PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 419: THE FLOURISHING MOTHER, PT 1
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 419: THE FLOURISHING MOTHER, PT 1
How are you mothering in your home? Are you wilting? Just surviving? Or flourishing? Today we begin a new series, discussing how you can go from wilting to flourishing. Psalm 128:3 states: “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine, FLOURISHING within your home.”
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to the Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies, a magazine bringing strength and encouragement to families across the world.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Well, today I was hoping to have a dear friend with me to share the podcast, Kristina Friedman from Minnesota. Anyway, Kristina started to come and, on her way, out the door, she slipped and fell. By the time she got here, she could not even get out of the car!
Instead of getting out and doing the podcast together, she had to drive to the hospital and found she had a very badly broken foot. So now, she can’t even put her foot to the ground, and she doesn’t even know how she will get back to Minnesota.
Sorry about that, ladies. You’ll just have me today again. I trust that when Kristina is healed, and she comes back again (she has a daughter living here), that we’ll be able to do this podcast together which is going to be a very special one.
Anyway, I’m with you today again. I would like to start a series called “The Flourishing Mother.” Now I know that you don’t often feel as though you are flourishing in your home. In fact, I think there could be three different kinds of mothers.
THE WILTING MOTHER
Firstly, the wilting mother. Oh, do you often feel as though you are wilting? I know. I can remember times of feeling like that way back when I had little ones. So many little ones all at once. I just felt as though I was wilting.
It’s like a plant. Sometimes they will wilt. It’s so sad to see a wilting plant, isn’t it? But the wonderful thing, ladies, about a plant that is wilting is that you can make if flourish again. Yes, I have done that many times. In fact, I had a potted plant a year or two ago. We went away for a week or ten days. By the time we got back, this plant was dead! Well, it just looked completely dead.
But I did notice the tiniest little bit of green. “Oh, I wonder if I can resurrect this plant?” So, I kept watering it, and watering it. Little by little, it came back to life! It took quite some time, but today, this is a very flourishing potted plant. It’s the same with us. We may be wilting, but I’m going to tell you in the next few podcasts of how you can be a flourishing mother.
THE SURVIVING MOTHER
Well, you may not be wilting, but perhaps you are one of those who are just surviving. We can have plants also that are just surviving. They’re not dead but they’re not flourishing. They’re just surviving. I think, perhaps, that’s where many mothers are today. You are just getting through each day. You just did it. You got through another day.
Of course, you didn’t do everything you wanted to do. I don’t think I’ve ever done that in my whole life. I do like to write lists. In fact, most days I will write a list in the morning when I get up, thinking about what I need to get done. I write all these lists of what I have to do and the people I have to call and this and that.
Well, I don’t think I have ever got through a list in all my life! I can remember thinking, “Oh dear, I need 48 hours in a day!” Until the Lord really convicted me, and said, “Nancy, I gave you 24 hours and some of those are for sleep. And so, you have to be content with what I give you. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” And so, I’ve learned that, even though I don’t get through all my lists, maybe in a few weeks, I will.
THE FLOURISHING MOTHER
But anyway, you didn’t get everything done that you were going to do. None of us ever do, but you just feel as though you just survive. Well, dear ladies, I want to tell you that God’s plan is for us to flourish! “Oh my, how can I flourish?” you think. Well, we’re going to talk about it over the next few podcasts. I do have 13 different points of how we can flourish in our home.
But first of all, let’s go to the Scriptures, shall we? Because this is what I’m basing this on. The Scriptures are not making it up. Now you know, ladies, when I share with you, I share with you from the Word of God. I don’t make it up. Sometimes you may think I’m making it up because it sounds so amazing! Because the Word of God is so amazing. And most of us live subzero. We live below what God intends for us.
Well, let’s go, shall we, to that beautiful family psalm, Psalm 128. It’s a psalm that talks about the husband who is working with his hands and providing for his family. Then it talks about the wife. “Your wife is like a fruitful vine within your home.”
