Best of the Program | Guests: Granger Smith & Kristen Waggoner | 8/25/23

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We start the show, I think, with a moment of confusion, maybe just between Stu and I, and a moment of real clarity at the end of the podcast.

But I started with, you know, what's happening in Maui and how horrible this is, and and how people who did not listen to the government were more likely to survive.

And we're missing that point.

And I gave an example of a prescription drug ad that I just heard on the air the other day.

And I thought, my gosh, listen to this.

Listen to how many disclaimers the government forces.

This drug, which has a great record, it's relatively new, but it's been tested for probably a decade

and then continuing study after study after study has had all kinds of great results look at what you know your your your baby might turn into a dog

consult your doctor before taking it and the all the things that they have to put in and then they didn't they weren't required to do that

for the vaccine or the new vaccine that's coming.

It's just take it, it's good for you.

And if you ask what are the side effects, you're a conspiracy theorist.

No,

don't tell me what to do until you're living by your own rules.

And that's another thing we talk about, what happened with Donald Trump.

This is a story that I think most people would say would never, ever happen.

And half the country is thrilled about it.

The booking of Donald Trump.

The other half is not.

What's the real story behind that?

And

a story like a river.

One that you will hear at the end of the podcast that you will never ever forget.

Don't miss a second of it.

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You're listening to the Best of the Blenbeck program.

So I want to pick up a story that we spoke about on this program in 2022, so last year.

And it's a story about

a member of parliament,

and

they quoted the Bible.

And

that's their right to, quote, peacefully share her deeply held beliefs.

But she was charged with hatred.

And

they are now in Europe.

doing everything they can to silence this

person.

And this is not a radical.

This is just somebody who just decided to quote the Bible.

They already went through one trial, and now they're trying her again because the first trial didn't work out.

I don't know how the laws work over there, but hopefully,

well, I guess we have Donald Trump to prove maybe otherwise.

Hopefully this doesn't catch on here.

We have Kristen Wagner.

She's Alliance Defending Freedoms CEO and the president, and she is helping to

correct this problem.

Can you fill us in on the things that I'm missing here?

Sure.

Well, it's quite a story.

I think one that would shock most Americans.

Paivy Rossiman is a mother of five.

She's a Finnish member of parliament and has been for over 25 years.

She served as the chair of her party.

She's been the minister of the interior in Finland.

And she was just recently re-elected to her post as an MP.

She's also a medical doctor and a pastor's wife.

Quite the combination.

But Pai V has been involved in public life for over 25 years, and when her church denomination in Finland

said that they were going to be supporting and partnering on the Gay Pride Parade, she sent out a tweet in 2019 objecting to that and also including a Bible verse related to it.

As a result, the Finnish authorities launched a full-bore investigation, a phishing expedition into all of her public statements in the past

and used those statements.

There were essentially three that just simply articulate her faith to charge her with three hate crimes, which actually can include prison time, up to two years of prison time.

She won.

We're able to serve on the legal team, ADF International.

And she won her trial, but unlike in the United States, when you win a criminal trial in Finland, the prosecutor can appeal that.

And so she faces trial again next week at the Court of Appeals.

So how clear was it on the last win?

I mean, was it...

It was unanimous.

It doesn't get any clearer than a unanimous ruling.

And what do we know about this next group of judges or however the system works over there?

Well, the European Court of Human Rights is the ultimate court, but we're in the Finnish courts right now.

We're optimistic that she should win.

The law supports her.

The European Convention of Human Rights, which is essentially the law that governs European countries, Article 9 and 10 guarantees the right of our ability to practice our faith and to speak freely as a fundamental human right.

And so the law is certainly on our side.

But we're seeing European countries pass these vague hate speech laws to try to trump those laws, and then we see state governments try to use them and weaponize them when they have people saying things that they think oppose the state orthodoxy.

So are people, the people of Finland, with her, agnostic, against her?

The people are with her.

I mean, she was just re-elected this year.

Wow, during all of this.

Yes.

And Glenn, I would just emphasize for your readers, you know, many of the constitutions and governing documents around the world have protections in them for our right to practice our faith and to speak freely, but they're not worth the paper they're written on if we have an apathetic citizen read.

Correct.

The words in our First Amendment, there are no magic words to that.

It's about the citizens' intent to require the government to adhere to those rights.

And if they don't, if we don't stand up and use the system that we were given,

then we lose those rights.

If we just say, ah, that's what's so concerning to me about Donald Trump's arrest and arrest of all of these attorneys and everyone else for questioning.

