Barry Meguiar 00:00
Welcome to the Ignite with Barry Meguiar podcast. How would you like to have the time of your life for the rest of your life? How would you like to defeat fear effortlessly, knowing for sure God is hearing and answering your prayers and directing your steps and making everything work for good? This is exciting. Here’s the question, How would you like to ignite your life? Stay tuned.
Hi everybody. Welcome back to Ignite. Great guests today, all our guests are great, but this one’s very special, Cameron. Cameron, thank you, welcome for joining us for a little bit this, this wonderful, beautiful day.
Speaker 1 00:40
Yes, thank you, Barry, and what an honor and pleasure for you to have me, and I appreciate it very much.
Barry Meguiar 00:46
We are, you and I are going to have a conversation, we’ve had a number of them. To put this in proper perspective for those of you who are watching us, Cameron and I don’t hang out. We don’t, we don’t hang out. We’re not spending our time together. We in the traditional sense, we’re not friends, we’re brothers. We haven’t, you know, we often go to the rodeo and, and I’m not, I’m the farthest thing from a cowboy, but I put on the hat and the boots and the buckle and I blend in and go to the National Finals Rodeo. Had the best, the best and, and they have at the Las Vegas Convention Center what they call Cowboy Christmas. And I can say it’s a hoot. It’s just, I love Karen loves Cowboy Christmas. It’s everything you think of, from jewelry to harnesses to saddles to buckles to, you name it, it’s just, it’s just, it’s all there you want to build a ranch, they got everything you need to build a ranch, or whatever. It’s just, it’s mind boggling. Cowboys are friendly. It’s friendly group, and when I blend in with all my paraphernalia, they think I’m one of them and so is, this is a great time. And I think it was the first one we went to, it’s a lot of years ago now.
Speaker 1 02:22
Yeah, it’s been about a decade.
Barry Meguiar 02:24
But we have mutual friends that introduce us. Mike Ingram. Mike, he is just an amazing, bigger than life kind of guy, and his dear wife, she’s just, she’s amazing. Anyway, they love all over you, known them for a lot of years, and they introduced us to you, and we, we, before long, found ourselves off to the side of your massive display, because we’ve looking, found out. I mean, when we’re sharing our faith, we share our faith and we were each share our faith with each other. Realized we were both Christians and we’re on the same page. Your company name is Rockwell Tharp, right?
Speaker 1 03:10
That’s right, yes, sir.
Barry Meguiar 03:11
All right, tell us about your company. We need, this is, this is pretty cool. Yeah, well. Talk about it right quick.
Speaker 1 03:19
Sure. So we are a fashion company. We are a Christian fashion company. We are Christian based, Christian faith. My wife and, I’m one of the co-founders of the company, alongside my wife, Kristi Rockwell Tharp, and we design and sell boots and shoes and handbags and apparel and we’re all about unique and fashion and faith, and we’re all across North America and in some other parts of the world, in fact, as well. And yes, you’re right. About a decade ago, Mike and Sheila Ingram introduced yourself and your beautiful wife, Karen and many other folks to us as well and we just had a relationship that just sort of took off from there. And of course, your wife became a client and a customer and, you know, we just built bridges from there. So.
Barry Meguiar 04:12
Well, Sheila is one of the lights of her life. She’s the light of everybody’s life. I never meet anybody more loving or caring more thoughtful, you know? And so when she was the actual one to bring us over there, and we knew it had been pretty special she was so excited about you and Karen was right in on it. You do have amazing, how can people get to what’s your website? So people go and see you. Your products.
Speaker 1 04:37
Sure, sir. Our company is Rockwell Tharp, and our website is rockwelltharp.com and then there’s obviously Facebook, Instagram, all the social media platforms, but rockwelltharp.com yeah.
