Above Rubies Daily Encouragement Blogs

In other words, no matter how you feel, don’t give up! Most translations of this Scripture say these very words: DON’T GIVE UP!

I was encouraged as I checked the words “well doing.” The word well is “kalos.” Did you know that this word describes our life as a wife and mother in the home? Titus 2:3-5 tells the older women to be teachers of “good” things and the word is “kalos.” Sometimes we think that what we are doing I the home is mundane and useless. But God says it is BEAUTIFUL, lovely, valuable, and virtuous! It may seem insignificance to the world’s eyes, but it is BEAUTIFUL to God’s eyes.

The word doing is “poieo” and means “to make, to do, bring forth, execute.” A fuller meaning is” to bring forth something which when produced has an independent existence of its own.” I think this is so true of motherhood. The years of loving, nurturing, and training our children are not wasted. They add up to fruitfulness. They bring forth a strong family that stabilizes and strengthens the nation.

Our mothering today establishes godly families for the future that take on a life of their very one!

So on these days of feeling like a failure, feeling hopeless, or plain unappreciated, keep on with your beautiful works. There is coming a day when you will reap your reward.

The New Living Translations says: “So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing IF WE DON’T GIVE UP!

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

Painting by Tasha Tudor

Strong character is not being dominant and lording it over everyone else. Strong character comes through patiently trusting God in our trials. We don’t cave into self-pity but know endure with joy, knowing that God is bringing us through in His way and in His time.

We must teach our children this truth too. Because we love our children, we hope they won’t have to go through any trials. We protect them from suffering. And yet they also learn to become strong through enduring their little trials.

The word in the Greek is “dokime” and means “the act of proving oneself true, proof of genuineness, trustworthiness.” In other words, the way we go through our trials proves our character . Most translations use the word “proven.”

Paul wrote to the believers in Corinth “that I may know the proof of you, whether ye be obedient in all things.” He wrote about Timothy in Philippians 2:22 that they had observed the proof of Timothy’s lifestyle.

May God help us to have “proven” character and may He help us to raise children with “proven” character. Amen.

Blessings to you today,

Nancy Campbell

But then Jesus asked: “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?” Read the whole story in Luke 17:11-19.

I wonder how often Jesus still asks this question today? “Where are the nine? This story has always challenged me. I certainly don’t want to belong to the nine tenths company.

It’s important to regularly check that we belong to the right company. Do we belong to this company who are constantly grateful and thankful for all God’s goodness to us? Not just the big things, but even the little things? Or do we belong to the nine tenths company who take all the blessings and forget to thank Him?

Let’s cultivate being thankful—thankful for the provision of a home, for our husbands, for the children God has given us, and for all the little things that happen all around us every moment of the day if we look for them.

I love to make it my habit to thank my Savior, Jesus Christ, every day, for His great salvation and for the sacrifice He made to leave the glory of eternity to come to this world to die for me. How can I ever thank Him enough? I don’t want to miss one day.

Let’s also cultivate this habit in our children too. Encourage a lifestyle of thankfulness. Never forgetting to say “Yes, thank you” and “No, thank you.” Do they thank you for cooking your meal each night? That’s a good habit for them too, especially as sons grow up to be husbands. My husband reminds everyone each evening to thank me for preparing the meal.

Are you teaching them to be grateful when you, or their siblings, or anyone else does some little thing for them and to immediately respond with thanks?

I wonder how many times you say Thank You throughout the day. Is your home filled with each one thanking one another?

Love from Nancy Campbell

As I write this, I am expecting our fifth child. I have learned something from each one of my natural births and I wanted to share in case it can be helpful to other preparing for their natural birth.

The first couple of births I experienced "from the outside." What I mean by this is the intensity of my sensations were made visible to those around me. I felt I had to show my midwives how I was feeling so they could judge the stage of my labor. I also felt I had to show my husband how I was feeling so he could best support me. Nothing extreme—my face showing pain and making sounds of intensity. Normal stuff.

However, what I discovered with my fourth birth is (at least for me) the secret to a birth that I can best describe as worshipful, peaceful, and beautiful is when I experienced the birth "from the inside."

I didn't make one sound or facial expression that showed discomfort throughout the entire 10-hour birth except for the last few minutes. It's not that I felt I couldn't show these signs of labor, I just went deep inside myself instead. My focus wasn't on sharing what I was feeling with those around me.

I listened to worship music (in earphones which I feel is important to make it even more intimate). I praised God. I focused on how thankful I was for this moment and for this experience.

