Author Series: Special Guest Robert Rogers

Welcome to today's episode of Reflective Hour. I'm Tammy Toney-Butler, Healing Evangelist and host of this podcast. But we all know who the real host of this show is, and that's Christ by way of the Holy Spirit. May he guide us into all truth this episode, as always, as we glean from his spirit of truth. Today, we have a special guest. a powerful man of God who I've even learned from his resilience in the face of adversity and his never ending praise of God throughout a terrible loss and tragedy. Robert Rogers is our special guest today. Author of Rise Above and several other books, Robert suffered horribly. In two thousand and three, the unimaginable happened and he lost his entire family in a flash flood. He almost lost his life. When the floodwaters overtook him. But that's about all of his story I'm going to tell, because I'm going to let you meet him A man after God's heart who, like Job, still praised in the hallway of affliction. Let's welcome Robert Rogers to our show, to Reflective Hour. Hi, Robert. Welcome to today's episode. Thank you, Tammy. Thank you so much for having me on. It's an honor to be with you. Oh, thank you. And Robert, will you open this episode in prayer and then let's just flow however the Holy Spirit's leading, because I don't know who this episode is for, but I know it's powerful. Amen. I'll be honored to. Heavenly Father, we come to you in the precious name of your son, Jesus, thanking you for another day of life, another day which you have made. And we will rejoice. We choose to rejoice and be glad in it. We don't paint on a happy, clappy face. It's not a fake facade. But the joy that comes from you within our hearts, that joy gives us strength. And we can be glad in your creation and your sovereign hand, even when life happens, even when there is terrible difficulty. detours delays trouble trials tribulations persecutions lord you are still on the throne and we still trust you and we still love you we pray right now with god for all those who have turned in by divine appointment are they here yes we pray that you would weave your way into their hearts that their minds will be alert their hearts will be receptive and ready to receive from you the words you have for them to hear. They would take heart, take root in their heart, and put down roots that will go down deeper into you, send up shoots that go up higher, and bring forth fruit that's more abundant for your glory, for their good, and for the greater good of others. You said in your word, if we commit to the Lord, whatever we do, our plans will succeed. So Lord God, we commit this precious time, this precious time to you. This time counts. This moment matters. For we want to be successful and fruitful in every way you want to be. So we declare your Lordship over these next few minutes together. We pray that your Holy Spirit would guide us and fill us with all wisdom and all scripture and all words that need to be said. We say it all, we pray it all in your name and for the glory of God. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Holy Spirit. Robert, I never, I only want you to share what God's placing on your heart about what you went through. Your story is your story. And I just want you to have free license just to talk or not talk about it. However, whatever is leading you to tell a little bit about you, who you are and whatever pathway that looks like to introduce yourself to the audience. Sure. Thank you, Tammy. And again, thank you for having me on. You know, the Bible says we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. And so there's great power in personal testimony. And each one of us has a story. And now that story, God can bring great glory. But it depends how we respond to each one of those situations that life takes us through. And so like anyone tuning in, we've all been on a journey of life. And it can be a beautiful journey and a difficult journey. And mine began as the youngest of eight children growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio, in a strong Christian family. And we all went to church together. All ten of us would fill up an entire pew. And I called God Lord many, many times, but I hadn't yet made him Lord. There's a big difference. It's one thing to simply name him, but it's another thing to know him. I had a good skeleton of faith, but it had a journey from my head down to my heart and out through my hands. I believe it involves all three, head, heart, and hands, to the point that we truly commit our hearts and lives and souls and wills to God. And so as a teenager, I started asking all these questions. God, are you real? Are you there? What does all this mean? What am I doing at church every week? And it brought me on a journey that brought me ultimately to my knees, the point of complete surrender. with reckless abandon. I said, Lord, I think I finally get it. You want my heart. What I want all of you, you want all of me? Come take me over. I give you my life and change my life completely. Truly then the word of God became flesh. It made sense to me. He was not only resident, but he was president of my heart. I fell in love. I fell in love with Jesus. I fell in love with his word. I love the Bible. the mighty, infallible, inerrant, eternal word of God. I started memorizing scriptures. I joined a Bible study where we had these scripture memory cards. And so I committed the word to my memory and I continue to do so to this day because I need God's holy word. The Bible says we don't live on bread alone, but every word that comes to the mouth of God. And so that really, activated my faith it was like an epiphany moment for me I never turned back I've always gone to the lord and to his word if you can recall when jesus was in the desert being tempted by the devil what did he always go to with those three temptations the word of god he said it is written and so if the living word needed the written word to overcome the enemy of the word, how much more do we? So I encourage everyone tuning in, get into the Bible and let the Bible get into you. Read it, memorize it, let it become your native language. As a wise man challenged me, he said, no Bible, no breakfast, no Bible, no bed. So in the morning, read the word of God before you even Have breakfast at the end of the day. Read the Word of God some more. Embrace your day with good news. There's enough bad news out there, right? At least begin and end your day with the good news of Christ. And so I grew up in Cincinnati. I studied piano. That's why I'm here by the piano as a youngster at the Conservatory of Music. And I went on to study in college for a few years as well. But I switched gears in college and began studying electrical engineering, which took me all the way to Boston, Massachusetts as a co-op student. Well, even the weekends, I got a job in downtown Boston playing the piano at a sidewalk cafe. Lo and behold, a beautiful girl from Northeast Kansas came by and long story short, we fell in love. I asked her to marry me. I found out she liked ice cream as much as I liked ice cream. And so it was a match made in heaven, truly. We married on New Year's Eve back in Cincinnati. And my first job out of college was in California. And so we moved there and started our lives, our marriage, our family together. And God