Let me read the Living Bible Translation: “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine, flourishing within your home. And look at all those children! There they sit around your table, as vigorous and healthy as young olive trees. That is the Lord’s reward for those who fear Him.”
We go to the Berean Standard Bible. It says the same thing: “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine, flourishing within your home.”
Now, this word “flourish,” is really a picture of a flower that’s in a bud and it’s opening up. It opens up to the sun and gradually it opens up into full flower. It also means “to thrive, to grow luxuriantly, to enlarge as a healthy growing plant, to bloom, to expand, to shoot out.” Yes, this is the picture of a flourishing mother. This is the picture that God gives of the mother in the home.
MOTHERING IS A FULL TIME PROFESSION
Now you notice that it is the mother in the home. It’s not so easy, dear ladies, to flourish if you're also working outside the home, because, oh, then you've got two things you're trying to cope with, because mothering is a full-time profession. It’s a full-time career. Really, it doesn’t have any rivals. Yes, mothering is a very powerful role. And God wants us to flourish in it.
So, lovely ladies, if you're flourishing, you will be blossoming, flowering, blooming, growing luxuriantly, thriving, increasing, enlarging, expanding, abounding, and shooting out. Wow! Can you think of yourself mothering in this way? Well, that’s sort of hard to get your mind around, isn’t it?
It reminds me of why I changed the name for this podcast. Did you know I used to call it “From My Home to Yours”? But I changed it some time back to “Life to the Full” because I kept bringing up Scriptures that talk about us living abundantly and aboundingly.
So, I wanted my podcast to portray the picture that God gives us of the way He wants us to live in this abounding, flourishing way. But sometimes I think I really didn’t do it justice, because if we were really to keep to the Scriptures, it shouldn’t be just “Life to the Full,” but “Life to Overflowing”!
So, let’s see. We’ve got 13 points.
No. 1. THE FLOURISHING MOTHER IS PLANTED IN HER HOME
To flourish in your home, dear ladies, you must first be planted. That’s the very foundation, to be planted in your home.
Now, do you know the first time this word is used in the Bible? I wonder if you know. Well, shall I tell you? It’s found in Genesis, right at the beginning. Genesis 2:8. This is what it says: “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden.” So, here we see the first time the word “planted” is used, and it’s talking about God. “God planted.”
That’s an amazing thing. I wonder if you've ever noticed this Scripture, dear ladies? When you read chapter one of Genesis, we read how God created the world. And how did He do it? All He did was speak the Word, “Let there be light.” And there was light! “Let there be a firmament.” And there was a firmament. All He had to do was speak the words and it happened!
But then, it came time for God to make a garden. The amazing thing is, God didn’t say: “Let there be a garden.” No, He didn’t say that. The Bible says, “And the Lord God planted a garden.” Isn’t that amazing? God, the Creator of this vast universe, not only the earth, but the heavens above. This God got down on His knees and planted in the soil that He had created. Wow!
Now, it’s interesting that in the Bible, it talks about this Garden of Eden. It was the first home. But it was a garden home. Home and garden are actually twins. God puts them together. A garden is meant to be part of a home. It’s a big job doing a garden. I’m sure we’d love to be able to say, “Let there be a garden,” and there was a garden! But no, actually, to do a garden takes work. And you have to get down, and you have to plant this garden.
Well, I’m very blessed at the moment, because my daughter, Evangeline, is doing my garden. For the last, well, we’ve lived out here on the Hilltop for 26 years. For the last 23 of those years, I have done the garden. I love gardening. But Evangeline loves gardening, I think even more than me! She is an amazing gardener. She has taken over my garden, and it is just so amazing. So, I’m very blessed about that.
But anyway, this is the thing: planting. So, God loves to plant. He planted the first garden. He was the very first gardener. Some ladies say, “Well, you know, I don’t really need a garden.” And to tell you the truth, dear ladies, you can get away with not having a garden because today we live in this age where you just go down to the supermarket and get what you like, every vegetable you want, any season of the year, from any country of the world. There it is. You buy it.