And, you know, we'll look at all of the facts, but it appears as though it's the questioning of

the

election that is causing so much trouble.

And if it can't get you one way, we'll get you another way.

It is really becoming a dangerous trend.

And I hope people begin to wake up.

Are people waking up at all in Finland on

this?

I do think they are.

We're hopeful that they are.

The fact that it's going up to the Court of Appeals is concerning and that the prosecutor even argued that Pive shouldn't have a right to even really participate in her defense, that the Court of Appeals didn't need to hear from her

was concerning.

I mean, the Bible was put on trial in this case.

The human right to freedom of religion is, you know, facing direct assault.

Even at the trial itself, as our attorney was there, was just stunned that the prosecutor opened by saying, this is not about the Bible, it's not about Christianity, and then began to read passages that the prosecutor disliked, questioned the defendants.

It's not just Pivey, it's also a bishop who is on trial, who helped her publish a pamphlet in 2004 on the biblical meaning of marriage.

And even in that in that instance, she's questioning the bishop's theology and his hermeneutical approach to the Bible.

It's just stunning what they are getting away with.

And we're seeing

other instances in Mexico.

We are representing civil society leaders and former congressmen who have been convicted of essentially what's considered violence by speaking out against transgender ideology.

And we have been representing people in the UK who are silenced outside of abortion clinics because of a thought crime.

They can't even silently pray.

So, again, I would just say this trend at ADF, we're an international organization, so we're seeing a global censorship trend.

And the United States is not immune to it, although we did just win a phenomenal free speech victory in 303 Creative.

But we have to be vigilant.

ADFlegal.org is the web address, and

we have been friends with this organization for a very long time.

They do

the yeoman's work here in protecting the Constitution and all of our rights, especially those that we disagree with.

Not just the ones we agree with, but the ones we disagree with.

All people have a right.

to their self-expression

and

the Bible being labeled hate speech is a little disturbing.

Should be a wake-up call.

Help them in this fight, adflegal.org, adflegal.core.

Thank you so much, Kirsten.

I appreciate it.

Well, thank you for all you're doing as well.

You bet.

Bye-bye.

You know, there's a

we are getting close to, I don't know what, but

I pray that you will pray and fast and pray for peace in our country.

What happened yesterday with Donald Trump is just absolutely shocking.

Absolutely shocking.

And

I just fear there are people on both sides of the aisle that don't have good intent.

You know, there are people that are truly working against the Constitution.

We know that on the left.

But there are those people that are working on the right to do the same thing.

And most people, this is the one thing that I liked about Vivek.

And I hope he's, if he's not the presidential candidate, I hope he becomes a vice presidential candidate.

I hope he

has a very long career because he is speaking the words that Ronald Reagan spoke to the youth at the time like me.

And that really helped me

solidify my love for this country and its history.

That's what we need in this country.

Vivek is doing that right now

because it's not just going to be us.

We have got to get the younger generation.

And there are people that are saying the Constitution is old, outdated on the right, that it is time for, you know, maybe a dramatic change and change life in America forever and go back to

pre-enlightenment kind of thinking.

And it is a little terrifying to see it.

But the youth will not be able to defend it

if they don't have that love for America and they don't have that love for America.

We have to instill that in them.

Pray for the nation

because

there are very powerful forces that are trying to stop freedom of speech, freedom of thought.

Get involved, please.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

So I'm just looking at this story.

And, you know, just like we found out when they were going after Donald Trump.

And they were saying Donald Trump needs to be impeached because he had an inappropriate phone call with Ukraine.

We knew, because we had done our homework here, that no, what they're accusing him of, they were doing.

And now that is coming out.

We know now that there wasn't, it was a Hillary Clinton campaign that did the Russia gate.

Then it was the fear of Biden being exposed that they went after

Donald Trump.

Now,

it's because of election interference and trying to change

the will of the people and stay in power.

That's what they're charging him with.

They're charging him with a conspiracy to overturn a lawful election.

Well, I think this is happening because, A, they just have unbridled hatred for this man.

They want him destroyed.

On another level, they want to split America apart.

They are trying to balkanize us and make sure that we hate each other and there's no way we'll ever talk to each other.

So that's another reason for doing it.

But I really truly believe because we exposed the Democratic plan run by ⁇ Oh, I can see his face.

He was with Hillary Clinton for a while.

Anyway, I'll look it up and we'll share it with you.

We did a special or two right before the election on what the Democrats had done by bringing in a think tank

and thinking through what happens if Trump wins.

