Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 644 | Missy’s Infuriating Experience Reading a Kids' Book in a Public Library with Kirk Cameron

Episode Date: March 8, 2023

Special guest Missy joins the guys to tell her shocking tale about what happened when she and Kirk Cameron tried to promote faith-based children’s books at a public library. Jase and Missy reveal some of the trials they’ve faced being part of the foster care system and how Christians can help protect the innocent.  In this episode: Matthew 18, verses 1-5; Luke 15, verses 4-7; 1 Peter 5, verse 8 "The Blind" hits theaters this fall. Get updates, trailers, behind-the-scenes moments, and special opportunities here: https://theblindmovie.com — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? You know what the number one thing I've heard in my life, Al, is? People say, you're smarter than you look. Are you okay? No, I'm really not. I feel terrible. I see how excited you are to have me here. Oh, he's so thrilled. Baby, you complete me.

I see that. I can feel it. Oh, love is in the air. I've been under the weather. And I'm not, it's not that I wasn't excited to see you. Oh, I'm excited to see you. That has never changed. Love is in the air on the unashamed set. No, for the core group of our listeners, we were doing bonus time.

In your time, it'll be four days from now. But in our time, it was about five minutes ago. And I was trying to think of a word. I was telling a story about Ms. and I being in Israel and how these people had gathered in the name of the Lord underneath the peak of a mountain in a cave where there was literally no civilization. And I was trying to think of the word of what they established. And then I heard a voice. I thought it was an angelic voice from heaven.

You didn't know. I saw her slip in. She's in my eye line, but you didn't know. You were locked into your thoughts. She just couldn't help it. She saw me struggling. She said, monastery. I didn't say it like that.

Holly, it's like I attacked you. Am I not your help meet? You are my helpmate, man. You complete me. Jerry McQuarr says Jerry. Oh, we are rolling. Oh, we're rolling. We have Zach, too.

This is it. Yeah, we're in it. I wouldn't miss it for the world, Jace. It's like a front row seat, Zach. The way these podcasts go, you know, the last podcast, it was just me, Phil, and Al. Yep, which is kind of the original, the original three. We needed some help. We did.

And now we have everybody show. We have everybody. We had the word of the day, Zach. When you're not on, we always add to Jason's vocabulary, which you did good, because you're not here to add the big words. What was the word? Diaspora. I thought it was an ailment that you contact in another world.

or perhaps something you apply to an ailment, but that was wrong. But then it's actually diaspora. I realized that, you know, I had been mispronouncing all these years. I called it diaspora, but deaspora, which of course is the scattering of people, which went back to the scattering of the Jews originally. We actually used it in the context, though. So Jesus's, we're adding to Jay's vocabulary. First Peter one, you know, he was writing the letter to those.

scattered. But I was having trouble getting that a restaurant and it slipped my mind. That should be the word of the day, but I can't remember that restaurant, that they scatter and they smother. I kept thinking of that. The restaurant that

they scatter and say what now? Waffle House, the waffle. They scatter and smother your food. That's the clues. Wow. They take your eggs. How do we not get that? I'd take it. So obvious.

It was so obvious, Jay. How did we miss that, Missy? I have no idea. Welcome to my world. Man, you haven't. I've only been there once, and I actually went there with Bubba Watson. That sounds about right. Yeah, we went to the Waffle House one night.

We showed. Boba has a strange culinary taste. He said, let's go shake this Waffle House up. So I got some eggs, and they said, do you want them scattered or smothered? and I said, yeah. I thought it was awesome. I never forgot it. I don't know what I'd say either.

Scattered and Spotted. I missy, welcome to Unashamed. Thank you. It's always good to have you back in the house. You slipped in like an angel. Provided that monastery for Jays. Well, I was gone for a while to Tennessee with my kids and new grandbaby and Maris. And so when I got home, some things had happened while I was there.

When I got home, I said, Jay, so I have something I like to talk about on the podcast. He didn't even ask me what it was. He was like, okay, yeah, let's let me call I album, you can come on. Like, you don't even know if it's worthy of discussing or has any validity whatsoever. He's like, yeah, I'm sure it's fine. We'll have you on. So here I am. So give us a family.

Well, he did say you complete him. He did say you complete him at the beginning. I figured, baby, whatever it was. If it's coming from you, it had to be good. So that was what I was trying to. Well, that's nice. I hope so. See, we always like having you own because, you know, all of our listeners know that Jay's tells a lot of stories on here.

We all know that, you know, they're not saying that they're not all completely truthful, but. They're based on a true story. Yeah, they're kind of like size. There's, you know, they're based. I could be wrong. Some of the details. Might have slipped my mind. Right.