bless us with beautiful children. A girl named McKenna. It was over two days late. It was a very difficult birthing process and C-section and so forth. But a great blessing from God. And after a very traumatic miscarriage afterwards where Melissa nearly died. She was losing lots of blood from an ectopic rupture. That stretched our faith even more to the core. Because half her reproductive organs were now gone. We thought, how are we going to have a big family? It's going to be at least twice as typical going forward. But last I checked, God is God and I am not. Neither we trust him or we don't. And so with all these stepstones of faith, these trials of life, they were challenges to me and my faith and our family, not to be driven further away from God, but to draw closer to him. And we all have those choices. So much of life, it's not so much what happens to us, but what happens in us and how we respond to those situations of life. And so we chose to trust God. And lo and behold, we found that we were expecting again, thank God. And we moved to Kansas City after five years of California. And we bought our very first home. And a few months later, we gave birth to our very first boy. We named him Zachary. We found out shortly after his birth he was born with Down syndrome. We didn't know that going in. We wanted to accept, receive whatever and whomever God graced us with. But it was a whole life of challenges of therapy and hospital visits and you name it, he seemed to have it. But again, it really developed our faith. We learned that a disability really is an opportunity to grow closer to God and closer to one another. And then God blessed us with another child, a son. We named him Nicholas. And then after another C-section, sorry, another miscarriage, very difficult again, we thought, Lord, what do He wants to do? We just want a big family, but it's so tough to get each one of them here. And we just were led down the path of adoption. And we went to an agency in Kansas City, and with these tears rolling down our cheeks, we knew this is for us. And so, eleven months later, in January of We were on a seven-forty-seven flying from San Francisco all the way to Beijing, China, because I heard about a little orphan girl that nobody else wanted because she was special needs due to a heart defect. We thought, well, we have a special needs boy. Let's go get a special needs girl. She's perfect for our family. Pardon me. So I'll never forget coming back to Kansas City Airport and crossing a jetway and just greeting the rest of our family with our beautiful girl from China. We named her Alina. And so here were two boys, two girls, two of them with special needs and two miscarriages along the way. So a lot of bumps and bruises, a lot of challenges, but a lot of joy. You know, it's just beauty through each moment of life and through each child. Every child is a gift from God. And so we were rejoicing in our family and making the most of our time together. We were memorizing more scripture as a family and was teaching it to our children. In two thousand three, our daughter McCann turned eight, so our children were eight, five, three and one. Pardon me a sec. And we just made a choice to savor that moment, that summer together and really enjoy each other's presence as we pulled back out of many extracurriculars and things and just Enjoy the time on the back porch and back deck and just having fun cooking s'mores and being a family. And Melissa had written in a diary that I've had the best summer I ever had. Thank God for that. Thank God for that. Well, in August of that year, we went to Wichita, Kansas, about a three-hour drive from the Kansas City airport, Kansas City area, for a relative's wedding. And after the wedding on the way back, it was raining profusely. And we splashed into a flash flood across the Kansas Turnpike. Pardon me. And it inundated our minivan and overwhelmed us. And we were washed into this deluge. And my wife and oldest daughter and I were sucked out of the driver's seat, out of the driver's window. And I was the last I saw them. I was tumbling in the water. I couldn't see. I couldn't breathe. I was ingesting the floodwaters. I was down. I was drowning. I was dying. And yet, Tammy, at that moment, it felt very peaceful. It's difficult to explain. It was tumultuous, and yet it felt as if the hand of God was right there. It felt as if he was lifting all six of us up to heaven. It was a strange, surreal experience, but Those who have had a near-death experience can probably relate that God is there. He said, even though you walk through the valley of shadow death, I will be with you. So he was with me even then and with us. Well, somehow I was washed ashore. I don't know how, but by the grace of God, here I am. And I cried out for my family. I did all I could to try to find them. It was overwhelming. It was a flash flood. A wall of water seven feet high, it crashed across the freeway and taking many vehicles and concrete barriers with it. And so I could see flashing lights back on the freeway and I went back to seek help. And they began a search and rescue for my family and took me to a hospital. In the middle of the night, an officer chaplain came to my room with their hats on their chest and he suddenly walked in and said, Robert, we found your minivan. It was upside down a mile and a half from the freeway. Is it three of your young children were still on the car seats and they are dead. And probably need to ask you to identify their bodies. What do you do? It's every parent's worst nightmare. All my blood just went to my toes. I felt numb. At first, I couldn't even cry. They slowly led me down this long hallway to the emergency room and pulled back the drape. And every four of me was our son, Zachary. A little big guy with Down syndrome, just five years old. A buddy boy, Nicholas, just three years old. A little sweet pea from China, Alina, still only one year old. We only had it for eight short months. Never got to celebrate a birthday or Christmas together. And suddenly, the floodgates in my tears just burst forth and I Collapsed over each of their bodies and stroked their wet hair and cried and groaned and wailed for my gut as if I was going to throw up again. And somehow, Tammy, I believe only by the Holy Spirit, with one hand on each of their chests, I raised my other hand up to heaven. I said, Lord, into your hands I commend their spirits. The very words of Jesus on the cross, just before he breathed his last, exemplified his lifetime of surrender to the Father's will. And so must we. It's one of the hardest things to do is to surrender all. Yet he's not Lord at all if he's not Lord of all. After all, we own nothing. Everything, everyone we have is a gift from Almighty God. How often do we sing, Jesus loves me, this I know. Little ones to him belong. They don't belong to us. And so a few hours later, they came to my room again, said we found McKenna. She apparently caught on a barbed wire fence just a short distance from her minivan. And I go down a long hallway once again, identify Daddy's first little girl. She just turned eight only two weeks before. We had a great birthday party and all. And for days we prayed and hoped they would somehow find my wife, Melissa. On the third day, they found her body two miles from the freeway in this retention