LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 360: THE UNBELIEVABLE REVELATION OF GOD'S HEART FOR YOUR HOME, PART 1

It is amazing that God uses a phrase to describe three very important things in the Bible, and they all begin with H: Heaven, the Holy of Holies, and yes, your Home. You'll want to find out what it is. Every mother needs to hear this revelation.

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Today I want to share with you something that is so precious to my heart. It’s a beautiful revelation of the Word of God, which I believe is so important for all of us mothers. I actually shared this at our recent Above Rubies retreat down in Florida.

But, of course, only a certain number were there. And so, I feel to share it with you all, all across the world, wherever you are, in this United States or in other countries. I know so many are listening right Down Under in Australia and New Zealand, and also the UK, and in many parts of the world. We welcome you all. Welcome into this podcast, where we’re going to go into the Word of God together about something that really relates to us as women.

I’m beginning with a familiar Scripture that I know you all know, Psalm 128:3. OK, who can say it? Can you say the words immediately? Or I wonder if you're thinking, “Well, what is that Scripture?” I believe this is a Scripture that we should all know because it’s a picture of who we are as mothers in the home.

It says: “Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house, thy children like olive plants, round about thy table.” That is a beautiful picture of the mother in the home. It’s so interesting that when God describes the mother, He describes her in the home, in the heart of the home. Because that word, that phrase I read, “By the sides of the house,” that’s King James language. It doesn’t really relate very well to us.

But if we go to the Hebrew, we find that it means, “in the very heart, in the recesses of the home.” This is where God pictures the mother, in the heart of the home. This is where she’s meant to be. And where are the children? They’re not scattered everywhere. They are also in the heart of the home. We see them pictured sitting around the table. The table is a piece of furniture that is in the heart of the home. So, this is a description that God gives of a family that’s blessed of the Lord.

But this phrase, “By the sides of the house,” is rather interesting. One day, I was reading in 1 Kings 6. I got to verse 16. It was talking about how Solomon was going to build the temple. It says these words: “And he built twenty cubits on the sides of the house.” Now, when I read that phrase, I thought, “That’s interesting. I remember that phrase.” Of course, I remembered it back to Psalm 128:3, where it’s talking about the wife in the home. I thought, “Wow, that is interesting!”

Then I noticed other Scriptures. I noted a Scripture about Heaven. This is actually talking about when Satan rose up against God. But in Isaiah 14:13-14, it says, well, actually this is what Satan was saying: “For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north.” And there was that phrase again! I thought, “Wow, this is getting interesting!”

So, I looked up again this phrase, which I already knew, because I had looked it up many years ago. The Hebrew word is yerekah, and it literally means “in the recesses, in the very heart, in the innermost parts, far away, at the far end.” I began to see that God describes three different places, using this phrase, “by the sides of the house,” which, of course, when we get down to understanding it in real language, it means, “In the very heart,” or “in the far end, in the recesses.”

So, let’s start with this first place, shall we? By the way, these three things all start with “H,” Very interesting. So, the first one is HEAVEN. Now, ladies, where is Heaven? Do you know where Heaven is?

Well, not any of us really know where Heaven is, but God gives us a little inkling in His Word. We see that Heaven is somewhere in the north. Now, we don’t know whereabouts in the north, but it’s somewhere there. Let’s look at a few Scriptures, shall we?

Psalm 75:6-7: “For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge.” We notice there that these things come from east, west, and south, but not the north. But God, who is the Judge is in the north.

Then I read the Scripture about Satan rising up in the sides of the north.

We go to Psalm 48:1-2: “Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King.” We get this, “the sides of the north.”

We go to Exodus 40:20-23. God is telling Moses how and what to do for the tabernacle in the wilderness. He told him, and then Moses did what God told him. He put the table, which was the table of showbread, in the tent of congregation, “upon the side of the tabernacle northward and he set the bread there.” That was the showbread.

In the Hebrew, that is lechem ha panim, meaning “the bread of faces.” The bread upon the table represented the faces of Jesus Christ. As we feast upon the bread, of course, Jesus is the bread. Also His Word is the bread. As we feast upon Him, as we feast upon the Word, we get to see Who He is. He is not one face, for He is represented in many faces, many attributes. We don’t stop at one.

Jesus has so many attributes. We keep finding out more and more as we seek Him. But God says that bread had to be put on the table which was to be placed northwards. It was to be placed looking towards Heaven, because Christ Himself was in Heaven. That also pointed to Heaven.

We go over to Leviticus 1:11. Here it’s taking about the sacrifices. It says: “And he shall kill the sacrifice on the side of the altar northwards, in the presence of the Lord.” Once again, every sacrifice upon the altar pointed to Calvary, pointed to the Lamb of God, who would take away the sin of the world. Jesus was the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world. This was upon Him from the beginning, in the eons of eternity, in the Heavenly realm.

And so, even the sacrifices had to be done northwards, facing the heavenly realm. So, we get this phrase, “On the sides of the north,” meaning in the very extreme recesses of the north. We don’t know where Heaven is, but it’s somewhere. It’s hidden. It’s somewhere in the far recesses of the north.

Now we go to second “H.” This is where I began to get this understanding of where I read of how Solomon was building this special place by the sides of the house. But then we find it’s the word yerekah, which means “in the recesses, at the far end.” What was it talking about, ladies? It was talking about the HOLY OF HOLIES. That starts with “H” too.

Let’s go to some modern translations so we can understand it more fully.

