Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 227 | Good News!

Episode Date: March 20, 2020

There are many blessings worth noticing in the midst of this pandemic chaos. We spend some time today highlighting them!

Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Friday. Hope everyone has had a good week in the comfort of their own homes. I'm in the comfort of my own home. I changed up my background a little bit. Tried to make it like a little bit fancier for you guys. If you are watching on YouTube, if you're listening to this and you don't subscribe to YouTube, please subscribe to my Allie Beth Stucky YouTube channel.

It would mean a whole lot to me. For all of the people who are not on social media or who don't listen to podcasts, they just either they don't know how or they just don't like to, YouTube is a really great way to share my stuff. Even though I have a lot more people that are listening than actually watching because this started on the listening side of it, it helps me a lot if you guys can share and if you guys can help my YouTube channel grow. That would mean a lot to me.

So it's Friday. I'm going to try to make this a fun episode, a more lighthearted episode or at least an encouraging episode because guys, if you haven't noticed, it's been a hard week. Like, our lives have really changed a lot in the past week or so. And I don't want to distract us necessarily from what's going on with the coronavirus because as I've said many times, it matters. It's serious and we should take it seriously. But I do want us to focus on a lot of the good things that are happening that we should be thankful for. Some of you are probably thinking, I don't know how long I'm going to be able to do this. Like, how long am I going to be

able to socially distance? How long am I going to be hold up in my house? Especially those of you, actually, I shouldn't even say especially because every different kind of person has it, has it hard in a particular way. If you are a mom and you've got lots of kids that are home from school, you are trying to figure out how to be a homeschool teacher, maybe for the first time. If you are a single person, you don't have the social life that you once did and you might be feeling isolated. If you are a work from home mom, you are trying to figure out how to balance your first job of being a mom with the responsibilities that you have at work. And so it's just all a huge adjustment for a lot of people. And then you've got older people who are in nursing homes who don't get visitors

anymore. You've got people in hospitals who don't give visitors. So all of us are, I don't want to say suffering that sounds kind of dramatic, but we are taking a hit in one way or another. But there's a lot to be said about how quickly the American people act and how seriously we take our responsibility to care for other people. And what we're seeing is that you've got a lot of Americans who feel that they have a vested interest in the well-being of the people around them. And it's really amazing to see strangers getting on the internet telling other strangers to care for people who are old, to care for people who are immunosuppressed. What we're seeing is that people have an innate drive towards compassion. Now, we've seen a lot of viral videos of people not caring at all. We've seen

the teenagers and the 20-somethings on their spring break trip saying, 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. But I think that that is a minority of people. I think that there are a lot of people, even if they think this whole thing is overblown, even if they think the media is jinning up hysteria, they are saying, okay, well, I'm at least going to do my part. I'm at the very least going to wash my hands more. I may not travel. I have people, I have friends that have canceled their wedding plans because it's just not feasible anymore for people to travel to where their wedding was going to be and sit huddled together and watch them get married. And so people are making very real sacrifices for the well-being of

other people. And as sad as it is, as hard as it is to watch, as curious as we are or as maybe as anxious as we are to see the results of shutting down huge parts of the economy, I also think that it's very heartwarming to see just how far Americans are willing to go. to sacrifice for the well-being of other people, or at least the hopeful, the hopeful well-being of other people. That's another thing. We don't know if all of these strategies are going to work, and I think that's a little bit scary

and makes us worry a little bit, but we are willing to go there and we are willing to sacrifice productivity. If you're a boss, by letting your employees work from home, you're willing to sacrifice your safety and convenience. If you're someone who, say, is delivering food to other people or you're working at a grocery store, you're a nurse or you're a doctor or you're a first responder,

you're willing to sacrifice your own health for the good of other people. If you are a working parent, you're willing to sacrifice maybe some money. You're willing to sacrifice your own time. You're willing to sacrifice your own convenience. And that is, that's another reason. I know I talk about this so much, but because it's so prevalent, this is why the entire self-love, trendy narcissism thing that we see that is so pervasive. in our society, especially among young people, this is when we see that it's just not a functioning

philosophy, not just in times of crisis, but in general, if you follow the rule, for example, that we see in trendy narcissism that you can't love other people before, or yeah, you can't love other people before you love yourself, well, then you're not going to be very helpful during times of a pandemic. You're not going to be the person that people call on. And quite frankly, if we all lived that way, if we all said, well, I'm just going to love myself and loving myself means doing whatever I want to and whatever feels good to me and not changing anything about my life or sacrificing my convenience, well, this thing would be a whole lot worse. But because there are so many people who say, I'm going to love people even when it's hard, I'm going to

love people even when it's inconvenient to me, there is a very good chance that we will bounce back from this better than ever. One awesome thing that I have seen happen that truly just warms my heart is that there are people on the left side of the aisle who a week ago we would have never said would ever give President Trump any sort of credit whatsoever. They are now coming out and saying, you know what, President Trump is doing a good job. So you've got Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, you've got Governor Gavin Newsom of, I almost said South Carolina, of California, two of the most liberal governors, maybe the most liberal governors in the nation. You've got Governor Inslee from Washington saying President Trump is doing a good job.

