Opening And The Hidden Battle

Announcer 0:01

It's time now to get the hell out of your life. A weekly broadcast with real people, sharing real struggles, and offering real hope. Today's show will encourage, inspire, and empower you to face life's challenges with a bold confidence and renewed hope. Now let's join our host, Ron Myers, the promoter.

Meeting In The 80s

Ron Meyers 0:21

You can stand on a stage, hear the applause, feel the lights on your face, and still walk back to a room that feels painfully silent. Hello, my friends. I'm Ron Myers, and it is so good to be with you today. This show is called Get the Hell Out of Your Life: Real Stories, Real Struggles, and Real Hope. Today's conversation goes beyond the spotlight, in the places most people try to hide. Because, friend, the loudest battles in life, they don't happen in front of people. They happen behind closed doors in the quiet. Where regret whispers, anger justifies itself, and faith gets tested for real. My guest today, Robert Collier, knows what it feels like to carry questions about identity from the very beginning. He was adopted, he had three different names before the age of four, and was raised by an older couple who gave him something the world can't fake grit, wisdom, and community. But life didn't go easy for Robert. A teacher once looked him in the eye and said, You'll make a great inmate. But for some people that becomes a label. But for Robert, it became a turning point. Today's story is a story about identity, healing, and choosing who you become when life tries to define you. So let's get into today's story. Robert, do you remember where we first met?

Robert Collier 1:53

It was back in the 80s, mid to late 80s, and you were putting on a sh some type of marketplace thing down at the old Gulfport Pavilion. Yeah, right. Rice Pavilion. Right. And I forgot what it was named. Anyway, so you had come over and you had we were going to do it, and and it it we kind of threw the band together at that time, and we went and we were performing, and you came out, and I remember saying, Who is this lightning bug? Because you you you were all over the place. And I remember talking to you and we shook hands and we went ahead and we had just a small amount of time to talk. But I remember walking away and one of the band members looked at me and uh said, you know, who is that? I said, uh his name is Ron. I said, but I got a feeling we're gonna see a lot of him in the future. You have to have drive. You have to have belief in yourself. Never seen you again until I saw you on TV during your Christmas down at the Coliseum. And I went, that's him. Well, you played for me, didn't you, at some of the festivals? Your band called Meet the Press. Right, right. That was when it was rock, Meet the Press. And again, every time uh that I got to see you, we didn't get to see uh talk a lot because you were Yep, I was always you were always running around. But it was one of those things that you have to have, and I try in my own life, you have to have self-worth, you have to have self-drive, you have to push yourself to say, I'm going over any obstacle that comes my way. And you went from doing that to doing those Christmas things, and I'm just like, okay. And then obviously Christianity. And it's been a just an absolute metamorphosis, and I can look back now when I see your name, and I'm going, I'm not going to say I knew that, but I had a feeling back in the mid-80s we would be here in Ron Meyer's name again.

Adoption And A Neighborhood Family

Ron Meyers 3:32

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: When I reached out to you to have a visit with you and be a part of my show, talk about stories of faith. There's not a lot of people I know that knew me back to 30, 35 years ago, but both of us, we've grown, we've got wiser. And tell us a little bit about you, Robert.