The New Living Translation says: “And he partitioned an inner sanctuary, the most holy place,” not the holy place, but “the most holy place at the far end of the temple.” They are translating that Hebrew word which means “the recesses, the far end.” They are translating it correctly “at the far end of the temple.”

Verse 10 says: “He prepared the inner sanctuary, the holy of holies, at the far end of the temple.”

The English Standard Version says: “The inner sanctuary he prepared in the innermost part of the house, to set there the ark of the covenant of the Lord.” So, ladies, we see that when Solomon was building the temple (it was the same when Moses was preparing and building the tabernacle in the wilderness), they were all patterned after the same pattern, which is a heavenly pattern.

The Holy of Holies was not at the entrance of the tabernacle or the entrance of the temple. No, it was at the far end, because in the Holy of Holies was where God dwelt in His shekinah glory. God is not put on display. We have to seek to find God.

So, when you came into the temple, what did you see at the beginning? I’m sure, if you're familiar with the tabernacle and the temple, you will know that the first thing that you see as you enter into the gate (and how many gates are there?) Of course, we don’t have a tabernacle any longer.

How many gates are there to the temple? Well, we don’t have a temple any longer either, do we? But back then, do you remember how many gates? Well, there was ONLY ONE. Everything was a type. There was only one entrance, one gate, because there is only one way to God, and that is through Jesus. “I am the Way, the Truth, the Life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6).

There is only one door. But as you go through that one entrance, there is the brazen altar where they did the sacrifices, which of course, point to Jesus, the Lamb of God. That is the first thing. We come to Jesus. We come to Him as our Savior, the One Who shed His blood to cleanse us from our sins.

Then the next thing that we see is the brass laver. It was a place where they had to bathe, where they had to cleanse themselves. They had to do this before they even went into the Holy Place. And then, in the Holy Place, there were three pieces of furniture. It was all in the shape of a cross, pointing once again to the theme of the whole of the Word of God, Christ’s redemption upon the cross for us.

And then, on the north side, as we were sharing, was the table of showbread, facing the north, facing Heaven. On the other side was the menorah, the golden candlestick, and then, there was the table of incense. The golden altar of incense just before the curtain, just before you went into the Holy of Holies.

Back in those days, only the high priest could go into the Holy of Holies. As you know, he could only go in once a year, carrying blood. If he did not carry the blood which he had sacrificed for his own sins, and the sins of his family . . .  Then again, he had to sacrifice for the sins of the whole nation. Unless he carried that blood into the Holy of Holies, he could have been struck dead. He had to have the blood.

He also had to carry the incense, filling this Holy of Holies, filling it with that incense, because he could not look upon God. It had to be filled with incense. Of course, today we are living in the glorious day of grace. When Jesus died upon the cross, that thick curtain that separated the Holy of Holies was torn from top to bottom. Now we have access into the Presence of God, through the precious blood of Jesus. Oh, how wonderful! How glorious! How blessed we are!

But we don’t come blatantly into the Presence of God. We have to come first through the sacrifice of Jesus, through embracing His blood that was shed for us, through the cleansing of our sins, and through baptism. And then through the waiting on the Lord as we feast on His Word, and we receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit each day, which is represented by the menorah that they had to light by pouring in the oil, the oil which speaks of the Holy Spirit, every morning and every evening, and so on.

The Holy of Holies is there at the far end because it is the inner place. We have to come in the right way to find that fellowship with God. And then, dear lovely ladies . . . Oh, but before I go on, I must tell you a little bit more about the Holy of Holies in the temple. Back in the tabernacle, it was a 15-foot cube, that is high, deep, wide, whatever. It was a cube. It was 15 feet.

But when Solomon built the temple, he built it twice as big. It became a 30-foot cube. Now we have to realize what it was like. Did you know, ladies, that that Holy of Holies was made with cedar? But it was covered with pure gold. Not just gold, but pure gold. Ceiling, floor, sides, every part.

Then it was not only completely covered with gold, but on the ark of the covenant were two cherubim. I have seen pictures of the ark of the covenant with the cherubim on top. Most probably you've seen pictures too. You see these little cherubim covering the top. But according to the Word of God, that is not the true picture, because in the Word, it says that these cherubim filled the Holy Place from wall to wall, a 30-foot span.

There were two cherubim with two wings each, of course. Both 7-1/2 feet, which made the wings of one cherub 15 feet with both wings. The wings of the other cherub, 15 feet with both wings, which means they touched from wall to wall, the 30-foot cube. And they were covered with gold.

Now, can you guess how much gold was in that Holy of Holies? This is not the whole temple. This is just the Holy of Holies. Well, the King James Bible tells us there were six hundred talents of gold in the Holy of Holies. But we don’t really know what six hundred talents of gold are, but in the New Living Translation of the Bible, it relates it to what we can understand today.

It says that there were . . . wait for it, ladies. There were 23 tons of gold in that Holy of Holies! Can you believe that? Twenty-three tons? Actually, the Good News Bible says 25 tons. And every nail that was used was also made with 20 ounces of pure gold. Can you even imagine what it would be like to go into that much gold? But ladies, that was nothing. Nothing, compared to the Presence of God that filled that Holy of Holies. That was the real glory that filled that place.

So, we see that even though it was so amazing, and so special, so incredible, God didn’t put it out there for everybody to see. Oh, no. God’s most precious and most holy things are hidden. The Holy of Holies was hidden.

