Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 227

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Friday. Hope everyone has had a good week in the comfort

00:00:04.900 of their own homes. I'm in the comfort of my own home. I changed up my background a little bit,

00:00:10.160 tried to make it like a little bit fancier for you guys. If you are watching on YouTube,

00:00:14.740 if you're listening to this and you don't subscribe to YouTube, please subscribe to my

00:00:18.840 Alliebeth Stuckey YouTube channel. It would mean a whole lot to me. For all of the people who are

00:00:23.200 not on social media or who don't listen to podcasts, they just either they don't know how

00:00:28.220 or they just don't like to. YouTube is a really great way to share my stuff. Even though I have

00:00:34.980 a lot more people that are listening than actually watching because this started on the listening

00:00:41.840 side of it, it helps me a lot. If you guys can share and if you guys can help my YouTube channel

00:00:48.940 grow, that would mean a lot to me. So it's Friday. I'm going to try to make this a fun episode,

00:00:54.980 a more lighthearted episode, or at least an encouraging episode because guys, if you haven't

00:01:00.380 noticed, it's been a hard week. Like our lives have really changed a lot in the past week or so.

00:01:07.180 And I don't want to distract us necessarily from what's going on with the coronavirus because as

00:01:12.980 I've said many times, it matters. It's serious and we should take it seriously. But I do want us to

00:01:19.880 focus on a lot of the good things that are happening that we should be thankful for.

00:01:25.840 Some of you are probably thinking, I don't know how long I'm going to be able to do this. Like

00:01:29.920 how long am I going to be able to socially distance? How long am I going to be holed up in my house?

00:01:35.120 Especially those of you, actually I shouldn't even say especially because every different kind of

00:01:39.320 person has it hard in a particular way. If you are a mom and you've got lots of kids that are home

00:01:46.680 from school, you are trying to figure out how to be a homeschool teacher, maybe for the first time.

00:01:52.660 If you are a single person, you don't have the social life that you once did and you might be

00:01:59.700 feeling isolated. If you are a work from home mom, you are trying to figure out how to balance your

00:02:08.440 first job of being a mom with the responsibilities that you have at work. And so it's just all a huge

00:02:15.540 adjustment for a lot of people. And then you've got older people who are in nursing homes who

00:02:21.320 don't get visitors anymore. You've got people in hospitals who don't get visitors. So all of us

00:02:26.000 are, I don't want to say suffering, that sounds kind of dramatic, but we are taking a hit in one way or

00:02:33.620 another. But there's a lot to be said about how quickly the American people act and how seriously

00:02:41.860 we take our responsibility to care for other people. And what we're seeing is that you've got

00:02:48.280 a lot of Americans who feel that they have a vested interest in the well-being of the people around

00:02:55.440 them. And it's really amazing to see strangers getting on the internet, telling other strangers

00:03:00.580 to care for people who are old, to care for people who are immunosuppressed. What we're seeing is that

00:03:06.140 people have an innate drive towards compassion. Now, we've seen a lot of viral videos of people

00:03:13.180 not caring at all. We've seen the teenagers and the 20-somethings on their spring break trip saying,

00:03:19.260 well, I'm not going to get it. I just want to get drunk. I just want to do whatever I'm going to do.

00:03:23.740 But I think that that is a minority of people. I think that there are a lot of people, even if they

00:03:28.700 think this whole thing is overblown, even if they think the media is ginning up hysteria,

00:03:33.420 they are saying, okay, well, I'm at least going to do my part. I'm at the very least going to wash

00:03:38.960 my hands more. I may not travel, but I have people, I have friends that have canceled their

00:03:44.240 wedding plans because it's just not feasible anymore for people to travel to where their

00:03:49.120 wedding was going to be and sit huddled together and watch them get married. And so people are making

00:03:54.540 very real sacrifices for the well-being of other people. And as sad as it is, as hard as it is to

00:04:00.800 watch, as curious as we are, or as maybe as anxious as we are to see the results of shutting

00:04:07.540 down huge parts of the economy, I also think that it's very heartwarming to see just how far

00:04:15.280 Americans are willing to go to sacrifice for the well-being of other people, or at least the hopeful

00:04:20.720 well-being of other people. That's another thing. We don't know if all of these strategies are going

00:04:25.520 to work. And I think that's a little bit scary and makes us worry a little bit, but we are willing

