in termsof things people may not recognize, you
(11:35):
know, they may not recognize itas grief, but these are the things
that might happen or you might doas a result of the grief and the
loss. What did you do?What happened? The question, Well,
what I remember, going just goingback, what I did during that time
was I was always acting like Iremember what I acted like. I was
(11:56):
always joyful, but I was isolated. People didn't see that I was isolating
myself doing the grief and trauma.I would be the life of the party
and act like I was okay,but down the side I knew I was
I was, I was broken,I was grieving the loss of my father,
and I used the external things.I used the works, doing works
(12:20):
and just doing things, going involunteering and going helping the homeless and helping
the elderly to not really sit downand deal with those emotions. So a
lot of times, what grief does, what trauma does, it makes you
numb. So one of one.I remember my sister said one time to
(12:41):
me when I was in my earlytwenties, when I had lived with her
for about a year. She said, she said that you have become She
said, you since dad passed away, you are non emotional. That's a
sign something that happened. I'm notemotional. For example, if someone I
hear somebody, oh they died oror something, I'm like, oh,
and it did not And it waskind of weird that that did not affect
(13:03):
me. Or I hear a storyon the news, or I hear something
online and all this stuff was like, Oh, I've been through Trumba already,
so that's that's normal. Nothing nothingaffected me. For people, people
can say stuff to me or evenabout me. I mean, you shouldn't
worry about people can say stuff tome and I was just it was like
a blank a blank steir of ablank wall wall in front of people.
(13:28):
Those were some of the signs ofthe dysfunction that I had built up a
lot of times. It was acoping mechanism. So coping mechanism is I'm
gonna build up these walls so you'renot gonna get in my fortress. You're
not gonna get in this fort thatI have built around me. So I'm
gonna I'm wanna deflect everything you tryto throw at me, if you try
(13:48):
to love me, if you tryto care about me, if you try
to get me in spaces where Ihad to be vulnerable, I couldn't be
vulnerable, transparent. I'm gonna runaway from those those those environments because I
want to be safe. I wantI want to be in my own space
and not think about what happened,not process the blood of Jesus during that
(14:16):
time, in process what happened,what happened during that time. So that's
what I really the dysfunction. Ireally began to learn and what really really
helped me was I think about thisscripture. It talks about it talks about
confess your sins for one another,that the one who could spiritual will restore
(14:37):
you. And I think a lotof times we think healing comes healing only
comes from God God, but healingcomes through people. Healing comes from one
on one discussions trauma. Yeah,that a person restores, a person helps
me to get restored. God says, okay, you told me about it.
But no people, God uses peopleto help us heal. And a
(15:01):
lot of times we run away fromthe people because there's people in our lives,
someone maybe who's on here listening.There's people who in your life that
want to get closer you want tohelp you. They've been ordained, they've
been sent by God to help youin the trauma, and you keep pushing
(15:22):
away. And what it is doingis is called you to go around and
cycle after cycle after cycle, andyou have to make it up in your
mind. In this season, I'mgoing to let my guard down. I
want to say, let a spadebe a spade and tell my truth and
be vulnerable and get killed by Godso you can be the great man and
(15:43):
woman of God that God has calledyou to be, and to walk into
who you call to be. Becauseone of the tactics of the enemy is
to mess up your time to keepstealing time from you season after season.
By all love with God says,he's a demer of time. He reem
the time for you if you say, hey, look this is what I
(16:06):
am. Sometimes we gotta be realwith our trauma. We gotta say,
oh, I'm dealing with grief.No, I'm dealing with grief. It's
stronghold of grief. You have tocome down in the name of Jesus.
I want to get help. I'mwant to deal with this. We got
to playing around with these areas ofour life. And that's what God wants
to make us. God wants tomake our souls hold, our mind,
(16:30):
our and our emotions hold. Wecould be spirit filled, teaching, preaching,
doing conferences, all these things inour souls be broken, absolutely absolutely
broken. And that that is sopowerful because a lot of times and is
(16:52):
in I believe that's important to hear, especially a mass point of view of
how how we can how grief canrun away, run rapid in our lives
and people not even know right andsometimes people look at what we do,
they look at what we say,how we act, how we encounter them.
(17:15):
And even after a traumatic loss,you know, they'll look at what
you're doing and if it seems normalto them, right, it's like,
you know, they must be sostrong. Right, That's what I got
a lot when my son passed away. You know, Oh, she's so
strong or she No, I'm dyingin the inside. I'm just coping.