But now we come to the third “H.” And ladies, this is where it gets to us, right in our homes, because the third “H” is the word “HOME.” For this is the very same word that God uses for Heaven, for the Holy of Holies, and now He uses it for the home. “Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house.” Or let’s look at it in modern language. “In the heart of your home.”

Let’s look at some translations, shall we?

The New English Translation says: “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine in the inner rooms in your house. Your children will be like olive branches as they sit all around your table.”

The New King James version says: “Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the very heart of your house.”

The Amplified Version says, “Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the innermost parts of your house.”

And so, these translations, and so many, many others, are translating it correctly from the Hebrew word yerekah, which means, let me tell it to you again. The exact Hebrew rendering is “in the very heart, the inner rooms, the recesses, at the far end.”

And so, ladies, we see two things here. One, we see that this is God’s picture of the wife. He doesn’t picture her out in her career, leaving her little ones with someone else to mother. No, He doesn’t picture her driving around in her car everywhere, always here and there, out and about, running her home from the periphery of her home. No.

Well, we live in an age when every mother has a car, and of course, she’s got to go out to do her shopping, do her groceries, do this, do that. But the real picture is that God sees the woman in the heart of her home, in the inner rooms of her home, in the recesses of her home.

Now, I know this seems so foreign to the modern picture of the wife today. But ladies, we have to admit that God’s Word hasn’t changed. God’s Word never changes. The Word that He gave in the beginning is the Word that He gives today. His Word is for all generations. It never changes. This is His heart.

I believe that we need to be women who want and long and seek to adhere to God’s Word, to His heart. This is His heart for His mothers. He provided the home for them. The home is the place that God provided for women to raise their families.

If we go back to the very beginning in Genesis 1, and I’m sure I would have shared this with you before. But we see here in Genesis 2, actually, let’s go to Genesis 2:7: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”

What do we read next? OK, it talks there that God formed the man. But we don’t read of him yet forming the woman. The very next thing that we read, the next verse, is verse 8: “The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.” OK, He created the man. Then He created the Garden of Eden, the home that he made for man to live in.

But there’s no mention of the woman yet. In fact, we don’t even read anything about the woman until verse 18: “And the Lord God said, ‘It is not good for a man to be alone. I will make him a helpmeet for him.” Now we’re hearing about the woman, but she’s still not created yet.

The next thing it goes on to say is how He created all the animals, and the beasts in the field, and every living creature. They were created, and still the woman is not created. But eventually we get down to verse 21 where we read, “And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.”

The word there “made” is totally different from how He created the man. God said He formed the man from where? From the dust of the earth. Was woman made from the dust of the earth? No. No, she was the only thing that was not made from the dust of the earth. She was made from an existing creation. God brought her out from the man.

The word there is banah, “to build.” God built the woman. Very interesting. Totally different word. He built her, this intricate creation. She was His highest creation. She was left to the very last. She was the very highest creation of all, and built so intricately, to bring forth life into the world. Dear ladies, we are so blessed. We are so honored that we are one of the creations who God chose to bring forth His image into the world, to bring life into the world, and ultimately for eternity, to fill eternity.

But where was Eve when she woke up to life? Where was she? She was in her home. Do you see that God didn’t create her until He had the home ready? He created man without the home. I don’t quite know . . . Well, it wasn’t too much longer that He made the home. He was showing Adam what to do. He was showing Adam, “Adam, this is what we do. We got the home ready for this helpmeet that I am bringing to you.”

It is the man’s responsibility to prepare the home, provide the home. We see this right back in the very beginning. Then He puts the man in this beautiful garden home. It was a home, but it was a garden home. He had to till the garden and look after it.

Did you know, ladies, that a garden is synonymous with home? We don’t have to make that happen today because we live in this modern age where you can go to the supermarket and buy anything you want, from any country in the world, or any season of the year. You don’t have to worry. Just go and buy it. You don’t even need a garden.

Back there they needed one, but I believe it’s still God’s passion that the garden is part of the home. So much so. Did you notice what I read in verse 8? This is amazing. Let me go back to verse 8 here. “And the Lord God planted a garden.” Did you hear that, ladies? How did God create everything?

Let’s go back to chapter one. “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God said, ‘Let the waters under the Heaven be gathered together,’ and it was so.” And God said, and it was so. And God said, and it was so. He only had to speak the word, and it was so.

Well, God could have said, “Let there be a garden, and it was so.” But no. What does it say? “And the Lord God planted a garden.” God Himself got down on His knees and put His hands into the very earth and soil He created and planted. God was the very first gardener. Dear ladies, isn’t that amazing? Yes. Sometimes we can talk, “Goodness me, I don’t want to get my hands dirty in a garden.” Well, God was the first gardener.

Yes, and then we go back to how He built the woman. He built her so that she could then be the builder of families, and the builder of cities, and the builder of nations. How was the whole nation of Israel built? Well, we read back in the book of Ruth, where the people came to Naomi and they said about Ruth, “The Lord make the woman that has come into thy home like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel.”

I beg your pardon. Did Leah and Rachel build the house of Israel? I thought it was the twelve sons of Jacob. But no, God says Leah and Rachel built it, because that word “build” in the Hebrew, the word banah, means “to build, to repair,” but it also means “to bring forth children.” That is the very Hebrew word of banah. So, God created the woman to be a builder, to bring forth children, to build nations. Yes, because if there were no children, we wouldn’t even have a city.

