Shelly & Bell-EEE

Speaking of hangry, we got something going on at the Truth Network that's going to help the world not be so hangry. Yeah, he's talking about just needing God's Word. He said, please help the Truth Network send Bibles to Africa.

And we know that they need God's Word. We have until the end of the month, just $5 gets a Bible in the hands of a poor, impoverished believer all over the African continent with the help of the Bible League. Just $5.

Just think about that, Robbie. Just $5. So please give. If you can give more than $5, man, we'd love for you to do it. And the number to call is 1-800-YES-WORD. 1-800-YES-WORD.

1-800-YES-WORD. This is Stu Epperson from the Truth Talk Podcast, connecting current events, pop culture, and theology. And we're so grateful for you that you've chosen the Truth Podcast Network.

It's about to start in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, and please share it around with all your friends. Thanks for listening, and thanks for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Kingdom Pursuits, where you hear from ordinary people instilled with an extraordinary passion. Together, we explore the stories of men and women who take what they love and let God turn their passion into Kingdom Pursuits.

Now, live from the Truth Booth, your host, Robbie Dilmore. It is Memorial Day weekend, and so we're going to make a memory with you today. I got to tell you, I will never forget this Memorial Day for lots of reasons, that God has given us some amazing guests. I'm always like, God, how did I end up the luckiest person on this planet to meet such people, to hear their stories, be able to share them on the air with my friends that are listening today? I'm so grateful for each of you listening, and I think you're going to be grateful.

You listen today, because I got to tell you, oh my goodness, if you listen to The Christian Car Guy Show, you already met Shelley Lance and Brian Schutt. We talked to her a little bit, her book, Unrecoverable, an American Woman's Rescue. It says in the title, it says, From a Turkish Prison, but this is Robbie's change of her title. I would say, Unrecoverable, an American Woman's Rescue in a Turkish Prison, because that's where it happened, right, Shelley?

Yes, exactly. And I'll never forget one of the first times I interviewed you, this must have been 2010 or 11, you said something that's in my soul, it will always be in my soul. You said there I had been a drug addict, a prostitute, you know, involved in the things that were, you know, being connected to people that were literally murderers and all these different things, and there in what you would think would be the worst hellhole on this planet Earth in a Turkish prison, was the first place that I can ever remember in my life that I felt free.

Right? Yes, it does sound a little crazy, but I was freer that time in the prison than I had ever been in my life. Yeah, and I remember you saying, you know, that there was no man there that was wanting to take advantage of me.

The drugs weren't there, they couldn't take advantage of me. However, Jesus was, and he came in such a beautiful way, and not unlike Shelley and Brian who's with her. Brian, very involved in this story, very much included in getting this book to market Unrecoverable. Brian, welcome.

Thank you, great to be here. And so I also have with us today Christian McMasters, and she has a website that's absolutely cool called the Liberty Bell, and that's B-E-L-L-E, and as Bethann put it, she doesn't look anything like her pictures. But Liberty, I mean, Christian, welcome.

Thank you, thank you for having me. Yeah, so your real name isn't Liberty, it's Christian. That's right, my real name is not Liberty Bell, it's Christian McMasters, but actually most people who follow me call me Miss Bell, or Liberty. Really? Yeah. But your story, not unlike mine or anybody else's, is a big part of why God's given you this platform.

100%, yeah. And so how exciting, we get to talk about that story. Well... Yeah, thank you. It's very interesting to me, as I was reading this book this week, Unrecoverable, which again, it's at Kingdom Pursuit, it's at ChristianCarguy.com, wherever you can go, you can find all about it.

There's pictures of Sherry in the prison, and all sorts of stuff that's there at the website, if you go to the links that are there and see what's going on with that. But, you know, God always has this on a lesson plan, and my lesson plan seemed to be this compassion of Jesus this week. Like, oh my goodness, no matter what I do, no matter how far I run, no matter what in the world goes on, he's coming after me, and there's this line from the Aslan series books, where, you know, there's this young guy named Digio, his mother is very, very, very sick, and he goes all over the place, trying to find Aslan, because Aslan was going to be able to cure his mother. And he was just desperate, like, desperate like in a Turkish prison, desperate.

