Participants: John Lomacang (Host), Carol Zarska
Series Code: IAA
Program Code: IAA000369
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00:29 Hello friends and welcome to 3ABNs Issues and Answers. 00:33 My name is John Lomacang and it's always good to have you 00:36 tune in and discover that whatever the issue Jesus is, in 00:40 fact, the answer. We have Carol Zarska with us today who's going 00:44 to bring to us a wonderful topic If you are married or even if 00:47 you are single you may have the concept in your mind that men 00:51 are from Mars and woman are from Venus. We're going to talk about 00:54 male and female communication. So let's welcome our guest at 00:58 this time. Carol so good to have you here. 00:59 It's good to be here. I'm so glad that I'm able to join 01:03 together with you today John. 01:05 You know what's so nice about it, we have a male and female 01:07 communication. I'm a male, you're a female so we'll be able 01:10 to see it from both angles. Yeah, that's very good. 01:13 You are a speaker and a family counselor. Yes. And a person who 01:18 has been really in ministry for a number of years. Just give us 01:22 a brief overview of what you've been doing for the Lord, or 01:26 should I say what the Lord has been doing through you. 01:28 Since 1984 I've been a public speaker. My major impetus in the 01:36 beginning was the sanctuary which led me into more 01:39 understanding about relationships because the 01:41 sanctuary as we understand it experientially is an example of 01:47 how God wants to teach us to interact with himself through 01:52 prayer because the sanctuary is a model for prayer, but it's 01:57 also a model since we were created in God's image, it's a 02:02 model for relationships with people as well. So I've been 02:05 learning more and more about that as the years have gone by 02:09 and it has been such an exciting journey to find out how God 02:13 wants to bring us back to wholeness. 02:15 I like the way you see that. The Lord wants to not only bring us 02:19 back to wholeness but he wants to communicate with us. I enjoy 02:22 studying the Bible and also teaching it and I've discovered 02:24 that Revelation, which is a book written in a lot of sanctuary 02:28 symbolism, you find the Lord says seven time, at least eight 02:33 times he who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says. But 02:37 our focus today is what the Spirit is saying to the male and 02:40 to the female and then how the male and the female should 02:44 communicate together. What led you into looking into that 02:48 particularly? Well, number one I am a wife and 02:52 a mother and my husband and I have been married for 50 years 02:58 and so we've had a lot of practice on both sides. 03:01 I like that. And since I have been a family 03:06 counselor for years I thought that I had it pretty much 03:13 together. I thought I knew what I needed to know about not only 03:17 my own relationship with my husband but also teach other 03:21 people. And for quite some time it seemed to work out fine. But 03:27 in the last, I would say, five years I began to notice that 03:34 my relationship with my husband wasn't faring as well. It seemed 03:39 that no matter hard I tried and how nice I was, it seemed that 03:44 he was being more irritable. I tried to reach out to him and I 03:49 thought I was being such a good wife and doing all the things 03:53 that I was teaching other people about how to be kind and be 03:58 affirming and all those things. But it still wasn't working. It 04:03 got to the place where I began to wonder if my husband was 04:07 getting Alzheimer's or whatever because we are getting older. 04:12 My husband is 71 now, but at the time we were nearing 70 and I 04:18 thought well maybe something's wrong with his mind. So it 04:22 seemed like every day it was some kind of irritation and I 04:26 would say something. For example a little conversation; he'd say 04:31 I wonder where my keys are, can't find my keys. And I would 04:34 say well where did you put them last? And he would say if I knew 04:39 where I put them last, I would go and get them. And I would 04:42 say well honey I'm just trying to be helpful. And he would say 04:47 well you're not being helpful because if you say silly things 04:50 like that then how can that be helpful. So why don't you help 04:55 me find my keys. I would say well OK honey, I will and pretty 04:58 soon he would find his keys but he was already irritated by the 05:02 whole conversation. You know, I'm smiling because my 05:05 wife and I have had that conversation before and her 05:08 reply was the same thing, where did you put them last and I 05:11 recall saying the same thing to her, where did you put it last, 05:14 because sometimes she rushing out of the house and switching 05:19 pocketbooks and all that. So we see that not all women are very 05:22 far apart and I think that one of the things that you alluded 05:26 to before the program began was, and I want you to build on this, 05:29 is that men and women communicate quite differently. 