And so we know, kind of like you're the truth, you know, you set things right. You know, that's why we like having you on the podcast. Well, so some of the stuff I'm going to tell you today, you're going to actually probably question that they're tree, but they are true. And thank you for calling me. I'm a truthful person because I saw some things that happened this past weekend that really scared me for our country and for my grandkids. But it just so happens that, you know, this book, my book that I wrote with Brave Books, because you're my family, when I pulled up my phone, my memories on my phone a year ago were me with your grandkids at my house.

Which we actually had you on the podcast and you wrote the book. Yes, yes. And the name of it is because you're my family. And so I didn't have, like Maris wasn't there. She's a tiny baby. and they don't live here. And so I asked, could I use y'all's grandkids to come over and they live right down the street and we have a relationship and they were just precious and we just did some marketing stuff

with them, played some games that are in the back of the book. And this is part of a series of books. Right, with Brave Books. And so they asked me to do this book. What is the theme of your book? The theme of my book. So it's like it's a series of books. And so the reason.

The reason that it's a tiger with two lion parents is because he's adopted. And that happens in a previous book. It's all kind of continual stories. And it's based on what's called Freedom Island. And Alex's kids loved the map. I mean, they were all over the map where you can find where each story setting is on the map. There's sword fighting. There's pirates.

There's just, it's really exciting adventurous stories. Grank is love books. They love to be read books. Well, this one is more on the sweet side, and it just fit, you know, our family perfectly and what we're doing as a family. We have a lot of adopted, you know, kids in our family, between all of us, the Robertsons. Then we also have children who are just kind of grafted in. We're the United Nations.

You know, from, we have all different skin colors, all different backgrounds, all different accent. So it was just really a good fit for our family for me to do this. And because it mirrors what the Lord has done for us. And it's about forgiveness and unconditional love. So I just love it so much. This book will never change no matter what happens in the storyline around it because the father's love never changes for us. And forgiveness will never not be there for us. And so I love it. Well, what I'm getting at is it's one year ago today. get tomorrow that this book is going to come out. Thank you. This was the anniversary. Happy anniversary, yes, yes. One other thing before you get to the other stuff, who are some of the other

authors? Yeah, because it's a really interesting lineup of people that have written books. They're kind of model. They take, they get people who are famous, right? Right. They co-author. With some famous people who actually already have a platform so that they can get this out. And it's based on conservative Christian traditional values. And they put it in such a fun, it's like non-controversial way when you read the books. They're just precious. They really are. So you could read these in like the public library, for instance.

Well, I'm saying it, because the spiritual qualities are subtle, right? Very subtle. In fact, the word God or Jesus, church, they're not in the body of the book. Now in some of the activities in the back, there are. And I said this on the first podcast about this book was that one of my friends' daughters is a teacher at a public school, and she was like, can I read it to my kids in my classroom? I was like, actually, you can because it doesn't talk about God. How sad we are to be in the state where if it doesn't talk about God, yes, you're free to read it to your children.

But it is godly principles and family principles. And so it's perfect for your teachers out there. But like after it's over because they made a lot, it was my favorite part of it. the book, they had a little cartoon character of you, which I thought was really cute. What's in there? I know. And then you would like, you know, throw some spiritual nuggets. Yes.

Yes. And some Bible verses. Here it is. So see, there's a little cartoon character of me. Yeah. But there's some little spiritual nuggets and activities and games in the back that kind of help you implement and help your children understand about forgiveness. Because forgiveness goes both ways.

As children, we have to forgive our parents, too. There's many times where I've asked my children for forgiveness. It's not just about our children just obeying us. It's about us as parents making the wrong decision and going back to them and saying, look, my bad, I should never have done that. And so forgiveness goes both ways. And the book addresses that, which I think is just amazing. You did use the scripture reference on the last point.

Yeah, it says First John four. Oh, yes. And an 11. About love. I was in First John last podcast. And this is love, not that we have loved God, but that God loved us and sent his son. to be a propitiation for our sins. If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Well, it's a pretty good message. Yes. It's easier said than done. Yes. But yes, that's the message. So anyway, one year ago, this came out, and another year anniversary was right as this book was coming out, we got the phone call about AK. So that's been a year of challenges, blessings.

Lots of different adjectives I could use there, but I'll, I will refrain. Yeah, but we're still in the process. I guess we've kind of, our role has changed a little bit. We're now kind of like the godparents or grandparents. I think we're more like grandparent figures to him. So we just saw him last night. He's doing amazing. Yes.