00:04:30.940 to go there and we are willing to sacrifice productivity. If you're a boss by letting your

00:04:36.540 employees work from home, you're willing to sacrifice your safety and convenience. If you're

00:04:40.740 someone who say is delivering food to other people, or you're working at a grocery store,

00:04:45.260 you're a nurse, or you're a doctor, or you're a first responder, you're willing to sacrifice your own

00:04:49.600 health for the good of other people. If you are a working parent, you're willing to sacrifice maybe

00:04:56.060 some money, you're willing to sacrifice your own time, you're willing to sacrifice your own

00:05:00.920 convenience. And that's another reason. I know I talk about this so much, but because it's so

00:05:06.760 prevalent, this is why the entire self-love, trendy narcissism thing that we see that is so pervasive

00:05:15.240 in our society, especially among young people, this is when we see that it's just not a functioning

00:05:21.540 philosophy. Not just in times of crisis, but in general. If you follow the rule, for example,

00:05:27.520 that we see in trendy narcissism that you can't love other people before, or yeah, you can't love

00:05:33.060 other people before you love yourself, well, then you're not going, you're not going to be very helpful

00:05:38.060 during times of a pandemic. You're not going to be the person that people call on. And quite frankly,

00:05:44.120 if we all lived that way, if we all said, well, I'm just going to love myself and love loving myself

00:05:50.300 means doing whatever I want to and whatever feels good to me and not changing anything about my life

00:05:54.740 or sacrificing my convenience. Well, this thing would be a whole lot worse, but because there are

00:06:00.240 so many people who say, I'm going to love people, even when it's hard, I'm going to love people,

00:06:04.600 even when it's inconvenient to me, there is a very good chance that we will bounce back from this

00:06:09.640 better than ever. One awesome thing that I have seen happen that truly just warms my heart is that

00:06:15.100 there are people on the left side of the aisle who a week ago, we would have never said would ever

00:06:20.800 give President Trump any sort of credit whatsoever. They are now coming out and saying, you know what,

00:06:25.860 President Trump is doing a good job. So you've got Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, you've got

00:06:30.660 Governor Gavin Newsom of, I almost said South Carolina, of California, two of the most liberal

00:06:36.180 governors, maybe the most liberal governors in the nation. You've got Governor Inslee from Washington

00:06:42.540 saying President Trump is doing a good job. You've got Representative Ilhan Omar, Ilhan freaking Omar

00:06:49.780 coming out and saying, you know what, politics aside, President Trump is doing the right thing

00:06:55.240 right now. You've got Dana Bash on CNN, who I think is, she does a good job outside of this,

00:07:01.840 but she made a comment, you know, right now, President Trump is showing the leadership that

00:07:07.680 a lot of Americans need to see. And I think that she's absolutely correct. Now, we can fairly critique

00:07:13.720 some of the things that, I don't even think it's President Trump, quite frankly, but some of the

00:07:18.020 things that America has not done well, has not taken this seriously soon enough. But President Trump

00:07:23.180 suspended travel from China a long time ago, back when people were saying that that was racist.

00:07:28.880 So I don't think that it's, I don't think it's fair to pin it on President Trump, but there are

00:07:33.760 things like, for example, the FDA shutting down private sectors, being able to develop effective

00:07:39.440 testing for coronavirus. There are things like that, that America can be blamed for, but all of the

00:07:45.660 blame, the things that have gone wrong in America when it comes to coronavirus can be blamed on

00:07:51.660 unnecessary regulations, on too much government, on bureaucracy doing what it does best and what

00:07:57.840 bureaucracy does best is ineffectiveness, is inefficiency. But honestly, whether you're on

00:08:04.540 the right or the left, one thing that we can be thankful for is that we are seeing leadership from

00:08:09.580 President Trump. Will there be people on Twitter who say that Trump has completely fumbled, that he

00:08:15.840 has done a terrible job, and that he is liable for the deaths of people? Yes, of course, you're going

00:08:20.520 to see that. You're going to see, unfortunately, journalists for the Washington Post and the New York

00:08:24.640 Times say that we should follow China's lead. China, who literally right now, as we speak, has Muslims

00:08:31.200 and Christians in concentration camps, people that they are, of which they are harvesting the organs

00:08:39.740 of, throwing people into gulags, into prison for speaking about the Communist Party's failings and

00:08:46.940 speaking about the seriousness of the coronavirus. It's also come out that China knew about the coronavirus

00:08:52.940 back in November and December, but the Communist Party actually suppressed that information.