But, oh goodness me, there’s nothing like the blessing and the nutrition, oh, the freshness of getting it out of your own garden. Without all the sprays, and the chemicals, and from having traveled by truck for a few days before it gets to the supermarket. And how long does it sit there?
Oh, it’s like when you purchase one of those plastic containers of organic lettuce. Oh yes, you get organic, of course. But you bring it home. In a couple of days, it’s already all slimy. Ooh! Goodness, you have to throw it out! Then it makes you wonder how long was it sitting in the shop before you even got it!
But when you have your garden, you just go out there, and you pick it straightaway and you eat it straightaway. I think God wants us to live that way because that is the healthiest way to eat. But lots of people have lots of excuses why they can’t do it. I think we have to try, even if we do a little garden.
So, God loves to garden. And He also loves to plant His people. In fact, there’s a lot of Scriptures about God planting His people, Israel. Because they were the people God chose to bring forth the Word of God and to bring forth our Savior. They are His very chosen people, and He chose a land for them.
Now we know that they, of course, didn’t live the way they were meant to. They sinned, and they did all the terrible things that the heathen were doing before they went in and possessed the land. And because of that, God had to, well, throw them out of the land. He cast them out to the four corners of the earth.
But God is a God of promises, a God Who will never break His promises, never break His oaths. He promised that He would bring His people back again to the land that He gave them for an everlasting covenant, and that He would plant them. This time, He said: “I’m going to plant you, and you will not be plucked up again.”
Exodus 15:17: “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them.”
2 Samuel 7:10: “Moreover, I will appoint a place for My people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more.”
Psalm 80:8-11: “You have brought a vine (it’s talking about Israel) a vine out of Egypt: You have cast out the nations, and planted it. You prepared rooms for it, and caused it to take deep root, and it filled the land.”
Jeremiah 24:6: “For I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and will bring them again, back again to this land. And I will build them, and I will not pull them down. And I will plant them, and not pluck them up.”
Amos 9:15: “I will plant them, and they shall no more be pulled out of their land, which I have given them.”
And many other Scriptures. Let me give you one more. Jeremiah 32:41: “Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and will plant them in this land, assuredly, with My whole heart, and with My whole soul.”
This is one of my favorite Scriptures, because I feel and hear God’s heartbeat. His heart beats for His people who He scattered to the four corners of the earth, that He will bring them again and plant them. He’s going to do it. He’s been doing it, and is doing it, and will do it with all His heart, and with all His soul. But this is also God’s heart for me, for you, in your home. He wants to plant you in your home.
GOD PLANTS, THE DEVIL PLUCKS UP
To be planted; that means you're planted there. You’re not easily pulled away. No. God wants you to be planted in the home. In fact, God wants to plant mothers in the home. Guess what? The devil wants to pluck them up and get them out of the home. God plants, the devil plucks up.
Now, lovely ladies, we are either planted mothers or we are plucked-up mothers. Sadly, there are many, many plucked-up mothers. They are plucked up out of the home. Yes, they live at home. They come home in the evening, but many are out all day. They’re away from the home. They’re away from their children. This is not where God wants them. He wants mothers in the home. He wants planted mothers, not plucked-up mothers.
There are many blessings of being planted. Let me just give you a few from the Word of God.
1) YOU WILL FLOURISH
Psalm 92:12-15: “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God.” Flourishing. It’s such a beautiful word.
We think of 1 Corinthians 15:58. It doesn’t use the word “flourish” but a similar word. “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the word of the Lord, forasmuch as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” Now that word “abounding” is a word that I often talk to you about, because it pops up all the time in the Bible. It’s perisseuo, and it means “to superabound, to be in excess, enough and to spare, over and above, beyond what is necessary, flourishing.”
What is this verse about? It’s about abounding in the work of the Lord. Well, the work that God gives us when He gives us children, that’s our work—to nurture them, train them, prepare them to be lights shining in this world, and ultimately preparing them for the eternal kingdom. This is our life’s work and God wants us to do it in this abounding, flourishing way.
2) YOU WILL BE FRUITFUL
Jeremiah 17:7-8: “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters . . . neither shall cease from yielding fruit.” When you're planted, you’ll be fruitful. You’ll be flourishing.