He is precious and perfectly healthy and happy and doing fantastic for everybody. who has prayed about this situation for the last year, thank you. It's been amazing. Keep praying because his story is not over. It's not finalized yet. Well, what we learn just through this process, these first two or three years of baby's life are way more important than I realize as they're developing.

I mean, they're in a safe, secure, loving environment. they're these moments are critical for a baby's development and growth as their brain is developing and so that's been our goal and it's it's been great i think too when you have your own children you don't really think about that as much you know you're raising your children in the way that you think is best and you know we were going to parenting classes at church and doing all that but it was a normal way to raise your children. Then a couple decades later, you're giving a baby dropped out of the sky. And all of a sudden, it takes on a whole new meaning of it's not just, this is not normal. So everything we were doing, we were rethinking, overthinking, overstressing, because one thing

to raise your own children, it's another thing to raise someone else's. Like, are we doing this right? and so that I think has been one of the biggest challenges. And then you realize, you know, you're being questioned, you're being judged, you're being, you know, like, why did you do it like this? Like, look, we're doing the best we can with somebody else's child. You know, we didn't ask to do this. And so I think that's been difficult. It's interesting because we've been studying first and second Peter in this stretch on the podcast.

And one of the key verses we studied was first, Peter 315, set apart Christ's Lord, always be prepared to give an answer for the hope that you have. You know, when someone says, do you have hope? And so you're prepared for that. But do this with gentleness and respect, you know, with a clear conscience. So it's interesting in a way that's exactly what happened to you guys. You think of that as someone asking you to share the gospel or tell me about that.

But sometimes it's like a real life situation that you're faced with to show hope. in another scenario in a way, and I never thought about that to this conversation. There are a lot of different ways to be prepared, you know, to give an answer for hope. I felt inadequate in this process. And to do it with gentleness and respect with the clear kind of you. You see what I'm saying? I mean, there are different ways to apply that passage. And I hadn't thought about that until this conversation, that it may be more than just an answer in a conversation.

It may be a life-changing situation. And just the fact of people even now questioning and the judging of what we did and the decisions that we made for the past year, like, I can promise you, like, we would have done things differently. We would have done things differently if we knew what we know now. Yeah. But going back, we have that clear conscience. That's right. For what we did know at the time, we took everything very seriously and made the best decisions and invited the people that we thought would help us. into our circle at that time.

Yeah. And so we have no regrets, of course. I think that's why that starts with set apart Christ is Lord. I mean, Christ is your Lord. That guides your principles. Well, our formula is we're going to do this for the Lord, because we believe everyone, obviously, is created in the image of God. Everyone deserves a chance.

Right. Life and to be safe and loved. And so, and then we were going to do what's best for him. Well, when you're, when he's not your physical DNA, you have different issues and programs and things that are trying to help that side of the equation. And you have competing interest is what you know. So there's a lot of decisions to be made. And obviously you need help.

And so we, you know, there's been some fabulous families that have helped us. And you become real close to these people. But you get attached to him and other families get attached to him. So at the drama level. Because people have expectations all of a sudden, you know. And you're dealing with something that's completely unknown. The road has, it's not a dead end. You just don't know where it's going to end or how it's going to end.

You're not sure really where you're going. So it's very difficult to just say we're going to do the best we can no matter what comes up. It's a difficult venture. of the things that to me is, as you talked about earlier, you said, and I know we'll get more into this discussion, it's one of the things that's one of the most unfair accusations to me against the pro-life folks, which we all are, is that, well, you people, you pro-life people, you only care about the birth, getting them here. You don't care about what happens. Well, they're not talking about me. Exactly. Well, I think that's what I'm saying. I mean, just watching you guys and being a part of

this over the last year. Look, it's such an unfair accusation because we do care. Yes. You know, I said that we were doing an interview. We were supposed to be about our show. And, uh,

but it turned into just this issue about kids and protected them. And because Missy the other day said she was listening to a secular, uh, show. These people are not even Christian base, but she was giving me some stats that like foster children are, is it 20 times a woman? Oh, hold on. Let me tell it right. Give us stats. This is why we like having it on the podcast, busy.

So I'm not a shame to say, this Dr. Laura, she's been around for a long time. She's very direct. She's a clinical psychologist. And I love listening to her. But when she talks about this, it helped me put into perspective about how hard we had to fight to keep AK safe. And that when I started questioning about how do I'm trying, I'm making other people angry or mad, I'm not, it's not my job. It's not my job to keep everybody happy.