And while he's there, desperate as he could be, here's the conversation that, as C.S. Lewis wrote it, and it just speaks volumes to my heart, one of those things I can't get out of my soul, it says, but please, please, won't you, can't you give me something that will cure my mother? Until then, he'd been looking at the lion's great feed, and the huge claws on them. Now, in his despair, he looked at his face. And what he was surprised, what surprised him as much as anything in his whole life, for the tawny face was bent down near his own, wonder of wonders. Great shining tears stood in the lion's eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory's own, for a moment he felt as if the lion must really be sorrier about his own mother than he was himself.

My son, my son, said Aslan. I know, grief is great. Like, you can't, you can't possibly go somewhere that he's not going to be there, like looking you in the eyes, Shelley, and saying, I'm right here with you. Like, oh my gosh, and those, in the stories of your drug overdoses, where you were literally, like, packed in ice, you still sensed him there.

I did. It's so hard sometimes to go back to that moment when that needle went in my arm, and I knew, I knew what I was doing was going to affect me, that I was going to die. But yet, I didn't, I was so powerless to say no. And, and then I had to go through that tragic but experience of being alone with God, and that dark space that I was for however long it was. But, for whatever reason he chose to give me that second chance and bring me back, I just couldn't understand why I didn't get it like Larry did, you know?

I had to continue to go out there and stay in that muck, you know, of my life. Yeah, and the story is like, oh my goodness, as you read the book you're going to find out who Larry is, and how this affected Larry as he felt like he'd murdered Shelley, because he's the one that injected her with that. And, and it led to another God moment. In other words, this book is just, it's just got God's tracks all over these, these places that you would think he would be no place to be found. But once again, grace is like, wow, this is why Mary, this is why Mary broke that bottle of perfume. This, because he was there in the deepest, darkest situations that you could possibly think of, his eyes were filled with tears, for all sorts of reasons that, you know, Jesus understands.

And so, how beautiful. And so, Kristen, as you hear all that, what does that bring up in your heart? Well, it just reminds me of the Lord saving me. I actually, I grew up in church, so I was blessed that I was protected, and I, my dad was a pastor, and, but everything was like a ritual of rights and wrongs, do's and don'ts, it was never Jesus, you know? And it wasn't until last year, June 24th, I was going through a lot of stuff, personally and emotionally, and Jesus just showed me I didn't know him. And there was like a, it's a whole different bondage when you're in religious bondage than, you know, people who have never been in religion. I grew up in religion, and it's bondage, it's misery, because I'm constantly trying to work to get or attain salvation, when the Bible's like, for by grace are you saved, it's not of yourselves. But I kept thinking I could do something, and it had to just be the Lord laying me bare that, you know, my sin nature is wicked, and I need Jesus, and he saved me, and it's amazing, because it's so different, because it's him, it's about him.

I love him, he changed me, I can't change me, you know? So it's, it's like, it's the same, but so different. It's two different types of bondage, but. Oh, is she, believe it or not, if you knew Shelly's story, she grew up in church too, she was telling me this morning, because I had to have some more details about things she was saying. Yeah. Well yeah, when I was a little girl, my mom said I was the most faithful, right? You were saying prayers.

Yeah. What was that like, Shelly? I can, I can definitely relate to Kristen on that religion aspect, because I grew up, you know, going to Sunday school and church. So, wow, and wait till you hear the grandmother's story. You got to, oh man, you're blessed, you're lucky today.

I know I'm lucky, because I get to be part of it. This memorial today, Kingdom Pursuits, again, you can find out more about Liberty, or Kristen. You can find out about the book Unrecoverable. It's all at KingdomPursuits.com. Stay tuned. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build the kingdom. And, you know, I remember years ago, the first time Shelly was on this show, it was actually called Robbie's Hobbies. You had to go way back to get there, but we were there, remember Shelly.

And the idea was always that, like, God put something on your heart that you felt like you were supposed to be doing, and then, you know, he would come alongside you and make that happen. And so, Claire back then, in 2010, 2011, the first time I met Shelly, she had it on her heart to write a book, right, about her experience in Turkey or experiences of her life. And, you know, as we walk with God, he all of a sudden opens doors, and we talked about what a remarkable thing it was that she met Brian. And Brian, I can tell, is critical to the process of this book getting done, because if you know Shelly and you met her, she has a lot of stories, and she is particularly gifted in sharing those stories in a way she can put you there, so that you know what it's like to be in Turkey, in a prison with a cyst on your ovary, and you're laying there in goo and all the stuff that she can put you there, okay?