Now let’s read another Scripture. Ezekiel 19:10. This Scripture is taken from an allegory that the prophet is speaking forth. It’s an allegory about how Judah was taken to Babylon. It likens the tribe of Judah to a mother. So, as we read this, we get to understand how God sees a mother: “Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood, planted by the waters: she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.” You notice there that this mother is planted. Once again, this is why she’s fruitful, because she is planted.
It carries on about this mother who is fruitful and full of branches, speaking of her children. “And she had strong rods for the scepters of them that bare rule.” That’s also talking about her children, and her sons growing up into stature and becoming mature, even in their youth, as the Bible says. It goes on: “And her stature (the stature of the mother) was exalted among the thick branches, and she appeared in her height with the multitude of her branches.”
And here it’s speaking about the career and the role of the mother. God says: “her stature was exalted.” That word means “to rise to a great height.” This is where God has placed motherhood. He’s placed it high. It’s highly esteemed in His eyes. He says: “Her stature was exalted.” It was exalted above all the other trees and branches around. And motherhood is the highest career. There are many careers that mothers can have in this world, but motherhood is the highest.
But then, this allegory continues in verse 12. And it’s so sad, because even though God says she was exalted but now she is plucked up. You see, we see here again this picture. We’re either a planted mother as it says in verse 10, but now, this mother is plucked up. “But she was plucked up in fury, she was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods were broken and withered; the fire consumed them.”
This is a picture of the destruction of motherhood because she was plucked up. And what happens to her children when she’s not there in the home? They are cast down to the ground. They are dried up. In fact, she doesn’t have time to have more children, because she’s not even in the home.
And it goes on: “And now she is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty ground.” Now that wilderness, of course, is speaking of Babylon, because this is an allegory. It’s a type. But what happens when a mother is plucked up out of the home? She is then planted in a wilderness. It’s not the place that God has for her to be planted.
Then it goes on to say, yes: “And fire is gone out of a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit, so that she hath no strong rod to be a scepter to rule.” The children aren’t rising up.
“This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.” Well, that allegory was written so many years ago but it’s the picture of what is happening to motherhood in this time in which we are living.
Let’s go on to Psalm 92:13-14: “Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall . . . still bring forth fruit in old age.” You cannot be fruitful without being planted. But the more you are rooted in your home, dear mother, the more fruitful you will be. Often, when we get involved in so many things outside the home, we get scattered. We get fragmented. We’re maybe doing lots of things but are we truly fruitful in what God is wanting us to do?
In the raising, and mentoring, and teaching, and training, and preparing of our children for this life, and for eternity, it is so very sad that that statistics today are that only six percent of Christians have a biblical worldview, only four percent of Generation Z. How can that be?
It comes back to us mothers, the mothers in the home. We are the ones who are responsible to give them that biblical worldview, that they know what God’s heart is, and what His truth is on all manner of subjects. That is just so important. I believe that we need to be planted, not only physically.
Oh yes, we can be in the home. In fact, you can be a homeschooling mother and not be truly planted. Are you really planted emotionally, psychologically, and mentally, as well as physically? You see, we can be in the home, but our heart and our mind can be somewhere else. It’s not really focused where it’s meant to be. But God wants us planted and focused so we can flourish and be fruitful in that which He has given us to do.
3) YOU WILL BE VIGOROUS AND HEALTHY
Psalm 92:13-14: “Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall . . . be fat and flourishing.” Well, none of us want to get fat, do we? But it doesn’t mean that. The word in the Hebrew means, “full of sap, full of oil, healthy.” When a person is filled with oil, and sap in their bones, they are healthy.
What happens to people as they get older? Their bones get dry and brittle and they show their age. They begin to walk with a walking stick and so on because their bones are getting dry and brittle and no longer fat and full of sap.
I love reading about Moses. Oh, when he was 120 years old, he died, but even when he died, the Bible says: “His eye hath not become dim, nor hath his moisture fled.” His bones were still full of sap.