In fact, the Word of God is so beautiful. Many times, you’ll read, and it says: “And build cities for your little ones.” Why do we have cities? That’s to provide for the families, for everything they need to build a house, for them to eat, for everything they need. If there were no families, you wouldn’t even need a city. Even cities are built because of families. It all happens through the woman and the home.

Dear ladies, can you get this revelation today? That God has equated you, as the mother in your home, with the Holy of Holies, where the Presence of God dwells in His shekinah glory. He also equated with the same word that He describes where Heaven is. Dear ladies, to be in the heart of your home is not insignificant. You may feel hidden. You may feel, “Oh, I don’t know what I’m doing here.” But I want you to know that you're in the very place that God intends for you, where He loves you to be, where it is His heart for you to be, and where He describes it in His Word.

OK. Next week, we didn’t get time to get onto it today, but next week we’re going to continue. And I’m going to bring to you four different things about Heaven, and about the Holy of Holies, and how these things relate to our homes. This is so powerful, dear ladies. Don’t miss this next session next week because God wants you to know the power of your homes, and it all relates with Heaven, and with the Holy of Holies. May God bless you.

“Dear Father, we thank You for the revelation that you give us in Your Word. It is so awesome. It is so powerful. And Lord God, we are living in a day when women are wooed out of their homes, out of the place where You have designed for them to be. Lord God, You are the One Who woos women into their homes. It is the devil who woos them out of their homes.

“I pray, dear Father, that You will bless every mother in her home today. Let her know she’s in this glorious place where You want her to be. Let her see the power of her home, and what she can accomplish in her home. Lord God, I pray that You will, oh, just come to her today, and let this revelation fill her heart, and she will rejoice and be filled with joy at the wonder and the glory of having a home where she can raise godly children for this world, and for eternity. I ask it in the Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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DON’T FORGET TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THIS PODCAST, “LIFE TO THE FULL” WITH NANCY CAMPBELL.” DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF. IT IS ENCOURAGEMENT FOR ALL WIVES AND MOTHERS.

 

 

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 359: WHO ARE YOU?

Robyn Coughlin shares again with me today and talks about the three most important principles of marriage she learned with her first husband. She is now married again and realizes she must use the same principles. Robyn states: "It's not so much who you are married to, but WHO YOU ARE!"

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies. Today I have Robyn with me again. Today she’s going to share some of the principles that she has found that have helped her in her marriages because she was first married to Lee. Then in the last podcast, she shared how the Lord took her husband home. The Lord has now blessed her with another husband. She’s had to work out these principles in both marriages. Let’s hear what you've got to say, Robyn.

Robyn: Thank you. Thank you again for letting me speak. It’s really quite an honor just to be sitting here with you, to be honest. So, thank you so much. I think I shared last time how God had really started me, that ten years after I had been married to Lee. By then . . .

Nancy: Oh, by the way, how long were you married to Lee?

Robyn: We had been married 38 years, but we’d been together for 40 years on the 30th of October, which is my birthday. But he died on the fourth of November. We were very naughty and lived together for two years before we got saved. I wrote an article for Above Rubies about that.

Nancy: Yes! Your testimony in Above Rubies about how that wasn’t the way to go!

Robyn: No, don’t do it. But we’d been together for 40 years. I loved him more when he died than I think I did when I was 16 when we first met. He died at just 57 years. I think I shared how I had heard Larry Lea’s message about “The Lord’s Prayer” for those who didn’t hear me last podcast and he made a comment, “I’ve been married for ten years. It’s the best thing ever.” I was thinking, “I’ve been married for ten years, and it’s been hell.”

So, I really went on a real quest. I mean, I’d been a Christian. I’m thinking, “God, what is it to be a Christian wife?” I knew what it was, because you had planted the seed in me. But I wasn’t measuring up, so I read books, and I would pray, and I’d study the women of God in the Bible, Sarah and Zipporah. Oh, my goodness, I’d just go and pray.

I’d written a marriage workshop on that marriage. Now I’m in the middle of writing a book. I’m writing a book because my granddaughters said, “Gran, you need to write a book on marriage. Women today don’t know what it is to be a wife.” So, I thought, “Well, I’ve made a marriage workbook. I guess the next thing to do is write a book.”

I’ve started to write a book more since I’ve been married to Mark because I’ve used the principles God gave me. It’s not about so much who you're married to. It’s WHO YOU ARE! The principles are in the book, but there are three that I really want to say are top priority for any marriage.

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

The first one is unconditional love. I know Lee, my late husband, would say, “If I’d get upset when we were pastoring,” or somebody would do something, or I’d get upset, he’d say, “Oh, so you've had expectations on them, have you?” Because he said, “Don’t have expectations on them and you won’t get hurt.

So often, we put expectations on our husbands, and we think they’re mind readers. Or we expect them to know something, or we get them to do something, and we get hurt. Well, I really meant that I’d never have unconditional love. I used to always sort of moan at Lee with things he wouldn’t do.

My sister-in-law, Raewyn, said one day, “Why don’t you start looking at things he does do, rather than going on about the things that he doesn’t do, that he might never even change?” I thought, like “That’s very good advice.” But it comes down to unconditionally loving them. Just like Jesus unconditionally loves me. That’s huge.

We seem to think that unconditional love is what God has for us, but actually, God expects us to love each other. He commands us to love each other. I didn’t always like Lee, but I always loved him. We don’t always like each other, but we’re commanded to love each other in the church.