The “Great Inmate” Turning Point

Lonely Success And Finding God

Robert Collier 3:48

I was born at Howard Memorial. Howard Memorial Hospital was on the beach down there right now where my mother gave me up for adoption. And from till I was four years old, I had three different names. Now, here's the thing. I could very easily have been angered at her and whatever, but as I got older, I didn't know what her situation was. How can I judge her for giving me up at that time without any explanation? I didn't know her situation. And now that I have children and grandchildren, I sometimes sorry that I didn't get to know her better, you know. But anyway, I was raised on the east end of Biloxi by an elderly couple, third-grade educated people who were the smartest people I've ever met in my life because they had common sense and they applied it. And we had a small cafe down there, a neighborhood cafe, and everybody in the neighborhood was my family. Everybody in the neighborhood, we all went down there, and I remember that my parents, they would do spaghetti drives and cake drives to build St. Michael Church on the on the beach. And once that church was built, and this is the amazing thing, you don't have to have a master's degree or a PhD. These people on the east end of Biloxi, who I cherish, were not highly educated. They had some, but they weren't highly educated, but they were educated enough and understand that hard work and dedication, when that building was built down there, and it's still down there, the shell-looking uh St. Michael's, it was paid for. There was no loans. And I learned that hard work and dedication from them. And so it went on as life went on. I was not a good student. I am today, can tell you very honestly, I can't tell you an adjective from an adverb. But as the last day I was a troubled child and I'd got in a lot of trouble, and I used to weigh 320 pounds. And I was got a lot of trouble back in high school. My last day of high school, la very last day we were walking out, and they were giving me my diploma, and that's the God's honest truth, they were giving me my diploma. I had a teacher stop me in the hallway and she looked at me, she said, Mr. Collier, you're gonna make a great inmate one day. Because I and wait a minute, and I didn't get mad at her, and I wouldn't go home and tell my mom because my mom would have agreed with her, because I was in a lot of trouble as a kid. But it drove me. And I went to work for a finance company as a collector right here in Gulfport, didn't know what I was doing. Fifteen years later, I opened my own company and I had the mortgage to that woman's house, to my to my teacher's house. Now, I had lost all my weight. I was back down to about I was down to about 175, 80 pounds, and I had a nice suit on. I went to her house and I knocked on the front door, and I'm not gonna say her name, but I knocked on the front door, I said, ma'am. She said, Yeah, I said, I'm Robert Collier. I said, I I have owned a company now that has the mortgage to your house. And she looked at me very inquisitively. She went, Collier, Collier. And I went, the inmate. And she she came out and hugged me. And I said, And I said, Thank you. I said, Thank you for it was a wake-up call. And here's another thing is that it was her words, but it was God's pushing and saying, it was it was God's doing something that I'll that that I'll give to you reference later on. That God did something to me that I wound up doing to try to help other kids. And it wasn't one of those things to where it was a lightning bolt. It was a subtle push. And so I went from there and wound up in the finance business, went back into music. I was doing both of them. I was I was trying to be so busy with the finance company and playing music. I was saying so busy, and I thought I was trying to make all this money, but then I realized I didn't want to slow down to realize how miserable I was. I didn't want to stop on a couch and sit there and realize I'm all alone. I have no family. And that's the reason why alcohol and drugs are so prevalent. People, they're not bad people, these are not bad people. These are people that got lost, they got lonely. They they they didn't understand that they didn't have to have a needle or drink, that they just needed to back up a second. And nowhere in the Bible does it say you have to go to a building to get God. Amen. Where I found God is on the road. When I was driving from show to show in music, I'd be by myself and I'd put on a some Christian show and then I'd turn it off. And for the next couple of hours, I would just think about my life and say, what happens now? I'm really not happy. You know, and I tried, and I was in Catholicism for 27 years, and God, it's a beautiful, wonderful religion. I have nothing bad to say about it. It just wasn't for me. I could not find that inner peace. And then I went on, and there were many years I did not go to any church whatsoever, but I did on Sunday mornings would sit there and pray and say, Look, I don't know what I'm doing. You know, I know I had a wonderful time this past weekend. I had all the the people yelling and hollering, the girls laughing and smiling. But uh, when I got back to the hotel, I was alone. And in an insight, people want to know why so many of these major rock stars and them, why they turn to drugs. Is nothing more euphoric than getting on a stage and having 20,000 people scream at you. And then you go back to a hotel room, nothing. Nothing. And you have to try to fill that void. Me, I know I I I'm amazing. I I say I'm amazed at this, that in my 50 years of being in music, I've never smoked a cigarette, I've never done a drug, I've never drank a beer. I realized when I was 320 pounds, I was addicted to food. So if I ever tried drugs or alcohol, I was never going back. I understood that. I if of all the things that I've done stupidly. But it was one of those things that you look at your life and you see people, and you and too many times that we as people, just normal, that there was only one perfect person ever in this world and they crucified him that we look at people and say, oh man, they're this, they're that. No, you don't know what's going on in their lives.