(17:41):
As you say, we do thingsto cope, and we want to go
back to that normal place. Butthere is no normal place anymore. We
have to put on the strength ofGod and get into his counsel But I
believe just what you said that weare God's hands and feet on the earth,
and we have anointed the hands ofhis people right to do his work,
(18:04):
and that work being that soul carework that we need from our therapists,
our counselors, the people that aresent and anointed to help us in
this area. Right, And thenwe you know, we can't shy away
from that. But I believe alot of times, Roscoe, how while
we shy away from that is becausein our community, and our Black community
(18:26):
is we did not grow up ina environment many of us where therapy and
counseling was normal. We were justkind of indirectly taught to get over it
or we were indirectly taught that timewill heal our wounds. Well, yes,
(18:48):
time will do that, but yougot to do some work behind it,
right. It's you know, faithwith our works. Is that That's
what the word says, Right,we got to put work behind what we
are asking God to do in ourlives. And if we want him to
cancel that stronghold of grief, thatlost, that trauma, that pain,
(19:10):
that thing that is still hindering usin our walk and in our purpose,
we got to make sure that weput the work behind it. And that
is so I always want you know, my audience is mostly women who I
serve and who I talk to,but I always want to hear from men
(19:32):
and how they respond to grief becauseit can look different, right, it
can look different, and we haveto kind of know and embrace those differences
that we have when we have thesethings in our life. But this is
such a powerful testimony, I justwant to ask you one more question as
(19:56):
it relates to how you have youuse your voice, the power of your
voice right to overcome the trauma andthe adversity that you had to face all
of these years, right since seventeenyears old, tell us about how you
(20:17):
use the power of your voice rightto release those things that's happened in your
past. So the power of myvoice, I've been able to use it
by the words as we speak.Life and death is in the power of
our tongue, and those who lovewill eat the fruit of it. So
(20:37):
I had to speak life over mymind because during that time I dealt with
For years, I dealt with heavydepression. People didn't know it, but
I dealt with a very heavy repression. I would go on go on a
stage, speak powerfully the anoint tobe there, and I go back in
my room and shut the door up, the covers over my head, blackening
(20:59):
out the windows, all those things. It's about three year process. Three
years, and I would say Iwas probably clinically depressed during that time I
had and I had to speak lifeover myself. I had to look in
myself in the mirror and say,Mighty Man of God, rise up from
this place. You are going togo forward. You, I said,
I speak joy on my life.I speak clarity of my life, focused
(21:23):
over my life. And I hadto repeat these affirmations even when I didn't
feel the joy, even when Iwas having depression. I was having anxiety
even when I had sickness in mybody, a sickness in my body.
I beginning to say what God saidabout me, and I realized the first
thing, the first thing what happenedwhen you go the grief is the enemy
(21:45):
wants to shut your mouth up.He wants to muzzle you. He wants
to muddle you because he knows ifyou open your mouth and speak, because
words are activated, words give power, words cause things that were not as
is. It speaks it to thefuture. Your words have power, so
if I can shut them up,they will always be in that place still.
(22:07):
So I begin to learn, okay, even to like my voice.
For a long time, I didn'tlike the way I sounded. I didn't
like the way I sounded. Ididn't like to hear myself recorded and all
those things. And I had toremind myself God made me uniquely made.
I was uniquely made by God.In this voice, my voice is attached
(22:30):
to someone's freedom. My voice,when I open my mouth and speak,
is attached to someone's freedom. Ihave a whole people who are waiting for
me to speak. We can't letthe dysfunction, just like Moses. Moses
said God, I have an impediment. I can't speak. But he was
(22:52):
the only one that could deliver thechildren of Israel. Only his voice could
activate him, activate what they neededto walk in their freedom. There's some
people on here today that you onlywhat you say, your story, your
testimony is about to lead a groupof people into freedom and freedom for their
general not just for them, butfor their children's children. When you open
(23:12):
your mouth up, it's just notfor you, it's for a whole generation
of people. And once I understoodthe power of my voice, I begin
to go for it. And that'swhat I do now. God be gonna
deal with me. About about twothree months ago, he says, I
want you to help men activate thepower of the voice to speak, make
impact and income. That's who I'mcalled to is to for men pacifically to
(23:33):
open their mouth up, because specificallyfor men, men have been shown I'm
not gonna show emotions. I'm notgonna speak with how I feel, And
I want to help men be ableto go through the show their emotions,
be vulnerable, be transparent, andget the healing that they need. So
when the men can be in position, the men could be in position to
(23:56):
do what they've been called to do. But it was a prime I had
to be doubting myself. I hadto renew my mind and say, hey,
roscar, you were made for thismoment. You were made for more.
You were not made to be depressed, you were not made to be
a trauma. You may be scarf. Now you have a scar. You
said, get that keep God,begin to deal with me. Get that
healed. You know, when youhave a scar, show other people your
(24:19):
scar. Hey, I've been throughthis. You can do it now.
