Participants: John Lomacang (Host), Carol Zarska
Series Code: IAA
Program Code: IAA000370
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00:29 Hello friends and welcome to 3ABNs Issues and Answers. My 00:33 name is John Lomacang. It's always good to have you tune in 00:36 especially when the program is as good as this one's going to 00:40 be on Family Communications. I'm so glad that Carol Zarska is 00:44 here today to open our minds to find out how we can better our 00:48 communication not only as husbands and wives but how to 00:51 talk to our children, children how to talk to your parents and 00:55 then how to build a bond that will last and strengthen your 00:58 family as the years roll by. Carol thank you so much for 01:02 being here. Thank you for inviting me. 01:04 I just really enjoy, we've had a chance to visit before and I've 01:07 always appreciated that, but I enjoy topics such as this 01:12 because we do need strong families. 01:13 Yes, it's such a need today. So many families are breaking apart 01:17 If somebody's watching this program that may not have met 01:20 you before just kind of give us an overview of who you are and 01:23 where you're from and maybe what you do. 01:24 Well I've been a family counselor and a speaker since 01:30 1984. I joined in that year with American Cassette Ministries at 01:36 that time, now American Christian Ministries and have 01:40 traveled around the world speaking and giving seminars and 01:44 so forth. But I in later years have been doing a lot more 01:49 counseling and it's really exciting to see the things that 01:53 God is showing us today about how to be better parents, 01:58 better friends, better husbands and wives. There's a lot of 02:03 information that's coming out today even in science about how 02:07 we are created differently and how to relate so that there's 02:11 going to be happiness instead of suffering and anger and 02:15 resentment toward each other. 02:17 Having the experience you've had as a wife married for 50 years 02:22 (that's right) and that is a milestone in patience and 02:28 learning loving. Yes it is. It has been quite a 02:31 journey but very exciting. 02:34 I would say if you wake up tomorrow morning as husband and 02:39 wife and you feel that there's nothing new to focus on or not 02:43 another platform to take your relationship to then 02:46 relationships tend to start dying from that point on. 02:48 Mmm. That's so true. God created us in his image which means that 02:54 there is no limit to the expansion that we can have 02:57 forever, even in eternity. 02:59 I like that, in the image of God because with the Lord there's 03:01 no beginning and 03:03 there's no end, so why would the Lord create something that has 03:06 a definite end to it? I like that. I'm going to use that one. 03:09 I haven't used that before. Thank you for that tidbit. 03:11 Yes it's exciting to be a child of God. 03:14 And I'm talking about family counseling. That is one dynamic 03:17 that is so amazing. Because if there are just four individuals, 03:22 the mother, father, son and daughter, those are four minds. 03:26 The minds of the children are often the result of what they 03:30 see in parents, the parents are the result of what they saw in 03:34 their parents and so on and so forth. But how do we better and 03:38 enhance our family communication? 03:42 Well my favorite text to begin this discussion is found in 03:51 Ephesians 4 and that whole chapter is about unity that the 04:00 Lord wants us to have and so it starts out... Be completely 04:07 humble and gentle. Verse 2 be patient bearing with one another 04:13 in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit 04:18 through the bond of peace. That in itself sets the tone for this 04:22 whole chapter. And of course it's not just for families only 04:26 it's for church members, neighbors or friends or whatever 04:30 that God wants us to be because that's what he is. He is three 04:34 in one and he would like for us to be like that too. We can be 04:39 one with one another and yet retain our individuality and 04:41 that's the hard part. So I want to skip quickly to verses 29 and 04:49 on, a little further than that but I want to start with 29 04:54 because this in one verse actually incorporates what I 05:00 feel can help us to grow in our relationships in such a way that 05:06 it transcends anything that we've been doing in the past. 05:11 OK. It says do not let any unwholesome talk, I'm using the 05:16 NIV by the way, come out of your mouths but only what is 05:21 helpful for building others up according to their needs that 05:25 it may benefit those who listen. Now there's a lot more that we 05:29 can read on, but I want to just examine that for what it says. 05:33 If we live just that one verse we would never have another 05:37 problem with other people. 05:39 It would be revolutionary. 05:40 It would be and that should be our goal. So it says do not let 05:45 any, that's zero, unwholesome talk come out of your mouths. 