And she can put you in a lot of different places. But Brian, you clearly played a critical role, because if you've ever tried to write a book, a big part of it is getting what belongs and what doesn't belong. And Brian, you were a big part of that, right? Yeah, I met Shelly at our ministry when she did a devotion and read out of her prison diary, and from there I really felt her story should be told. So it did become an issue of, how do you tell the story, how do you start it, what parts do you leave in, what part do you take out? And as I think you've mentioned earlier in the previous program, it's a tricky thing to talk about things like prostitution, drug abuse, without being so explicit that it's not really something a Christian's comfortable reading. So there were a lot of challenges in trying to put it all down on paper and put something together that we felt would be a benefit to both the person who struggles and to the parent who has a child who's gone down that path, and others also who can get something from different parts of her story, because there's a lot in there.

You know, that is so well said, Brian. I thought about that too, that a good friend of mine, and it's amazing God puts these people in my life, and actually one of my best friends is James Banks, who wrote the book, Prayers for Prodigals, because his son was trapped in heroin addiction, and last year they came out with a joint book that told the son's story of what it was like to be trapped in heroin addiction, and he ends up a youth minister in Wilmington today, but a long, long, long journey into heroin addiction, like Shelly's story and her father's story actually, if you know the background of that. But what hope, I'm telling you, if you think your child may not be recoverable, that's why they named this book Unrecoverable. I'm just guessing, because like, oh my gosh, there was a huge part of this story, a huge, gigantic part of this story, was not just that Shelly's parents were praying for, but her grandmother that was actually her aunt, which is just a beautiful part of the story, Shelly. I mean, when you got that letter from her in the Turkish prison, what did that feel like to know she'd been praying for you ever since you were born? I still to this day can't fathom, but I know it was God that those letters got through, and only her letters got through to me. And when I received that first letter, I knew it could have only have been God, because I had heard through the years, thank God your grandmother's praying for you. Because I think there were times my mother just couldn't pray anymore. You know, they had been through so much with me, but my grandmother never stopped praying for me. And when I was in prison, her letters made it to me faithfully every 10 days over there.

And I would just stand there waiting for a letter from my grandmother, but she sure didn't sugarcoat things. And she was a big part of my journey. During my incarceration, of answering a lot of questions for me, and not sugarcoating things, and praying with me through a lot while I was there in prison. Yeah, it's a phenomenal thing.

And so, you know, it's an interesting thing for all of us, okay? In John Eldredge's daily prayer, which is parts of it I read every single day, it's just a beautiful thing, but there's a place in it where you actually thank God for all the people praying for you, and you can agree with that in the Spirit. Like, I agree with everybody that is praying for me in the Spirit of God, and you thank the Holy Spirit that he's putting on people's heart to pray for you. But Kristen, I imagine that it's the same thing in your own story. Your father was a pastor. I'm guessing he may have prayed for you somewhere along the line. And so, could you tell us about that? I'm dying to know about the conversation between you and your dad after you came to Christ.

Oh, wow. Well, yeah, I mean, there's a lot to that. Definitely, I think it was more than just my dad. It was a church family, and, you know, I'm very blessed to have pastors who are constantly interceding on my behalf, and their, you know, their church behalf. And so, yeah, I mean, it was kind of a, it was one of those things of just the simplicity of my dad being a pastor, and just sort of like, man, it's all Jesus. And there's that like settling of like, I don't have to work anymore, and him just really encouraging me at that. Like, his word is true, and you get to rest in that. And there was that simplicity in that piece that I'd never known before, because I had always been trying to, you know, work it. And so, just being able to rest, not only in the simplicity of Jesus as the covering, but my dad also, and knowing that my dad, his heart and affection for me was real. And, you know, being able to actually build that relationship since has been awesome. Yeah, I can imagine that all these people praying for you, it makes, you know, like, wow, it's just, you know, if you'd listen to a Christian car guy, and you heard about Shelley's prayer on the line where the clothes had not been torn by the dogs, you'd think of the same kind of thing. Like, when your prayers get answered, like, God, you really do hear me. And it's fascinating to me, you know, as we hear Sheri's story, the way that all these things come together with our own story. Right?

Yeah. You know, when I think about my own struggles, and my own things that I went through, for Sheri, and for Shelley and I, we share something very neat in common. And that is, we're both saved by reading the Bible. And not just any Bible, we both had the same Bible.