What happens if it's close?

What happens if we win?

And

the half of it was all about the chaos they would cause on the streets,

what they would do to put Trump, if it was close, in a position to where he had to deal.

Otherwise, they would get California and what was it, Oregon, and said those need to be broken up into four states, and we want Washington, D.C.

as a state.

Otherwise, the chaos would continue.

All of this is written down, and it is with big, big names that were openly involved in this.

I pointed it out.

Everybody said,

But you notice all of the burning down of cities stopped after the election.

You notice that?

It just all went away.

In this documentation, it alludes to the fact that they have the players on the ground to cause the chaos.

Hmm.

So, what are they doing?

They're persecuting a man for not doing

what

were doing,

but

actually standing up and saying, wait a minute, this isn't right.

There's something wrong here and questioning.

Now, his attorneys made questionable claims, et cetera, et cetera.

However, he's now been indicted and charged him and other associates, his attorneys, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman, Sidney Powell.

They're all being charged with

criminal intent and conspiracy to overthrow the election.

Really?

Never seen that before in my life.

That's not what happened.

Now,

they also added to that list Mark Meadows

and saying that

Mark Meadows asking a colleague for a phone number

for an official in Pennsylvania is an overt action in furtherance of a conspiracy.

So Mark Meadows is also being indicted and in jail or would have to go to jail.

I mean, when does this stop?

When does this become clear?

to the American people what exactly is going on here.

By the way, the da fanny willis her campaign director has locked twitter after her anti-trump posts were uh exposed she uh has made many anti-trump posts she has an affiliation a direct affiliation with the biden campaign um

i mean is it possible that there is a political iron.

Oh, by the way, something else.

I don't know if this is a problem.

But she's now been hit with a congressional investigation over the indictment because

four days before the indictment, the Willis campaign launched a new fundraising website that highlighted her investigation into Trump.

You don't do that if you're neutral.

The infamous forewoman of the special grand jury that Willis convened who bragged about subpoenaing Trump.

The allegedly accidental release of the document by Fulton County clerk showing the forthcoming criminal charges against Trump hours before the jury even finalized it.

A judge disqualified Willis from targeting Georgia Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones in her investigation, and Fulton County officials announced they will process Trump at the local jail just like any other criminal, including forcing him to take a mug shot and and post a bond.

So Jordan is raising concerns and saying there's a congressional investigation coming your way.

And I say, thank you.

We are never going to ever save our country if we have these Mamby-Pamby wishy-washy Republicans who will not use the power.

of their own office.

They are in line and they they should be in line in defense of our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

If Donald Trump and anybody else broke laws,

then yes, they should go to jail or pay the punishment.

However,

if there's any political nonsense revolving around this,

those people that are doing the prosecution should go to jail.

We can't be a country that is swinging back and forth.

We have to have one law for everyone.

The former director of Black Voices for Trump, his name is Harrison Floyd.

He was the first of the 19 Fulton County defendants to be held in jail without a bond.

He's 39 years old.

He showed up for jail yesterday.

Fannie Willis gave Donald Trump and the other 18 co-conspirators in her election interference case until noon on Friday to show up.

By the way,

have you ever seen a case like this on election interference?

Ever?

I mean, we all know that Electioneering is happening.

We all know that, you know,

it's dirty.

In many places, it's dirty.

Dirty, absolutely, in Chicago, absolutely in New York.

It's dirty where you have nasty, dirty bosses that are running

everything.

And it wouldn't necessarily be any different for the Republicans if they were in charge of those cities.

It's human nature.

But out of all of the things that you've seen in your entire life, have you ever seen

19 people

at this level,

including Rudy Giuliani, the President of the United States,

his attorneys,

a former member of Congress,

the White House chief of staff?

Have you ever seen anything like it?

Most of these people can't afford

the trial, let alone the bond.

He wasn't able to negotiate the guy I was just telling you about,

the black voices for Trump.

He wasn't able to afford, and they wouldn't let him negotiate, so he's in jail.

He's in jail, a $100,000 bond.

The affidavit of him said that he body-slammed an agent who arrived at his

Rockville, Maryland home to subpoena him to appear before a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C.

So

he's going

to jail

because he stood, according to the report, stood chest to chest with an agent after knocking him backward with his body.

That's a conspiracy charge in furthering the conspiracy.

The mugshot that is

out now

could be the greatest fundraiser for any presidential candidate ever and certainly greatest legal fund

fundraiser of all time.