Barry Meguiar 04:49
There we go. So we’re both quote, unquote, Christian businessmen. Yes, sir. Who are more excited about being Christian than being businessmen and the joy of our lives coming there. Talk about, let’s go back to your background right quick. It’s something I don’t even know, but tell us how you came to know the Lord, what’s the what’s the background with you guys.
Speaker 1 05:10
Really. The, you want to go back to the core is my brother, my younger brother, died of cancer when I was a child and my family was searching and seeking and looking for answers, and really saw all over the world. And my parents discovered Christ, the real Christ, and that trickled down to the rest of us children, and then we accepted Christ as our Savior.
Barry Meguiar 05:38
How old were you?
Speaker 1 05:39
I was approximately 8 years old, so I’ve been sharing Christ at a minimum, since I was 8, and unabashedly, and I mean, and it’s carried now into the business world, which is reaching probably millions of people.
Barry Meguiar 05:58
Yeah, let’s start at the beginning here, back to 8 years old. How does, how does an 8 year old think into most you do know, of course, that a lot of people accept the Lord when they’re young, when they’re children, but they don’t necessarily become a faith sharer. You know, they go along with the crowd. You’re different. What happened to you that sets you apart differently, and you wouldn’t share your experience.
Speaker 1 06:22
Barry, I spent a lot of time at that age. I mean, just be blunt up front. I mean, I was crying, I was hurting. Our whole family was up, turned upside down, and tragedy. I would sneak into the Bible studies that my parents would have in their living room at their home, and.
Barry Meguiar 06:38
You snuck into their Bible.
Speaker 1 06:40
I snuck in the Bible study because it was really for adults, but I guess I thought I was a little adult. Yeah, and when Christ is inside of you and dwells in you, you can’t take it out. It’s there. And I knew it. And you know, are we all sinners? Absolutely, you better, you better believe it. And have I sinned? Many times since then, of course, but, so and, and I’ve just been tested time and time again, and I’ve got multiple stories I can share with you over, over that and, but yeah, sneaking into Bible studies, sharing, going through some of the ups and downs, and then being given different platforms that, you know, one of which I have right now about to share on.
Barry Meguiar 07:25
Give a, give an example how an 8 year old would share his faith.
Speaker 1 07:29
Yeah, so you know, and it may have been 8, it may have been 9, I don’t know exactly sure, but an 8 year old, I got very involved with adults, actually, at 8, and people kept calling me like a little adult, because I was so mature in my wanting and my desire, my quest for to know more about the Bible and the truth. And so I would share, and I would share with anyone in the room, anywhere, anytime.
Barry Meguiar 07:57
So, you were focused on the word, you’r understanding of the word must have been a bit beyond your years. I mean, this is.
Speaker 1 08:06
In this category. I wouldn’t say I’m mature in all categories, but in this category, I would say I was, and perhaps, you know, could claim still am. It takes some people many years to figure some things out. And for me, this didn’t take very long, because I heard the truth, I knew the truth, and I accepted the truth.
Barry Meguiar 08:28
It’s interesting. And I do say this on occasion, the people I know who are sharing their faith the most had the most joy. You tell when people have joy, I like hanging around when people have the joy the Lord in them. Yes. But when I get to meet them and talk to them, almost without exception, I would dare say without exception, there is great pain that has been experienced, great losses.
Speaker 1 08:56
Berry, and that, you know, I was prepared to talk about some of that. I mean, just because I’ve accepted Christ, just because Jesus is my Lord and Savior, just because I choose to share him, does not mean I have a Golden Road. I do not, and I have not.
Barry Meguiar 09:11
It didn’t just go happily ever after. That didn’t happen for you.
Speaker 1 09:15
I’m sorry it didn’t. Now he has opened some beautiful doors for me, and he smacks them shut. But I mean, Barry, I have been through some major life and death situations.