My job is to keep him safe. And so she kind of validated some of the stuff, but some of the stats that she gave just Saturday on my drive home, Sunday on my drive home from Tennessee. She said, babies in foster care, children in foster care are 10 times more likely

to be sexually abused. And I thought, oh, we saved him from foster care. So that has, that has his likelihood of being sexually abused has dropped. So, but children who are raised by a single mother with a live-in partner are 20 times more likely to be sexually abused. And it's because of the different, it's not because of the mom, mom, it's because of the people that she allows in because they need help.

These single mothers need help and they're insecure about themselves. And so that's, that's the part that we're going to have to look, you know, helping, helping move forward is that aspect of it. And so then she also said the protection of, you have to think about the protection of the child over making the adult feel good about themselves. We're not doing that. We've got to protect the child at any and all costs. And when you do that, you make adults angry. Well, my point was she wasn't doing that to, you know, she was just giving those stats in the world. Yeah, that's just facts.

facts that we're trying to, you know, navigate. Of course, we want him to grow up and be an ambassador for the Lord and go to heaven. And so, but also these facts are staring you at the face in the face. So that's why you are protective. And, I mean, I've said many times throughout the past year, not on my watch. You know, just I feel responsible. I feel like God placed him in our care. And so we have to make difficult decisions about what's next in the process.

And which is what we need culturally is more people that feel that sort of responsibility towards all lives. Because those facts are lives. Those lives are then lives that affect other lives. And I go back to the church. The church needs to be responsible for this and not the government. And so that's how we asked you as an elder. We asked other elders to come over and to just really help us in this next, it's been a year, this next phase of his life and passing him on to a family that had been involved in his life,

you know, especially early on. And they have him now and we are able to see him regularly. I get to keep him this weekend, you know. So we're fulfilling that grandparent role. And hopefully we'll be able to do that for a long time in his life. That's the prayer. And that's what you, that's what we pray for and we expand that. And that's what the pro-life movement has to do. Yes. I mean, it's a, it's a fulfillment of, of protection of life. Yes.

A little text here, Matthew 18. At that time, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said, I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.

Pretty powerful stuff. And it's a great point, Dad, because that's another one of those issues that I hear people say. A lot of times on kind of the liberal theology side of Christianity. He said, well, you know, Jesus never really dealt with the life issue. I hear them say that because you don't read them. the word, abortion in the text. And I said, oh, no, he did. Just read that verse. Dad just read. Well, I'll take it further. Missy smiled at me because we were in, you know, you have a lot of meetings when you have this role and you have a kid that's not yours. And I guess on two or three

different occasions, I just said, I need to say something in the meeting. And of course, they were Zoom meetings. And I went through not just that first part of Matthew 18, because Matthew 18, because Matthew 18 has become really close to my heart during this. And I proposed something that I, to my knowledge, I never realized. You know, he goes on to say, whoever in verse 5 welcomes a little child like this, and my name welcomes me, which became our theme verse for this venture. But what I didn't notice about Matthew 18 is when he got down to verse 10, and this is where people get the idea that, you know, people have guardian angels or whatever.

And I'm not saying that's what he's saying, but it is an interesting verse when he says, see that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my father in heaven. And I do believe they have representation. God has always wanted to protect the innocent. and, you know, one of the things that in the proverbs where it says there's six things, the Lord detest, seven that he hates, or one of them is the shedding of innocent blood. But what's interesting is then Jesus uses this same parable that he used in Luke 15 about

why he was eating with tax collectors and sinners. But in this context, he actually uses it for protecting a little one or the innocent. and he says, what do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the 99 on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I'll tell you the truth, he is happier that one sheep, about that one sheep than about the 99 that did not wander off. In the same way, your father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.

and I had never realized I just, you know, when we got to, when I got to this parable, I just assumed, oh, he's going back to why he's eaten with tax collectors and sitters. But in this context, I found a lot of comfort in knowing that we're welcoming this child

in the name of the Lord, and we don't want him to wonder off or be lost in circumstances that he can't control because he can't do anything about it. Yeah. He's helpless. He's innocent. That God's concerned about him. That's exactly right. Let's take another break.

But I really, I don't know what y'all think, if you've ever even considered that to be the meaning of that, but it sure seems that that was the context. So in that line, I would, I'd like to tell y'all what happened this past weekend because it involves children and with my book. Yeah. So, because it makes me even more angry thinking about it.