00:08:58.640 And so for any journalist, of course, to come out and say that we should follow China's humanitarian

00:09:02.620 leader, that this is blood is on Trump's hands and not on China's hands, and that it's racist to say

00:09:08.420 that this came from China, they're just stupid. They're idiots. Like, you can just ignore them.

00:09:13.620 They've got some crazy thing going on in their heart and mind. They've been brainwashed by this

00:09:18.580 postmodern idea that is very popular in academia that says that America is uniquely evil on the world

00:09:26.780 stage and that every other country is somehow a victim of American imperialism and is therefore

00:09:32.300 more virtuous than America. They believe that stupid intersectional viewpoint and they can just be

00:09:41.060 ignored. But we do. We do have people on the left side of the aisle that are standing up and saying

00:09:46.340 President Trump is doing the right thing. He's doing a good job. This is the kind of leadership that we want

00:09:51.060 to see. I don't know. Is it too good to be true? Like, are there motives under that? We've learned to be

00:09:56.640 so cynical in this very tribalized world that we live in. Maybe so. But we can also take a step back and say

00:10:03.160 thank you. Like, thank you, Governor Cuomo, Governor Newsom, Governor Inslee, Ilhan Omar, for being able to

00:10:12.220 lay down politics for just a second and tell President Trump good job. Like, if we could maybe

00:10:18.720 do that more often, like lay down our arms and say thank you when someone does something well and start

00:10:25.400 criticizing substantive policy decisions and things that actually deserve critiques on the right and the

00:10:32.680 left, instead of this constant barrage of personal attacks, you know, that's repetitive, then I think that we

00:10:46.020 could actually heal as a nation. Like, I think that we could actually come together. So one positive thing to

00:10:52.440 look for, one thing to hope for, one thing to pray for, is that after this whole thing, maybe we'll be better than

00:10:59.360 we've ever been. Now, again, it's easy to be cynical and say, no, that's not going to happen

00:11:03.860 because it's right before an election. And so it's going to go back to business as usual, people

00:11:07.940 blaming Donald Trump completely unfairly, throwing him under the bus for things that he's not responsible

00:11:13.260 for. And yes, that very well might happen. It probably will happen. But if we can just come

00:11:20.000 together for a little bit, for like five minutes, once we're out of this quarantine and out of the woods on

00:11:25.620 this, and say, okay, you know what, we got through this, and we got through this because of the grace of God and

00:11:32.160 American resilience, then that would just be an amazing moment. Like, I think it's very, it's very good, I guess,

00:11:41.640 it's very lucky that we will be hopefully coming out of this, like in baseball season, baseball, it's just so

00:11:47.780 American. And if we can just all come together and watch a baseball game, either in person or at home,

00:11:55.240 and sing the Star Spangled Banner together, and just for a second have a glimmer of the patriotism that

00:12:01.720 we felt, like after 9-11, for example, then I think that that would be good for our individual souls and

00:12:08.980 the collective American soul that has been disintegrating for a really long time, well, really because of

00:12:16.360 godlessness, but also because of the just ugly partisanship that exists in our nation. Now, does

00:12:22.700 the ugliness still exist in a lot of places? Yes, you got a pundit who, I think he works for MSNBC, or

00:12:28.260 he's always on MSNBC, wish that Melania Trump gets infected. He said that on social media, not even going

00:12:35.520 to pay him the respect of sharing his name. And so, yes, there's a lot of ugliness, but there's also a lot

00:12:43.060 of good that's happening. Bipartisan appreciation coming together to do what hopefully is best for

00:12:50.260 the American people. And there are also good lessons that I think that we are learning from this, that we

00:12:55.860 have to take things seriously from the very beginning, that the private sector is most often the most

00:13:02.120 effective and the most efficient means by which we can obtain medical innovation, like testing that we

00:13:09.700 need to make sure that we have this thing under control as soon as possible. We are learning the

00:13:15.400 importance of secure borders. You're seeing that in Europe right now. Europe has been largely an open

00:13:21.340 border mass for a very long time, and now they're closing their borders because what we see is that

00:13:27.880 people are not, it's just human nature. We are not satisfied, we're not content with, we're not okay with