Ron Meyers 9:25

Amen.

Robert Collier 9:26

I spent 31 years on the road with all African American musicians, and we've never had one racist comment, we never had one racist argument, because I have this that I've said to so many times about racism. Racism is not the color of a man's skin. Racism is the color of a man's heart. Forget their skin. I I how how can you like yesterday? I I I'd met a beautiful black lady, and we had a great conversation. I met her and I looked at her and I said, Do you hate me? She said, Why? I said, I don't hate you either. But I mean, we're supposed I guess we're supposed to. You know what I'm getting at? It's not the it's not the color of her skin, it's the color of a person's heart. And when we can get past that, when we can all get past that, so as I traveled and met so many people, I can't think of anybody I ever met right off the bat that I disliked or hated. Because how can a man who came from his mother gave him up at birth? I was raised in a very beautiful community, but it was it was not hybrid, I was not rich. How am I gonna look it down at somebody else? You know, I just lucked out. I I very much lucked out that I did not get into drugs and alcohol and that I'm not holding a sign on the case. So you have a lot of gratitude that you've just Oh, I I would I would not trade, and I'm saying this a thousand times, and this is where people really have to look at it. I would not trade a single mistake I made in life ever, because it got me to where I am today.

Ron Meyers 10:52

Have there ever been a moment where your faith was tested on the road and you really had to say, uh uh, I gotta practice what I preach?

Robert Collier 11:01

Yeah. I mean, there's many times that I would be somewhere and someone would do me wrong. I had people that you know that that uh you you're talking about would come up to me and say that, you know, you owe me money or you this and that because of this show or that. And I would want to get angry and lash out. And I'd look at them and go, okay, you know, I live by the premise of this because and you know this better than I do, if we'd had social media in my day, I don't know what we'd have done because if every mistake I made would have been magnified a thousand times over. So here's so true. Here's the thing I do, and I've been this way, and I don't know if it irritates my wife and my family or whatever, but somebody could come up to me and say, You're a thief, you're a liar, you're this and that, and I look at him and say, I must be. Because no matter what I tell you, you're gonna believe what you want to believe. So I'm not gonna tell you, I'm gonna show you. I'm not gonna give you words, I'm gonna give you actions. People are gonna say what they want to say, and you can defend yourself all day long. You have you have you have millions of people on both sides of the realm that says OJ did not kill his wife, and then you have the other half saying that he did kill his wife. No matter what said or nobody's done. So I have learned that when somebody attacks me, I don't defend myself. I say, okay, God bless you. God bless you. You just turn the other cheek. Yeah, because it does no good. It does no good. People are gonna think of you what they want to think of you. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Ron Meyers 12:21

Over these years of not seeing you, God has really seasoned you and and you have a a passion. You you you can tell that you like people, don't you? Oh, absolutely. You love people. Yes. Have you ever been in a hard season in your life? And and where was God during that hard season?

