Liz talks with author Rhonda Robinson about her new book Free Fall: Holding Onto Faith When the Unthinkable Strikes.” Certain words, whether whispered or shouted, sever us from the life we once knew. Such words can send us into a spiritual free fall, descending into a world of darkness and despair where hope seems woefully out of our reach, and loss, grief and depression try to smother our faith. Faced with her own devastating, life-altering events, author Rhonda Robinson was forced to deal with circumstances out of her control. Instead of losing her faith, she learned to trust God
00:00:00 Introduction to Rhonda Robinson and Her Work
This is Liz Franzel with Crawford Media Group, and today our guest is award-winning author Rhonda Robinson with over 25 years of writing experience. She currently serves as manager and content producer for the parenting and marriage pages at Focus on the Family. We’ll be talking about her book titled Free Fall, Holding on to Faith When the Unthinkable Strikes. Welcome to our program, Rhonda.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, thank you so much. I’m delighted to be here.
SPEAKER 01 :
Rhonda, I’ve been flipping through your book, and this book deals with issues that are life-altering. Tell us what prompted you to write this book.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, actually, I fought writing that book for a very long time. As you read in my intro, I’ve been a writer for a long time, and so that wasn’t what I wanted to write about. I fought God. I said, I don’t want to write about grief. I don’t want to I don’t want that to be what I’m known for as a writer. That’s so depressing. So I don’t want to do that. And over a series of time, he broke my heart. And one in particular, I was sitting across talking to a friend, and I talk about this in the book to some degree, but not the whole story. The whole story is that I saw her, I saw this gal, sitting a couple tables from me and she was dabbing her eyes and my friend had just told me that she had lost a daughter in a car accident two years before and she says and she’s not doing well and I looked over at her and I was my heart was breaking because I know just how she felt and and I realized at that point that two years after the death of a child people expect you to get on with it. They wouldn’t want you to keep grieving. They don’t want you to be sad. There’s all these different platitudes that people say to try to pull you out of it. And she said, but she’s not a believer. And I felt the Lord speak to my heart and say, she can’t hear my voice, but she can read it through you. And so that convicted me that It wasn’t about me or about how I wrote or anything. It was about getting God’s comfort to grieving parents.
SPEAKER 01 :
You know, that is huge, what you just said, that God spoke to you that she can’t hear my voice. And I think that’s the truth for a lot of people. And I love how he will go ahead and use another means to reach the ones he wants to reach, like through your book. Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. Even though she wasn’t a believer, I believe that the Lord still wanted to reach her. It doesn’t matter. He still loved her, and her pain mattered.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah. So you said that you could relate to what she was going through. Is this book written out of a loss of your own?
SPEAKER 03 :
It is. I lost my son in 2008. He was killed instantly in a car accident. He was with his older brother, who was 16, and he was 13 at the time, just a month before his 14th birthday, and they were heading with two other friends to a basketball game or practice at a local Christian school, and they were crossed an unmarked intersection and were struck, T-boned. And he died at the scene.
SPEAKER 01 :
You know, part of your book, and I’ve been thumbing through it, and I have to say that you are a wonderful writer. I love the way that you personify events and personify just inanimate objects. It makes you feel like you’re writing the story. You see the sights. We smell the smells. You can feel the atmosphere, the way you write things. Um, and I have to say reading that I love the, what I have read so far, each chapter you tell a story or you tell an experience and then you do a reflection and then you do a prayer. And I love that because you always have scripture in there and you know, the, what you say on, on your book is certain words, whether whispered or shouted sever us from the life we once knew. Um, such as what you said, he’s died on the scene, or I want a divorce, or I don’t love you anymore. How did you get through? You know, this book is holding on to your faith when the unthinkable strikes. And how did you go about doing that? And was that something that was automatic as soon as your tragedy struck?
