Last week I posted a testimony from Seraiah sharing how SUPER CUTE DRESSES are such a blessing in her life. Scroll down to read it if you missed it. Today I am sending you SERAIAH’S STORY of how God has worked in her life and guided her into His ways.
SERAIAH’S STORY
I grew up in a family that prided itself on putting on a good show. We looked put together and pleasant for church with dresses and smiles, but our home life was riddled with rebellion, discord, fakeness, and bitterness. I confessed Jesus as Savior when I was seven years, but it was only a head knowledge with no understanding of the person of Christ.
It wasn’t until I was 13 years at a Christian summer camp that I truly met Jesus and desired Him to be my Savior and Lord. I saw these girls singing with their family. I could see on their faces that they knew this Person they were singing to. They really knew Jesus. Christianity wasn’t just a set of rules to follow, but a true relationship with Someone I’d never met. I gave my whole life to God that night and never looked back.
My family didn't understand this change and why I was asking so many questions. I was eager to serve God any way He could use me and volunteered for street ministry opportunities, worked at a Christian summer camp, and learned to be bold in my faith.
I went to a Christian Liberal Arts College and met my husband there. We were married at 20 when I still didn’t know much about cooking, keeping a house, or raising a family.
When we had our first child at 24 years, my only childcare experience was at a daycare I’d been working at for two years. I only knew what I didn’t want to do. When a nice lady gifted me a copy of Above Rubies to encourage me in my mothering, I was so excited. I eagerly read the pages over and over, trying to glean all the truth of God’s Word that I could from it."
Since then, I found Nancy’s podcast, LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell, and listen every week to her teachings from the Word.
God has grown a whole different legacy for my husband and me and our family. We do not reflect either of our original families, but together, we strive to reflect God alone. He has planted us over 1,000 miles from our families and hometowns, uprooting us in more than a physical way. He is growing us through each challenge as we embrace every blessing He gives, for “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17).
I’ve had many ladies approach me in the store or walking down the street and reminisce with me about their mother or grandmother who made matching clothes for their children, and about the old ways and simpler times. As Christ-following mothers we really are leading in the old ways.
I can’t even count the number of times I’ve had older folks approach me and express frustration over the lack of modesty and respect in the younger generations and then praise our family for reminding them of the “good old days” when ladies looked like ladies and men looked like men. When children knew to respect their parents and families attended church together each week. The Bible says in Luke 5:39: “And no one, after drinking old wine wishes for new; for he says, ‘The old is good enough.’”
God’s ways may seem old-fashioned, but they lead to our eternal home in Heaven. There's an old hymn called "I'll Take the Old Highway" that our children love to sing. It says:
There are many new roads we see each day
Each one claims they are the way
To a life of satisfaction more than we've dreamed
They are lined with things that please the eye
But they cannot satisfy
So I decided to walk the highway with the redeemed
I'll take the old highway
The one that's called straight
It's so very narrow all the way to the gate
It started at Calvary that's where I got on
It's the old, old highway paved with grace all the way home
Our highway may look to worldly men
Like it's a road to a bitter end
For we are promised tribulations all along
The difference is easy to explain for we have everything to gain
So just count me in the number going home
The old way is fathers leading family devotions around the dinner table, mothers joined by children with their hands deep in garden soil, training behaviors as they train their tomatoes. Joy fills the home.
I was listening to a podcast by Nancy a few months ago and she challenged us mothers to set a timer for each hour to stop and give thanks to the Lord. No matter what is going on, stop, and give God thanks for something. It’s a great habit to get into and really challenges us as a family to be in an attitude of thanksgiving. It trains us in joy, for thanksgiving is the seed that grows the plant of joy.
Our children love singing to the Lord with all their might. Not a day goes by that our children aren’t humming or singing hymns or praise songs with all their might. We live on a mountain top in East Tennessee, and I am sure our neighbors for many miles can hear their jubilant praises. Psalm 100:1-2 says: “Shout JOYFULLY to the LORD, all the earth. Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before Him with joyful singing.”
Our children take this to heart and love to praise their Creator. The only time I ask them to quiet from this singing and praising the Lord is when I have a phone call coming in or it is nap time. Our children love to converse with strangers and share exciting discoveries in nature or what the Bible says about this or that with them. Sometimes they are rebuffed, but more often than not, they receive an open door to share about Jesus with someone who might not be open were an adult to approach them.
Our children make goodies and homemade cards several times a month and walk miles down the mountain to our elderly neighbors to visit them, bring joy to them, and pray with them.
We moved to East Tennessee several years ago from Northern New York. East Tennessee is a very different culture. Many people attend church, but many do not know Christ personally and are not His disciples. There is a spirit of religion in this area of the US: with a lot of mixing of Scottish and Native American mysticism and superstition with Christian principles. As we work to allow God to shine His light of purity in this swampy darkness of syncretism, God is using our children to pierce the places we as adults aren’t allowed access.
We are peculiar everywhere we go, husband and wife with a trail of children in matching clothing, often singing hymns or praise songs as we walk. It’s ok to be different, it’s ok not to fit in. In fact, we are supposed to NOT fit in. It is an act of worship.
Romans 12:1-2 says: “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
The Greek word translated “be conformed” means “to conform oneself (i.e. one's mind and character) to another's pattern (fashion oneself according to).” We aren’t meant to follow another's pattern, only His. By this, we are able to prove the will of God; to show the world that which is good, acceptable, and perfect. It is in this peculiarity, this different-ness, this non-conformity to ungodly behaviors and lifestyles that others get to see God’s will at work in this world.
It might be lonely in the corner of the world that God planted you, but His work is never in vain. Be diligent, dear mothers, in loving and serving your husbands joyfully, in raising and shaping your children diligently, in showing the world what God’s perfect plan is. He has promised that His word will never return void. As we go about our daily lives, we become His Word to those around us; living out His commands, proving what the will of God is.
Take heart, dear mother, your work is not in vain; it is the MOST important ministry! Colossians 3:23-24 says: "Whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the Lord, rather than for men knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve."
SERAIAH ALCORN
Stinking Creek, Tennessee, USA
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God has blessed Kenneth and Seraiah with Isaac (14), Theophilus (12), Abigail in Heaven, Raphael (10), Adarah (7), Alexander (5), Simeon (3), Ellyanah (1) and new baby #9 due summer 2026.