She had a life. I mean, it's just amazing, when she started to describe the Bible in this book, I'm like, oh, it's blue leather with the silver pages. It was the same, you know, it was just... And she also shares something else that I think is just critical, is this hunger for God's Word, where she read it, and she read it, and she read it while she was in prison, and she's still reading it to this day. But I love what you say, Shelley, about Bible study as a very individual thing. Like, God has something for you, and so it's an individual place where you can share stuff, right?

Well, I think it's exactly like what God talks about. It's a treasure, you know? And when you get a treasure, you want to keep it for yourself. But a lot of times, we'll get that treasure, or that nugget of God's Word, that speaks so powerful to us, and we will run to somebody else and want to share it, and maybe they just don't get it. Or they just look and say, well, I already knew that, you know? But then you're kind of like, well, wait a minute.

How come they're not getting excited about it like I am? But a lot of times, when you give away a treasure, it's no longer a treasure. And I think that sometimes God is a selfish God, and when He shares something intimate with us, and He gives us an awakening to a truth that is just like, whoa, God, that's so awesome, we want to run and tell other people.

But a lot of times, people aren't at a place in life to even be able to receive that. So sometimes we need to just take that treasure and keep it intimate and special between God and ourselves, because that's how much He loves us. He has a treasure for all of us, but He wants us to look for that and get that treasure ourselves.

If we just gave all our treasures away, it wouldn't be a treasure anymore. Yeah, I have a dear friend that quotes the Scripture, you know, don't cast your pearls before swine. His name's Danny, and he pointed out that, you know, to an oyster, a pearl is a pain, right?

They were wounded by that sand, and so they built this thing to cover their wound. And so thus you have this treasure, right? And so when you've been wounded, as you can tell by all of us, Shelly, me, Brian, all of us, you know, those things are intimate to you, and God has bound up that wound in a pearl.

So if you just go casting that to somebody, they'll stomp on it and turn on you. But there's many times that when you do it, Shelly, I think that we would be missing something significant. I'm picturing you, you're in the Turkish jail, you got your friend Susie, who was your madam at one point in time in the bunk below you, and every time you come across something like that, you're like, Susie, look at this, look at this in the Bible. And she would look at you like, oh, I knew that, right?

Yes, exactly. Yes, she did. But she didn't know it, did she? No, she didn't. Not like, I don't, well, yeah, she didn't know it like how God was showing it to me. You know, whether she knew it or not, I really don't know, but I don't think that at that point in her life God hadn't revealed himself to her yet. But the cool thing, and as you know the whole story, and if you read the book you'll find out a lot more about it, is every time you did that, Shelly, you were making her hungrier. Like, Shelly is getting something I don't have. And a lot of times our lives are just an example for people to go, wow, why are they so excited? What is the big deal, Christian? I mean, I know you've seen that right in your classroom.

People are looking at you. Well, once again, we've run out of this break, but we'll be back in a minute with so much more Kingdom Pursuit. So stay tuned. Again, you can find out more about Liberty and about Shelly at KingdomPursuits.com.

You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build the kingdom, and we're so blessed to have with us today actually my dear friend Shelly Lance in her book Unrecoverable, an American Woman's Rescue from a Turkish Prison, and her friend Brian, who helped her get the book in print, and Kristen McMaster's The Liberty Bell. And we're going to find out a lot more about Liberty in just a minute, but before we do that, we've got Amy Cabo with the Cure on. And, Amy, you're going to help us get some healing today the natural way.

Yes, I have Amoraki Snyder, who's a professional trainer, strength and conditioning specialist, and he learned how to, by exercise and using what we have, what God gave us to eliminate almost completely or completely physical pain, such as arthritis, joint problems, back aches, other physical ailments that we might get with age or just for no reason at all, and he's been successful doing so. There you go. The Cure is actually about the Cure today. It comes out at 1 o'clock.

That's a live show, so you can call in and talk to the CureMeisters, who can help you with those kind of things. Great show today, Amy. God bless. I thank you so much for calling in today. Thank you much, and God bless you too. God bless you.

Bye-bye. So, you know, we've had a chance to, you know, and obviously, you know, I haven't had a chance to reminisce with Shelley for years and years, so it's really, really cool to have read this book. And Shelley and I actually talked for an hour this morning, or a long time, going out because I had so many questions after I read the book about how did this happen, what happened with this person. It's such a fabulous book.

Again, it's unrecoverable. You're going to find it there at KingdomPursuits.com. But we also have Kristin with us. And Kristin has a passion too. Like, how does she take her passion now that you've found out, you know, wow, God's got this relationship with her. And I was talking to her, because she's an instructor in college, actually.