Like that. I'm sorry, I'm angry about this. And I think it's going to, it's going to take Christians getting angry about this for us to actually stand up and do something about it, because it's our nature and what we're taught through the Bible to not be confrontational, not start fights, don't start factions and dissensions and be part of that. Which is true. But when we are faced with total untruths and what our children are being attacked with

in the public school systems and in the community, that's a reason why books like this, We have to get them to the families and families need to know about this. So what happened this weekend? And I'm just going to tell you I was not up to date on all of this. So I went in kind of blindsided about it. You're going to do an event for Brave books. So what happened a few weeks ago, Kirk Cameron came out with a book with Brave along the same series.

And it's called As You Grow. And it talks about some of the fruits of the spirit. love, joy, and gentleness is what he wrote with brave books. And it's about the sky tree and building your life and even going through bad things in your life, but learning how to deal with them with the fruits of the spirit, which is fantastic, fantastic book. Great illustrations. So he started doing a tour with libraries throughout the country, just reading his book for free, inviting people in the community. Public libraries.

Public libraries. Okay. And started getting canceled. And people started pushing back. Well, that just... Which I'd been hearing about this. I did not. I had heard about this a while back because basically he had...

There had been a few stories about this because he had called and, I mean, he had set up through the libraries to do a reading and they were canceling. And what drew attention to it was these same libraries were doing dragged. drag queen or transgender story hours, but wouldn't allow him to read his book. That's what drew my attention. About love, joy, and gentleness. Exactly. So I just want to mention that, that I had recognized that. I'm glad.

I knew about the story. There's more well-versed. Look how this closely parallels when Matthew wrote what he wrote in Matthew 19, little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands. on them and pray for them. But the disciples, the disciples of Jesus, rebuked those who brought the children. Jesus said, let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. I would not want to answer to God for hindering children to come here back. That's right. I would not want to answer for that.

It's amazing. That closely parallels. Yeah, it just went down where they're all. That's a good point. Yes. So they asked me to join Kirk and read my book and gave me a list of places where I would, you know, if I could go. Well, one of them was right around Nashville. And I said, actually, I'm going to be in the area

visiting with my new grandbaby and I'll be there for a few days. I would love to be a part of something like that. So drove to Hendersonville from our farm in Tennessee on Saturday morning. And they asked me to be there early because they wanted to go through security. measures and all that. And I thought, hmm, it's a little strange. I was in public library, but okay. So asked me to be there at 9 a.m. that the event started at 1030. And I thought that was a little early, but I obliged, got there about 845, cold, rainy day. And it had been beautiful the

whole week before, like in the 70s and 80s, beautiful in Tennessee. So I thought there's not going to be a big turnout for this, sadly. I was wrong. I pulled up at 845 and there was a line all the way out in front of the library. People are standing under umbrellas in their raincoats holding their children. And y'all had another guest there too. Yes. So also Bethany Hamilton, if you'll remember her from the movie Soul Surfer, her arm was bitten off by a shark.

She still surfs to this day and competes. But she wrote a book also called Surfing Through Fear. And it's another book with Brave and it's about overcoming your fear through adversity. So it was going to be Kirk's book, my book, and Bethany's book. Bethany is in Hawaii. So she asked her friend who lives in the community of Hendersonville, Riley Gaines, to read her book for her. And tell us who Riley is. Okay.

So Riley Gaines, if you know her from the news, she was an NCAA star athlete who excelled the sport of swimming, but was beat out by Leah Thomas, who is a biological man. Oh, yeah. Okay. So she was there, and Bethany asked her to read her book because she lives five minutes from the Hendersonville Librates where she grew up. So I got to meet Riley. She is precious.

I love her. Yeah, I've seen her do some interviews. Yeah, so she said, I'm so glad to meet y'all. She said, my husband is English and grew up, not, you know, the whole hunting thing is foreign to him because they're not allowed to hunt. in England, and he found Duck Dynasty and just loves it and is in all of the freedoms that we all have in America, all this stuff, big fan. It was funny when you tell me.

She's like, she asked, I mean, he asked his wife, he's like, I mean, they do that there? Just from Duck Dynasty. Yeah. Except he called it Duck Dynasty. Yeah. So she was like, he's coming up here because he wants to meet you. So he's super nice guy. So precious couple.