And here's something I did that was extremely helpful—I focused on the sensations of labor as though they were a large marble in my hand which I would roll around and examine, study, try to learn every detail of: the weight, shape, design, colors, and feel. So with each contraction, I studied it. Almost held it, explored it, leaned into it, and grasped for it as it faded away (instead of tensing up and wishing it would end.) When I did this, the waves of birth became familiar and predictable— not scary. I learned how it felt as a contraction began, how it climbed in intensity, and then the feeling as it started to fade.

It helped that it didn't feel like something happening to me, but it felt like something I was allowed to be a part of. The opening of my body to bring life.

And the final thing I discovered (this is hard to fully describe but I am going to try). To experience labor like this, going deep within, is a very intimate thing. Intimacy with yourself and intimacy with God. My husband was a huge support and I definitely felt his presence, but I still felt like ultimately it was something I was to walk through alone. It was an experience that I would most imagine the process of death to be like. Not a scary traumatic death, but a passing from this life into the arms of God. Even though you may be surrounded by loved ones, it's a connection to God that is truly just for you and Him. No one can go with you.There's quiet.There's acceptance.There's anticipation.There's peace.And there's confidence. There's awareness you didn't have before about life. It's a spiritual thing when you allow your body to get out of the way. You are changed.

So, that's what I loved about my fourth birth and what I look forward to with this next birth and any more I am blessed to experience. This is a wonderful season of life, being able to witness the first moments of your child's life, meeting them for the first time. It's like touching heaven for just a moment.

JENNIFER CORCORAN
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Do you notice that David sets the Lord before his face CONTINUALLY? It’s most interesting that the Hebrew word “set” is “shavah” and means “to equalize.” In other words, he didn’t change with circumstances. In every situation, good or bad, he set the Lord in front of him.

Dearest ladies, in your times of trouble, anguish, and desperation, keep your eyes upon the Lord. This is when you need Him most, and you can know for sure that He will never abandon you. He is at your right hand! Oh, what more do you need? He knows far better than you what to do.

When you agonize over your trial, you sink into the pit. When you keep the Lord before you face, you KNOW He with you, even though you may not feel Him. He is far bigger than your problem. He will carry you through.

I am challenged by the words of Robert Cawdray, who writes about this equalizing.
“Whether he abound in wealth or be pinched with poverty,
whether he be of high or low degree in this world, ought continually to have his faith and hope surely built and grounded upon Christ, and to have his heart and mind fast fixed and settled in him,
and to follow him through thick and thin,
through fire and water,
through wars and peace,
through hunger and cold,
through friends and foes,
through a thousand perils and dangers,
through the surges and waves of envy, malice, hatred, evil speeches, railing sentences, contempt of the world, flesh, and devil, and even in death itself,
be it never so bitter, cruel, and tyrannical,
yet never to lose sight and view of Christ,
never to give over faith, hope, and trust in Him.”

When we have this tenacity to keep trusting, even when it is the hardest thing to do, we will prove His righthand power and anointing with us.

And best of all, we will not be shaken. That’s right, dear mother. YOU WILL NOT BE SHAKEN! You will not be moved from your faith in Christ. You will not be moved to desperation. Even in your heartache you will not fall to pieces because God is holding you. You know He sees the bigger picture. You know that He is undertaking for you.

Please be encouraged and uplifted today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

NANCY CAMPBELL

This is a calling too.

It's not a task that's in the way

Of better things to do.

It is a holy calling,

Held high within God's Word,

Done with love and nurturing,

Not just to be endured.

In fact, it is the standard

By which the church decides

If older widows should be helped

From offerings and tithes.

The older women also

Are called to teach the young

To love their spouse and children,

To manage house and home.

No mention made of money

As a wife's priority.

His call is home and children,

Good sense and purity.

Yes, she is a blessing

To those outside her door,

But never at expense of home,

Which should be at the core.

So next time someone tells you

You've better things to do

Than to bear and nurture children,

Turn to God's Word for truth.

The best thing you can offer

Is a child that loves the Lord.

It's a short, but sacred season,

Fruit of the womb is his reward.

2019, Val Halloran

www.valhalloran.com

Painting: “In the Orchard” by Evert Pieters (1856 - 1932, Dutch.)

The only large family I knew in church had five children and they definitely stood out. As a teen I heard the “baby machine” jokes about the mother and saw the eye rolls of church people on hearing that she was “expecting again.” (Like, doesn't she know what causes that?)

I was in my mid-twenties when I started asking some questions about having children? My husband and I came up with a list of reasons for not having any more, but I wasn't convinced that these reasons were biblical. They all seemed to be selfish or fearfully motivated.

I prayed for months that God would show us what to do. After seeing all over the Bible that children were a gift, blessing, and inheritance, we stepped out in faith and asked God to give us the faith and provision we needed to have as many as He would provide.