05:34 Talk to me about that. 05:36 Yes, and I knew that but I didn't know that I was doing 05:41 anything wrong by being helpful and that's why I was blaming my 05:45 husband in my heart, it must be him, something's wrong with him. 05:50 And of course after any kind of hard or difficult or irritating 05:55 conversation then my husband would leave and I would feel 05:58 very devastated because I wanted 06:02 to have smooth communications and kisses at the door and 06:05 things like that and when he would be in that kind of a mood 06:08 he would just go and not even say goodbye and I would cry for 06:13 a couple of hours or whatever. It was to the place where I 06:17 finally said Lord, I have to have new light. I thought I knew 06:22 everything and something is wrong. I asked the Lord to show 06:27 me what to do to make our lives more happy. Well I need to tell 06:32 a little bit of a story about how God led me to understand how 06:36 to talk to my husband in a way that we never have any more 06:41 arguments, anymore. Now before you tell me, you know 06:43 what's so nice about this. You have, as you said, been married 06:47 for 50 years and what's so encouraging about what you're 06:50 admitting to or even talking about right now is that we can 06:54 always learn no matter how long we've been married. There's 06:57 always room to learn how to communicate better. 07:00 Right. I feel that God since he knows everything is the place we 07:06 have to go because I already had studied so much and thought I 07:12 knew so much. But God had something special for me that 07:16 I've been able to share now in the last three years that has 07:20 changed my marriage and changed a lot of others as I've been 07:25 able to share this. One day I was alone in the house and it 07:31 was Friday and I sat down in my chair about sundown and since 07:37 I was alone and that's rather rare because I'm always 07:40 surrounded with people, I decided I would do something 07:45 special. So I went to the big glass doors in our home and 07:49 looked out as the sun was going down on Friday evening. I said 07:54 Lord I'm all alone and so I'm going to come and invite you in 07:59 to my home this evening and you and I can have a nice Sabbath 08:05 evening together. So I did a little ritual of inviting him 08:10 and then I went over to my chair and sat down and talked to the 08:15 Lord and studied and prayed and so forth. Well several days 08:18 after that I was again talking to the Lord about my husband and 08:23 my relationship with my husband and God spoke to me in my heart 08:27 and in my mind and he said do you remember the other night 08:32 when you invited me into your home and you came to the door 08:37 and invited me in and we had a loving relationship that 08:41 evening? And I said yes and he said well I want you to do that 08:46 same thing every time your husband walks through that door. 08:52 And I thought, that's what I said, Mmm. Because after you're 08:57 married 50 years I didn't always jump up and run to the door and 09:01 give my husband a big kiss. I'd say hi honey or something like 09:05 that and keep on with what I was doing. The routine. The routine. 09:09 But the Lord began to teach me that I needed to treat my 09:13 husband with more respect first of all, that he is a king. God 09:19 made him that way. The Lord began to show me how when he 09:22 created Adam and Eve that Adam was a king. Now Eve was a Queen 09:28 but the Queen is not the same as the King even though it is equal 09:33 It's a submission of equals and how to treat one another and I 09:37 didn't know that. I treated him the same way I treated everybody 09:41 else, except of course I loved him as my husband. So I began to 09:45 do that. So when he would come I would go to the door and give 09:48 him a hug and a kiss and I would say honey are you hungry? Is 09:53 there anything I can do for you? Would you like for me to run the 09:57 bath water for you or what can I do for you? And he's like 10:02 stunned or whatever. But he got used to it and he liked it. 10:06 So now when he comes home I meet him at the door, I feed him and 10:12 I talk with him. Step number two That in itself is not enough. 10:18 Step number two is the Lord began to teach me that I was not 10:24 communicating to my husband in a proper way. Now I knew from 10:30 studies that have come out in scientific circles today that 10:34 the brains of a man and a woman function somewhat differently. 10:42 That men have more testosterone and men have more comfort level 10:49 in what is called left hemisphere of the brain 10:52 which is more where there's authority and there is action, 10:58 there are rules and regulations and time orientation and where 11:05 there's not as much talking as women can do. It is said that 11:10 men want to talk about 20,000 words a day and women 50,000 11:16 words a day. Wow. So that's quite a disparity. I would say. 11:21 And so the Lord began to impress me don't talk to him the way you 11:26 do your girlfriends which is just talk, talk. As soon as he 11:29 comes in the house, Oh honey you know what happened today and I'm 11:32 telling him all about my day and all this kind of stuff. The Lord 11:35 said let him talk first. He is the one that needs to unload 11:42 whatever he wants to. That moment of time when he and you 11:49 are together you put him first. So I began to do that. Then step 11:54 number three was that the Lord began to show me that I was not 11:59 speaking to him correctly; that I was being motherly, that I was 12:04 telling him what to do, that I would give him advice. So I'm 12:10 going to use a little conversation that started us on 12:16 a completely new track. Whenever I would say things to my husband 12:22 that were a little preachy, teachy, motherly the way I would 12:26 speak to my child perhaps, and say why don't you do it this way 12:31 or why are you doing it that way. How about this or giving 12:35 him suggestions and he would say what are you trying to do, be 12:38 the boss? And I'm saying no I'm not trying to be the boss. So 12:41 we would go off into these conversations. 