pond that had tripled in size from all the floodwaters. I had to identify my wife of over eleven years. Tammy, where do you run? Where do you go? What holds you up at a time like that? I'm here to testify it can only be the sheer grace of God, the power of prayer, and the mighty power of God's word. Praise God. The Bible says in Hebrews one, three, he upholds the universe by the power of his word. Okay. So God can keep the planets in motion and he can keep my world from spitting apart and falling out of control when it feels as though it's mine. So I opened the pages and I went to the word of God. Even there in that hospital, I went to their little chapel and I just sought the word of God. And so many verses of scripture helped me, especially in the Psalms. If you're lost today and you need divine inspiration, go to the book of Psalms, just right about in the middle of the Bible. And it's kind of like a school of prayer. If you don't know what to pray, pray those words of King David in so many songs that can reach into your heart and resonate with where you're at. I went to the book of Romans, that says, be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer. That doesn't mean just act like you're joyful and hope, but joy is not a feeling. It's something deep down here that comes from our relationship with God, with Jesus Christ. And I chose to rejoice is to choose to delight in what is good, to choose to delight in what is good. As difficult as it was, Tammy, at that moment, I chose to try to focus on the life we had, I thank God I got to be a father for eight years. I got to be a husband for over eleven years. Thank God we had savored ice cream together and time on our back porch that last summer together. Thank God for those moments. And they gave me joy when I needed it. And the joy of the Lord becomes our strength. And that strengthened me. Be joyful in hope. Patient in affliction. That's not easy. When you're being inflicted and the waves keep pounding you, whether they be literal waves or emotional or financial or marital or relational. Powerful. So powerful. Wow. So powerful, Robert. Hmm. Powerful, powerful. And I think that your feed is frozen a little bit, Robert. So I'm just going to speak until it catches back up. But what powerful, powerful words. What powerful, powerful words. I mean, I can't believe that you didn't blame God. I can't believe that. So many would in a situation like that. I've lost Robert, but I know that he's going to be back. He'll log back in and we will get him back. And I want to thank everybody that's tuning in to us today. Wow. I need a minute. I tell you, that was difficult to listen to. But what has struck me is his resilience, is his faith, is his being like Job and saying, you know what? I'm going to praise you in the hallway. I'm going to praise you in the storm. I'm going to praise you, Abba Father, Adonai, Lord Jesus, whether I'm in the valley, whether I'm on the mountaintop, I'm going to praise you and trust you. Now he lost his entire family in a flood in a matter of minutes. And yet he persevered through that and is here giving his testimony to us And trying to help those heal who've suffered greatly. Many of you have been receiving blow after blow, blow after blow after blow. And you think, when is it going to let up? When is it going to let up? And I'm here to tell you, as Robert was talking about, and we'll let him continue, just continue to call out to God in the middle of that hallway of affliction, in the middle of that storm. He is there. He is waiting. Isaiah forty thirty one. It is such a scripture that I go to and he renews our strength. He strengthens us. And when he's when we're weak, he's strong. So, Robert, welcome back. I know you had technical difficulties, but I always look at it like, hey, God's interruptions, you know. And so you're back and keep going with where you were headed. I don't exactly know at what point we lost you, but you were talking about and you were, you know, just anchoring into the word of God and using it as a helper. The Word of God is really the anchor for our souls. Yes. And that's why it's vital to fortify our faith now, even before the storm hits, so that we can be ready. And that verse that I was sharing from Romans, to be joyful in hope, faithful in prayer, impatient in affliction. So remain faithful in prayer, even when it hurts, even when it doesn't make sense. And that's difficult to do, isn't it? Some people think, Lord, why did you do this to me? And they blame God and shake their fist at God. But we have to remember that God's character is faithfulness. He loves you. He loves you more than you can imagine. There's nothing you can do to stop God's love for you. In fact, this Bible is one big love story between God and you. It's not just words about God. It's the very word of God. It's the voice of God in print. Receive his mercy. Receive his forgiveness. Receive his love. And trust his hand, even when you don't understand. You can always trust his heart. Knowing that nothing happens to us or comes to us in life isn't first filtered the mighty, loving, and sovereign fingers of Almighty God. And Tammy, somehow I had to believe that and really trust those words that we say we believe, but it's another thing when the rubber meets the road and you have to put your faith into action. And I recall after this happened, a few days, a day or two after, the police had come and said, boy, there's a lot of And would you give a press conference and so forth? And I said, sure, I guess. I'm a shy introvert, Tammy, and I was never very good in front of people, frankly. I was comfortable behind a piano keyboard or a computer keyboard, but not with just a microphone like here. So that's how you know it's God and not me. And in my weakness, he is strong. But I recall asking my father, I said, Dad, what in the world do I say? I don't know what to say, really. He said, Robert, just give it straight. Just speak your heart. Just share about your family. Share about your faith. And as words came through, and I started seeing people's lives change, not because of me, but I just infused it with words of Scripture that had helped me and words of hope and stories of our family and so forth. And thankfully, that's what God's been doing ever since. But I did my best to remain faithful. Stay faithful to God because he is faithful to us. Yes. You know, we may go through the fire. When the fire goes through us, it can reshape our souls. It can forge our faith. It can sculpt our character. And so whatever happens to your life has come through the fingers of almighty God. And trust that he has a purpose in it. that there's a purpose in your pain. Your present pain has a purpose. It's glory. God wants to reveal something to you. He wants to take what happens to us to do something in us so he can do something for the good of others and for the greater glory of God. So don't buck against what God is doing. allow him to process following Christ. The first stage is surrendering your life to him, putting your faith alone in Christ alone. That gets us to heaven. Well, then God wants to bring heaven down to us, so to speak, that we might become more like him, to reflect his glory, to be transformed into a finer character. And so through these difficulties and tribulations of life, he's carving us out