So they're there, and the lines are forming. The lines are forming, the lines are forming outside. And so what happens is, and I'm not going to go through all of this, but what they started doing was they put out the American flag is outside of all these public libraries. Everyone gathers around hundreds by this point of people. And that we do the, we put our hand over our heart, say the Pledge of Allegiance and sing the Star-Spangled banner, and then we all sang God bless America. And Kirk kind of goes through the foundation of our.

country and the monuments about, I'm not going to get all this right. So look that up because I think he did a whole movie called Monumental. And it's about the monument that founded this country. And I learned a lot by listening to him. And he had a bullhorn shouting through the rain and hundreds of people standing in front of this library. So he said the library is about to open up in about five minutes. You're going to be able to get in and get warm. We're only going to have to get a few hundred people in a conference room at a time. But we're going to get y'all in through the. these different readings. So just be patient with us. So we go in to do some videos, marketing videos for Brave about, you know, use certain codes and you get a percentage off and things like that.

And they had to set up in this beautiful library part. You can see the depth of the library behind us. Multi-level, gorgeous library. And so Kirk and I are standing there and we're trying to do these little promo videos and there's just a lot of noise happening. And I look at one of the brave team, and I was like, I'm talking, I just stop. And I was like, we're going to, that's never, you're never going to run this because of all the noise. Can you ask them to hold their voices down? And they're like, oh, yeah, yeah. So they walk over there, ask them to hold their voices down.

So we start over. We start talking again. So are these people in the library? The library staff. The library's not open yet. Okay. All the people are standing outside, all the attendees. The staff is behind the desk.

All right. Hold on a second. Let's take a break. So the staff is behind the desk. So I look at the Brave Team member again. And I said, I don't think they're getting the concept of like, don't talk while we're doing these videos. So they walk over there again. And I have no clue at this point what's going on.

I just think, you know, we do a lot of reality TV. We're not on a set. People just forget. We're in their space. You know, they forget sometimes to keep their voices down. So we're asking them a favor. So at this point, there's not. They're slamming books together.

They're kicking cabinets. They're clapped. They're hollering out loud. And I was like, you say playing loud music. That's common. But I mean, I haven't done that yet.

Well, a guy in the background walks down and one of the brave team members says, hey, can you ask your staff to hold it down? And this guy yells, hey, you're not supposed to be here anyway. And Kirk fires back and says, yes, we are supposed to be here. and at that moment I thought, what, what, what's going on here?

Like, there's a little, there's a little tension for some reason. And I just, again, I wasn't aware of all the things leading up to actually being there that morning. There had been a lot of pushback. And so we took a break and I got kind of up to speed. And the deal was when Kirk, when they, when they scheduled to have this function at the library, there was so much outpouring great response from the community that the guy that was running the library could not believe. He was like, whoever y'all are, y'all must be great,

because this is the most response we've ever had from a public event like this. This is going to be awesome. Whoever this Kurt Cameron guy is. He didn't know who y'all were. So Brave corrected him for my understanding. Well, he finds out who Kirk Cameron is, and that's when the pushback began. From them.

And he started a campaign in the community to shut it down without officially canceling it because then he knew that wouldn't be good for their library. So what happened in the next few minutes really showed them they were trying to disrupt what was happening. And so we couldn't get our marketing videos done. And Riley, bless her heart, hers was next and I stood in there with her. Kirk left. I realized, you know how they'd say when you come into trauma, you either you're either fight, your flight or your freeze. We had one of each.

Kirk walked out. I froze and Riley took them on. And I thought, what is happening? They started blaring music from behind the desk. And she just was like, this is ridiculous. So she stopped, walked over there and said, can y'all please just turn this music down? We're just asking you for 60 seconds. If you'll just give us 60 seconds, if you can turn that music off and the lady said, well, I just, I'm not one that can make that decision. I don't have that authority to turn the music off. I was like, no one's in the lot. It's not even open. And so that's when I turned my camera. She said, oh, and then she said, we're just trying to look for things to deal with our stress. What stress? It's not even open yet. We're just standing there with a camera doing a

marketing video. That's when I turned my phone on. I started recording. I was like, this is, this is blatant and ridiculous. So for the next 60 seconds or so, we tried to push through Riley's video and they were hollering and laughing and banging books and really disrupting. and she walked over and just kind of took them on. And I have the video and I've asked her, she said, please send it to me because I want to use it too. Because I thought, this is what it's going to take. I froze.

Later, I'm always the one that thinks, oh, later, I should have said, you know, stress doesn't, it just requires kindness. If you would just be kind, it would eliminate your stress. Jesus was all about kindness and love. And I started going over things in my mind like, I should have said. But that's what I do. Riley walked right over there and did it. This is the verse that came to mine. And I know y'all have been in First Peter and Second Peter, but First Peter, in First Peter 5, 8, be self-controlled and alert.

Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring line, looking for someone to devour. That is the verse that came to my mind because even though I have a lion in our book, and the Lord refers about the strength of lions. But he's also, Peter's talking about the devil right here and about how he prows and how he is ruthless and, well. They're driven to shed innocent blood. They're sneaky. I mean, he's sneaky. Yeah, yeah, because if there is anybody that can be a prey and be more vulnerable than a child, there is not. That's right.

And so they're trying to take children out and their families at public libraries. Are you kidding? And that's because they don't want them to hear about the unconditional love and forgiveness of family that those are taught by us and written on our heart by the one who created us and loves us more than anything else in the world. And then how to relay that with fruits of the spirit. And then how to overcome your fear to achieve your goals and to become what God wants you to be. they're thwarting those messages.

Yeah, it's pretty amazing that they were, what they're protesting. I mean, you're there to help kids and put God-like qualities. Let's take another break. Here's my take. At least, at least be, you're supposedly a public square, at least be fair for both sides. In other words, okay, so you're open to the other side, whether it's the drag queen or the whatever, the trans books. So they're free to come. share in this space.

So why is, can't you at least be fair that the other side would have an opportunity? Well, especially when you invited them. That's what I'm saying. Their answer is no. No. In other words, your side can't speak here. The other side can. Even though we invited you.

Even though you've been invited. We've done some research. Yeah. We don't like your wholesome values. We can't un-invite you because that would make us look bad. It's kind of what's going on. You're right. then the whole culture, the whole nation, it's like the idea is in these supposedly public squares,

your side can't speak. Yeah. You know, it's you can't speak. It's really an attack on freedom of speech. On freedom of speech. That's what it is. Conversations. Because this should at least be a free speech issue.

I mean, like we all is taking the heart because like you said that, it really is about much more than that. But at the very, at just a cultural level, that was a huge attack on free speech. Depravity is a dangerous thing. So a couple of things that really hit me. At first, I was just kind of shocked because I was like deer in the headlights. I didn't know that they had battled this beforehand. And so I was just kind of taking it all in.

I was impressed with Riley going ahead and taking them on, but in a kind way. She just called him out. She's like, this is ridiculous. Like, y'all are acting like children. And we're just asking you to act like an adult. And let us finish this. Give us 60 seconds. We'll be out of your hair.

Because they had us move to a conference room to do our reading. And I could only be there for the first round. They had two rounds scheduled, and I could only be there for the first one. But when I left to pull out of the parking lot, there were hundreds more people down the sidewalk, down the street, hold in the rain, holding their children, waiting to get in. Some of them never got in because we just ran out of time. But a thought that I had was not only were they rude to us. you know, okay, they don't like our values. They're going to be rude to the three or four people that are there with the cameras.

They were super rude to their entire community that live there in Hendersonville, Tennessee, because that is a public library, and they could have invited all of those people that were standing out in the rain to come and form lines inside the library, down the aisles, sit on the ground. And we weren't even reading in the library part. We were down the hall in a conference room. They wouldn't let them in. They made them stand outside in the freezing cold with their children in the rain. At a library.

Total rudeness to me. And this is not in California or New York City. This is in Nashville. People are moving to Nashville or in the surrounding areas to get away from this stuff. So this to me, it scares me even more, knowing that it's not just happening in, quote, liberal areas. they're coming for your kids. They're coming. Yep.

That's exactly right. Which is scary. They're coming for my grandkids. My grandkids live there. Right. They're coming. And we have to do our due diligence and protect them just as hard as we protect. We protected AK this past year.

We've got to look at our kids and our grandkids and protect them just as hard from the dangers of this world. And it makes you wonder, Missy, because, I mean, I don't know if that was a decision. vision made by is that, I mean, who these people were that run that? Is that, was that some sort of paid by the city? It's a public library. I know. And it makes me wonder, because it seemed like that they were doing that together as a group. I mean, they were all participating. So you, well, and something else too that kind of stuck out, which maybe I shouldn't say this, but I'm angry. They wouldn't come out and do it to our face. They were hiding around the corner. I never saw, I never saw most of their faces. They're hiding around the corner and doing it to where they can't be seen, but they're still disrupting.

Like, if you have a problem with this, let's come out and let's talk about it. But in this case, I mean, it was even down to a local level. Local level. Which makes me wonder, you just wonder, I don't know, who knows, if that was just one person making a decision, and they're all just kind of going along with it. There was a lot of noise. I mean, but that was a, I mean, fundamentally at a, I mean, the Constitution says we have a First Amendment right to free speech, and that was violated. No doubt about it. No doubt.