You've got Representative Ilhan Omar, Ilhan Frickin Omar coming out and saying, you know what, politics aside President Trump is doing the right thing right now. You've got Dana Bash on CNN who I think is she does a good job outside of this, but she made a comment. You know, right now President Trump is showing the leadership that a lot of Americans need to see. and I think that she's absolutely correct. Now, we can fairly critique some of the things that I don't even think it's President Trump, quite frankly, but some of the things that America has not done well, has not taken this seriously soon enough.

But President Trump suspended travel from China a long time ago back when people were saying that that was racist. So I don't think that it's, I don't think it's fair to pin it on President Trump, but there are things like, for example, the FDA shutting down private sectors being able to develop a effective testing for coronavirus, there are things like that that America can be blamed for. But all of the blame, the things that have gone wrong in America when it comes to coronavirus can be blamed on unnecessary regulations, on too much government, on bureaucracy doing what it does best and what bureaucracy does best is ineffectiveness, is inefficiency. But honestly, whether you're on the right or the left, one thing that we can be thankful for

is that we are seeing leadership from President Trump. Will there be people on Twitter who say that Trump has completely fumbled, that he has done a terrible job and that he is liable for the deaths of people? Yes, of course, you're going to see that you're going to see, unfortunately, journalists for the Washington Post and the New York Times say that we should follow China's lead. China, who literally, right now as we speak as Muslims and Christians in concentration camps, people that they are of which they are,

harvesting the organs of throwing people into gulags into prison for speaking about the communist party's failings and speaking about the seriousness of the coronavirus. It's also come out that China knew about the coronavirus back in November and December, but the Communist Party actually suppressed that information. And so for any journalist, of course, to come out and say that we should follow China's humanitarian leader, that this is, blood is on Trump's hands, not on China's and that it's racist to say that this came from China. They're just stupid. They're idiots.

Like, you can just ignore them. They've got some crazy thing going on in their heart and mind. They've been brainwashed by this postmodern idea that is very popular in academia that says that America is uniquely evil on the world stage and that every other country is somehow a victim of American imperialism and is therefore more virtuous than America. They believe that stupid intersectional. viewpoint and they can just be ignored. But we do. We do have people on the left side of the aisle that are standing up and saying President Trump is doing the right thing. He's doing a good job. This is the kind of

leadership that we want to see. I don't know. Is it too good to be true? Like is, are there motives under that? We've learned to be so cynical in this very tribalized world that we live in. Maybe so. But we can also take a step back and say, thank you. Like, thank you, Governor Cuomo. Newsom, Governor Inslee, Ilhan Omar, for being able to lay down politics for just a second and tell President Trump good job. Like if we could maybe do that more often, like lay down our arms and say thank you when someone does something well and start criticizing substantive policy decisions and things that actually deserve critiques on the right and the left. Instead of this constant barrage of personal, of personal attacks, that's repetitive, then I think that we could

actually heal as a nation. Like, I think that we could actually come together. So one positive thing to look for, one thing to hope for, one thing to pray for is that after this whole thing, maybe we'll be better than we've ever been. Now, again, it's easy to be cynical and say, know that's not going to happen because it's right before an election. And so it's going to go back to business as usual, people blaming Donald Trump, completely unfairly, throwing him under the bus for things that he's not responsible for. And yes, that very well might happen. It probably will happen. But if we can just come together for a little bit for like five minutes once we're out of this quarantine and out of the woods on this and say, okay, you know what? We got through this and we got

through this because of the grace of God and American resilience, then that would just be an amazing moment. Like, I think it's very, um, it's very, uh, good, I guess. It's very lucky that we will be hopefully coming out of this, like in baseball season, baseball. It's just so American. And if we can just all come together and watch a baseball game, either in person or at home and seeing the star-spangled banner together and just for a second, have a glimper. And just for a second, have a glimmer of the patriotism that we felt like after 9-11 for example then i think that that would be good for our individual souls and the collective american soul that has been disintegrating for a really long time large well really because of godlessness but also because of the just ugly partisanship that