12:42 Or specifically as a counselor. Sometimes I've said this in 12:46 doing marriage seminars. As a marriage counselor I say the 12:50 worst thing you can do is try to be the counselor of your spouse. 12:53 Exactly. You know, giving them advice. I can imagine how two 12:57 lawyers must be, both of them practicing law, you know they 13:01 hold their own, they have skills to argue down to the final 13:05 closing argument. But so you saw in your relationship that your 13:09 communication was, well if I'm hearing you carefully, it was 13:13 somewhat condescending to him to put yourself in the position 13:17 of authority over him, to give him advice and he's kind of 13:20 saying are you trying to be my mother? 13:22 Exactly, exactly. But I didn't know that I was doing that. To 13:26 a woman, a woman doesn't feel like I'm trying to be the mother 13:30 We just try to think it is a suggestion. That's how we feel 13:34 about it. If we're talking to another woman, when I suggest 13:38 something to another woman if she doesn't like it she just says oh 13:42 well thanks, you know, whatever and goes by her way. But what a 13:46 man generally feels is that a suggestion is more coming across 13:51 as a command and they feel like well you're trying to tell me 13:55 what to do. And a woman is like no I'm just giving you a 14:00 suggestion. But what I learned is that a man's mind is by God 14:06 given so that he wants to do something about what we bring 14:10 to him as a woman and so we have to be careful about that just 14:15 like Esther. She was very careful how she approached 14:18 Ahasuerus. She did it the right way. She didn't just come 14:23 bouncing into the throne room and begin to tell him all about 14:27 her problems. She did it very carefully. She fed him twice and 14:31 she give him an opportunity to ask what is it that you want and 14:36 all of that. So the Lord was teaching me this for about six 14:40 months but I would do it wrong every time. He would say well 14:45 you could have said it this way, you could have said it another 14:49 way. And I'd think oh OK I'll try to do that next time but 14:51 next time I would do it wrong again and my husband was 14:54 irritated again. The first time I did it right was on a Sabbath 14:59 afternoon and he was lying on the couch and I was sitting in 15:03 my chair and he began to tell me about some of his problems 15:07 at work. And he was saying they're telling me (my husband 15:12 is at this time a trucker) and he was saying they told me lies 15:15 and they said they were going to pay me this much and they 15:18 didn't really pay me that much and I think they're just trying 15:22 to steal from me. Well my first instinct was to say oh honey 15:26 they're probably not. They just made a mistake maybe. Maybe 15:30 they're not really trying to steal from you. So this is the 15:34 motheringly role. I'm trying to calm him down and make him feel 15:39 better. Well in the past that would make him more angry. It's 15:43 like well how do you know? What are you trying to tell me? You 15:47 don't know whether this is the truth or not. 15:49 Well are you on their side or my side? 15:51 Exactly. Whose side are you taking here? And I'm like I'm 15:55 not taking anybody's side, I'm just making a suggestion. No. 16:01 So anyway this time I said Lord I know I'm going to do it wrong 16:05 because I can't think what to do. I can't think what to say. 16:10 I want to say all these motherly things, it's instinct to me. 16:14 So I mumbled something about well maybe... and he said what'd 16:19 you say? He's hard of hearing. He said what'd you say? 16:22 Fortunately he's hard of hearing because it gave me time to pray 16:28 and I prayed and finally I said to him, Honey it must feel bad 16:34 to think that somebody has lied to you or stolen from you. And 16:39 all of a sudden there was quiet. Nothing was said. And all of a 16:43 sudden then he jumped up from where he was lying on the couch, 16:47 went into the kitchen, pulled in a chair, got as close to me as 16:50 he could, looked in my face with tears running down his face. 16:54 He said you are the most wonderful woman I have ever met. 16:58 And I thought what did I do? But that was the beginning, 17:03 the beginning of me learning that I need to talk respectfully 17:08 to my husband. I need to help him to feel that I understand, 17:12 that I'm not trying to tell him what to do, that I'm not 17:15 counseling him. I'm listening, I'm caring, I'm saying positive 17:20 things