I said, what's the difference in the way you instruct today versus, and she said, because I can just tell he's right there with me. And like, man, you know, it's like the 16th Psalm. It's like, he's right there at my right hand.

I mean, you can't miss. So Kristin, but your passion itself has to do with political silence and those kind of things that you instruct. Yeah. Oh, for sure. It's definitely a passion the Lord gave me.

It's kind of been there since I was a kid. And it's cool because I think before the Lord saved me, it was very much kind of out of order. So everything was about trying to pursue what I wanted to get for myself. But when the Lord saved me, it's more like, wow, he's given me this that I get to use to, you know, actually glorify him. And that's the awesome thing is that every single thing I have, every passion, every desire is given to me by him. And I get to now actually pursue those before him. And I know he's going to bless it. And that's what's awesome is, you know, it's about me and him and the fact that he's given it to me.

So I don't want to waste that passion. Nor could anyone miss that had eyes to see it, right? That like Shelly's story, there's so many God moments throughout. The political science, like of the United States of America is a God story, is it not?

I mean, he was there at every turn and we wouldn't be here. Yeah. In so many different ways.

A hundred percent, yeah. And I think the, I love it because it's something that we're, as Americans, we're incredibly blessed with. We have a country and liberty in a way that really no country throughout history has ever had. And I really, really want, I believe it's something that as Americans, we can actually fight for it by ourselves being educated and knowledgeable. And that's what I really want to do. I'm not really into the partisan debates and getting into the polarization. I really believe that if I can help educate people about the Constitution, it's an incredibly unifying document.

And that's my goal. So the Liberty Bell is kind of just the advocate for the Constitution. It's like, let me give the Constitution a voice in this world that's muddled with every other type of emotional partisan argument.

The Constitution needs a voice and we need to be able to pay attention to that. And that's kind of my goal is to fight for that. Right. That's a beautiful thing.

Yeah. And so, Shelley, you had a chance to experience Turkish Constitution, so to speak. And one of the neat things I saw in your book that I think you shared beautifully – and again, you can tell Shelley's heart, it's one of the biggest out there – was how wonderful the Turkish people really were to you in spite of what people may have thought it would be like to be in a Turkish jail.

Well, actually, my family, they all thought immediately back to the Midnight Express story that Turkey has a hellhole of a system prison and people are tortured and brutalized there. But, of course, my experience was nothing like that at all. Yes, the first three days in that jail, I believe, were a traumatic experience for me because it wasn't the most pleasant experience.

But it was exactly what I needed to go through. And I wasn't tortured or hurt ever there. The people were very kind to me there. And even in the prison, as I was transferred over into the prison, I was blessed enough to be in a prison that was just newly built with brand new mattresses, even though they didn't supply things for us as far as bedding. They did give us a mattress, but we had no sheets, blankets.

Everything had to be purchased from their family there. One of the really, really neat stories about Turkish hospitality to me was everybody was freaked out about you having to have this surgery in a Turkish hospital while you're in prison now. Now, if you're having surgery in an American prison, okay, just picture what that might be. Now, just picture the prospects of you've got to have this cyst removed that Shelley underwent in a Turkish hospital, and that story of what that surgeon did for you when you woke up just blows my mind. I know.

But you've got to read the book to find out because it's a long story, and you don't want me to go into it now. I want you to just share that, like, oh, my goodness, he did more than just take out the cyst, right? Yeah, he took out the cyst. I had a scar from a previous atopic pregnancy that was butchered. It was a butcher job that was done 35 years, 40 years ago, and it left a really traumatic scar right below my belly button. And when he went in and removed the cyst off my ovary, he cut out that scar and did, like, plastic surgery and removed that whole scar, so it was just, like, a small thin line down. And I just was blown away because that was, like, that scar was such a shameful thing for me.

I was so ashamed of it all my life. It was just another way of God saying, everything that the enemy took from you, I'm going to restore back, watch before your eyes, Shelley. And that doctor actually spoke English, right?

And what did he say to you? You mean when he told me I could have children? Yeah.

Yeah. But, you know, I was definitely past that origin. I never really, like, I was older now and not, probably to me in my eyes, too old to have children. But that was something that I never, but I never looked at it like those children. Like he said, Shelley, you will have children.