exists in our nation now does the ugliness still exist in a lot of places yes you got a pundit who I think he works for MSNBC or he's always on MSNBC, wish that Melania Trump gets infected. He said that on social media, not even going to pay him the respect of sharing his name. And so, yes, there's a lot of ugliness, but there's also a lot of good that's happening, bipartisan appreciation coming together to do what hopefully is best for the American people. And there are also good lessons that I think that we are learning from this, that we have to take things seriously from the very beginning that the private sector is most often the most effective and the most efficient means by which we can obtain medical innovation like testing

that we need to make sure that we have this thing under control as soon as possible. We are learning the importance of secure borders. You're seeing that in Europe right now. Europe has been largely an open border mass for a very long time and now they're closing their borders because what we see is that people are not, it's just human nature. We are not satisfied. We're not content with. We're not okay with being citizens of the world. We want to make our world as small as possible and really as big as we are willing to go as far as what we are willing to absolutely defend is a nation. Like we're willing to defend a nation. We're

willing to defend our faith. We're willing to defend our family, our school, our community, our neighborhood, but we're not willing to really go past that. And even logistically, we can't. Like, we can't be world citizens. We can't have open borders. It doesn't make sense for safety. It doesn't make sense for health. It doesn't make sense for sovereignty. It doesn't make sense for any kind of security. It's not good for the well-being of any citizen of any country. And so being a nationalist or being someone who believes in secure borders at the very least, even if you see the benefits in global trade and globalism in different ways is not about racism. It's not about bigotry. It's a matter of security and compassion for the people who are in your country. And

Europe is learning that lesson right now. And America, well, a lot of us have known the importance of secure borders for a long time, but hopefully there are people in this nation who are also learning that lesson. The other lesson that we are learning is that we need good healthcare. We need quality health care. We need lots of doctors and lots of nurses and lots of well-staffed hospitals. We need the most advanced medical innovation in the world. Like I said, many times the world almost exclusively depends on America for medical innovation because we have a for-profit health care system. As I've explained many times, it presents problems, but the answer is not single-payer health care. We're seeing how single-payer healthcare works out in places like

China and Italy. Innovation, the private sector, even in places like South Korea, where there is universal health care, it has been the private sector that has come through and provided the procedures and the innovation that is needed to help combat this virus. And so what we are seeing as well, in addition to secure borders, in addition to the importance of the private sector and free enterprise, we're also seeing the importance of good advanced healthcare. Whether you are covered or not, you are going to be able to get access the health care that you need right now. As I've said, there are problems with their health care system. But thankfully, thankfully, we live in a country that has advanced health care. Are we still going to be presented with

obstacles? Is there still a possibility that hospitals are going to be overrun and overwhelms? Absolutely. But in a Medicare for all system, rural hospitals go down the two, hospitals become understaffed. You have to ration care even more than hospitals may already have to ration care right now. That's just how it goes. The profit margins are razor thin. So you've got to cut staff. You don't have the resources anymore to have the kind of, to have the kind of advancements, to have the kind of innovation that you do in a more for-profit private system. So we are seeing the importance in that. We're also seeing the importance in the Second Amendment because unfortunately there are cities like New York City, cities like Philadelphia, some places in Oregon,

even some cities in Texas who are deciding not to arrest criminals for committing nonviolent crimes. So we're talking about prostitution. We're talking about theft. We are talking about vandalism. They're saying, you know, we're not going to arrest criminals for this because we don't want to overcrowd the jails. We don't want to overcrowd the prison system. And so you're seeing, of course, what you're going to see is people take advantage of that policy. And for whatever reason, these cities are announcing these things. So you're going to see criminals taking advantage of those policies and people are going to want to protect themselves. That's why people are lining up to make sure that they have their guns, to make sure that they have all of the ammo that they need.

And so we're seeing the importance in all of these things that conservatives have been saying for a long time, hey, this is important. And not only the Second Amendment, not only free enterprise, not only good health care, not only secure borders, we're also seeing the importance of the family, something else that progressives have been saying for a long time is just not important. It's just not important. The family unit is not real, it's arbitrary,

really it just takes a village, it takes a community, it takes a city, it takes the state, takes the public school to raise your child, this idea of mom and dad and children being this cohesive family unit, it's really not all that important. But what we're seeing is that those people who do have family and who don't, maybe they're not married or don't have kids, but they have some kind of church community. They have some kind of solid foundation. They've got a tight-knit community of people that are providing for them and that are assuaging their loneliness.