and he's stripping away things that aren't of him. And it can be painful during that pruning process, but so we can bear more fruit. And so I didn't know what to make of all this. I said, Lord, how could this have happened? We were doing everything we knew to do as a family. We were memorizing scripture, training up our children the way that they should go. We were avid churchgoers and lovers of God and worshipers and tithers and you name it. Why would this happen? But rather than ask why me, I began asking why not me? When we were ready. I know my family's in heaven. I mean, who's more blessed? It felt as if all six of us are going together. As I mentioned earlier, I was washed ashore. And now here we are by divine appointment this day Twenty-two years later, by God's hand, I don't understand this. This is God's doing. God is God, and I am not. Either we trust him or we don't. I choose to put my trust in him. Yes. Yes. So powerful. And as he uses our stories, you know, my story is different than your story, to help reach the lost. And some of us... got dealt a raw set of cards and we couldn't help what happened to us. But we can change the narrative and step into wholeness. Look through the perspective of our faith, draw from it his strength and rejoice. Keep going and pull those that are in the darkness out and back to his marvelous light. And that's what your story is, Robert. That's what your books that you've written are. They're pathways to peace and restoration during the darkest of times, times where you could easily cry out and question, where is God? I know I used to, you know, I'd be huddled in my bathroom and pray for God to save me as a little girl, you know, being a victim of child sex trafficking. But he wouldn't, it didn't happen. And for a large time, I had a beef with God and I wondered where he was. But now on this side of wholeness, I see how he saved me. And my mom had a choice and she didn't choose to remove me from darkness. But did she really have a choice because she had her own generational trauma that she had to walk through and she parented in survival mode. So we have our stories, we have the things that we've walked through, we've overcome so that we can be a quote, hope dealer. I just got done ministering to a bunch of ladies and they said that we're the hope dealer. And you know, I liked that. And I said, well, maybe we need to get t-shirts made up that we're the hope dealer. And we have to show others the way to draw from faith. We don't need faith when we're in heaven. I mean, there's no sickness, there's no disease, there's no dying up there. I mean, we're alive. We need faith now, like you so exhibit in your life. I mean, you're a man who went by faith, truly walked by faith and not by sight, pulled himself up and went out there to help others. And our God is so good that he's there with us in the middle of the trial, in the middle of the fiery furnace. And yes, some of us may perish. But to die is gain because like you said, they're at home in heaven. This isn't our home here. We're just visiting. But it's just powerful how you use something so dark and you, you know, you channeled it into you. being an author of a total of, now I don't want to say it wrong, six books, right? Six books. And Rise Above, I'm going to put this back on the screen. Rise Above is your third book of the six. And I highly recommend it. You can find it on the links and you will give us the links at your nonprofit, Mighty in the Land. You can go, there's an online bookstore there. But I just recommend it and your other books. And what struck me as we get into the book, what I found was powerful was around page twelve, when you're talking about surrender, to choose, this is on page thirteen, to choose life means to surrender the past for a revival to come forth. A death must often occur first, just as the birth of spring follows the death of winter. Wow. And you go through steps like the first step is to rise above it, face it. And you move through these steps. Is there anything standing out in you with you now about that, about what you wrote there, which was so powerful. And there's another, it said, either I was doomed to wallow in my mire for the rest of my earthly life, or I would choose to wade through the waters to find a way out. For at the time you are put to the test, he will give you the strength to endure it and so provide you with a way out. First Corinthians ten, thirteen. Just wow, just wow, just wow. Now, what do you got to say? What's God laying on your heart about that? God always gives you the strength and the grace you can need right when you need it. That's how God works. People said to me, Robert. I couldn't have done what you did. I said, well, neither could I. But I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. So stay connected to God. Stay focused on him. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. Like that beautiful hymn, Be thou my vision, whatever befall. Still be my vision, O ruler of all. That means no matter what happens, whatever befall, I'm going to keep my eyes fixed on the Lord. He's my ruler. In other words, he's sovereign. I align my life, my family, my home, all that I do, my vocation under his rule, under his authority. And we have to keep our eyes fixed firmly on him. The ability to hope, the ability to cope in the present is tied directly to our perspective of the future. That's why we have to keep our eyes fixed on heaven, on Jesus, and try to kind of pull back and get an eternal perspective of what this all means. When you're in the midst of death, and I have kissed death firsthand five times, and Tammy, you've dealt with such terrible abuse and known pain and suffering like few people do, I cannot begin to imagine. But we all experience that sting, that pain. But you realize as you delve deeper into your faith that the grave has no victory. Death truly itself has no sting. Because as you just said, to live is Christ, to die is gain. And so that gave me the great hope to cope when I needed it the most. But those steps you alluded to, there's three simple steps. I won't say they're easy, but they're simple and basic steps to help people rise above, to overcome the worst, Number one is to face it. Face it. And it sounds very elemental. But a lot of people have a hard time doing it. As you've had to face your past, Tammy. And it's very difficult to do so. Much like King David had to face his sin with Bathsheba. Jesus faced the cross. You know, he didn't want to. He said, Lord, if it's possible, let this cross pass from me. Not my will. Would yours be done? All through scripture, we see how people had to face what they were dealing with. So don't deny it. I've seen people in the cemetery many times where my family's buried. And I've talked to people later, five, ten years after their loved one died, said, I still can't come to grips with it. I still haven't faced it. Some people have trouble just getting to the cemetery, just facing the fact that death happens. But it's a part of life. It's appointed to man once to die. And after that, the judgment. So that's a certain surprise. It does certainly catch us off guard, right? Because we weren't initially made for this. But because Adam and Eve sinned, we all have to face death and suffering. That's part of the world we now live in. But as you