And I think in my heart, God was saying, there will be people of childlike faith that I will be able to minister to and love to in life. You know, later in life. What I think is just, like, this doctor, when you read it in the book, and you should read it because she goes into great detail, of this man's heart, he was, you know, she was in prison. Now, if you go have surgery, and I have friends that are in prison, this is not a pleasant thing. I mean, those doctors, I'm talking about American doctors.

You know, that's not anything I'd want to face. But here she was in this Turkish prison. They gave her, the guy who was over surgery for the prison, he did all this stuff for her, and he treated her. Like, when you listen to the dialogue between the two, it's just like, oh my goodness. And so, God has his people in every corner of the world, and he certainly had them when they were penning the Constitution.

Right, Kristen? The entire Constitution is based on the... Oh, wait, I'll say it afterwards. It's based on what?

It's based on the assumption or the belief that men's nature is bad, which creates this idea of ambition, counteracting ambition. I can explore it a little bit more. Oh, she's going to go there. So we're going to get into the Constitution, as well as so much more unrecoverable. Again, all this stuff is at KingdomPursuits.com, the book Unrecoverable, as well as Liberty Bell. Her website, you've got to check all that out.

You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build the kingdom. And we're so blessed to have with us today, actually, my dear friend, Shelley Lance, in her book, Unrecoverable, an American Woman's Rescue from a Turkish Prison, and her friend, Brian, who helped her get the book in print, and Kristen McMaster's The Liberty Bell.

And we're going to find out a lot more about liberty in just a minute. But before we do that, we've got Amy Cabo with the cure on. And, Amy, you're going to help us get some healing today the natural way.

Yes, I have Meraki Snyder, who's a professional trainer, strength and conditioning specialist. And he learned how to, by exercise, and using what we have, what God gave us, to eliminate almost completely, or completely physical pain, such as arthritis, joint problems, back aches, other physical ailments that we might get with age, or just for no reason at all. And he's been successful doing so. There you go. The cure is actually about the cure today. It comes on at one o'clock. You don't want to miss it?

That's a live show, so you can call in and talk to the CureMeisters, who can help you with those kind of things. Great show today, Amy. God bless. I thank you so much for calling in today. Thank you, Mike, and God bless you, too. God bless you.

Bye-bye. So, you know, we've had a chance to, you know, and obviously, you know, I haven't had a chance to reminisce with Shelley for years and years, so it's really, really cool to have read this book. And Shelley and I actually talked for an hour this morning, or a long time, going out, because I had so many questions after I read the book about how did this happen, what happened with this person. It's such a fabulous book.

Again, it's unrecoverable. You're going to find it there at KingdomPursuits.com. But we also have Kristin with us, and Kristin has a passion, too. Like, how does she take her passion, now that you've found out, you know, wow, God's got this relationship with her. And I was talking to her, because she's an instructor in college, actually.

I said, what's the difference in the way you instruct today versus, and she said, because I can just tell he's right there with me, and like man. You know, it's like the 16th Psalm. It's like, he's right there at my right hand.

I mean, you can't miss. So Kristin, but your passion itself has to do with political silence and those kind of things that you instruct. Yeah. Oh, for sure. It's definitely a passion the Lord gave me.

It's kind of been there since I was a kid. And it's cool, because I think before the Lord saved me, it was very much kind of out of order. So everything was about trying to pursue what I wanted to get for myself. But when the Lord saved me, it's more like, wow, he's given me this, that I get to use to actually glorify him. And that's the awesome thing, is that every single thing I have, every passion, every desire, is given to me by him, and I get to now actually pursue those before him. And I know he's going to bless it, and that's what's awesome.

It's about me and him and the fact that he's given it to me, so I don't want to waste that passion. Nor could anyone miss that had eyes to see it, right? That like Shelly's story, there's so many God moments throughout. The political science of the United States of America is a God story, is it not?

I mean, he was there at every turn. We wouldn't be here in so many different ways. A hundred percent, yeah. And I love it, because it's something that we're, as Americans, we're incredibly blessed with. We have a country and liberty in a way that really no country throughout history has ever had. And I really, really want, I believe it's something that, as Americans, we can actually fight for it by ourselves being educated and knowledgeable.

And that's what I really want to do. I'm not really into the partisan debates and getting into the polarization. I really believe that if I can help educate people about the Constitution, it's an incredibly unifying document, and that's my goal. So the Liberty Bell is kind of just the advocate for the Constitution. It's like, let me give the Constitution a voice in this world that's muddled with every other type of emotional partisan argument. The Constitution needs a voice, and we need to be able to pay attention to that, and that's kind of my goal, is to fight for that. Right, that's a beautiful thing.