that encourage and build him up and make him feel more 17:24 like a man. 17:25 That is such a wonderful, and I won't use the word concept, 17:30 but approach that I believe and I'm saying this in the context 17:35 of counseling other people. Sometimes there are women in 17:39 relationships that are not necessarily domineering, they're 17:44 necessarily the type A. But in their multiple suggestions it 17:48 doesn't affirm or even take into consideration what the husband 17:54 has just said. For example, in fear of not being supportive but 18:00 wanting to give advice or maybe a third viewpoint. I think that 18:07 what you did just a moment ago is you affirmed that he was 18:10 saying to him was legitimate. To him it was legitimate. That's 18:14 all that matters to me as to how I'm to respond to him. Not tell 18:18 him what I think he ought to be thinking. 18:21 Oh, amazing. I will shake your hand right now. Can I do that? 18:26 Because I recently did a marriage seminar and I said to 18:30 the couples the think that is most offensive to male or female 18:34 is if the husband or wife says to the other one, I know what 18:39 you're thinking. You don't know what they're thinking. 18:40 No, not at all. Or sometimes we second guess 18:43 them and after we say something we say I know exactly what 18:45 you're going to say. No you don't know exactly what I'm 18:48 going to say. And so you saw that in action, affirming 18:51 exactly what the Lord was saying to you. Don't second guess him 18:55 or her. Don't think for them and I think sometimes the 18:58 husband would say are you trying to put words in my mouth. 19:02 That's right, they would say that, and he did say things like 19:05 that and it always was astounding to me. I never 19:09 thought that what I was doing. That's why I had to go to the 19:12 Lord and say, Lord I am done. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. 19:16 I thought I was being nice. I tried to be nice all the time. 19:20 And I wasn't being nice because I wasn't speaking his language. 19:23 I was speaking my language but it wasn't getting anything 19:28 across to him about my love for him and my understanding of him. 19:32 So now we have wonderful conversations and I never ever 19:38 say anything negative to my husband, ever, not one time. 19:42 Praise the Lord. And my husband has been a totally different 19:47 person now. Before, because I'm so spiritual, I have had a 19:52 spiritual walk with the Lord and I'm a spiritual person out in 19:56 public and all that sort of thing, he didn't take any action 20:00 so far as leadership in the family to be a spiritual leader. 20:04 And every Christian woman always says well I want my husband to 20:08 be the priest of the house and he's not. My husband wasn't 20:12 and I found out that it was because he felt that I was 20:16 better than him. But now I uphold him, I give him 20:22 encouragement all the time about everything that he does 20:26 and he is becoming extremely spiritual. We talk about God all 20:30 the time. He loves God so much now, he talks about him. He 20:35 weeps about God. When he's singing songs his tears are 20:39 coming down on his face because he's thinking about how much he 20:43 loves God. That has never happened before. 20:45 Let me ask you this question because this is fascinating when 20:48 it comes to communicating. We talk about communicating with 20:51 women. Don't communicate to your husband what you communicate to 20:53 your girlfriends. No. And I think the husband would say 20:56 the same thing. Don't talk to your male friends like you speak 20:58 to your wife. But what I'm hearing you say is it took a 21:03 number of years for you to come to this realization. Yes it did. 21:06 But you were willing, you were willing to be taught by God. 21:10 I felt that if I didn't understand how to get along with 21:14 my husband that I was not fulfilling the calling that God 21:18 had given to me to be helping other people, and I'm not even 21:22 making it myself. So I felt I can't disappoint God. I can't 21:27 disappoint my husband and my children because the children, 21:31 even thought my children are in their 40s, they're looking still 21:35 to mom and dad to see how mom and dad are getting along. And 21:39 they are ecstatic because we're having such a wonderful 21:43 relationship and they are learning, I have two girls and a 21:46 boy, and they're learning how to do the same kind of 21:49 communication. They can teach it as well as I can now. 21:53 You know what's nice about that is that as they are getting 21:55 older, whether they are married or not you didn't say, but as 21:57 they're getting older they see what a successful relationship 22:01 is, what a successful marriage is. I've heard this and I'm sure 22:04 you've heard that people often say, and my wife and I have been 22:08 married 25 years, and some people say Ah they probably 22:10 finish each other's sentences. Somebody once said to me you 22:13 can't teach an old dog new tricks. OK now I'm saying don't 22:17 call me an old dog, I've just been married 25 years. But what 22:21 I'm seeing here is that the willing heart is the place that 22:25 could always learn something new and that's what you discovered. 