said, Tammy, this world is not our home. We're not residents of earth on our way to heaven. We're residents of heaven on our way through earth. It's a very short journey. So number one is to face it. Number two, embrace it. Embrace it. And that sounds a bit counterintuitive. I don't want to embrace this pain. This is horrific. This is dreadful. This is excruciating. And my heart was hemorrhaging. But I didn't want to run away from the feelings. First, I faced it by identifying and kissing each of my family members who died. through the funeral and five coffins there lined up in the front of the church, through the burial, through going through all of their belongings and photos and clothing and artwork on the refrigerator in the kitchen at home. All these layers and elements effaced in every tear. And tears helped wash away little specks of grief at a time. But I embraced each of those memories. I cried to them. I went to counseling for three solid years. I delved into God's word. Boy, I spent a lot of time in God's word. I'm here to tell you, Tammy, it was the worst of times and in some ways the best of times because it was so sweet. It was so intimate with him. It felt like the Lord was just holding me like a warm blanket had wrapped around me. And he had me right there in the palm of his hand. I would sit in my chair and just read some scriptures or from the Psalms, sometimes just fall asleep. And he gave me peace that truly passed all understanding. It did not make any sense because it doesn't come from man. It comes from God. And the Bible says you will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, whose thoughts are fixed on you. Not fixed on the problems, not fixed on social media, not fixed on the news. Keep your thoughts fixed on him. leave down my vision keep your eyes fixed on jesus embrace it god says in his word in the book of hosea chapter two I believe it is I will lead her out into the desert and speak tenderly to her there what does that mean well sometimes god leads us into a wilderness experience I encourage you don't short circuit that time don't short circuit that wilderness and desert experience. Allow God to speak to you tenderly, where it's just you and him. He wants to speak to your heart. He wants to develop you. You know, the devil desires our downfall, but God desires our development. And don't short circuit it. or running to substances or addictions or vices or internet or whatever it might be, social media, run to Him. By God's grace, Tammy, I've gone all this time. I've never done drugs my whole life. No drunkenness or promiscuity or internet garbage. I've never smoked. And I'm not bragging on me. I'm bragging on God. Because humanly speaking, that is impossible. God, all things are possible. I never had any depression or nervous breakdowns. Like I said, you go through three years of professional grief counseling to treat PTSD. And I highly recommend that because there's layers of grief and layers of stuff as he restores our soul. It can be a process. I also did eat lots of ice cream and peanut butter. I highly recommend that too, because chocolate therapy is a very happy place for me. But most of all, I stayed immersed in God's word. My whole source of joy is in you, the Bible says. Psalm AD seven, verse seven. My whole source of joy is in you. So embrace that time. So face it. Whatever it is you're going through, face it. Out of every great test, become a great testimony. But first we have to face it. And that might involve forgiving. Forgiving someone who's done you wrong. Like in your case, Tammy, I can't imagine. Forgiving those who have abused you. It might be forgiving yourself. Some people have a hard time letting themselves off the hook. Why did I do that? Why did I commit this horrible atrocity to someone else or say what I said? It might be forgiving God. God can't do any wrong or sin. But how often do we keep shaking our fist at him and blame him over what was lost rather than thank him for what we found? And so it might be, in a sense, letting God off the hook in that way. Say, Lord, I trust you. So to face it, forgive, deal with it. Sometimes it feels like he grabs our head by the hair on the back and just sticks our nose into it. He says, yeah, deal with it. Like Jesus faced the cross and embraced the cross. Face it, embrace it. And my favorite part, replace it. Replace it. Now, you can never replace who is lost, right? Mm-hmm. Well, God is a God of restoration. And he can restore and renew and bring about great, great goodness in your life. He's done it all through time, all through scripture. Psalm seventy one says, Lord, you've allowed me to suffer much hardship. We could probably all agree with that, right? Yes, Lord, you've allowed me to suffer much hardship, but you will restore me to life again and lift me up. in the depths of the earth. It's great news. It will bring me even greater honor and comfort me. Once again, it goes on to say, God wants to restore you. He wants to lift you up in the depths of the earth, as he did with his own son from the grave. The same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells within you as his followers. to allow him to restore your life and breathe life back into you. Out of your misery can come great ministry, as Tammy has done, as by God's grace I have done, not through my own doing, but through God working through me, and many other countless ministries across this great world. So allow God to restore you as only he can. He has healed my heart, restored my soul over these past two decades now, as only the good Lord can. And amazingly, he has blessed me with another family. In a two thousand six. I married a beautiful girl from Indiana named Inga. And God bless us with children of our own. We had a boy first named Ezekiel and a girl named Estella. A boy named Leo. And a girl we named Lola, Lola Elizabeth. Two boys, two girls. Similar makeup as I had before, which is just incredible. We never found out the gender of any of our children until they were born. It was such a beautiful moment of their birth. And to announce, it's a boy, it's a girl. I say, God, how did you do this? I'm reminded so much of the story of Job. How Job had it all. And then he lost it all, right? He lost his health, his wealth, all ten of his children, seven boys and three girls. And Job faced it. He dealt with it. In fact, even his friends who had come to console and comfort him, they kind of turned their fingers, started pointing at Job. Hey, Job, maybe this is your fault. Maybe this is your doing. The Bible says that when Job prayed for his friends, the Lord restored him. And when you can pray for someone who has hurt you, that's a pretty good indication that you've forgiven them. I believe there was forgiveness implicit in part of that prayer. And God restored Job, even though he had a lot of questions along the way. In fact, right there in the middle of the book of Job, I believe it's chapter twenty three, verses ten to twelve. Job's saying, I'm looking north, south, east, and west. I can't make heads or tails of this. But I do know this. When God has tested me, I will come forth as gold. I have closely followed his steps. I have kept to his way without turning aside. I've treasured the words of his heart more than my daily bread. In other words, he treasured God's word more than food. Kind of sounds like no Bible, no breakfast, no Bible, no bed. He treasured God's word. And God restored him, not just one for one, but two for one, double of everything, including double the family. He had ten children in heaven. He got ten more children on his earth, seven boys, three girls, much like before. What a mighty God we serve. So God did a similar thing for me with two boys, two girls. And six years after our youngest daughter was born, God gave us another surprise, another boy. We named him Solomon, Solomon Gideon. So now we have five children ages eighteen all the way down to seven. Wow. So we have a very active and loud household. We home educate them and work out of my home ministry office right here where I am. And I go wherever God calls me to share God's good news through our family story. That's where he has me right now. Thank God. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. I tell you, I know that that's healing to someone out there. And I'm going to have to go back and listen to this podcast and take notes. I'll tell you that right now. The next thing that the Lord and I drew out of was around page fifteen. And it talked about. The longer you wait, the more daunting the difficulty becomes. As I've ministered and shared my story hundreds upon hundreds of times, I've encountered people who are still stuck in a rut of pain, sinking deeper into the quick sand of despair, all because they never fully faced it. And I just thought that was powerful about how you talked about facing it and that you have to face it and just, you know, taking it step by step. And on page twenty-two, what was powerful to me was until we get to heaven, life on this earth will rarely be smooth and easy. Peaches and cream or peanut butter and jelly, which I love me some peanut butter and jelly. It's a constant journey of breaking and growing, falling, rising, crying and climbing, debilitating and developing. I found it helps soften the blow somewhat to simply face it and accept it. I mean, just wow, just wow, just wow. And then you touched on forgiveness. and unforgiveness in page twenty four. And we forget to forgive ourselves. Yeah, it was hard for me to forgive my mom. And I did. And the others who afflicted me. Because what does unforgiveness do? Unforgiveness keeps us tied to that dysfunctional person or to that event. and they actually still have control over us so the greatest thing we can do is to let go break that soul tie that's still attached through the unforgiveness root and say you know what I choose to forgive you and move on doesn't mean I have to forget but I choose to be whole I choose to walk and not let that plaque of unforgiveness get in my heart, which can cause less of the Holy Spirit getting in there and doing everything he wants to do. It can hinder our growth as Christians. So when we let the seeds of bitterness, the plaques of bitterness, and get those out of our heart, cleanse our heart of those things, then it's just, it's powerful. And part of that is learning how but to forgive ourselves and rise above, which is such a powerful thing in the book. And you talked about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and how they always remained faithful. I mean, you went through so many amazing things in this book. And on page ninety nine, what really stuck out to me was I was taught that fear, F-E-A-R, stands for false evidence appearing real. Fear is faith in reverse. So replace your fear with faith. Don't gaze upon death and the past indefinitely. Replace it. I will put breath into you and you will come to life. Ezekiel thirty seven six. Invite the waters of God's healing Holy Spirit to bring life to your own dead sea for its waters will become fresh. Life will flourish wherever this water flows. Ezekiel forty seven nine. Your life can flourish and bring vitality to others. Wow. Just wow. What would you like to elaborate on any of that? Well, as you alluded, so many scriptures embedded in that book. Yes. And that's what I do with every book I've written. It's always based on the Word of God. Because my words cannot change a life, but God's Word can. I never set out to be an author. I'm a really slow reader. You should see my nightstand. It's stacked high. I'm an even slower writer. So each one of these books is a big labor of love for me. But I wrote each one because people just started coming to me and asking, how'd you get through it? What'd you do? How'd you live this life with no regrets and so forth? But what you touched on with forgiveness, I think is so key because unforgiveness is like being buried alive. It traps us in the pain of the past. It padlocks us in the prison of regrets. And yet when you forgive, you set someone free and that person is me. Otherwise, as you alluded to, you enable that perpetrator, that person you haven't forgiven to keep hold of you, to keep control over you. God forgave us. Jesus forgave us through his blood on the cross. How can we not extend that to forgive others? When we say the Lord's Prayer, Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. That word as, tiny little two-letter word, means to the degree of or to the extent that we forgive others. So God's forgiveness of me is tied to my forgiveness of others. I must extend mercy to others because he's extended it to me. And that's what heals that relationship restores relationship and repairs fellowship with god and with one another so that forgiveness is so vital in the act of facing it and then embracing it but also part of what you read reminded me of how so many people do get stuck just even in that first step so to speak that they have trouble just facing dealing with the past that That's right where the devil wants us to be. He wants us to stay stuck in our scars and paralyzed in our pain. And I could have just been cowered in a corner the rest of my life and cried myself. And I cried many times in my children's beds, curled up into a little ball in a fetal position. And that's okay to do for a season. There's a season to everything. But don't let that season of mourning turn into a lifetime of mourning. I mentioned some people can't seem to face the cemetery, go to deal with death. I've seen other people can't seem to leave the cemetery. People can tend to make it a shrine, just camp out there and trying to wish back the past. And of course, we all ache to have our loved ones back. It feels so awful when they're gone. It's like we're limping through life without one of our limbs attached. We're just trying to regain our balance and equilibrium, right? But we have to learn to accept and adapt and adjust by God's grace and strength. But we have to let them go and not try to love them as they were, but to love them where they are now, to look forward to being with them in heaven. That's the hope we have. It's not that we don't grieve. I still cry, Tammy. I still grieve. I still miss them. I still look up at the stars and whisper their names. I still trust God. So we grieve with hope. We need that hope truly to cope. Thanks be to God. So powerful. I know when I lost my baby sister at the beginning of the year and it hits you hard and you're not expecting this storm to come to your door. And then when it does, that's when the devil tries to come in, you know, when you're so weak and just deceive you into thinking