Caring For A Dying Father

Robert Collier 12:39

Again, my adopted parents. My adopted father took infantsema and uh cancer of the lungs, and he for three years, nine months, and twelve days. And the reason why I know that is because my mother kept reminding me she took care of him three years, nine months, and twelve days. He was dying. And we uh I would come home as a kid. I was only a I started at seven years old, and I got eight, nine years old, and every day I'd come home, he was bedridden, and I would have to, you know, wipe his mouth from blood and and help him on the potty. And I remember one day I came home and I'm a kid, and I ran in there, and he had a little pink soft bristle brush, and he told me, he said, he said, Robbie, he said, Come here, baby. I said, What, Daddy? He goes, Would you mind scratching my back for me, please? Well, my friends were outside ready to play. They had a ball and gloves and they were ready to go. And so I grabbed the brush and I was doing it real fast. And uh, he says, the other side, I said, and I might have made a sound or a grunt. And I went, uh okay. And he goes, baby, and he looked at me, he goes, One day you won't have to do this. That was fifty fifty something years ago. I've never gotten over it. And I would give up, and and I mean this, this is not you hear people say, I give up no. I would give up ten years of my life to be able to look him in the eyes right now and say, I'm sorry. I di I didn't didn't realize he was never gonna be there. And I went through that for a long time. After he died, I never cried at his funeral. Never cried. I just looked and saw him and just got inside myself. And then all of a sudden, I was a 11-year-old kid with a 69-year-old adopted mother, and she was running a gr a a uh a grill and cafe, and she didn't have time for me. And she did the best she could, don't get me wrong, she did and I idolize her what she did for me. But it was one of those things to where I didn't realize how important it was for that moment in time just to scratch his back a little longer. And sometimes we as children, not only me, everybody, we as children find our parents to be maybe a little worriesome. You know what I'm getting at? Oh God, Dad, do we have to go there again? You know? I would give up ten years of my life to scratch his back one more time. And that was a dark period. It obviously is. Fifty years later, I b I beg God for forgiveness and I asked my father, my dad, please forgive me. So there are times that you go through that and you are not sure. There's times that you go through and I'm I'm trying to get people to understand that even when somebody divorces you, you know, they say, you know, you know, I don't want to be married, I don't love you anymore. Okay, well then you know, it's a you know, some people can walk away and some people carry the bitterness with them. And what they need to understand is is that at that time, stop. Realize to tomorrow morning you can change everything.

Self Forgiveness And Everyday Grace

Ron Meyers 15:34

There's somebody listening to you right now, and they can relate to you, and they've never been able to forgive themselves, even though God has. You can give that person some encouragement and hope now. What would you tell that person?

Robert Collier 15:46

I would tell them to understand that give it to God, pray. Like I do at my that one instance with my dad where I pray and I say, Look, I'm sorry. You know, and and you know, you only have to say you're sorry sincerely one time. You know, any time after that's repetitiveness. But if you really are sorry, don't do it again.

Ron Meyers 16:05

Don't do it again.

Robert Collier 16:06

Yeah, and again, I've told you that I learned more from my mistakes than I did from my accomplishments. I can remember some mistakes I made that stay with me today, and I ask God, I I wish I could go back to those people and tell them I'm sorry what I said. I'm sorry I hurt you. This is when I was young and foolish, and I thought I knew everything. And sometimes we just forget that no matter whether we're 20 or 70, we're still sometimes vanity gets to us. Well, you're not gonna talk to me that way. Well, why don't you just walk away? And and I'll give you this real quick, not take There's a young lady at Walmart, young young, beautiful young lady, and she was working. I was two customers behind her, and this woman chewed her out because of some well, here, this stamp says it was 195 and you're charging me 299. She just chewed her out and just embarrassed this child. I remember looking at that, just shaking my head. Well, by the time I got to the young lady, she had wiped her tears. And I looked at her, I said, sweetheart, I want you to do me a favor. The next time somebody chews you out like that and they're getting all into you, they're not mad at you. Their lives are miserable. And they have to take it out on someone. So I tried to get her to laugh. I said, So what you're gonna do next time, somebody's chewing you out and just going on and just getting into you, I want you to look at them and think in your head, I get off here at five o'clock, but you have to live in that body. Don't scream back at them. They're going through a horrible time and they need somebody to take it out on. So what you need to do is just say, God bless you. And you'll see them, they might anger get back at you, but don't allow them to ruin you because they're already there. People and I got a sign that I put in my son's room. It says, People that will tear you down are too lazy to lift themselves up.