If Donald Trump would sell those t-shirts, posters, et cetera, et cetera, he could raise hundreds of millions of dollars for the legal defense.

And he should.

And he should.

All of these people, unless I'm missing something, if they did something wrong,

fine.

If they were questioning what was happening, which that, as it's called, the second perfect phone call, that's the way I read that.

If that's what they have,

these people should not even be

the people that have just done this to them

clearly need to be investigated and go to jail.

If they broke a law and broke severe laws that this is a reasonable punishment for, then they should pay the punishment.

But you don't have a situation where very many attorneys are willing to fight for these people because they're next on the hit list.

If you can start going after their attorneys,

you lose the ability to get a good attorney to defend you.

And that's not by happenstance.

That's not like, oh, gee, I didn't think of that one, Joan.

They know that.

He should make t-shirts for his legal defense fund because I think people,

first of all, that t-shirt will sell on their sides.

I know they're selling the t-shirts now.

It's just, I don't know yet where the money goes.

It's always difficult to tell in these political situations.

Sometimes they say, hey, this is going to the campaign and it's going to legal defense.

You never know with the stuff, but it should go to legal defense.

And honestly, like stepping back from that, the man's a multi-billionaire.

Like, I don't, this is a minimal expense for his own personal freedom.

Making sure that people who are

also

co-conspirators in a racketeering case do not feel comfortable in this time.

You should be making them happy.

Make their lives wonderful, as wonderful as it can be.

You've got plenty of money to do this.

Like, you know, there's a million stories out there, and no one's fighting, pushing back against them at all.

That Rudy Giuliani hasn't even been paid for his work in this era.

Back in 2020, 2020, when he was doing all this stuff, he hasn't even been paid for much of this,

the legal work that he did in this period, let alone being paid for his actual, you know, getting his legal expenses covered.

Now, Trump has now decided to at least go to fundraisers for Giuliani.

But, like, again, I understand why why you don't want to spend your own money, right?

I get it.

But like the man's been one of the most successful business people in America for 50 years.

Like this, if you've got $8 billion,

now's the time to spend it.

Just from a perspective of personal freedom and personal preservation, you know, it's going to be really hard to win the presidency if you're behind bars.

And I really hope that doesn't happen because God only knows what happens to this country if it does.

But like, this is the time to spend your money.

make sure that these people are

have the best defense possible so there are two people that i trust in washington uh i trust chiproy i think he's an honest man and uh i really trust mike lee

um both of them tweeted out yesterday i stand with mark meadows uh chiproy said he's a friend and a good man he did nothing but serve his country and for doing so he is facing a clearly political persecution he is ever faithful but we should support his defense cost more to follow.

Georgia should end this attack on justice.

I hope that Congress starts to use their purse strings to go after the DOJ

and investigate, investigate, investigate, and

stop this madness.

The best of the Glenn Bank program.

Ranger, what an honor to have you on the program, sir.

Thank you, Glenn.

Thanks for having me.

You bet.

So if you can,

let's start with,

for anybody who's not a country fan, tell me what your life was like just a few years ago.

Living my dream, a dream that I've had for

a quarter of a century,

trying to play my music, play my songs, travel around, meet new people,

run songs up charts, put out music videos.

And we were doing it at a very high level and just felt like everything was right for me, everything I ever wanted.

And then

one night, June 4th, you are,

you know, being with your family one last evening.

You're spending it with your kids.

You're headed to Nashville for the CMT Music Awards.

Your daughter, London, is doing gymnastics.

You're helping her and what happens

yeah I remember my daughter was doing a handstand in the yard and and she was having me spot her and I was kind of holding her ankles and the boys were playing water gun fight two two boys

and I just remember thinking what a beautiful evening green grass under my feet June early June is beautiful in the state of Texas and I just thought Soak in this moment because it won't last forever.

I just, and I was thinking in terms of the kids are going to grow up, they're going to go to college, and these, these days will be behind me.

But it was quiet in that moment.

I thought, where's River?

He's our three-year-old boy.

And I remember looking around and I just thought,

I don't know where he is.

And

that's not good when you have a three-year-old, but

we had a gated locked pool.

And I looked and I saw him in the pool face down.

And it just, it didn't seem like it was reality.

It felt like this is a dream.

I'm in shock.

How could this be?

And I crashed into the pool and

grabbed his little body.

And I was expecting him to be coughing and nervous and scared.

And I was going to say, buddy, what are you doing?

How did you get in this gate?

You know, you're never supposed to get around here.

But that's not what happened.

