Lily Meschi, the director of partner relations at Iran Alive Ministries, came to Christ after growing up Muslim — and surviving an abusive arranged marriage in the United States.
“When I was 18, I was introduced to my dad’s business partner, who was 14 years older than me,” Meschi tells Allie Beth Stuckey of “Relatable.” “This marriage was arranged for me, and the string attached to it was the business that he was helping my dad to open.”
“I did not like him. I was not attracted to him at all, but from the get-go, he started manipulating me. He exploited me sexually before marriage to seal the deal, so to speak,” Meschi explains. “I was just scarred. I was very hurt after that, but I felt like I needed to be the savior of my family and just keep on going with this, with this arranged marriage, which turned very toxic, very abusive on all fronts.”
Meschi had witnessed other young girls and women be forced into arranged marriages and believed this was simply “the culture” and “something that we do as Iranians and as Muslims.”
“This actually happened a few times, but one time I remember as I was sleeping, he started throttling my neck because he had a dream that I was with another man. He was very jealous, very controlling. I woke up feeling I was being choked,” she tells Stuckey. […]
— Read More: www.theblaze.com
Independent Journalism Is Dying
Ever since President Trump’s miraculous victory, we’ve heard an incessant drumbeat about how legacy media is dying. This is true. The people have awakened to the reality that they’re being lied to by the self-proclaimed “Arbiters of Truth” for the sake of political expediency, corporate self-protection, and globalist ambitions.
But even as independent journalism rises to fill the void left by legacy media, there is still a huge challenge. Those at the top of independent media like Joe Rogan, Dan Bongino, and Tucker Carlson are thriving and rightly so. They have earned their audience and the financial rewards that come from it. They’ve taken risks and worked hard to get to where they are.
For “the rest of us,” legacy media and their proxies are making it exceptionally difficult to survive, let alone thrive. They still have a stranglehold over the “fact checkers” who have a dramatic impact on readership and viewership. YouTube, Facebook, and Google still stifle us. The freer speech platforms like Rumble and 𝕏 can only reward so many of their popular content creators. For independent journalists on the outside looking in, our only recourse is to rely on affiliates and sponsors.
But even as it seems nearly impossible to make a living, there are blessings that should not be disregarded. By highlighting strong sponsors who share our America First worldview, we have been able to make lifelong connections and even a bit of revenue to help us along. This is why we enjoy symbiotic relationships with companies like MyPillow, Jase Medical, and Promised Grounds. We help them with our recommendations and they reward us with money when our audience buys from them.
The same can be said about our preparedness sponsor, Prepper All-Naturals. Their long-term storage beef has a 25-year shelf life and is made with one ingredient: All-American Beef.
Even our faith-driven precious metals sponsor helps us tremendously while also helping Americans protect their life’s savings. We are blessed to work with them.
Independent media is the future. In many ways, that future is already here. While the phrase, “the more the merrier,” does not apply to this business because there are still some bad actors in the independent media field, there are many great ones that do not get nearly enough attention. We hope to change that one content creator at a time.
Thank you and God Bless,
JD Rucker