00:13:33.700 being citizens of the world. We want to make our world as small as possible, and really as big as

00:13:40.900 we are willing to go as far as what we are willing to absolutely defend is a nation. Like, we're willing

00:13:46.180 to defend a nation, we're willing to defend our faith, we're willing to defend our family, our school,

00:13:52.600 our community, our neighborhood, but we're not willing to really go past that. And even logistically,

00:13:59.660 we can't. Like, we can't be world citizens. We can't have open borders. It doesn't make sense for

00:14:05.700 safety. It doesn't make sense for health. It doesn't make sense for sovereignty. It doesn't

00:14:09.940 make sense for any kind of security. It's not good for the well-being of any citizen of any country.

00:14:15.560 And so being a nationalist or being someone who believes in secure borders at the very least,

00:14:21.980 even if you see the benefits in global trade and globalism in different ways, is not about racism.

00:14:29.040 It's not about bigotry. It's a matter of security and compassion for the people who are in your

00:14:35.000 country. And Europe is learning that lesson right now. And America, while a lot of us have known the

00:14:42.440 importance of secure borders for a long time, but hopefully there are people in this nation who are

00:14:47.280 also learning that lesson. The other lesson that we are learning is that we need good healthcare. We need

00:14:53.600 quality healthcare. We need lots of doctors and lots of nurses and lots of well-staffed hospitals.

00:14:58.620 We need the most advanced medical innovation in the world. Like I said, many times the world

00:15:04.600 almost exclusively depends on America for medical innovation because we have a for-profit healthcare

00:15:11.240 system. As I've explained many times, it presents problems, but the answer is not single-payer healthcare.

00:15:17.200 We're seeing how single-payer healthcare works out in places like China and Italy. Innovation,

00:15:23.200 the private sector, even in places like South Korea, where there is universal healthcare,

00:15:28.960 it has been the private sector that has come through and provided the procedures and the

00:15:33.400 innovation that is needed to help combat this virus. And so what we are seeing as well, in addition to

00:15:40.400 secure borders, in addition to the importance of the private sector and free enterprise, we're also

00:15:46.240 seeing the importance of good advanced healthcare. Whether you are covered or not, you are going to be able to

00:15:53.180 get access to healthcare that you need right now. As I've said, there are problems with their healthcare

00:16:01.100 system, but thankfully, thankfully we live in a country that has advanced healthcare. Are we still

00:16:08.060 going to be presented with obstacles? Is there still a possibility that our hospitals are going to be

00:16:12.880 overrun and overwhelmed? Absolutely. But in a Medicare for all system, rural hospitals go down the tubes,

00:16:20.640 hospitals become understaffed. You have to ration care even more than hospitals may already have to

00:16:26.680 ration care right now. That's just how it goes. The profit margins are razor thin, so you've got to

00:16:31.080 cut staff. You don't have the resources anymore to have the kind of advancements, to have the kind of

00:16:39.120 innovation that you do in a more for-profit private system. So we are seeing the importance in that.

00:16:45.760 We're also seeing the importance in the Second Amendment, because unfortunately there are cities

00:16:49.540 like New York City, cities like Philadelphia, some places in Oregon, even some cities in Texas

00:16:55.040 who are deciding not to arrest criminals for committing nonviolent crimes. So we're talking

00:17:02.800 about prostitution. We're talking about theft. We are talking about vandalism. They're saying,

00:17:09.260 you know, we're not going to arrest criminals for this because we don't want to overcrowd

00:17:12.760 the jails. We don't want to overcrowd the prison system. And so you're seeing, of course,

00:17:19.660 what you're going to see is people take advantage of that policy. And for whatever reason, these cities

00:17:24.260 are announcing these things. So you're going to see criminals taking advantage of those policies and

00:17:30.400 people are going to want to protect themselves. That's why people are lining up to make sure that

00:17:34.640 they have their guns, to make sure that they have all of the ammo that they need. And so we're seeing

00:17:39.740 the importance in all of these things that conservatives have been saying for a long time.

00:17:43.980 Hey, this is important. And not only the Second Amendment, not only free enterprise,

00:17:48.620 not only good health care, not only secure borders. We're also seeing the importance of

00:17:52.760 the family. Something else that progressives have been saying for a long time is just not important.