He was lifeless and cold.

This is, we've had a friend who this has happened to, and they're good people, and they love their children, and they're attentive, and it happened in a blink of an eye.

Pools scare the hell out of me.

Because when you have little kids, it happens, and

you're right there, and it happens that fast.

You had to have

just beaten yourself up.

I mean, I've thought of this with my, with, you know, my friend's tragedy.

I thought, if my wife were watching the kids,

I would know that she was doing the best.

But I don't know if I were watching the kids and it happened, that my wife would not blame me for the rest of my life.

You know what I mean?

It's so hard.

The games this must play in your head.

That's exactly right.

I've played those games over and over.

But by the grace of God, my wife,

not ever, not once, did she ever even let it slip to say,

how dare you?

What have you done to our baby?

And she could have easily done it,

and she probably would have been right because I was the responsible adult that day.

And although it happened, like you said, in a blink of an eye, and I was just paces away,

she could have easily have blamed me.

She didn't.

And I don't know where I would be if she had, if she had planted that seed within me of guilt.

It was already, it was already hard enough with my own tricks.

My mind was playing on me and the gymnastics that I was doing in my head: you're guilty.

You failed in the one thing that a father is supposed to do, and that's keep them alive till they're 18.

And so that's what was going on with me.

So

where do you go from there?

I mean, how long did this, I mean, I know it's still with you, but how long did this just

oppress you?

Well, it took me

several months of trying everything I could.

I was a big self-helper at the time.

That stuff still kind of resonates with me.

So I was leaning into waking up early and reading more nonfiction and trying to meditate and visualize and read my devotionals.

And I was progressively getting worse instead of better.

I thought, how can this supposed to help me?

And nothing was helping me.

I was trying everything.

I was exercising.

I was trying to sleep right, trying to eat right, anything to stop the slideshow from happening in my head.

And I say that in terms of the memories that just kept repeating over and over of what I could have done.

Like my mind was in a loop trying to find, trying to close the loop, and it couldn't.

And I was going insane.

This was several months, probably six or seven months,

before just absolute rock bottom hit hit me.

And what was that?

That was a night, and I call it in the book, I called it the darkest night of the soul.

And I was in Boise, Idaho,

and

there were times, and there are times in grief when you could start feeling better.

Sometimes you feel guilty that you feel better, but you say, you know what, today, I kind of feel normal.

And that was a day for me in December in 2019, and we were in Boise, Idaho, playing a show, and I was with the boys, and the crowd was great.

And I just thought, you know what, this is the first time I felt normal in a while.

And the band said, hey, we're going to go and have a few drinks at this little obscure bar.

Let's just go reminisce some old times.

So I went with them.

I said, absolutely.

That sounds like a great idea.

Went and had some drinks.

And as I was walking back out of the bar that night, I thought, huh, I'm a little tipsy.

I don't think I've been tipsy since the accident happened.

And so then my mind started panicking and starting to prepare myself, trying to engage the things that I had learned in therapy that maybe could shut down the slideshow.

But by the time I got back to the bus, I just

started going into a panic, thinking, how am I going to suppress all of these terrible thoughts while I'm inebriated?

It's not going to work.

And so I just remember opening up the drawer and just, I pulled out my pistol that's always there.

And I thought, this is the way.

This is the way to finally end the slideshow, to finally find rest.

And this was a voice that was not my own encouraging me with this moment.

So a lot of people would get to this point, and then it ends in one of two ways, usually.

They put their life back together or they don't.

But putting your life back together, you put it together completely differently.

So let's start now.

You're looking at the gun.

What happens?

Yeah, I would say I might make a third category.

I didn't put my life back together.

My life came back together, but it wasn't my own doing.

Right.

Yeah.

I was insinuating that there is a third way and I've never heard it before, but you're going to show us a third way.

Yeah.

Yes.

So I was

in that moment.

I had a Glock 9mm.

I know that Glock very well.

It has a double trigger on it no safety and so I know exactly where the pressure point is on that even in my inebriated state I could feel as I applied pressure okay this is this is it this is the point of no return in this moment here

and it seemed like 30 minutes it was probably five seconds of holding it there and I thought about My two older kids, Lincoln and London, they came to my mind and I just saw their faces and I saw my my life and their life and and in that moment I was crying and I just said Jesus save me my God Jesus save me

and in that moment the slideshow stopped all the visions stopped and I dropped the gun onto the bed and I fell down to my knees and I ended up sleeping on the floor and on my bus that night in all my show clothes

And I was a cultural Christian.