05:50 Unwholesome means that's it not helpful for the other person and 05:54 we do this all the time. Of course we feel generally if 05:58 there's going to be an argument ensuing that it's the other 06:02 person that's the problem and we blame them. 06:05 Oh that is so good Carol. I'm just excited about this because 06:10 what you're saying is you're validating some of the view 06:15 points that I've had in the sense that as a family we are 06:19 not the problem but we have a problem. You suggest that in 06:24 order to resolve the problem you don't get rid of the family, NO, 06:27 but you work on the problem collectively. 06:29 Some people do, a lot of people do just decide this is not the 06:33 person I want to live with and so they split and of course 06:38 children are abused and are always blamed. In many families 06:43 it's the children that are yelled at and called all kinds 06:48 of names and so forth. This is so satanic because in doing this 06:54 we're taking on the actual character of the evil one for he 06:59 is the accuser of the brethren and we become accusers. We're 07:04 taking on something that's not from God, it's from the evil one 07:08 and we don't even know we're doing this. It's so common to 07:11 hear criticism. We even get together like say at potluck 07:15 after church and we talk about other people or each other or 07:20 whatever. We talk about our husbands if they're not there to 07:24 hear it, or our kids if they're not there to hear it or 07:27 whatever and this seems to be just our fare, but it should 07:30 never to said not only to each other but to the person that 07:34 we're talking about. 07:35 You know the thought that just came to my mind is we take pot 07:36 shots at pot luck. 07:41 Yes it's true and I think it's rather sad. 07:45 So if you would analyze it, and I like that verse the way it 07:49 reads in the NIV, verse 29 in Ephesians 4. It is in essence 07:53 saying so whatever comes out of your mouth, if I'm hearing you 07:57 correctly, becomes a seed of destruction when it's negative. 08:02 But a seed of beauty when it's positive. But it's a seed 08:06 nonetheless. It's seed and it will sprout. It 08:10 will grow. Then thinking about a little further on here, any 08:15 unwholesome talk but only... notice the superlatives that 08:18 Paul is using here. Of course, the Holy Spirit is impressing 08:23 him to do that. The superlative of no unwholesome talk, only 08:29 what is helpful for building others up. Only. How many times 08:35 do we even know how to build others up? In order to do that 08:40 we would have to follow the instruction here that continues, 08:45 which is according to their needs. If we don't know the need 08:49 of the person we're not going to know how to build them up 08:53 and so often we're strangers. A lot of people are strangers in 08:58 their own home. They have done studies to count the minutes, or 09:02 maybe hours if we're lucky that family members spend together in 09:06 one week and it's unbelievable because we're running here and 09:11 there and when we are home we may be watching television and 09:15 doing other things. Do we really know the need of that other 09:18 person so that we can build them up. And then it says that it may 09:23 benefit those who listen. So if we just take that one text and 09:27 really live it by the power of the Holy Spirit our whole 09:31 families, our lives would be changed. 09:33 When I combine both of the translations, I have the New 09:37 King James version, reads that we may benefit those... Read 09:42 that verse again, that it may benefit. And it says that it may 09:46 benefit those who listen. Our words should benefit those who 09:50 listen. And I like what it says, that it 09:52 may impart grace to the hearer. 09:55 Yes that's wonderful. What is benefit? It's grace and 09:58 we're imparting to the one we're talking to the grace that God 10:01 is imparting to us when we ask him Lord, we're praying to you. 10:05 We want his grace and others want our grace. 10:08 Oh absolutely. And how reticent we are to give grace when we 10:13 think someone has done something wrong. I remember a mother 10:18 saying to me who was very critical of her son, he was an 10:23 adult, and she say if I don't tell him, who will? Oooo. 10:27 And this is a Christian person, a very dedicated Christian 10:32 person. Sometimes Christians are even more like that perhaps 10:36 because we're trying to make sure that we shake them up so 10:40 that they're going to be able to be saved or whatever we think 10:44 that we're doing for them. We can be so critical sometimes. 