Barry Meguiar 09:28
I want to hear where you go to this, but just my personal observation from my own life and from others I’ve watched but the, the wages of pain is more pain when you respond correctly, because he, he doesn’t, first off, he doesn’t give us more than we can endure. We know that. So when I’m going through pain, it’s actually a compliment. He’s actually, he knows I can get through that pain. Folks, if you’re in the middle of something right now, it’s a compliment from God. He knows he’s made you. He knows you. He knows you’re strong enough to get through this pain. If you choose to, you can curse God and go the other way, but he knows you’re strong enough. But when you get through the other side, it’s setting you up for something stronger. Unfortunately, it’s, they keep building, they don’t get smaller. They keep getting, okay now I can trust you with this. I, Corrie Ten Boom, I recall one of her words about she wanted to pick up a piece of leggings. Her dad says, You’re not strong enough. Pick that up. You pick up that one. And she had a spiritual truth. You pick up what you can handle now, and that’ll give you strength. And then you can pick up the next one, and then the next one, and, and such as we go through life, it’s we would. It’s called maturity. We mature through the years, but also not only what we can do, but what we can handle. And so you have mirrored this. I’m waiting to hear your story, but this is for me, this is exciting. Yeah.
Speaker 1 10:52
You’re right, Barry, and you know, to put a different perspective on that too, it’s almost like, if you don’t get presented some tragedies and some, some tough times, it’s almost like you may not be doing the right thing.
Barry Meguiar 11:04
Or He can’t trust you. He knows you can’t handle, you’re too weak.
Speaker 1 11:08
Or that, exactly. And so when I went to school at SMU in Dallas, and I was going home to see my grandmother, and I flipped my car on the way home from Dallas to Alabama, I put my car 13 times a highway, just a solo highway crash. And essentially, yes, I was injured but of course, I had staples in my head and some tore my eye and did some other you know, had a whole actually, had a hole through my foot, which I can look at every day, and still to the day see that scar, which is a reminder of, you know, Jesus in His holes in his feet, but so that’s one thing that I went through, flipped my car 13 times, essentially walked away and survived. And then when Kristi Rockwell Tharp and my.
Barry Meguiar 12:01
Wait a minute. Wait, so where did you learn through that? It wasn’t for not, what did you learn through that experience?
Speaker 1 12:06
Oh, that was the very big wake up call, especially in my college years, where I was, you know, having some fun, I suppose. And, it, I never can forget it. I mean, every day, a person looks in the mirror, looks at their feet, or looks at their hands, and I see this old scar of a hole through my foot, and I think of I think of Jesus in one way or another. Yeah, so, but what have I learned? I mean, a tremendous amount. This was many, many years ago. I’ve been through some more recent stuff that’s been tragic, life and death, but this is, you know, I just feel like a lot of attacks have come my way, but God has continued to protect myself, my wife, us, our family and our company.
Barry Meguiar 12:59
You can, you can curse God. You can say, God, where are you? Where are you? I thought you’re here, not a good year doing me. Or you can go the other way, which you have, I have, and say, God, I need you now more than ever. I trust you. You’re going to use this, your glory, and we keep the joy we don’t let. I tell everybody, never lose your joy. Don’t let anything rob you of your joy, and nothing can rob you of your joy if you’re living for his purpose. He says, if you bear fruit, my joy remain with you, and your joy remain full. And that’s through the worst of times, your joy just keeps on. And you and I, both had, I’ve had, I’m not talking about mine, but I’ve had my view of those moments, without losing my joy, in fact, learning more about his faithfulness, having intimacy with God. So I don’t mean to interrupt you. I just say amen and amen keep on going share with us.