that God's not there and God is there. And I had to walk through the grief and even the, of course, the Holy Spirit used it and had me do a grief series. And I'm definitely going to add this into that, this grief series, because I know that it fits in there. And so he used it and I knew that I was okay to stay there for a little while and dwell in that and honor my sister's death. But at some point I had to decide I can't stay here in this despair because in this desperate state of sorrow, and I had to literally just say, you know, I just rebuke you spirit of sorrow. I can't take that in. I still have to choose joy. and holy spirit help me help me to do this because I like you said we don't do any of this in our own strength we don't minister our own strength we don't do anything in our own power we're all one spirit and that's what I want you and everybody to to to understand we're still tied to the holy spirit so Yes, we're separated from them and their earthly fleshly body, but we're still connected in spirit and we're still one with them. And I know that you see them in nature and you see them in these little God wink moments that you just know they've left you, but they're still there in spirit. I feel like I have one foot in heaven, one foot here. It's a very thin veil. these brushes with eternity reminds us how fragile life is and how thin the veil is between this world and the next between time and eternity it's like hebrews where it says a great cloud of witnesses that surround us it's almost like our loved ones in heaven are cheering us on say go go go so I said, Lord, after this happens, God, I want to scoop up as many people to go to heaven with me as possible. And that's my goal is for other people to know Jesus. I want to bring Jesus to people, bring people to Jesus. More souls saved, more hearts healed, more families transformed. And like you mentioned with the loss of your sister, I'm so sorry for your loss. Because every loss, whether it's one, whether it's five, if it's abuse and loss of, You know, yourself in that way that every loss is uniquely devastating. Yes. But God can heal and restore each one and bring. He causes all things to work together for good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. So when that happens, I encourage each one of us not to do things that are destructive, but do something that's constructive. Yes. Do something that can edify yourself, edify others, build each other up, And bring glory to God. And a few years ago, my oldest brother passed away as well. And that's the first sibling I've lost. And you can relate that. Yes. It's another journey of grief. Just because you deal with one death doesn't mean you're ready for the next one. Each one hits you like another kind of wave. Like, I wasn't expecting that. And he was a great physician and cardiologist, Dr. Paul Rogers. And his death was very unexpected. But he died of cancer and died. It was tough for all of us to deal with. But a few months later, a lot of my relatives and I said, let's do something worthwhile. And so we participated in a bike benefit fundraiser in Columbus, Ohio. I got on my bike and rode a hundred miles. I've never done this before. I had no idea if I could even do it. And I finished in the vertical upright position, thanks be to God, and raised some money to help innovative cancer research with about seven thousand other writers. And it felt so gratifying that each one of us righted and that we're connected by this horrible thing called cancer. Many were cancer survivors. Many just loved ones touched by cancer. But we decided to do something constructive and just help other people who have to go through that horrible journey. So I encourage others, face it, embrace it, replace it. When something bad happens, bring some good out of it. Like you said, you couldn't stay wallowing in your grief. your despair after your sister died. I have to choose to delight in what is good. What good can I bring out of this to help others in some way and bring glory to God? Yes. And I think that we can get so caught up on the negative. And like you said, bring something constructive out of it and rally around those who've lost loved ones and be there or through great tragedies. I mean, we've had so many natural disasters and manmade disasters and, um, you know, horrible things that are happening in our nation and in our world. And we just need to unify as a body of believers. And we need to wrap our arms and our hearts around the truth that Lord Jesus Christ offers to us as a body of believers and rely on his Holy Spirit to guide us and strengthen us. And a house divided cannot stand. And we have to stay unified even in times of tragedy. And look to the goodness. I mean, God did not even spare his son. He sent his son to die for a sinner like me. I mean, what God does to him, he loves us so much that he sent his only begotten son to die on the cross so we could live. So if he didn't spare his own son, we will face trials and tribulations as a Christian, as a believer. We will face those. And it's in Christ Jesus, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Messiah, the Spirit of Christ is in us that allows us to continue to persevere past that hall of affliction. In this world, you will have troubles. Yes. You will have difficulties. But take heart, take courage, try to overcome the world. Yes. That's not easy. It's an active decision. to take heart, to be courageous. Say, Lord, I'm going to draw upon your strength. I cannot do it on my own. There's no way. There's no humanly way possible. But with your empowerment, I can. And in Second Corinthians chapter one, Apostle Paul was talking about all the hardships that they were enduring. And he said, in fact, they were near death. He said they expected to die. I've had people say, oh, God will never give you more than you can handle. I've come to believe just the opposite. God always gives us more than we can handle. Whether it's good, whether it's a trial or difficulty. Why? He doesn't want us to handle it without him. If I could handle it on my own, I wouldn't need him. But I need to depend on him. The Apostle Paul goes on to say that this caused them to rely not on themselves, but on God who raises the dead. And that was the beauty of it, that Through their near death experiences, they learned, you know what? I'm powerless on my own. I have to rely completely on God because he has the power to raise the dead. So he has the power to get me through this. Yea, though I walk through the valley, the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Psalm twenty three, Psalm forty six. God is my strength. God is my refuge and ever present help in time of trouble. That means he's with you. Realize that and receive that by faith. And back to Psalm XXIII, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. In other words, I'm not staying stuck in my scars or paralyzed by that pain, but I choose to keep taking another step. And trudging through, it can feel like your legs are in concrete, right, or in quicksand, and you're just barely getting through each day. But get up and do something worthwhile and trust God through every step, every minute of the day. I felt like that after my family died. I said, Lord, what reason do I have to get out of bed? Why am I still here? It makes no sense. I