The New Living Translation says: “His eye had not become dim, nor were the juices of his body dry.”
Another commentary says: “Nor had his sap fled or ebbed.”
So, that part of being planted is amazing. When we’re planted, we’ll be full of healthy sap in our bones.
4) YOU WILL BE LUXURIANT AND FRESH
These are the blessings of being planted that the Scripture talks about.
Psalm 92:13-14: “Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall . . . be flourishing.”
Now this time, it says “flourishing” but it’s a different Hebrew word. And this Hebrew word means, “to grow luxuriantly, to be fresh, to be verdant.”
Do you know what the word “verdant” means? It means to be very green, a really luminous green. I think of “verdant” when I go back to my home country of New Zealand. Down in New Zealand, there’s something about the ozone layer, I think. It’s so very, very green. You can be driving along and looking at the beautiful green hillsides and they just look luminous! They’re so green!
Oh, and I remember coming from the USA, going back to New Zealand, going into a vegetable shop and looking at the green vegetables. I couldn’t believe it! They were just sort of, whew! So green! It’s so amazing!
Of course, we have our downside of that. In New Zealand in the summer, you can go outside. It can be a cloudy day, and yet, somehow the sun’s rays get to you. I can remember, as a child, going out when it was cloudy. You don’t even think it’s really sunny. You come home, and you're just sunburned! Oh, I was always getting sunburned. My shoulders would always be blistered, full of blisters. My nose, full of blisters. Oh, that Down Under sun is quite amazing!
And then, we moved to Australia for ten years. We lived on the Gold Coast, the beautiful place of sun. Everything was glorious. It was so amazing to live there. But they had this sign because we lived right on the Pacific Ocean. Of course, everywhere you went, you saw this sign: “Flip, flap, flop!” Everyone had to flip, flap, flop this zinc on their noses to save them from blistering. So, everyone went around with white noses. Isn’t that amazing?
But anyway, talking about green, just a little thought as we are closing this session. Here are some Scriptures.
Jeremiah 17:8: “Her leaf shall be green (that’s the same word “flourishing”) and shall not be worried, even in the year of drought.”
Hosea 14:8: “I am like a green tree.”
Last one, Song of Solomon, 1:16. And here, the bridegroom says: “Our bed is green.” Even our bed? Now what does that mean? Did they have a green bedspread? No, I don’t think so, because the word means “fresh and luxuriant.” It’s talking about how our bed is always new and luxuriant. So, with your husband in your bed, it’s not a boring old bed. But no, it’s a place of beautiful freshness, intoxication, satiating, and captivation—and always fresh.
Oh yes, there’s one more.
5) YOU WILL GLORIFY GOD
Isaiah 61:3: “That they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.” Yes, God is glorified when we’re planted. John 15, that’s the abiding chapter. “He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, for without Me you can do nothing. Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.” So, we’re planted, and then we flourish and bring forth fruit, and God is glorified. Amen?
All right. Well, that was just No. 1 that the flourishing mother is planted in her home. We’ve got 12 more points to go, ladies, so we will continue that next session.
“Dear Father, we thank You for Your Word again. I’m always thanking You for Your wonderful Word which is so fresh and so glorious and shows us the way You want us to live. Lord God, I pray that You will help each one of us, me, each one who’s listening, to live, not by the humanistic standards of this world, not by the way society is living all around us, but by Your Word.
“Lord, it is Your Word that counts. Your Word is eternal. Your Word is alive before every generation. When we embrace Your Word, we will have all Your blessings. I pray, dear Father, You will bless every wife and mother listening. Lord God, just give them that longing to be planted in their home. I pray that they’ll get to enjoy and reap and know the blessings, all the blessings of being planted, for not only her, but for her children. I ask this in the Name of Jesus. Amen.”
Blessings from Nancy Campbell * www.aboverubies.org
Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
If you have a moment, it would be lovely if you could email a little thank you letter to Darlene. She sacrifices much of her time to transcribe these podcasts for you and I know it would encourage her to know that you are blessed by her hard work. Thanks so much