10:49 The think that I have been learning more and more and I 10:54 believe that it's more and more in society in general and that 10:59 is how do you build other people up? What kind of verbiage is 11:03 going to do that? I'm going to use two illustrations of 11:08 children. There was a story years ago that I read in a 11:14 magazine about a female psychiatrist or at least, I 11:20 don't remember exactly but at least a counselor, and the 11:25 father brought his little girl to this counselor. I would say 11:31 the little girl was about five, no more than five. To my 11:38 recollection there was probably a divorce so that the mother was 11:42 not available or maybe even death of the mother. I don't 11:46 know. But as this father brought the little child and left it for 11:52 some reason with the counselor and then he left. Well the 11:56 little girl just threw a fit. She was crying, she was 12:00 inconsolable and so the psychiatrist was trying to get 12:05 get her to stop crying so that they could go on their way. She 12:09 would not stop crying and the psychiatrist said everything 12:13 she knew to do and nothing worked. So finally she said to 12:17 her it's really sad isn't it that your daddy isn't here and 12:22 your mommy isn't here and you feel left and alone don't you? 12:27 And the little girl climbed up in her lap and fell asleep. You 12:32 see we don't even know what the needs are. We're trying to 12:36 correct behavior. We're trying to stop something that we think 12:41 is wrong or something that is irritating to us. But we need to 12:46 be able to know the heart of another person and enter into 12:50 that because that's what Jesus does for us. He entered into the 12:54 very heart of humanity. He took upon himself our feelings and 12:58 our infirmities so that he would know what we feel like so that 13:02 he can sympathize with us and that's why we love him. That's 13:06 why we're drawn to him because we know he cares and he 13:10 understands even though he's the God of the universe he loves us 13:14 and if we could love people like that things would change. One 13:19 more story: My daughter Karen is going back to school. She has 13:23 about a year, a little over a year, to finish her education 13:28 at Columbia Union College in early childhood development. 13:33 As a part of her curriculum she has to work in a day care center 13:38 and so she gets to take care of children around two to four. 13:43 There's this one little boy that she has been telling me about, 13:49 this is very recent. His name is Noah and he is three years old. 13:57 He is a total basket case a lot of times. His mother is in the 14:02 throws of a divorce with the father so Noah is with his dad 14:07 part of the time and his mom part of the time. They have not 14:12 finished the divorce yet so it's a very new thing. Now mother has 14:16 to work, Noah has to stay at the day care center and he doesn't 14:20 like it. He's only three years old but he throws a fit. He 14:23 kicks the teacher. He grabs from the children and anything bad 14:26 that he can think of to do he does and sometimes they call the 14:29 mother and say come and get your child, we can't do anything. The 14:32 day care center people said this is the worst child they've 14:37 ever had. So my daughter loves children and so she had been 14:42 working with Noah and she will tell him you know Jesus loves 14:46 you so much and talks to him about his feelings and so forth 14:51 and one day just last week Karen said that Noah was 14:56 throwing a fit, so one of the other teachers said why don't 14:59 you take Noah and see if you can do anything with him. Noah ran 15:03 into another room where there were tables where they would eat 15:06 He got under the table and lay on his back and he put his feet 15:10 up and he was pushing the table up and down, banging up and down 15:16 and rattling things and just a mess. So Karen didn't know what 15:20 to do so she prayed and the Lord impressed her what to so. She 15:25 lay down on the floor with Noah right beside of him and she 15:30 said Noah you must be hurting because your daddy isn't with 15:35 you anymore much and your mommy is working and you can't be with 15:39 mommy and daddy the way you could and you must be really 15:43 hurting inside. He stopped banging the chair, the table, 15:47 and he listened and she said you know Jesus really loves you and 15:54 he understands you're hurting. Noah said my heart is broken. 16:00 He's three year old. My heart is broken and you know he 16:05 didn't give another bit of trouble that whole day. That to 16:10 me is this kind of talk that we should enter into the feelings 16:15 of other people for healing so that we're not just saying well 16:19 we think you ought to do this and why don't you do that and 16:23 how come you did that. We just have all kinds of suggestions 16:28 that we think are so good. But if we could listen with a heart 16:33 of love knowing that person and pray that God will help us to 16:37 whether it's our husbands our our children or the next door 16:41 neighbor or somebody that calls us on the phone and really care. 16:45 I believe that we would see a total transformation instead of 16:50 the bickering and so forth that so often happens among people. 16:55 I'm just soaking this in because you're speaking the language 17:00 that is often unheard. You're communicating the thoughts of 17:05 people that are sometimes communicating in behavior, in 17:10 frustration, in anger. They're acting it out. We look at the 17:15 action and we so often forget that that's just a symptom of a 17:20 deeper problem. Yeah exactly. You know the only way I could 17:24 illustrate this is sometimes we put too much oil in an engine. 