It seemed fruitfulness was everywhere in creation, but we had fallen prey to the ideals of the sexual revolution, sex without fruitfulness or responsibility, i.e. the pill. Feminism taught me, even in church, that as a woman you should find your worth through education, sexual attractiveness, economic contribution, and living the feminist’s utopia.

After surrendering the hardest part of my life to God—at that time, my life and my womb, I saw with each baby how the church viewed fruitfulness. I wish I could say it was pretty. I cannot tell you how many times I was scolded, derided, and even mocked for being pregnant again. Many in the body of Christ are anti-abortion but not pro-life.

I learned that Margaret Sanger and the radical sixties feminists had convinced the church that homemaking and women who have many children should be pitied, deemed backwards, and seen as repressed. I wish I could say that through the joy, pain, and sacrifices of bearing nine children, which I've laid down my life to disciple, the church has supported me, but I can't.

I think in so many ways the church has followed the culture instead of leading it, particularly regarding family, roles, children, etc. This I suspect has less to do with a biblical inerrancy/infallibility issue but rather an authoritative one. This goes back all the way to the beginning in the garden, with the serpent’s seductive voice: “Hath God said?'

A great study on how the church shifted ,after hundreds of years on this issue,, and why is the documentary called “The Birth Control Movie.”

MOTHER HUBBARD
Valerie Hubbard *This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

P.S. The Birth Control Movies, No. 1 and No. 2 are available at the Above Rubies online bookstore.

“Demography is the key factor. If you are not able to maintain yourself biologically, how do you expect to maintain yourself economically, politically, and militarily? It’s impossible. The answer of letting people from other countries come in … that could be an economic solution, but it’s not a solution of your real sickness, that you are not able to maintain your own civilization.”

The following article reveals that America is need of babies. God has already revealed this to us. Isaiah 45:18 says: “For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, HE FORMED IT TO BE INHABITED: I am the LORD; and there is none else.” This is God’s blessing. He created an earth which is capable of providing for all the inhabitants that He sends!

We know it is God’s heart to give children but it’s interesting to read this subject from s secular point of view.
~ Nancy

Go to: https://www.wsj.com/…/SB10001424127887323375204578270053387…

Things may look pretty bleak at the moment. But it’s not the end of the world. God has got so much more ahead for you. Look ahead to what God has. Forget the past and keep pressing forward to the prize.

We read this Scripture in Philippians in our Family Devotions the other day and my husband talked about how we can easily get stuck in an eddy. An eddy is where some flowing water gets sidetracked and stuck to the side of a river. Instead of flowing with the current it goes around and around in circles going nowhere.

If we don’t keep our eyes on what is ahead, we can be sucked into an eddy. Instead of looking up, keeping our eyes upon Jesus, and the hope of what is before, we can stay in a rut (or an eddy) going over and over our problems and never getting anywhere. Remember, that’s what happened to the children of Israel in the wilderness. Because they didn’t believe God was bigger than their enemies they ended up going around in circles in the wilderness for 40 years!

We’ll never find an answer to our problems while we keep worrying about them. We’ll only know the way out when we look to the Lord and trust Him. When our eyes are upon Him, He can show us the way He wants us to go. And it will always be FORWARD. GOING AHEAD. PRESSING ON TOWARD THE MARK.

Keep out of eddies and keep running your race. It’s not the end yet!

Love from Nancy Campbell

Love from Nancy

Philippians 1:6 states: “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you WILL PERFORM IT until the day of Jesus Christ.”

God will do it. You can count on it.

However, because God is a faithful God and He has made us to be His people, He wants us to be faithful too. As we are faithful, even in the very little things, we show forth the character of God.

There are many things we don’t feel like doing but WE DO THEM because we are faithful. Just like God does. Faithfulness is action. It takes doing things. Doing things we really can’t be bothered doing. Mundane things. Duty things. Yes, we will do them because we faithful and we are revealing His character to our children and to those around us.

We are faithful to keep our word. Our word is our bond. When we say something, WE WILL DO IT.

Amen?

Let’s cultivate a character of faithfulness. Faithfulness to God, our husbands, our homes, our motherhood, our daily duties, and what we say. And let’s impart this character to our children. We have a generation that don’t know the meaning of keeping their word. If we belong to God’s kingdom, we’ll be faithful to keep our word, just as God is faithful to Keep His Word.

Be blessed. Nancy Campbell

Be encouraged today, dear mother. As you do the mundane things and the little things that must be accomplished each day, know that as you do them with joy and thankfulness, they prepare you for bigger things.

Because God is a faithful God, He delights to see faithfulness in us

Be blessed. Nancy Campbell