Ron Meyers 17:48

Wow.

Robert Collier 17:49

That's good. And also, never live down to someone's expectations.

How To Get The Hell Out

Ron Meyers 17:54

Live up to them. Hey, the title of the show is called Get the Hell Out of Your Life. Yeah. So, Robert, how do you get the hell out of your life?

Robert Collier 18:00

It's just you don't allow, you don't allow things that you know are gonna destroy you. You don't think so. I mean, whether it's, you know, I I you know, I'm sitting here on a Friday night and I'm alone and a miserable, blah, blah, blah. I'm gonna go out and have a bunch of drinks to get to to really just get it out. And then the next morning you're alone again, this time you're hung over. All you've done is add pain on top of pain. So what you can do is I'm not saying everybody needs to grab a Bible and jump down. Just you don't you don't need a Bible, you don't need a church, you don't need another, you know.

Ron Meyers 18:30

Well, look what you and I are doing now by just talking.

Robert Collier 18:34

God would love to talk to us a little more, wouldn't he? You know, I I I I I I said, you know, you know, these people, and and I I had a a a religious person, I'm not gonna say the denomination, we had a conversation about, you know, well, you need to come to me to go, you know, forgiveness and we're gonna do this and that. And I said, let me ask you a question real quick. I'm in the middle of adultering at 2 o'clock in the morning, okay? And I have a wreck and I'm upside down, I'm bleeding out, I know I'm going to die. I know this because there's no way anybody's gonna get to me before I bleed out. If I at that point in time ask the Lord, I ask God, please forgive me for my sins. I'm begging you, I'm sorry. I've lived a horrible life, but I don't want to live a horrible eternity. Will God forgive me? And he goes, if you're sincere, yeah. I said, then why do I need to come to you? Why can't I go straight to God? Why can't I ask him? And of course come back with where two more is gathered. I said, that isn't what I said. I said I was alone, by myself in the middle of nowhere, and I'm begging for forgiveness. I don't know where it is, but if you're out there right now and you're having this problem and you think that you need to, all you need to do is turn to one person, and that is God. And I'm not trying to placate you, I'm not trying to tell you I'm this. I make a lot of mistakes. Still today I'm I still do I get I mean, stupidly I get mad at the Saints when they don't score a touchdown. Okay? You know what I'm getting at? And and and when and when you find out that your light bill is $400 and you only got $300 in your pocket, okay. Well, that's just everyday stuff. Eternity is a long way. And so I try very hard for my children. You know, my my children tell me all the time, when I amazingly, my uh my one of my my children, you know, think that I was not a very smart dad at when they were 13 and 12, and now they think I'm brilliant. And I'm the same person. Amen, brother. You know, and it's just one of those things to where and this is what my children will tell you it isn't what I say, it's how I carry myself. Oh, I make a lot of mistakes, I laugh, I embarrass them a lot, but they never have to worry about me not being there. And they understand that before every meal, every morsel you put in your mouth, we will say prayers. You know, we will say the blessing. My wife, I love her for this, that my wife knows that before we go out with a bunch of friends, she knows I'm about to tell all of them, hang on, we're saying the blessing. And if and I never say, you know, anything else, I said we're doing the blessing. Everybody, I've never had one person yet say, No, I don't want to do the blessing. Everybody goes, please do. I do the blessing before every meal because there are people out there who won't have a meal. There are people out there who, you know, in different countries that we never see don't have a morsel.

Robert Prays For Listeners

Ron Meyers 21:13

You know, when I I pray every day, Lord, who am I going to meet today? Who am I going to talk with? And when I saw a social media post that you had, you had just lost a friend or something and you had some scripture in there, some and I said, I felt God's say, you need to bring Robert in and talk with him. And I tell you what, sitting here in the last half hour and talking to you, God has done a really, really awesome job with you in the sense of relating to other people. What you've just said over the last few minutes is going to help someone so much, Robert. And I appreciate your honesty and transparency. And before we go, you've got the microphone. I would love it if you would pray for our listeners.