Yeah. And so, Shelley, you had a chance to experience Turkish Constitution, so to speak, and one of the neat things I saw in your book that I think you shared beautifully, and again, you can tell Shelley's heart, it's one of the biggest out there, was how wonderful the Turkish people really were to you in spite of what people may have thought it would be like to be in a Turkish jail. Well, actually, my family, they all thought immediately back to the Midnight Express story that Turkey has a hellhole of a system prison, and people are tortured and brutalized there, but of course my experience was nothing like that at all. Yes, the first three days in that jail, I believe, were a traumatic experience for me because it wasn't the most pleasant experience, but it was exactly what I needed to go through, and I wasn't tortured or hurt ever there. The people were very kind to me there, and even in the prison, as I was transferred over into the prison, I was blessed enough to be in a prison that was just newly built with brand-new mattresses, even though they didn't supply things for us as far as bedding. They did give us a mattress, but we had no sheets, blankets.

Everything had to be purchased from their family there. But one of the really, really neat stories about Turkish hospitality to me was everybody was freaked out about you having to have this surgery in a Turkish hospital while you're in prison now. Now, if you're having surgery in an American prison, just picture what that might be. Now just picture the prospects of you've got to have this cyst removed that Shelley underwent in a Turkish hospital, and that story of what that surgeon did for you when you woke up just blows my mind. I know.

But you've got to read the book to find out because it's a long story and you don't want me to go into it now. I want you to just share that, like, oh, my goodness, he did more than just take out the cyst, right? Yeah, he took out the cyst. I had a scar from a previous atopic pregnancy that was butchered. It was a butcher job that was done 35 years, 40 years ago, and it left a really traumatic scar right below my belly button. When he went in and removed the cyst off my ovary, he cut out that scar and did plastic surgery and removed that whole scar so it was just like a small thin line down. I was blown away because that scar was such a shameful thing for me.

I was so ashamed of it all my life. It was just another way of God saying everything that the enemy took from you, I'm going to restore back, watch before your eyes, Shelley. And that doctor actually spoke English, right?

And what did he say to you? You mean when he told me I could have children? Yeah.

Yeah. But, you know, I was definitely past that origin. I never really like, I was older now and not, probably to me in my eyes, too old to have children, but that was something that I never, but I never looked at it like those children. Like he said, Shelley, you will have children.

And I think in my heart God was saying there will be people of childlike faith that I will be able to minister to and love to in life. You know, later in life. What I think is just, like this doctor, when you read it in the book, and you should read it because she goes into great detail, of this man's heart, he was, you know, she was in prison. Now if you go have surgery, and I have friends that are in prison, this is not a pleasant thing. I mean, those doctors, I'm talking about American doctors.

You know, that's not anything I'd want to face. But here she was in this Turkish prison. They gave her, the guy who was over surgery for the prison, he did all this stuff for her, and he treated her, like when you listen to the dialogue between the two, it's just like, oh my goodness. And so God has his people in every corner of the world, and he certainly had them when they were penning the Constitution.

Right, Kristen? The entire Constitution is based on the... Oh wait, I'll say that first. It's based on what?

It's based on the assumption or the belief that men's nature is bad, which creates this idea of ambition, counteracting ambition. I can explore it a little bit more. Oh, she's going to go there. So we're going to get into the Constitution, as well as so much more Unrecoverable. Again, all this stuff is at KingdomPursuits.com, the book Unrecoverable, as well as Liberty Bell.

Her website, you've got to check all that out. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build a kingdom. And again, God always gives me these poster children on this Memorial Day of people that have a passion for his kingdom for eternity.

It's going to be great. And then you get a chance to go on this adventure with God as you begin to write a book that he's put on your heart for years and years and years and years, because I'm going to tell you, Shelley's been working on this project since I've known her in 2010. And here it is, 2021.

God brings this thing come to life. And then you just heard Christian McMaster's with the Liberty Bell and her passion about the Constitution. So we interrupted her in mid-Constitution, so you don't want to do that because, you know, it would be un-American on Memorial Day.