That those people are faring better and will fare better. And that they are not battling on top of a pandemic loneliness and I. isolation, unfortunately, and it's not just the left that has made us, or leftism that has made us more isolated. It's also technology. It's also just hyper individualism. That's how our country has gone, unfortunately, as society has developed. But the importance of family, the importance of the community, the importance of the church, all of that has really come out during this as well. Another good thing to notice is that parents are having the opportunity to spend more time with their children, maybe more time that they've spent with their children in a really long time.

And we talk a lot on this podcast about toxic mommy culture and how terrible toxic mommy culture is. And it is terrible. And every time I talk about it, and if you don't know what I mean by toxic mommy culture is the memes, the jokes, the videos, the pictures, talking about how your child is a brat, how you don't like your child, how you are going to become an alcoholic because your children are home, how you can't stay at your children, you can't wait for them to go back, and how you just are so scared and miserable thinking about your children of being at home with you for two weeks or being at home for the summer or just talking about what a burden they are, how exhausting they are, and how you just can't wait until they're out of

the house so you can do the things that you want to do. That is toxic. mommy culture. And whenever I pointed out, whenever I bring it up, I always get people who get very, very defensive about it and who say, well, it's okay for moms to be annoyed. It's okay for moms to, um, for for moms to, you know, not always love every second of being with their kid or whatever. And I think, I wonder if those people are purposely misinterpreting me or purposely mishearing me because I have certainly never said that we are called to pretend that parenthood, that motherhood is easy, that we are called to lie about our trials or that we are supposed to pretend like we're perfect and that we have it all together all the time. And I only

have one child. I have never tried to give any kind of like motherhood advice that I don't have or pretend like I know things about motherhood that I don't. All I'm saying is that from a Christian perspective, we are called to do everything without grumbling or complaining, something that I feel at all the time, and that we are also supposed to see our children as a blessing. We are also supposed to work with joy and with diligence and with grace. And so if all of these things are true from a biblical perspective,

then this idea of constantly complaining about our children for laughs or talking about being an alcoholic or saying that our children are a burden, it's not godly it's not glorifying and even if you're not a christian just think about what you're doing you are exploiting your children their possible misbehavior for laughs because they can't read like you're exploiting their lack of development you are using them to get comments or likes or shares or laughs on social media because they are not to the age yet to where they can read and that's cruel. Like if you are sad that your kid is a bully, then maybe you shouldn't be a bully. I don't know. I don't know. And we've got all of these very anxious children who struggle with

self-hatred and who struggle with acting out at school. And it's not, obviously, that's not always the parents' fault. I definitely, I got demerits and detention and all of that growing up. I'm not saying that. But if that's a problem that we have in society, then I can just guarantee that the answer is not us pretending like our children are just the worst human beings ever and that they are inhibiting our lives. I think it's really important for moms to be vulnerable and to be transparent about the hard things that are going on and to say like, I don't know how to do this transition. Again, like I'm not speaking from someone who is homeschooling right now. So I don't know. But I see a lot of moms both in my family, like in my own life, my friends who have a lot more kids than I do,

have a lot more strain on their lives than I do, a lot more going on than I do, that show me a good godly, joyful example of what it means to be a glorifying mom. And so I look at that example and then I look at the example that the world gives, which is, oh my gosh, I'm getting drunk throughout the day because my kids are so terrible and I hate spending time with them. And I say, okay, yeah, I think that the godly example is the one that I'm probably going to go with. It doesn't matter if you have kids or not. Like you're able to see toxic mommy culture and just consider the fact that there are a lot of women out there, millions of women out there who would give absolutely anything, absolutely

anything to be in your position right now, but who haven't been able to have kids. And I've said before this whole thing, this whole trend of beating up on your kids online, it contributes to abortion culture. It contributes to the attitude among young people that kids are a burden, that kids are a hindrance, that kids are not something that you want, that kids are something that you should actively avoid and if you actively get pregnant,

that you should abort them. So if we are pro-life, if we care about the family, if we care about children, if we care about life inside the womb, we will do everything we can to, yes, be honest about how hard parenting can be, but also be as joyful and as grateful. I know that every stage is different.

The newborn stages can be hard. The toddler age can be hard. The middle school age, the high school age, the adult kid age. Every stage I have heard has its difficulties. I just think that it's probably not helping anything. As someone who observes culture and who reads my Bible, it's probably not helping anything for us to be beating up on our kids during this time. We're talking about being encouraging and being kind and coming together.

and lifting everyone up in a pandemic, except for our children? Like then we should beat up on and exploit? I don't think so. I don't think so. It's not a good look. It's not a good look. It's not as cute or as funny as you think it is.