00:17:57.500 It's just not important. The family unit is not real. It's arbitrary. Really, it just takes a

00:18:03.740 village. It takes a community. It takes a city. It takes the state. It takes the public school

00:18:08.260 to raise your child. This idea of mom and dad and children being this cohesive family unit. It's

00:18:16.020 really not all that important. But what we're seeing is that those people who do have family

00:18:22.420 and who don't, maybe they're not married or don't have kids, but they have some kind of church

00:18:25.820 community. They have some kind of solid foundation. They've got a tight-knit community of people that

00:18:31.880 are providing for them and that are assuaging their loneliness, that those people are faring

00:18:39.340 better and will fare better. And that they are not battling on top of a pandemic loneliness and

00:18:47.280 isolation, unfortunately. And it's not just the left that has made us, or leftism that has made us

00:18:52.920 more isolated. It's also technology. It's also just hyper-individualism. That's how our country has

00:18:59.760 gone, unfortunately, as society has developed. But the importance of family, the importance of the

00:19:05.460 community, the importance of the church, all of that has really come out during this as well.

00:19:10.640 Another good thing to notice is that parents are having the opportunity to spend more time with

00:19:17.160 their children, maybe more time that they've spent with their children in a really long time.

00:19:22.080 And we talk a lot on this podcast about toxic mommy culture and how terrible toxic mommy culture is.

00:19:28.380 And it is terrible. And every time I talk about it, and if you don't know what I mean by toxic mommy

00:19:35.020 culture is the memes, the jokes, the videos, the pictures of talking about how your child is a brat,

00:19:41.220 how you don't like your child, how you are going to become an alcoholic because your children are home,

00:19:46.720 how you can't stand your children, you can't wait for them to go back, and how you just are so scared

00:19:52.520 and miserable thinking about your children, being at home with you for two weeks, or being at home

00:19:58.660 for the summer, or just talking about what a burden they are, how exhausting they are, and how you just

00:20:04.320 can't wait until they're out of the house so you can do the things that you want to do. That is toxic

00:20:08.360 mommy culture. And whenever I point it out, whenever I bring it up, I always get people who get very,

00:20:14.820 very defensive about it and who say, well, it's okay for moms to be annoyed. It's okay for moms to,

00:20:22.160 um, for, for moms to, you know, not always love every second of being with their kid or whatever.

00:20:29.240 And I think, I wonder if those people are purposely misinterpreting me or purposely

00:20:36.000 mishearing me because I have certainly never said that we are called to pretend that parenthood,

00:20:42.020 that motherhood is easy, that we are called to lie about our, uh, trials or that we are supposed

00:20:50.940 to pretend like we're perfect and that we have it all together all the time. And I only have one

00:20:56.760 child. I have never tried to give any kind of like motherhood advice that I don't have or pretend like

00:21:02.940 I know things about motherhood that I don't. All I'm saying is that from a Christian perspective,

00:21:07.540 we are called to do everything without grumbling or complaining, something that I feel at all the

00:21:11.760 time. And that we are also supposed to see our children as a blessing. We are also supposed to

00:21:16.980 work with joy and with diligence and with grace. And then, so if all of these things are true

00:21:21.460 from a biblical perspective, then this idea of constantly complaining about our children

00:21:25.980 for laughs or talking about being an alcoholic or saying that our children are a burden,

00:21:30.440 it's not godly. It's not glorifying. And even if you're not a Christian, just think about what

00:21:34.940 you're doing. You are exploiting your children, their possible misbehavior for laughs because they

00:21:43.200 can't read. Like you're exploiting their lack of development. You are, uh, using them to get

00:21:51.000 comments or likes or shares or laughs on social media because they are not to the age yet to where

00:21:56.500 they can read. And that's cruel. Like if you're sad that your kid is a bully, then maybe you shouldn't

00:22:03.000 be a bully. I don't know. I don't know. And we've got all of these very anxious children who struggle

00:22:10.220 with self-hatred and who struggle with acting out at school. And it's not, obviously that's not always

00:22:16.420 the parent's fault. I definitely, I got demerits and detention and all of that growing up. I'm not

00:22:21.580 saying that, but if that's a problem that we have in society, then I can just guarantee that the answer

00:22:27.300 is not us pretending like our children are just the worst human beings ever and that they are

00:22:32.700 inhibiting our lives. Um, I think it's really important for moms to be vulnerable and to be

00:22:38.640 transparent about the hard things that are going on and to say like, I don't know how to do this