Under that circumstance. So outside of our just right to be able to, you know, you're right. Well, I'm going to tell you this. On the flip side of this, okay, so we've talked about the negative. I'm going to talk about the positive because Kirk read his book. Super fun. He's jumping up and down, pointing to illustrations on the screen. They're loving Kirk. I get up after it and read because you're my family. I have a hard time reading my book without crying. I'm just going to be honest. is an amazing story of unconditional love and forgiveness. And when you mirror it with the father and with what Jesus did for you, it's hard for me not to get emotional. And of course, with my own children. Well, I look out in the audience, mothers and fathers are also crying. And I was like, I'm so glad I'm listening to you cry because I have a hard time not crying reading this book, because it's so precious. And the kids love it, but the parents love it too because I would call out like, you know, when our children run and hide from us because they are afraid of getting in

trouble, we do the same thing with our father in heaven because we don't want to disappoint him because we're ashamed. We run and we hide. But he is there every time with his arms open, welcoming us back because of his unconditional love for us. Is he disappointed? Yes. But that will never stop him from loving us. And that's the premise of this book. So I look out and I see the adults, they're teary-eyed and I just go into Jesus. I just go into talking about what Jesus did for us and how no matter what we do, his blood can cover all of that. And if we are in Jesus, we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us. That's what makes us powerful. That's where we get our strength. We have God walking around in our bodies with us all of the time if we're in Him. So it was a wonderful

way to be able to share the message of Jesus. And then Riley got up and read Bethany's book about overcoming fear. And the kids just get all excited about that. You're talking about somebody who doesn't have an arm can still win competitions. And the Constitution of the United States fully says without any kind of freedom to practice your religion. Which you guys did. Anywhere. Which was good because the people, so the people out there outside, they loved it. They never knew anything. that other stuff. They never knew what happened. They're going to know now because we want to tell them.

And the reason, this is the reason, not because we're, we want to start some fight. They've already started it. We need to, we need to make sure that our voices are as loud or louder than theirs. Because it was a very few of those people in the library compared to hundreds, and I'm trying not to exaggerate, but it could have been thousands that came that day. And those are the ones that want. the best for their children in terms of what the Lord has written on their hearts to give them and just takes a few loud, obnoxious, immoral people to try to put a damper on that and

stop it. And we just can't let it happen for the sake of our children. We have to stand up. So that's the reason I said, I want to come on the podcast and share this because Kirk has more on his tour. He's still going to go around the country and do some of these readings. Go. look it up. Look at, I'm going to, when I get, I've asked them to give me his schedule so that I can post it on my social media. If you're in the area, go to these. Stand up and just listen about the fruits of the spirit and how to be sweeter and kinder and use more gentleness and goodness and faithfulness and self-control. You know, use those godly principles to raise your family and to live out your life for you.

Well, look, and you're right, because it says something when there's lines around the block. wanting to come and hear books like this as opposed to those other events. I'm telling you. With the sick, disgusting things that happen. And those are usually behind the parents' backs, by the way. Right. Which is not cool either. That's exactly right.

So technically I was right the whole time. What? When you said, I want to be on the podcast and I said, yeah, come on, I'm sure it'll be good. And you said, you don't want to hear it? I was like, no, I'm positive. It'll be good. So I was right. That's fantastic.

So the premise of this podcast is Jace was right. Jay's was right. Just waiting on the magic three words that we can move on. If only had been wearing a shirt that said, I could be wrong. Not today. Because dad says, on the back of that shirt, it says, but I was probably right. And then what you say? On the back of the shirt, but I was probably right.

I was just bringing up a little humorous moment. Can I say go to bravebooks.com? You can. Go to bravebooks.com. And I think they're having some promos. And I think if you put in duck wife, you can get like 20% off. Is that your nickname? That's one of them.

Maybe I feel proud. I'm a duck wife. She's a duck wife. Put in Missy for another 20% off too. But look on there. And you can start this whole series with your family. What's your social so they can find Kirkstein on there? Missy Duckwife.

Missy Duckwife. On Instagram. Don't go to mine. I'm still currently. being hacked. Don't buy any computers from Jay's. And don't buy... They're hacking on you, Jays.

They're hacking on you. Jace is hacking and someone is hacked Jays. So there's both of that's going on right now. So, all right. We'll see you next time on Unashamed. We're going to have an overtime. I have no idea what we're going to do. But if you want to follow us over,

there's blazeev.com slash Unashame. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by rating us on iTunes. And don't miss an episode by subscribing on YouTube and be sure to click that little bell to get notified about new episodes. And for even more content that you won't get anywhere else, subscribe to blazed TV at blazediv.com slash unashamed.