Speaker 1 13:55
Yeah, well, I’ll tell you that when Kristi and I started this company, and about 15 years ago, we made some decisions. We walked away from our corporate jobs, and we made and walked into the fashion industry, which is, yeah, there’s a pretty big lack of faith in the fashion industry, if we’d be frank. But we decided against our business mentor friends, to incorporate God and Jesus into our, into our business. So we on all of our boots. We took a Bible verse and have inscribed it on the back of each one of our zippers. So if, if you ever have a pair of our boots, or ever worn a pair and it has a zipper on it, you will have a Bible verse on it, and you will know that you’ve been prayed for and before you ever even got those boots, before you ever even came to know us personally. And so that’s something we do. We also give these coins that say, Where will you spend eternity? They’re in every shopping bag. They’re free. We give them to every person. They can grab them, they can take them. They can take as many as they want. Obviously, you know, they get them in the, we also give the, you’ve probably seen, like the eternity bracelets, where, where you spend eternity. You know, God sent His Son, Jesus. Christ died on the cross for my sins. He was buried in the tomb. He rose again on the third day, and he promises to return. It’s on our very, it’s our business cards. We put our Bible verse and our business cards. This is huge. This is a track, I guess you call it, you know, old school version track, but that’s a big track. Well, yeah, it’s a big one, because it’s got it all and, but it’s where we you know, where will you spend eternity? And then if you want to know more, you just keep reading. And if you don’t, then you can.
Barry Meguiar 15:46
You’re, you’re all in.
Speaker 1 15:48
We’re all in. And I do believe that this is why we are protected, but I also believe it’s also why we get thrown some of these attacks. Like you were referring to and, yeah, you asked about one and one I went through 3 years ago. I think I had just seen you right afterward, but I had major cancer in my throat. I had a golf ball size tumor. Yes, I was, it was probably a 50/50, will I live? Will I won’t? And they took 46 lymph nodes out of the side of my neck, and robotically, this was at the Mayo Clinic, and then robotically, went down with two surgeons, and a robot went down to my throat and cut the entire tumor out. And I had two prayers, and I didn’t feel these were selfish prayers. I said, Dear God, please don’t make my wife a widow at this early age in marriage and, and, dear Lord, please, would you please spare me from chemo and radiation? I got both. And that, that to me, was super powerful. I wasn’t praying for all the other stuff, but I wanted just those two things. I felt I was too young to be going through clinical treatment and radiation. And I, of course, I didn’t want too.
Barry Meguiar 17:09
So talk about your faith at that point, your trust in God at that point before the surgery. Explain where you were spiritually, what was going on in your mind and your heart?
Speaker 1 17:23
Okay. So, felt strong spiritually before, even stronger spiritually, the word I never, ever blamed God. I never cursed God like you mentioned before. I never, you know, there was, there perhaps some doubt, some wise, maybe, but I became closer with my wife, I became more intimate with God, and I just, I got through it, and it was just, it was, it was, it was quite amazing. And, you know, and had a story to tell, and my story got picked up on different news outlets. It got picked up, it got published. It got published in many different languages and sent around, circled around the world. I mean, people were very interested to know the story, and it’s because I chose to speak about it. I chose to share it. Like many people, keep their story private, and they don’t put it on Facebook or social media. They don’t share. They don’t they don’t do something like this on this platform that you have. But I, you know, Kristi asked me, Do you want to share? Do you want people to know? What do you want to know? And I said, I want to know everything. Open vote they can know it, especially if it’s about faith or whatever. So we shared, and then it just started getting picked up and published, and it was, it’s been quite an amazing journey and ride.
Barry Meguiar 18:47
Isn’t that amazing? And then you understand why. You know, there is a why, dude, there’s a purpose. There is a purpose to these things. Think of how many people have been touched by your story around the world, around the world, and the.
Speaker 1 19:01
The entire world, Barry, I mean, I couldn’t put a number on it, but I would definitely say a million people have seen the story.
Barry Meguiar 19:10
I’m sure you’re at this point, instead of cursing God, you’re just the evidence of saying God, thank you. Thank you allowing me to go through that.
Speaker 1 19:22
I do, and it’s okay. It really is okay.