We can't do that. So go ahead. Yeah, well, I mean, I think one of the biggest things people don't realize is that every country is founded on the assumption of human nature. So you can found a country or a government on the assumption that human nature is good, or you can found it on the assumption that human nature is bad. Our founders, John Witherspoon, I don't know if you know him, he was at Princeton, Jonathan Edwards, obviously Great Awakening.

I'm not that old, but I'm familiar with it. Okay, Jonathan Edwards preceded him, but John Witherspoon was a, he was a pastor, he was, you know, and he really mentored James Madison, who is the father of the Constitution. And one of the main things that was kind of put into the makeup of the Constitution is this assumption that men are naturally bad, right? And so we're not going to build a government based on the assumption that men are good. We know that men are likely to abuse and use power in ways that are not going to be good. So they created an entire system of government based on that assumption that men are going to go after ambition, and that's actually going to counteract itself and prevent any single branch of government or person from taking complete control and power. So if you look at the power structures in the United States, it's completely broken up in all aspects, in the federal government, and then if you look at the state governments and the local governments, and that's all based on the reality that without Jesus, men is bad, you know, men are bad, and because of that, we've lasted 200 and, you know, 30 or 40 or 50 years, which is amazing, totally amazing, because we're not basing it on this idea or this sort of, what do you call it, idealistic idea that men are good, right? It's actually the facing the reality that no, you know, our hearts are deceitfully wicked, above all things, and that is what actually has helped the structure of our government survive, is that simple truth. There you go, and I hate that those, you know, out there listening couldn't see your hands while you were doing it, because it's very demonstrative.

Like, if you wondered if this was Christian's passion, let me just share with you. Oh, yeah. I mean, she's right there with you, and, you know, these powers, right, that we, you know, we've heard about the balance of power all our whole lives. Oh, yeah. Right?

Oh, yeah. And, you know, so there's a structure behind that and a concept. Yeah, and it's a good thing. And it's something that, wow, we can be educated in to see how we can make it function the way that it could. It's supposed to function, and I think a lot of people get frustrated. Government's moving so slow. It's, you know, it's hampered by too many hindrances.

Actually, that's how it's supposed to work. If it wasn't, they, you know, Congress could pass thousands of laws a year, and people don't think that through. Like, Congress is so slow. Well, guess what? Congress is supposed to be slow, because if it wasn't slow, we could have two or three thousand laws passed a year, which they're actually introduced every year.

Nobody wants that, right? So if there's anybody I know, I would not have known this until I read the book, but I read the book, and so you need to read the book so you can find out all these fun facts. But I don't think I know anybody who's been protected more by the American government than Shelley Land. That's awesome. In spite of the fact that you might think, well, she was, you know, dealing in drugs and certainly prostitution. How could she be protected by the government? But, man, Shelley, how thankful are you for police? I mean, every time I got arrested, I prayed, please, God, don't let me get arrested, but I would get arrested, and it was saving my life. And they, you know, and it was exactly what would happen.

I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time doing the wrong thing, and I would get arrested, and there would always seem to be a police officer that was a child of God on the scene. And somehow they would come over and say, this was your lucky day. We saved your life. Oh, let me just tell you, another spoiler alert.

Yeah, I got to jump in because we only got a minute. Like, man, believe it or not, Shelley was one of those prostitutes that a serial murderer took her on and lured her in for this whole deal. And, like, oh, my gosh, this story is absolutely unbelievable. I mean, it's like the government is there, like it says in Romans 14, right? It's there for our protection. Yeah, there is no liberty without law, which is the irony. Yeah.

You have to have law. And so it's absolutely beautiful. I can't begin to tell you the joy for parents, for grandparents, for those who are struggling, oh, my goodness, unrecoverable, an American woman's rescue from a Turkish prison that's there at Kingdom Pursuits. Plus, how cool.

You can get in on the Liberty Bell at the first stages here. She's out there establishing this platform, right? And her website's also there at kingdompersuits.com. Wow, guys, what an honor to have you both on today. So much fun, Shelley.

I hate it's over. Brian, thank you, sir. I appreciate you staying with us and for what you're doing there to help Shelley and for our listeners. We're so grateful for each of you sticking with us through these shows today, and I pray that you will have a phenomenal Memorial Day and that you'll remember, you know, how God's coming for us and all this stuff. Now you've got so much more truth coming at you on the Truth Network. The Encouraging Prayer with James Banks is on next, followed by The Masculine Journey. And then Nikita Kolov, It's Time to Man Up. You don't want to miss all that truth coming at you on the Truth Network.