17:29 It's going to bubble out. It's going to impact the function of 17:33 the engine. In some cases, if you fill it up till the oil is 17:37 pouring out you can blow the engine. Sometimes people are so 17:42 filled up so that they're about to pour out that this internal 17:47 combustion that's happening all the time and we see that when in 17:51 fact it's either a deficit, not enough affection, or too much of 17:56 the wrong affection. Right. And children and adults today in 18:00 families if we understand that we'll change our approach and 18:04 stop addressing just the symptom and start saying to the person 18:08 tell me how you feel, what's bothering you? 18:11 If Noah as a three-year-old child never having any training 18:16 could express himself when he got loved how much could we do 18:20 that with our own families as they get used to mom and dad who 18:25 really care, or husband and wife, or friend to friend that 18:29 you know that person cares enough to really listen to your 18:33 heart and help. Jesus said that out of the heart 18:36 proceed the issues of life. Right. That's another way to 18:40 look at that. The heart is often not heard. I was talking to 18:45 couples just recently. I said so often we get sidetracked by what 18:50 we hear. Some men get locked into the details. You know we're 18:55 very left brain, right brain. We're very analytical and 18:57 compartmental and we'll say to our wives well I know what you 19:02 said but do you want a black purse or a blue purse or is your 19:05 black shoe hurting you or your blue shoe hurting you? Is it the 19:08 one you bought last week or the week before last? We getting 19:11 caught in the details and the wife is in essence saying my 19:14 foot is hurting, that's the bottom line. I don't care when 19:18 it was bought, what happened, my foot's hurting. Okay. My wife 19:20 and I had that experience coming back from the airport. We were 19:23 rushing our suit cases into the car and she took hers out and 19:27 just in a hurrying moment the suitcase ripped the top of her 19:31 shoe bow off and her focal point was oh I can't go to the airport 19:36 like this. It's awful, it's flapping back and forth and I 19:39 heard right away and the frustration was not so much that 19:42 the shoe was uncomfortable, that she didn't like it any longer, 19:45 but she says I can't present myself in public this way. So 19:48 my quick response was after a counseling seminar, do you have 19:52 another pair with you, how can we resolve this? She said I have 19:55 another pair in the suitcase. So what I asked was how could we 19:58 resolve this rather than telling her how to resolve it. 20:01 That's good, right. That way you don't come over parent/child. 20:05 You come over friend to friend, caring friend to friend. There's 20:10 something in here goes right along with that in verse 30 20:13 where it says and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom 20:17 you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31-Get rid of all 20:21 bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, slander, along with 20:23 every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another 20:27 forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you. So he 20:29 goes back with the grace again. That's what's we're really 20:32 wanting. But isn't it interesting to see that when we 20:37 talk about wanting the feeling of the Holy Spirit and yet it 20:43 says here that when we're not kind to each other we grieve the 20:47 Holy Spirit, the very Holy Spirit that we want to be filled 20:52 by is the Holy Spirit we're grieving because the Holy Spirit 20:56 is hurting when we're hurting another person. That's a child 20:59 of the Holy Spirit just as we would hurt if we heard someone 21:03 saying nasty things to our child so the Holy Spirit is grieved 21:07 when we do this to each other. I don't see how the Holy Spirit 21:10 can stand it, you know, really, because there's so much pain 21:14 in the world today. I was talking to a Christian, not a 21:18 Seventh-day Adventist, but a Christian woman on the phone, 21:22 she was counseling with me, and they had a fairly decent 21:26 marriage but she said well maybe she could learn some more and I 21:30 was talking to her about this and being careful not to be 21:33 critical ever, ever, of her husband. We weren't talking 21:37 about children at that time. And she said will the other day I 21:41 said to my husband, he said something and I said to him well 21:45 that was a stupid thing to do. She said was there something 21:50 wrong with that? And I said Um-huh. I didn't want to jump on 21:55 it but it just shows how easy it is for us to not even realize 22:00 that we're hurting the other person. This was a Christian 22:03 woman, goes to church every Sunday and still didn't know 22:06 that to say that was unkind. 22:09 You know, sometimes we communicate how we are 22:12 communicated to. There are some homes that are dysfunctional and 22:17 one of the things that frustrates me more than anything 22:20 else in the family circle is when I hear people say a child 22:25 should be seen and not heard. Oh yes. And the reason I'm 22:29 saying that is because I was raised somewhat that way. You 22:33 don't butt into adults' conversation which children 22:37 shouldn't but if they come in and say mom, dad, if that's the 22:40 time to teach them how to butt in properly and respectfully. 