22:30 Mm-huh, I certainly did. And I would tell anybody that it 22:33 doesn't matter how old you are or how young. This is something 22:37 that we can learn and it is something we must learn if we 22:40 want to learn how to communicate the way God does because God is 22:45 not negative. God is positive. He is a God who wants to 22:50 encourage us all the time and to help us learn how to relate to 22:55 each other. It's only Satan that has us speaking meanly to one 22:59 another. It's the work of the evil one to destroy families 23:04 from the time it in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, from 23:08 the time they broke apart in their relationship to whatever 23:14 extent. Then we have 6000 years of this on us on television and 23:19 everything it seems it's OK to be nasty and snippy with each 23:23 other and to tear each other down. So there's no model now 23:28 for people unless we Christians learn how in our own families 23:33 to be good to one another and then we can pass it on to others 23:38 and I'm able to do that now and see marriages turn around and 23:42 put back together that were broken marriages. So it's a time 23:48 of repair and healing I believe just like it says in Malachi 4 23:52 that the end time God is going to rise with healing in his 23:57 wings. That's right. And then he's 23:59 going to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the 24:01 hearts of the children to the fathers. There's a 24:03 reconciliation that's going to be taking place. 24:05 Absolutely and our family is where it should start, right 24:11 there in the family. One time an older woman asked me, her 24:17 husband was deceased at that time, and she asked me do you 24:22 think that if I had had the kind of communication and treatment 24:27 of my husband that you do to your husband now, do you think 24:33 that my husband could have escaped being mentally ill? 24:38 I knew the couple and I said, I believe that that could have 24:43 been true because we drive each other to the pain that causes 24:48 mental illness, not feeling loved, not feeling accepted, not 24:54 feeling known or that anybody out there is understanding us. 24:59 If it should be anywhere it should be in the family where we 25:04 do this for one another. 25:06 So the internal combustion or frustration of lack of 25:09 communication of feeling misunderstood or not accepted 25:14 we're like a bottle of soda that's been shaken, shaken and 25:18 shaken and there's nowhere to release that fizz so to speak of 25:22 frustration. So we internally combust which sometimes means 25:27 mental illness. It can mean mental illness, yes. 25:29 Because a person has nowhere else to go and the mind breaks 25:32 down under the pressure. 25:34 So now today if somebody looking at this program would 25:39 say Carol are you telling me that it's still not too late for 25:42 me to learn how to communicate with my wife or with my husband 25:45 what are you saying to them? 25:46 I would say it doesn't matter what age you are, it doesn't 25:50 matter what your experience has been in the past, God can heal 25:54 that but there are steps to it. Some people say well all you 25:58 have to do is just pray. Well yes we do have to pray, but 26:02 there's some intelligent ways of learning that help God to help 26:07 us that we know how to do it. It's just like saying all I have 26:12 to do if I'm sick is just pray. Well that can work and 26:15 sometimes healing does take place that way. But God also 26:19 expects us to understand the laws of the mind, the laws of 26:23 the body and to cooperate with those laws. Then healing can 26:27 take place. We're in a wonderful time in history where God is 26:31 allowing much light to come to our generation that was never 26:35 understood by any other generation. 26:38 I'm so encouraged because my wife and I just hit the 25-year 26:40 mark and you said you and your husband are at 50 years. I'm 26:43 encouraged to know that it could get better. I mean we have 26:45 a fantastic relationship but it could better. 26:49 Yes because God is infinite and his ways are past finding out 26:53 and he wants nothing but joy for us. I want to encourage 27:00 anybody to look more into this because this is just a drop in 27:03 the bucket because there is so much more to learn. I'm sure 27:07 that you find that in what you do and I find it in what I do 27:10 that there's more to learn and we can help on another toward 27:14 the kingdom with our families intact. 27:16 I know that people watching and listening to the program are 27:19 saying this is eye opening to me because I thought that I had 27:22 all the angles covered, I thought that I had great 27:24 communication. After all I love him, he loves me, but gentlemen 27:29 husband or wife, if you're watching the program today or 27:32 young person planning to get married, do what Carol did. Say 27:35 Lord teach me, guide me, and help me to understand the way 27:38 to be better than I have been to this point. And as we say here 27:42 at 3ABN you know the Lord has something for you to do. You can 27:46 begin today and so friends, whatever the issue, don't 27:49 forget that God has the answer. Thank you so much for tuning in. |
Revised 2015-07-21