I know that now.

It was a heritage.

It was something I grew up in.

I knew the name of Jesus.

I knew what he did on the cross.

But I don't think I ever believed it.

In fact, I know I didn't because I didn't trust in him first.

I trusted in the self-help books and every other thing I tried.

But this sent me on a new journey of, okay, if this name is powerful enough to stop the slideshow, to stop me in my darkest night in Boise, Idaho, then who is this?

What is this faith?

So I sent, I went out on a journey searching, reading, listening to sermons of what happened to me that night, how I was saved that night supernaturally.

And it ended up, I ended up hearing a sermon in my truck one day.

This was March 1st, 2020, a couple months after that event.

And the pastor was speaking out of John 14, and he said, The disciple asked Jesus, Lord, why is it you manifest yourself to us and not to the rest of the world?

And Jesus answered him, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

And then suddenly I thought, I knew it all right then.

I knew I was saved.

I was loved.

I was redeemed and restored.

I was healed.

But in return, in the overflow of that gratitude, I was doing nothing.

And Jesus said right here, if you love me, keep my word.

That's how I know you love me.

And I thought, what's his word?

I don't know it.

I don't know any of it.

So

that started where I am today, just absorbing his word, reading it, cherishing it.

I went home, I got rid of all the devotionals and the self-help books, and I said, Here we go.

It's the Bible.

This is what saved me.

And if I'm going to love him, I'm going to keep his word.

I'm going to know it all.

And that changed, absolutely changed the trajectory of my entire life.

So it is,

again, in the typical story, it would stop pretty much there.

Okay, he got his life back.

He found the Lord.

And he's now going out and he's bigger than ever before.

Tomorrow is the last performance on stage by Granger Smith,

known as a country music singer.

Where are you headed?

Well,

as this unfolded and I went back into country music, like you said, and I continued to live my life the way that it used to be as now a redeemed, healed man.

And I started meeting people and they would say, I'm hurting.

I lost my wife or my grandmother or my child or my job or my dream.

I need your help.

Can you help me?

And I began to think more and more, I don't have time to sing country music.

There's not any time for me.

I need to be able to speak further.

I need to be able to have more time with these people.

And then I started feeling like, you know what, getting on the stage and just exalting myself and building up my name and having people glorify me,

I'm not reconciling that with what Jesus says in the Bible about.

If anyone would follow me, let him take up his cross, deny himself.

You know, I can't reconcile that.

And so that has eventually led to what is tomorrow, the last show as a country touring musician.

And I'll be moving into

more of a ministry role, writing more books, Lord willing, serving in our local church and getting out and speaking.

Because you went back to school.

And finishing up in seminary.

That's correct.

This is just such an awesome, awesome story.

You can see now why it wasn't, you know,

it was, it was on best-selling lists everywhere.

The only one that it didn't happen is the New York Times, and they're becoming much more blatant about all of this.

You're about the fourth person this year that I've talked to that whose book is number one everywhere, except for the New York Times.

It doesn't even make the list.

It's pretty amazing.

I just wish you all of the luck in the world.

I wish you all of the blessings.

You have, you know, it's amazing.

I don't have your story, but,

you know, I have a story of my own.

And I almost feel bad for those people that don't need the redemption, don't need that moment, because when you get that moment, it is such a miracle

that it just shakes you to the core.

And I guess over time, you could forget it.

It's easier over time to forget it.

But

I came to the same exact conclusion.

He did this,

so

all he's asking me is to just obey him.

Okay.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, that's a pretty good deal when you are that low.

That's a great deal.

Yeah.

That's a great deal considering that nine and boise.

It's a great deal.

And that's what I want to tell everybody else about.

Well, I just want to just read this before you hang up.

This is from the book.

I think it's actually on the cover or the you know the back page of the book.

Like a river, life is full of twists and turns.

Like a river, people pollute our world with their critique and criticism.

Like a river, tragic events keep us dammed up.

But like a river, we can find the courage to keep moving downstream.

Rivers don't run on their own strength.

They flow from their source.

When we try to keep going on our own, we won't make it.

But when we connect to the greater source, we'll find the strength and the faith to keep living after loss.

This triumphant story of new life, birthed out of death, is like a river, and it is available wherever you get your books.

And Billy Bob's, I think, tomorrow, right in Fort Worth.

That's right.

That's right.

All the best.

And you might see a few of us in the crowd tomorrow, Granger.

Thank you.

God bless.

Thank you, brother.

You bet.

God bless you.

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