Because I went through the process.I went to do the pain. And
God to turn your pain into profitand said, turn your into profit.
That's what a lot of you needto do, is turn your pain into
(24:44):
profit. It did I make whatdid not make sense? It's gonna give
you sense. It's gonna make youmoney. It's gonna make your income.
Your boy's gonna make you Your voiceis gonna be being sure because your voice
gonna make you income. Because whenyou speak, there's gonna be a demand
for when you speak. Because yourtraumatic experience go a lot something to somebody
else to connect it to their destinyto the future. And that's what I
(25:08):
had to learn was I had toopen my mouth up, even when I
didn't feel like it, even whendays I woke up, I was tired,
I had a busy schedule, Iwas sick in my body. I
begin to I begin to be consistentno matter what, no matter what the
environment is, no matter what it'sgoing on, I want to open my
(25:30):
mouth and speak, because if Idon't, someone's life is on the line.
I remember one time, go ahead, no, that is so good.
I was just saying, you know, the power of your voice,
and that was just an encouragement tome, Roscoe, because I was a
person and still almost like I've juststill it's a little deliverance that has to
(25:53):
take place with me. Still manabout you know, liking the sound of
my voice and you know, justwanted to speak or hear myself or whatever
the case is. But that wasan encouragement for me as well, that
the power of your vote, thatsomebody is waiting on your voice, right,
somebody is waiting on your voice tospeak so that they can be healed,
(26:17):
set free, and delivered for real. So as we end this broadcast,
maybe one more minute, just encourage. I want you to encourage the
men that are going to watch thisbroadcast. Speak directly to the men,
just a one thing to encourage themToday. Man, it's time for you
(26:41):
to take your wife of position thatGod had created you on earth to do.
He has created you to lead,and God wants you to know that
God he loves you. He hasa purpose. He has a plan for
your life. No matter what traumaticexperience you have been through, no matter
what the burden the weight of itis, God can set you free.
God wants to use your voice tochange your son's life. He wants you
(27:04):
to change your community's life. Hewants to change the whole environment that you
are in life, because when youspeak, things begin to change. When
we speak, men speak of life. We speak life into things and we
make them live. We are theones who give Men. We give identity.
Men, we give identity because ourvoices have power, Our voices carry
(27:27):
authority. Now I want to encourageyou men to take back back your rightful
position of authority and speak the identity, especially to our young men who need
role models, who need mentors totell them who they are, not what
everything else is going on, butwho they are, so we can raise
up godly young men in this nextgeneration to take over and do what they've
(27:51):
been called to do. So men, it's time for you to rise up
and to speak. Well you heardthat word of encouragement. Thanks so much,
Roscoe. Oh my god, thisis just such a powerful episode.
I know that it is going tobe such a blessing to everybody who listen
to it, mail or fear Maale. But before we get out of here,
(28:11):
you know, I want to wantyou to tell everybody how to connect
with you and how to reach outwith you. Yes, you go on
my social media I am Rosco J. Robinson on all platforms Facebook, YouTube,
TikTok and Instagram, as well asyou can go to my website I
(28:32):
am Roscoe Robinson dot com. Youwill see how to contact me. You
will say see my books, youwill see my merch my services on that
website. I would love to connectwith you and can wait to see you
all soon virtually. Well, thankyou again, Roscoe for being here.
It was an honor and a pleasurefor you to share your story on this
(28:52):
platform. And I don't know,I think we just scratched the surface.
You might have to come back.I don't know, okay, but I
know that through your ministry, throughwhat you're doing. It is blessing so
many people. So thank you forbeing on here to share your story and
I know we'll talk soon. Yes, thank you so much, thank you,
(29:15):
Thank you all right, everybody,thank you so much for joining us
on this next episode. On thislast episode of Restoring My Soul Podcast,
I hope that you were blessed byRoscoe and his testimony. I want you
(29:37):
to invite you to follow me onall social media at Princess Miller's and my
website at Princessmillings dot com. Makesure that you still understand that grief is
a journey. You don't have towalk that thing along. We're here with
you one episode at a time,and we will see you in the next
(29:57):
episode. Thank you for joining anotherepisode of Restore My Soul Podcast. Be
sure to listen and watch each weekas we continue the conversation on how to
bounce back from the setback of griefand loss and to become resilient so that
you too can thrive in life.Don't forget to like and subscribe so that
(30:18):
you don't miss out on any newepisodes, and share this with as many
people as possible so they can beencouraged in their emotional wellness journey. We
invite you to follow Princess Milions onall social media platforms and on the website
at princessmilims dot com. Thank youfor listening and we'll see you in the
next episode of the Restore My Soulpodcast
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