So I just want to say that. But I'm hoping that this teaches us the importance of spending time with our kids, all of us, that we are getting to invest in our kids more. A lot of kids who, you know, they're at school all day and so they don't see their parents as much as they would like to. Well, now we all get the opportunity to invest in them. We get maybe the opportunity to invest in our spouses more.

Something my husband and I have tried to do during this because we know that we've been, we're spending so much more time together is apologize a lot more quickly. One of us has annoyed the other one, which is just inevitable. When you're in close quarters and you're spending a ton of time together, you're going to annoy some, you know, the other one, you're going to get in fights or whatever. we have really tried to practice apologizing more quickly rather than letting things too because we're like, okay, we're in this together, we're in this for a long time, we're in this for the long haul here, we might as well reconcile and be nice to each other as quickly as we possibly can.

And so I think that there are good things that are coming out of this. Are there terrible things? Yes. And we can be sad about that. We can be, you know, we can be concerned with that. we should take every precaution, but we shouldn't forget to thank God for just being who he is, obviously for sending his son, which makes him good no matter what happens, but also for the blessings in this and to ask him for opportunities to see the good that's happening and to see the good

that we can do, to see the opportunities that he is putting before us. We will get through this, guys. I promise you that we will get through this. I mean, it really is amazing seeing companies do the right thing, allowing their employees to work from home while trying their best to keep productivity high. I know that's really hard if you're a business owner, especially a small business owner that is definitely concerned. You're seeing people donate their time, donate their money, continue to pay their employees, even though their employees aren't working. There are people who are putting themselves out financially for the good of other people. That is who America is. That is what has made America great since our founding. There is a story about, and I'll have to look it up,

but it just came to mind. I've heard it so many times, but there's a story of a Chinese official several decades ago studying America and studying American culture and trying to go back and to articulate to the Chinese government and to some of the Chinese people. What is different about America? Why is America so successful? They don't have authoritarianism. They are, free to do what they want to do. How is it that they have created this cohesive society that has created so much prosperity for so long? What is it about America that's different? And this official concluded it's not the free market. That's not what inherently makes America great. It's not their constitution. It's not how they set up their government. It's not their schools. It's their

Christianity. It's their Christianity. It is our Christianity that makes America great. It is our Christianity that has set America apart from every other nation. Have we been perfect? No. But every good that we have done has gotten closer to our founding ideals, which is that every human being is made in the image of God and therefore is equal in the eyes of God and is deserving of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Every mistake that America has made, every civil rights in justice. Every humanitarian sin that we have committed has been a stepping away from those Christian ideals, not rather than a stepping into them. Every time we've stepped closer to our founding ideals, we have done well. That is what made is, that is what has made America great is our Christianity,

is our love of neighbor, our willingness to lend it hands to the people around us, our willingness to love our neighbor as ourselves, to have values that are bigger than the government, to not only look to the government to provide for us. Is there a place for the federal government? Absolutely. I think we're seeing the place of the federal government right now. But absolute dependency on the federal government has never been American style. It's been, okay, what can I do as an individual to help the people that are around me, the people in my community, the people in my family, the people in my church. And that is going to continue to be what makes America. America great, like if we can stick to that.

America was only made for a religious and immoral people. Like freedom cannot exist in godlessness. It just can't. It can't exist in a moral relativism. We have to have some kind of moral anchor that holds us down and keeps us together. And maybe, maybe this is an opportunity for a lot of people to find that. It won't ever, it won't be everyone, but maybe it's an opportunity for some people. to remember that and to come together.

I pray that that's true. Maybe this whole thing, there is a lot more mercy in this tragedy than we originally thought. Americans will get through it. We've gotten through much harder, much harder, guys. And there is something in the American spirit that even the socialist in this country have.

And that is a drive for freedom, a desire for freedom, a drive for prosperity, and for the good of our fellow man, and for the desire for liberty to be realized, not just in our country, but in the world, and that liberty that has an outcome of prosperity for the people who take hold of it. That is the desire of so many Americans that I do think can unite us. So that's all I have to say. I hope that it was encouraging. We can get through this.

We've got 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, I pray that there are lessons that we can draw from this that will make America better. And thank God for President Trump. Thank God for President Trump. Has it been perfect?

No. But I think that he has showed the leadership that we needed in this crisis. And I'm very, very thankful for the grace of God that Hillary Clinton is not our president. Okay. That's it for today. I'll see you guys back here on Monday. Have a good weekend at home with your families.