said, well, Lord, I'm going to trust you for the next sixty seconds. If I can get through that, I'll go another minute. And I did that, and I got through an hour and a day and a week and a month. Year after year, God has been equipping and enabling and anointing me to do what it is I do. And so the book of Corinthians says that these light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. I'm here to say, along with anyone else, when you're going through it, it feels neither light nor momentary, right? It feels long and excruciating. It feels heavy. I think it means that when we've gone through it, we take a step back. We can see God's fingerprints all through our life. You say, yeah, that was difficult when I went through it. But in light of glory, it's beautiful. It goes on to say, so we keep our eyes not on what is seen. What is seen is temporary. What is unseen is eternal. So every one of us has negative experiences in life. But when we bring it to the cross, we can turn that negative into a positive. Bring your suffering to the cross of Christ. Offer up your suffering to him as a sacrifice of praise. Say, Lord, use this great misery for some great ministry and let it benefit someone else and heal my heart and bring a great glory through it all. Yes, yes, so powerful. Well, Robert, as we move towards concluding this powerful episode, Let people know how they can find you. And also, what closing word do you have for us? What do you want to leave us with on this episode? Sure. Well, thank you for that opportunity. And I'm willing and available to come and minister in person anywhere around the country. And so if you go to my website, which is mightyintheland.com, mightyintheland.com, which is named after Psalm one twelve that says his children will be mighty in the land. My contact information is there. You can reach out to me and I try to come wherever I'm invited. I don't have an agent. I don't charge fees or anything like that. This is a ministry of faith. We accept support. god has supported and thrived this ministry for over two decades by his grace so be honored to do so and there's some books and some music some peaceful piano music and other resources on the website that you can avail yourself of if that's helpful to you I personally sign every book and ship it to you directly from here so be glad to add that personal touch to it if that can be of help to you it's the only several people who I've received and read that book, Rise Above. On more than one occasion, I've said, that's been a life changer. It's changed her life truly. And that can only be the word of God. Because I infuse the Bible into every single book, hundreds of verses of scriptures in each one of those six books by God's grace. In fact, one person wrote me and said it saved his life because he was starving himself and trying to commit suicide. He changed his mind after reading that book, Christ Above. So that was truly divine appointment. So I'm honored to serve however God leads and wherever God leads by his grace. One of the items that popped into my mind when we were just speaking is part of the good that has come through this tragedy is, first of all, my family that he has graced me with now, but also an orphanage foundation that we began back in two thousand four. After I went on a missions trip to India after that horrific tsunami. I was inspired looking into the eyes of those orphans to help continue the legacy of my heavenly family by sponsoring orphans and caring for orphans and special needs children around the world. So through the Mighty Inland Foundation, it's a special separate orphanage fund. We've given or granted over six hundred thousand dollars to health care for orphans and special needs children worldwide. We sponsored over eight homes and even a rural health center in India to help care for people with medical needs and share the gospel with them as well. So there's more on the website about that. But just another example of trying to do something constructive and how God can bring great good out of every great tragedy, if we just ask him. You might just have your tears or a broken alabaster jar at Jesus' feet. Maybe you just have a couple of loaves and fishes, whatever it is offered up to God. Hey, Lord, I don't have much, but what I have I give to you. Give me the glory. Watch how he will bless that, multiply it, make it more than what it is, Bring great glory to him, great good to others. And in turn, he's going to help to heal your heart, restore your soul. Because one word has helped me to heal the most these past twenty years. That's one word, serve. It sounds kind of backwards, but when I pour out my life and pour into others, God's going to fill you up. It's in giving that you receive. You're going to reap what you sow. Jesus said, I came here not to be served, but to serve and to give my life. We're not saved just to sit and do nothing. We're saved to serve and to give. Before our lives are taken from us, we must first give them away. So I encourage you, give your life to Jesus. Give your heart to Jesus. Surrender all to him. Surrender your pain, your sorrows, your cares, your regrets, your unforgiveness, your grudges. that death of a loved one, laid at the foot of the cross and say, Lord, I'm a mess. But I lay it at your feet and ask you to redeem this mess and bring forth perhaps a message that someone else may hear through my story. Each one tuning in has a story. I encourage you, share your story. Share your story with others. They may hear God's good news through your story. Like that beautiful hymn, this is my story, this is my song. You have a story to share. Just like Tammy does and I do and many others. Extend God's goodness through your story. The other lives can be truly transformed and changed. And surrender your life to him. Believe that Jesus came for you. He died on the cross to forgive your sins. But he didn't stay in the grave. He rose from the grave. He rose again. That we might have eternal life with him. The Bible says, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. It's very simple. But believe on him. Trust in him. And receive his mercy and his grace. You will never regret it. And they overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the power of their testimony. And that's it. That's what we have to remember. Well, Robert, it's been such a great honor to have you. Thanks for your vulnerability, for your strength to deliver that powerful testimony. truth and to be able to channel that and use that through your authorship of so many books and resources to help others in their hallway of affliction. And I did put in the chat, themightyintheland.com so you can reach out there. And again, Robert, thank you so much. God bless you and keep you and guide you. Thank you, Tammy. God bless you. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Wow. So powerful. So powerful. You can see that again. Author series, special guest, Robert Rogers, Rise Above, MightyInTheLand.com. I'm Tammy Toney-Butler, Healing Evangelist. I thank you so much for tuning in. I see you all those that are listening to us all over the world. May God bless you and may he keep you and his light shine upon you. And may you be forever changed as you process the darkness by way of his marvelous light. Glory be to Jesus. Glory be to Jesus. Glory be to Jesus.