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s a big question. So, yeah, that’s really… The book was written almost 10 years after the accident. So it was really written from the rearview mirror on what God walked me through and taught me during that time. But it’s also, if you’ll notice, you said stories. I believe that if God told me a truth, to get me through that time that he told other people, too. And so I sought out other people, and so it is about just what you said. Different ways life can shatter in a minute, whether it’s a divorce that you didn’t want, or you get into a marriage and you find out that this person is abusive. But God is the same all the way through. As far as my son goes in the very beginning, the Lord laid down a few things for me right away. And one, he said, you don’t get to pretend. You don’t get to put on a face and act like everything is okay. And I think a lot of people tend to do that. They step it down and they want to be strong. And I felt like the Lord was just saying, no, grieving is okay. Mourning is what you’re supposed to do. And so I did feel like I was just in free fall and I was just all I had to hold on to was my faith that God is still good and he can still be trusted and that he would walk through it with me. He doesn’t take away our pain, but he will walk through it with us.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, so true. So what do you say to those who might be struggling with God or blaming him for their loss, for not intervening? You know, I think of Psalm 91, where he commands his angels to keep us in all of our ways. And so when something like this happens, it’s like, what do you say to those that are angry with God?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, first of all, it’s okay to be angry at God, but I think a lot of times we get angry at God is because we believe platitudes for theology, like rather than trusting that He will walk with us and that He draws near to the brokenhearted. We believe, you know, people say things like, oh, everything happens for a reason. Or like when a young mother miscarries, they say, oh, just be thankful you can still have more children, you know. There’s other things to be thankful for. Or when you lose a child, you still have these children. These things are not helpful. And it maligns the character of God when we tell people, give people this shallow or bumper sticker theology on who God is.
SPEAKER 01 :
Mm-hmm. I think that one of the phrases, too, that goes along with what you just said is that, oh, God is in control. And just to follow that up with God, God is in control to the extent of if this world was to be ended and he said it’s time, it’s like we’d be ended. But he also gave us and he’s sovereign. He knows everything. He knows the beginning from the end or the end from the beginning. But he also has given us free will. And he will not overstep his boundaries or our boundaries with that. And so when bad things happen, it’s because bad things happen. And people have chosen to make wrong choices or whatever. But I think that also paints God in a bad light when you say, oh, he’s in control. He didn’t kill people. He didn’t do this. He’s not the author of evil. Exactly.
SPEAKER 03 :
Exactly. That’s exactly right, and that’s why I said about maligning his character. No, he cares. He grieves with us. He holds our tears. He didn’t take away my pain, but he gave me a compress of peace. He gave me his… I felt the Lord in my life at that time… more strongly His presence and His peace and His comfort more than I have ever felt in my entire life before or since. That time, I can attest that where the psalmist says that He draws near to the brokenhearted, that is true. He does. If we reach out to Him, C.S. Lewis talked about God feeling so far away And then he came to the realization, maybe I can’t hear him because I’m pounding on his door and my fists are raised too high. So when we drop our fists and say, Lord, I need you now. I need you. He’s faithful. He’s there.
SPEAKER 01 :
So how would you tell those experiencing loss how to hold on to truth and faith in God?
SPEAKER 03 :
What I did, in the back of the book, there is a whole section called Morning Reflections. And that was my lifeline. And what that was is I just simply every morning at sunrise, I would get up and I would write out my pain and tell God exactly how I felt. that I hurt, and I didn’t know if I could make it another day. And then without fail, my heart would shift, and I’d say, but you, but you, God, hear me. But you are with me. You lift my head. And I think being in just that prayer, it would just go into a prayer of save me, rescue me, help me get through this day. And being honest with him, Embracing the pain, it’s okay. We live in a pain-adverse society, so we don’t think that it’s okay. That’s not good grieving. No, it’s okay to mourn. That person that you lost is worth crying over. They’re worth that.
SPEAKER 01 :
It’s so good.
SPEAKER 03 :
Just embrace that.
SPEAKER 01 :
We’re visiting with Rhonda Robinson about her book titled Free Fall, Holding on to Faith When the Unthinkable Strikes. Rhonda, what takeaway would you give our listeners today?
SPEAKER 03 :
We live in a fallen world, and no one is going to get out of this world without some sort of heartache. But no matter what you face, no matter how unthinkable it is, God can still be trusted and loved. he can still walk with you through any amount of fire.
SPEAKER 01 :
This is an amazing book, as I said earlier, Free Fall, How to Hold on to Faith When the Unthinkable Strikes. Where can our listeners go to get this book? Because I highly recommend it. It is just really engaging, and it’s funny in some places, and it’s heartwarming. warming in others. And I love how you, like I said earlier, you have a story, go over it again, reflecting on it, and then you have prayers. It’s so good. So I would like our listeners to know how to get this book.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, thank you so much. You can get it online at store.focusonthefamily.com and then forward slash forward slash freefall so focus on the family store carries it and you can go into your local store and request it probably not on the shelves unless you ask for it but focus on the family has it that’s where i’d recommend that you get it ronda thank you so much for joining us today thank you for having me it was an honor