22:44 You say well say excuse me. That's better than saying look 22:48 go in the corner, I don't want to hear you. Shut up, go in your 22:51 room and when I'm done I'll see you. 22:52 Right, right I hear that a lot. 22:55 And they grow up hasn't it done damage? Tell me about that. 22:58 A great deal of damage. What that tells the person is you are 23:02 not valuable. You're input is not valuable, your feelings are 23:05 not valuable and it's a type of rejection and there isn't any 23:10 more painful experience that a human being can have besides 23:14 rejection. That is the worst, rejection or a sense of 23:17 rejection and we do this all the time. We can do it in little 23:21 ways. We don't think we're being rejecting but it feels that way 23:24 to the other person and that's why this text says that it 23:27 should be building them up for their edification according to 23:31 their needs and we need to know one another well enough to know 23:34 what the other person's needs are. 23:36 Instead of cutting them off, instead of saying, look I'm the 23:40 father, I say it, you do it or I'm the mother I set the 23:43 standards, you don't question it What happens is I've seen adults 23:46 grow up in situations where they are now adults in an office 23:51 setting or adults in society and they feel that they have no 23:55 boundaries. They can't even establish boundaries because 23:59 their parents had so belittled them that they feel they don't 24:02 matter and they will go so far as saying my voice doesn't 24:05 really count. Well because that's the only 24:08 thing they know and they learned it at home. I have a wonderful 24:13 quotation here from the Spirit of Prophecy, Ellen White's 24:18 writings, that speaks to that in such a special way that I'd just 24:23 like to share that. This is found in Isaiah where God is 24:35 talking about the Elijah message that is to come to 24:39 prepare the way for Jesus' coming. And of course we know 24:45 that that the first Elijah was John the Baptist. I think this 24:51 is so appropriate for us today in preparation for Jesus' second 24:56 coming in our families and the repair that God wants to do. 25:00 This in Isaiah 62. It says, Pass through the gates, pass through 25:06 the gates, and of course I always think about the gates of 25:09 praise because we're talking about sanctuary language here, 25:13 because the gates of praise are where people come to worship God 25:19 and it says pass through the gates, prepare the way for the 25:22 people, build up, build up the highway, and remember those are 25:27 the very words of Ephesians 4:29, to build them up. And it 25:32 says remove the stones, raise a banner for the nations. There 25:36 are stones in people's lives that we may have put there or 25:40 somebody has put there, stones that are stones of stumbling, 25:44 stones that cause a stony heart for the person and they can't 25:48 really receive God and Jesus because there's no pathway that 25:53 is clear enough for them and they can stumble over these 25:57 stones that we have put in there That's my introduction here to 26:04 something that is in the writings of Ellen White. She 26:08 says the reason why there are so many hard-hearted men and 26:13 women in our world is that true affection has been regarded as 26:18 a weakness and has been discouraged and repressed. 26:21 The better part of the nature of persons of this class is 26:25 perverted and dwarfed in childhood and unless rays of 26:29 divine light can melt away their coldness and hard-hearted 26:33 selfishness the happiness of such is buried forever. We can 26:38 do something about that. We can be the way to open up those 26:43 hearts. We can do things to remove the stones by saying you 26:48 aren't invaluable, you aren't a bad person. You may have had 26:51 something bad happen to you but Jesus loves you just like a 26:56 little Noah. Jesus loves you Noah and it took away the pain 27:00 he was having for the moment at least and for that afternoon. 27:05 So we can be that kind of people that will help the Holy Spirit 27:09 to be able to fill people's lives that may never be able to 27:13 be saved unless we're there doing that. 27:15 So in essence for the family, mother, father, sister, brother, 27:19 however many siblings there may be the answer to reconciliation 27:24 is building them up but understanding their needs. Yes. 27:27 And in learning how to communicate in such a way that 27:31 whatever your words are make sure that they're positive so 27:34 when the seed is planted whatsoever a person sows they 27:37 will reap and reap the rewards of the blessings that God has in 27:40 store for them. Right. And we can learn how to 27:43 do this. You know, people say to me well I don't know how to do 27:46 that. Well, I don't either but we can learn. 27:50 Well friends as you see here there's always a blessing in 27:52 learning to follow the Christ that we love. May today be the 27:55 day that you yield your life to him. |
Revised 2015-08-13