I preached not long ago in our church. We go to seminars on worship, seminars on prophetic utterances, and seminars on this and that, but how many have ever been to a seminar about loving? There’s not enough. We need to start loving each other unconditionally. It’s got to start. Love is not a feeling. It’s a choice. You daily have to decide, “I will love you.”

I get really annoyed when I hear people say, “Well, I just don’t love him anymore. I don’t love her. It shows me you’ve got hurt, and you need to forgive, which is principle No. 2. You need to love and start speaking love, instead of speaking the opposite, and declare your love for him, because love is a choice. You choose to love somebody.

It’s not . . . I think there’s too much wrapped up in these romantic “happily after ever” stories. Young girls look at this happily ever after story. It’s always going to be happily ever after. Well, it’s not. They said, “Marriage is two people trying to become one.” That’s really amazing. Unconditional love was always my first thing to go to. When I’d had enough, I’d think, “Lord, just let me see him how You see him.”

I think it’s in 2 Corinthians 5, it says: “No longer will I look to the man after the flesh, but after the spirit.” That’s what we need to be doing, especially Christian wives or Christian couples. Far too much divorce in the Christian church. You need to start loving him unconditionally.

FORGIVE

Secondly, no unforgiveness. No offense, no unforgiveness. I know you argue, you disagree. Welcome to being married. But we always had the rule there. At nighttime, even if we’d had a terrible disagreement, we totally disagreed, that when we went to bed at night, even if we couldn’t talk about the issue, we would forgive each other. We would make sure that we became one, and say, “Look, we need to discuss this a bit further.”

But we would never . . . the Bible says: “Don’t go to sleep on your wrath, on your anger.” Because you know what it does? It opens a door for sin to come in. Even though you don’t want it to, and I think it’s in Genesis that it says: “If you do good won’t you be accepted? But if you don’t, sin is crouching at the heart, ready to come in.” So, just the seed of unforgiveness.

It amazes me how people don’t want to forgive. Really, unforgiveness is drinking poison, expecting the other person to die. That’s what unforgiveness is. You’re hurting yourself.

So, unconditional love. No unforgiveness. Forgive. You might not understand it, you might not like that, but you need to forgive and work through it. I had to do that. We had some terrible times in our marriage, wrong times, but I had to forgive because I knew as I forgave, then God could intervene.

I love the story of Sarah, how Abraham could make his wife go and say she was his sister and go with another man! I thought, “How could she not have just chopped his head off?” Seriously, but she didn’t, why? Because she knew if she obeyed her husband, God would intervene and would change the situation. What happened? They came out of Egypt rich because of her obedience. There’s power in it. I don’t know why women . . .

Nancy: It’s amazing. I always loved those three words in the Bible, where it just says: “Because of Sarah” (Genesis 12:17 and 20:18). Because she was willing to do that God did all these amazing things.

Robyn: Exactly! Don’t we want God to intervene? Because we try to do it. We get our fingers in it, and we just make a mess of it. But because of Sarah. I love that. “Because of Sarah.” I don’t know why women think to obey your husband is such an issue. That’s where the power is. Amazingly! God can do so much!

Women say, “Oh, well, my husband’s not a Christian, so no, I don’t have to obey him.” Hmmm. 1 Peter 3 says: “Wives, obey your husbands that if they’re not believing the Word, they will be won by your behavior.” That’s how to save the husbands! That’s what the Word of God says. Do we believe the Word of God or not?

Nancy: That’s for sure.

Robyn: The third thing that I really . . .

Nancy: But before you even go on to that, I don’t know whether you feel free to talk about it, but perhaps the most tragic or difficult time you faced with Lee that you had to forgive. Is that something that’s sort of not for the public? I mean, just whatever you feel. But really, what I’m sharing is that you had to forgive to the uttermost.

Robyn: I guess if I’m apprehensive about sharing it’s because he’s with the Lord. There is no unforgiveness on his name. He did have an affair. He went on a mission trip and had an affair and came back and told me. I was devastated. We’d put all our money into him going on this mission trip. I just couldn’t believe it.

He came back, and everybody was telling me how he had shared in such a dynamic way that his face shone like Moses. The next minute, he’s telling me on the way home they’d stopped off in Singapore and bingo, the thing had happened. I was devastated. I really was, but I learnt so much through it. I hear a lot of times that people say, “Well, he’s committed adultery so I can leave him.” I write this in my book, not going into detail.

But you don’t have to divorce him just because he’s committed adultery. You can get through it. And I got through it. It was very early, it was before we were pastoring, so it was during those ten years of hell. But I didn’t know the power of forgiveness could work so much in our lives. He came home and he told me.

The children were little, and we left them with a friend. We went to talk about what we were going to do. I think somehow, he wanted to go and be with her. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. I said to him, “Don’t touch me again until I know if I want you.” I was so hurt.

We went to the river which is a public swimming hole, embarrassingly enough, and we talked about our life, and we shared how isolation had crept into our marriage. We were very young. We were involved with church. I homeschooled. So we had me, the children, his job, church life, other people, and then him.

Somehow, we had lost focus on each other which is why it is so important to keep dating, to spend time with each other. The two of you, because children grow up and leave and you are left together. So you need to keep that relationship so tight. I learnt that through this. So isolation had come between us, and he had gone off, and obviously, his man’s ego got stroked and it happened.  Not that he had planned it; it just happened.