Robert Collier 22:00

I will, thank you. Holy Father above, there's so many out here that are hurting, lost, and they really don't know the way. You don't have to give them lightning bolts. You don't have to move mountains. Just touch them. Give them five seconds of peace and understand that that five seconds of peace can turn into an eternity if they just trust you. Thank you for all you have done for us. And in this world where it's upside down, there's only one way up to you. Amen.

Ron’s Five Takeaways And Closing

Ron Meyers 22:35

Boy, what a great conversation I had with Robert. And there's something about Robert's story that hits deeper than the surface because it reminds us of a truth most people don't want to admit. You can look successful on the outside and still be searching on the inside. Now, a few things stood out that we can all grab on to today. Number one, labels don't decide your life. You do. That moment when a teacher told Robert he'd make a great inmate, that could have been a life sentence. But instead of accepting it, Robert flipped it. The life lesson, you are not what someone said about you in a moment of frustration, ignorance, or pain. Number two, the stage can't heal what's inside. The plause is real, but it's temporary. And if you're chasing external validation to fix an internal emptiness, you'll always need more noise to drown out the silence. The life lesson: healing doesn't happen in the spotlight. It happens in the quiet moments where you finally get honest. Number three, forgiveness is freedom, not approval. Robert talked about forgiveness in a way that's powerful. It's not saying what happened was okay. It's saying I refuse to let it control me anymore. The life lesson: forgiveness isn't for them, it's for you. Number four, faith has to move from words to action. Anyone can say they have faith, but real faith shows up when you're misunderstood, accused, or hurting. Robert chose actions over arguments. Now, friend, that's strength. The life lesson, your response and pressure reveals the depth of your faith. And number five, your past can shape you without defining you. Adoption, identity struggles, painful words, loss, all of it shaped him, but none of it owns him. The life lesson? Your story is real, but it's not finished. So let me ask you something. What voice have you been listening to? The one that reminds you of your mistakes, your regrets, what someone said about you years ago? Or the one that says you were created on purpose with a purpose. You are not disqualified, you are loved, and your story isn't over. Friend, don't live on the island of regret with villages called should have, would have, or could have. Why do you think you're listening today? Because God is sending you a message, because this might be your moment, your turning point, your invitation to finally get the hell out of what's been holding you back. If this conversation today spoke to you, don't keep it to yourself. Send it to someone who needs it. Because we're all in this together to encourage, empower, and inspire each other to discover or God ordains destiny. And now I want to pray for us. Father, for the person listening right now who feels the weight of regret, the sting of words spoken over them, or the quiet loneliness no one else sees, meet them right there. Remind them they are not forgotten. Their life matters, they are not disqualified or too far gone. Give them the courage to release what's been holding them back, the anger, the shame, the fear, and replace it with your forgiveness, your love, your peace, your truth, and a renewed sense of purpose. Help them forgive even when it's hard. Help them trust even when it doesn't make sense. And help them take that first step forward today. Because their story isn't over. It's just getting started. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, friends, I'll be back next week with another grace-filled episode of Get the Hell Out of Your Life available wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you have a story you'd like to share, please go to my website, thepromoter.org. Until next time, this is Ron Myers reminding you that I love you, Jesus loves you, and when you give Jesus your heart, you not only get the hell out of your life, but life begins to make sense.

Announcer 27:22

Today's show is produced by Ron Myers Ministries, a listener-supported ministry. For a copy of today's broadcast, please visit our website, thepromoter.org. And would you prayerfully consider making a tax deductible donation so that we may continue to share stories of God's amazing grace with the world? And join us next week for another broadcast of Get the Hell Out of Your Life. Real people, sharing real struggles, and offering real hope.