Barry Meguiar 19:25
It’s okay. I was being rushed to surgery. They thought I was dying. I was being rushed to surgery 4:30 in the morning, so I’m on the Gertie, and they’re, they’re racing down the hallway, and my daughter, Nicole, was racing, running as fast she could beside me, and she was yelling, and she wasn’t yelling, it’s gonna be okay, Dad, it’s gonna be okay. Dad, I’m praying for you, dad. Keep the Faith. Every find dad, she didn’t say any of that. You know what she was saying? This is her spiritual maturity coming through at that moment of crisis and it was. She’s yelling to me, Dad, this is your testimony.This is your testimony. In that moment, that racing down that corner she’s yelling at me of all things, because she had spiritual maturity. She could see the whole picture. She’s, Dad, this is your testimony. I’m thinking, What? The drugs hadn’t quite set in yet. You know they’re, they’re starting, as they gave me some free drugs, but I was still cognizant testimony, testimony. Dad, this is your testimony. And all sudden, it hit me, it is my testimony. I have no fear. I know it’s going to be fine. This is my testimony before the surgery. Yes, this is my testimony. Bam, we went into that surgery, you know. And since then, you know, it’s been almost 20 years since then, it’s been my testimony. I had the faith before the storm, before the problem, before the challenge. My faith was intact. I was giving praise to God. I knew it was going to be fine. That’s faith from God. You can’t have it for you, just everything the hospital focuses on your problem and the odds and the odds against you, all the things and disclaimers have to give you, my focus was on any of that. My focus on it is, is my testimony. Just go for it, you know. And so you can’t have those moments unless God allows you to have those moments, because He loves us, and those are real life experiences. It gives me a faith. Gives you a faith that you nothing can shake us in our faith. At our worst moments, God was there.
Speaker 1 21:50
He’s there. He promises he can’t take and he cannot take back his word. This, I mean Barry. This led to so many different things, including meaning. Governor, governors and senators and Secretaries of State and the Vice President United States, and being presented with the Presidential Medal coin of Freedom. Or, you know, I mean, it’s like it, I got to share my story to the highest world. I got to, you know, and, and part of that was, you know, dial back to Mike and Sheila Ingram. And you know, who, who they, who, a couple of the people that they introduced us to, and then, you know, we met other people through them. And, yeah, it’s just, it’s just amazing. And I got to sit down with the Vice President, and we called a national prayer circle, and I led the National Prayer week. That’s what we nicknamed it. I guess. I don’t know if that’s really what it was, but in Las Vegas, standing there in the middle of the Las Vegas Convention Center, we had the Vice President and his wife, and we all built a circle, and we prayed for the nation, and we prayed for God,
Barry Meguiar 22:54
Only by his grace. Could you ever imagine, did you ever imagine having that kind of a platform, a pulpit if you will, to share your faith. That’s, that’s God.
Speaker 1 23:06
I didn’t see that coming.
Barry Meguiar 23:07
That’s God. No way, no way. Hey, we’re out of time. But I’m hoping you said you, you come back for another half hour.
Speaker 1 23:15
Sure. Yeah, of course, yes.
Barry Meguiar 23:16
Okay, let’s brought this one up. This is, this is great conversation. Come back and hear the next episode of this one. We’ll have an expanded version of, of how Cameron is actually sharing his faith. Yes, on the broad scale, we’re also on one on one. Most importantly, we want you to hear how, how we share faith in the most unexpected situations, on a one on one basis every day as we go along, and how much fun, how easy and how much fun we have doing that. So come back and see the next episode.
Speaker 1 23:46
And Barry, I have a surprise, and I have a surprise for you.
Barry Meguiar 23:49
Oh, good. Can’t wait. All right.
Speaker 1 23:51
And your followers.
Barry Meguiar 23:52
All right. You hear that, folks, come back and join us again. That’s all for now. See you next time.
If you enjoyed today’s podcast, please let us know. Subscribe now to continue receiving my podcast and add your comments to help us attract more viewers. See you next time on the Ignite with Barry Meguire podcast.