We talked, and we said, “Well, we used to have fun together. We don’t do this anymore.” He said, “Well, let’s play hide and seek.” Look, I know it sounds strange. We’re about this marriage. So we did. And he went and hid. I found him. I went and hid, and I was praying, I was saying, “God, I don’t want my marriage to finish. What am I going to do?”

And God said, “Take your clothes off.” I’m like, “Well, is anyone else up there? Seriously, God? Are you joking? Look what he’s done to me. Why would I give myself to a man who’s just hurt me in such a way and defiled our marriage?” But anyway, when God tells you to do something, you do it. So, I took my clothes off.

And a carload of people pulled up down the drive, and I’m thinking, “Help me, Jesus! I’m going to get arrested for nakedness! Help me, Lord!” And Lee was walking the other way, so I started to snap twigs. And he came over. I will never, ever forget the look on his face when he saw me. It wasn’t until years later we were counseling another couple, and he shared that when he saw me, that I had sacrificed myself and he could see Jesus. Jesus had sacrificed Himself for him, for that adultery. The healing power. And I tell you what; that union we built was such a tie between us that when he died all those years later, that bond was so close.

It took me a while. I had to go down and face the woman and tell her I forgave her, because otherwise I would have hit her to be honest. But I went down and told her. I forgave her and she said to me, “Oh, I know he’s my white swan.” I said to her, “Well, he’s my ugly duckling but with him I have a purpose in God.” And I said to her, “I forgive you, but this marriage is going on.” And it did.

Nancy: Yes. Praise the Lord!

Robyn: That was huge. I learnt then the power of forgiveness. I really did through that.

Nancy: Amen. That is so powerful.

HONOR YOUR HUSBAND

Robyn: And the third one, really, that I think is important is honor. Honor is the thing that is lost today. Wives run their husbands down. Wives, keep your mouth shut. Dishonor brings disgrace. You look in the Bible when Michal mocks David. When he was dancing before the Lord, what happened to her? She was barren.

Having dishonor for your husband affects you. Look at when Noah got drunk and they uncovered his nakedness. The curse is on the grandsons. Dishonor goes into the next generation. Honor is so important.

Look at Zipporah, Moses’ wife. When God came to kill Moses, she realized he had not circumcised his two sons, so she quickly circumcised them, threw the foreskins at Moses’ feet, and said, “Oh, what a bloody husband have I!” She covered him. She honored him as the man of the house. She never said, “That’s right God, look at him. Here he is, going over to get the children of Israel out and hasn’t even looked after his family.”

No honor. Honor’s not even in the church today. We don’t honor our men of God. We don’t honor. Honor is so important that we honor our husbands. They need that respect.

Nancy: Yes. God created them in a way that they are desperate for it, they have to have it. In fact, the Bible says that God formed Adam first.

Robyn: That’s right.

Nancy: He is the head of all mankind. Even when sin came into the world, Eve was totally deceived. But Adam was right beside her and he knew what he was doing. God held him responsible, because He put him as the head of mankind, the head of the wife, and the protector and provider. This is what I find. You can love your husband and yet still not really honor him.

Robyn: Oh, I love it! It’s true.

Nancy: And I have been guilty of that. I always loved my husband, but I haven’t always honored him. I’ve had to learn to do that. And that’s what releases your marriage into the glory that God wants us to enjoy. When your husband is receiving honor, he knows that you're giving him that respect and that honor as your husband. Wow! Amazing things happen.

Robyn: And the interesting thing with Adam and Eve is that their eyes were not opened until Adam ate. If Adam had said to her, “Put that down,” sin would not have come into the world.

Nancy: True. That’s true.

Robyn: But it’s so important we honor our husbands, and we listen to them. I remember one time I needed to know something. I wanted to go to China. Lee was very anti about it. He didn’t want me to go. The children were little, but I just knew God wanted me to take Bibles into China. I said, “OK, God. Well, if he’s saying no, I have to honor that.” So, it was no.

My heart was, “OK, Lord, unless he says yes, I’m not going.” Because if God can talk to a donkey, even a husband that doesn’t want to do something, God can change his mind. I had to know by Friday at lunchtime, and Lee came and said, “You’d better ring up and say you're going to China.” See, if I had gone with him saying No, I would never, ever have felt peace by dishonoring him. It’s so important that we honor our men. Especially today.

Nancy: It’s the fact that you honored him, and were prepared to obey him, that released him to hear from the Lord and give you that release.

Robyn: But it’s my safety.

Nancy: It is.

Robyn: Obeying him is my safety, and my children’s safety. I’m not coming out of his covering. I think well, if he’s wrong, God will tell him. God does it a lot quicker than we do.

A HELPMATE, NOT A HINDRANCE

When I married Mark and moved to America, we had a bit of disagreement. I went outside, and I was sitting, and I was thinking, “Gosh, God!” Moaning and groaning, and God said, “Robyn, be a helpmate. Don’t be a hindrance.” And I thought, “Oh, Lord, okay, I repent.” I said, “OK, Lord, I’ll just surrender and submit to him.”

When I married, I’m New Zealand born, called pakeha by the Maori people. My father was English, and my mother, her parents were from England. But we were white. So, when I married Lee, it was a totally different culture. He was Maori and he’d been brought up by a single mother, a Maori, beautiful woman of God. I loved her so much. But I was yet to come together with the culture differences. I learned so much. I could lay stuff down. I love Maori culture now. In fact, so many people say I’m probably more Maori. But I just love the culture.