00:22:43.580 transition. Again, like I'm not speaking from someone who is homeschooling right now, so I don't

00:22:48.820 know, but I see a lot of moms both in my family, like in my own life, my friends who have a lot more

00:22:56.180 kids than I do have a lot more strain on their lives than I do a lot more going on than I do

00:23:01.480 that show me a good, godly, joyful example of what it means to be a glorifying mom. And so I look at

00:23:10.520 that example and then I look at the example that the world gives, which is, oh my gosh,

00:23:14.500 I'm getting drunk throughout the day because my kids are so terrible and I hate spending time with

00:23:18.580 them. And I say, okay, yeah, I think that, I think that the godly example is the one that I'm probably

00:23:24.740 going to go with. It doesn't matter if you have kids or not, like you're able to see toxic mommy

00:23:29.260 culture. And just consider the fact that there are a lot of women out there, millions of women out

00:23:34.020 there who would give absolutely anything, absolutely anything to be in your position

00:23:40.300 right now, but who haven't been able to have kids. And I've said before, this whole thing,

00:23:45.720 this whole trend of beating up on your kids online, it contributes to abortion culture.

00:23:50.940 It contributes to the attitude among young people that kids are a burden, that kids are a hindrance,

00:23:56.040 that kids are not something that you want, that kids are something that you should actively

00:23:59.820 avoid. And if you actively get pregnant, that you should abort them. So if we are pro-life,

00:24:04.220 if we care about the family, if we care about children, if we care about life inside the womb,

00:24:08.220 we will do everything we can to yes, be honest about how hard parenting can be, but also be as

00:24:13.740 joyful and as grateful. Um, like I know that every stage is different. The newborn stages can be hard.

00:24:20.760 The, the toddler stage can be hard. The middle school age, the high school age, the adult kid age,

00:24:27.000 like every stage I have heard has its difficulties. Um, I just think that it's probably not helping

00:24:33.900 anything as someone who observes culture and who reads my Bible. It's probably not helping anything

00:24:38.800 for us to be beating up on our kids during this time. We're talking about being encouraging and

00:24:43.220 being kind and coming together and lifting everyone up in a pandemic. Oh, except for our children,

00:24:48.920 like them we should beat up on and exploit. I don't think so. I don't think so. It's not a good look.

00:24:55.180 It's not a good look. It's not as cuter, as funny as you think it is. So I just want to say that,

00:24:59.740 but I am hoping, I'm hoping that this teaches us the importance of spending time with our kids,

00:25:07.340 all of us, that we are getting to invest in our kids more. A lot of kids who, you know,

00:25:12.460 they're at school all day. And so they don't see their parents as much as they would like to.

00:25:17.080 Well, now we all get the opportunity to invest in them. We get maybe the opportunity to invest in

00:25:21.940 our spouses more. Something my husband and I have tried to do during this because we know that we've

00:25:28.380 been, we're spending so much more time together is apologize a lot more quickly. When one of us has

00:25:32.920 annoyed the other one, which is just inevitable. When you are in close quarters and you're spending

00:25:36.540 a ton of time together, you're going to annoy some, you know, the other one, you're going to get in

00:25:40.860 fights or whatever. We have really tried to practice apologizing more quickly rather than letting

00:25:46.820 things too, because we're like, okay, we're in this together. We're in this for a long time.

00:25:51.620 We're in this for the long haul here. We might as well reconcile and be nice to each other as quickly

00:25:57.920 as we possibly can. And so I think that there are good things that are coming out of this. Are there

00:26:02.540 terrible things? Yes. And we can be sad about that. We can be, you know, we can be concerned with

00:26:10.580 that and we should take every precaution, but we shouldn't forget to thank God for just being who

00:26:17.040 he is, obviously for sending his son, which makes him good no matter what happens, but also for the

00:26:22.720 blessings in this and to ask him for opportunities to see the good that's happening and to see the

00:26:28.860 good that we can do, to see the opportunities that he is putting before us. We will get through this

00:26:34.700 guys. I promise you that we will get through this. I mean, it really is amazing seeing

00:26:40.300 companies do the right thing, allowing their, uh, allowing their employees to work from home while

00:26:45.960 trying their best to keep productivity high. I know that's really hard if you're a business owner,

00:26:50.720 especially a small business owner that is definitely concerned. You're seeing people