But coming here, Mark is American! I’m New Zealand! A whole new culture. Oh, my Lord, it seemed hilarious.

Nancy: Oh yes! You come here, and some people don’t even know what language you're speaking!

Robyn: No!

Nancy: I still say things that are New Zealand and people do not know what we’re talking about.

Robyn: I needed to say, “This is Mark, my husband, and my interpreter!” [laughter] So many people can’t understand what I was saying. It was hilarious. Once I remember he lost the keys. He said, “Where are the keys?”

I said, “They’re on the kitchen bench.” He said, “Well, why did you put them there for?” I said, “Well, that’s where you put them.” He says, “No I don’t.” He came out and started to laugh. He said, “That’s a counter. It’s not a bench!” I said, “Oh, sorry!” A bench is a seat. In New Zealand, a counter is where you go to buy from a shop. You go to the counter to pay for it. It’s hilarious.

Nancy: Yes, yes. So amazing.

Robyn: It’s so important we love our husbands unconditionally. They love us, which means wives, keep some things quiet. If you've got to share, go to someone very, very strong in the Lord, and with fruit in their lives.

I remember once with Lee, he was learning Maori, and he became a bit . . . he was learning about the Maori culture. I was beginning to worry. We were pastoring. I was thinking, “What is he into?” I thought, well, I’ll go and talk to my dear elder’s wife. She’s Maori, and when I got there, she wasn’t there. I left there thinking, “Oh.”

You know, to this day, I praise God, because we worked it out. But I could have offended her with him. She could have got an offence on Lee. I got over it. She might have held it. It’s so important that we be very careful what we share. Some things need to stay between husband and wife.

Sometimes, if you need counseling, go to a husband and wife who are strong in the Lord, strong in their marriage. It’s important. Too often women just say things they shouldn’t. And when you speak it, there are always birds in the air, wanting to pick it up. Unconditional love. Don’t ever have unforgiveness towards him. Honor him, regardless. Honor him. Respect him, because God can change all things.

Nancy: Yes. Thank you for sharing that, Robyn. I think those are the three main things, especially that honor. That is the one thing that men long for more than anything else. If they give honor to their husbands, well, usually a husband will end up wanting to do anything for them. It’s just what they long for. If they don’t get honor, help! They begin to turn away.

Robyn: I read a book when I was searching all this out. Look, to this day I wish that I knew who wrote it. If anyone’s listening to this podcast, and it pricks something in you, please let Nancy know to let me know. But it was a woman who was writing a book about her husband. She was saying things like, “If you want your husband to spend more time with you, release him to go with his friends. If you want this, release him to do the opposite. And he loves you for it.” I always remembered that.

The other book I read from a pastor’s wife, and honestly, it was a beautiful story. She had wanted to evangelize her neighborhood. She did all this while baking for them, sharing with them, but no one would come to church. She got very upset. She was in the kitchen.

She looked out the window and she said, “God, how am I going to get these people to church?” And there were two hills. She was on one hill with all the people and Jesus was on the other hill. Between the hills was thick mud. She said, “God, how am I going to bring these people over to You?” He said, “Lay face down in the mud. They may not remember you, but they’ll come to Me.”

Now, I’ve told my children that. When things happen, I’ll say, “Lay face down in the mud.” If things happen in my marriage, I’ll think, “Lay face down in the mud.” And at other times, something would happen, and I’d say something, and they would say, “Well, let’s all go and lay face down in the mud!”

But what do we want? Do we want to put ourselves on a peddle stool or do we want people to know Jesus? That should be what it’s all about. I’ve shared that many times with new pastors’ wives, or my daughters. They’ll be listening to this, laughing. “You’ve got to lay face down in the mud, darling, as long as they know Jesus. They might never remember you, but as long as they come to Jesus through your actions.”

Nancy: That reminds me of the most beautiful story I read one time. This guy had his binoculars, and he was looking up at this mountain. He began to see two mountain goats. They were both coming in different directions. He thought, “Wow! What is going to happen here?” because they were walking along these very, very narrow tracks. There was no way that when they met, they could pass. No way.

He thought, “What on earth will happen? Am I going to see a tragedy here? Two mountain goats fighting and both are falling down over this mountain cliff.” And he said, “I saw the most amazing sight I have ever seen. When they got to where they met, one of those mountain goats lay down on the path and the other one walked over it. And they were both safe.”

Isn’t that so incredible? If goats can do that, what about us? When you think that goats, when we read in Matthew 24 how at the end of the age, God is going to separate the sheep from the goats, because the goats are always considered not His company. They are the ones that go into everlasting damnation. The sheep are His people who go into everlasting life. Well, if the goats can take that spiritual anointing of humility and lay down their lives for the other, well, what about us as His sheep?

Robyn: Shouldn’t we be doing that?

Nancy: Yes. Amen.

Robyn: And that’s where honor in the church is so important. People think, “Oh, we don’t want to worship a man.” It’s nothing to do with worshipping a man. It’s all to do with . . . we took our team; we are with Love and Unity Movement. Beautiful, beautiful apostles. We took them out to lunch. We’d been to the conference, and they were saying “Eddie” (he’s one of the apostles). And I said, “Hold on, his name is Apostle Eddie. They said he said I could call him Eddie.”

I said, “Well, you know what, when you're listening to him, he’s probably a lovely friend but don’t you want to draw on the anointing on his life? Don’t you want to draw on that?” And if we honor that, what does it say about honoring prophets?