00:26:55.000 donate their time, donate their money, continue to pay their employees, even though their employees

00:27:00.020 aren't working. There are people who are putting themselves out financially for the good of other

00:27:04.700 people. That is who America is. That is what has made America great since our

00:27:10.000 founding. Uh, there is a story about, and I'll have to look it up, but it just came to,

00:27:15.160 it came to mind. I've heard it so many times, but there's a story of a Chinese official several

00:27:19.420 decades ago, um, studying America and studying American culture and trying to go back and to

00:27:25.400 articulate to the Chinese government and to some of the Chinese people, what is different about

00:27:30.480 America? Why is America so successful? They don't have authoritarianism. They, uh, are free to do

00:27:38.240 what they want to do. How is it that they have created this cohesive society that has created

00:27:43.580 so much prosperity for so long? What is it about America that's different? And this official

00:27:49.680 concluded it's not the free market. Um, that's not what inherently makes America great. It's not

00:27:56.240 their constitution. It's not how they set up their government. It's not their schools. Uh, it's their

00:28:02.180 Christianity. It's their Christianity. It is our Christianity that makes America great. It is our

00:28:09.400 Christianity that has set America apart from every other nation. Have we been perfect? No, but every

00:28:15.320 good that we have done has gotten closer to our founding ideals, which is that every human being

00:28:21.000 is made in the image of God and therefore is equal in the eyes of God and is deserving of life,

00:28:27.180 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Every mistake that America has made, every civil rights

00:28:31.540 injustice, uh, every humanitarian sin that we have committed has been a stepping away from those

00:28:39.640 Christian ideals, not rather than a stepping into them. Every time we've stepped closer to our founding

00:28:45.500 ideals, we have done well. That is what made us, that has, that is what has made America great is

00:28:53.320 our Christianity is our love of neighbor, our willingness to lend a hand to the people around us,

00:29:00.360 our willingness to love our neighbor as ourself, to have values that are bigger than the government,

00:29:05.140 to not only look to the government to provide for us. Is there a place for the federal government?

00:29:10.240 Absolutely. I think we're seeing, uh, the place of the federal government right now, but absolute

00:29:15.340 dependency on the federal government, uh, has never been American style. It's been, okay, what can I do as

00:29:21.600 an individual to help the people that are around me, the people in my community, the people in my family,

00:29:26.240 the people in my church, and that is going to continue to be what makes America great. Like if

00:29:32.780 we can stick to that, America was only made for a religious and a moral people like freedom can not

00:29:39.220 exist in godlessness. It just can't, it can't exist in a moral relativism. We have to have some kind of

00:29:45.660 moral anchor that holds us down. It keeps us together. And maybe, maybe this is an opportunity

00:29:52.700 for a lot of people to find that it won't ever, it won't be everyone, but maybe it's an opportunity

00:29:59.920 for some people to remember that and to come together. I pray that that's true. Maybe this

00:30:05.420 whole thing, there is a lot more mercy in this tragedy than we originally thought Americans will

00:30:12.220 get through it. We've gotten through much harder, much harder guys. And there is something

00:30:18.360 in the American spirit that even, even the socialists in this country have. And that is,

00:30:26.340 um, that is a drive for freedom, a desire for freedom, a drive for prosperity and for the good

00:30:34.580 of our fellow man. And for the, um, the desire for liberty to be realized, not just in our country,

00:30:43.020 but, uh, in the world and that liberty that, uh, that has an outcome of prosperity for the people

00:30:51.780 who take hold of it. That is the desire of, uh, so many Americans that I do think can unite us.

00:30:58.720 So that's all I have to say. I hope that it was encouraging. We can get through this. We've got

00:31:04.000 this. Maybe it's not even going to be as bad as we thought. I pray that that's true. But even if it is,

00:31:09.640 I pray that there are lessons that we can draw from this that will make America better. And thank

00:31:13.820 God for president Trump. Thank, thank God for president Trump. Has it been perfect? No, but I

00:31:19.100 think that he has showed the leadership that we needed in this crisis. And I'm very, very thankful

00:31:24.320 for the grace of God that Hillary Clinton is not our president. Okay. That's it for today. I'll see

00:31:28.660 you guys back here on Monday. Have a good weekend at home with your families.

00:31:39.640 Bye.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - March 20, 2020

Ep 227 ｜ Good News!

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