I’ve really taught our guys to honor the men of God, because they can be your friends, but there’s an anointing on them you want to draw on. Man, imagine when we get to heaven? We’ll be sitting with Peter and Moses. You’ll want to be drawing what they knew of God? A title’s a title, but an anointing is an anointing. Honor it.

Nancy: I love Ephesians 5 at the very end, the last verse, verse 33. In the Amplified, wow! This really brings it out here. “However, let each man of you, {without exception} love his wife {as  being in a sense} his very own self; and let the wife see that she respects and reverences her husband {that she notices him, regards him, honors him, prefers him, venerates him, and esteems him, and that she defers to him, praises him, and loves and admires him exceedingly}” Whoo!

Robyn: You know, the whole thing about “Husbands, love your wife like you love yourself” . . . the trouble in our society today is that a lot of men don’t love themselves. And so, as wives, we’re expecting to be loved but if they don’t love themselves, they are going to struggle in loving you.

That’s why we need to make sure we praise them, and honor them, and lift them up, so that they start being confident in who they are. And the same, a wife who maybe has been mistreated . . . Husbands, love her. That’s why loving unconditionally is so important.

Nancy: And there are many men who, as you say, come into marriage. They’ve been dragged up. Maybe they’ve grown up in a home where they never received any encouragement. They’ve never been encouraged, affirmed, or built up. So, they come in with very low self-worth. Therefore, there’s still a lot to fill up in them to make them who they are meant to be.

I think a wife has the privilege of doing that, even in a husband who hasn’t had it growing up. That’s how a home should be. We’re raising our children, encouraging them, affirming them. Sometimes I thought that maybe we encouraged our children too much! They grew up thinking they could do anything in this world.

But there are many who haven’t had that. They’ve grown up. Even in their marriage, they’re still not all who they’re meant to be. But a wife has the privilege to speak into them, and speak honor, and affirmation, and encouragement. As they do, they get built up and become who they are meant to be as men. That’s the wonderful thing of honoring.

Robyn: It’s why I love Zipporah. We can say that Moses, in some ways, was brought up in two different cultures, Egyptian and Israeli. Then he murdered a man, then he went into the wilderness. He met Jethro and was there for 40 years. He stammered and so you could say he had low self-esteem. What does Zipporah do? She just covered him. She covered him. Beautiful.

Nancy: Yes. So, what is our time, Teeny? Goodness me! It’s been so great to have this time with you. Thank you, Robyn. I usually pray for the ladies, but while you're here, I’m going to ask you to pray for them again and pray over their marriages.

Robyn:

“Hallelujah! Oh, Father, Lord, You created marriage, and Father, it’s such a huge example of Your love for the church. And Father, so often we forget why You created marriage, Lord.

“So Father, I pray for every ear that is hearing this, every wife who might be struggling, every wife who might not know where to go, any wife who maybe wants to walk away from that marriage. Father, I pray, and I challenge them to come face down before You. Father, You have the answer for every marriage. You have the answer for every healing. You have the answer, Lord, to change us within, to love, respect, and adore our husbands.

“So, Father, I lift up marriages today. Father, in a world where divorces are so accepted, Father, I pray that we, as women, would raise the standard where we would not accept divorce. Lord, that we would go to the furthest place you can go in You, Father, to have our marriages healed.

“Father, I lift up each marriage today. Lord, I pray a blessing on them, Father. I pray, Lord, a newness on them, a new refreshment. Lord, I pray she starts doing what Your Word says. If they don’t obey the Word, he will be won by their behavior.

“Father, give them the strength. Lord, give them the whole desire, Lord, to serve and love their husbands. Let marriage and the whole world turn, Lord, that it will be something that people will want to run to. Not all the ones that want to run away from it, Lord.

“Lord, I thank You. I thank You for this time. I thank You for marriage examples You have put in my life, Lord, to see how marriage works in You. Lord, I pray that everything spoken through these podcasts, that women will take them on, just like we did. We were young women, and we heard all this from Nancy. We just desire to serve and love our husbands. Father, put that same desire in these hearts, I pray. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”

Nancy: Amen!                                               

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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DON’T FORGET TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THIS PODCAST, “LIFE TO THE FULL” WITH NANCY CAMPBELL.” DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF. IT IS ENCOURAGEMENT FOR ALL WIVES AND MOTHERS.

 

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 358: LOSING A HUSBAND

Robyn, also a New Zealander, but now living in Texas, shares today. Beginning in a de facto relationship, coming to Christ, getting married, and serving God together, she then tells the story of losing her husband of 40 years and how God brought her through.

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies again! And yippee! You’ve got another New Zealander talking to you today. This time it is Robyn Coughlin. At one time, she was Robyn Edmonds. She’s going to tell you her story.

Well, Robyn, it’s such a joy to have you here. What a great time we’ve all had, enjoying one another, and talking about the old days, the good old days. Actually, they were the good old days. Wow! We’d love to have some of those good old days again, wouldn’t we? They were also part of our glorious church life where the Holy Spirit was moving back in those days. Robyn, just start off! Let’s start off from the beginning.

Robyn: Kia Ora, which is our hello from New Zealand. I met up with you in 1978.

Nancy: Wow!

Robyn: I know and that is quite scary because you see how long ago that is. We were so young, but we got saved in the Christian Center. That was amazing and baptized. Then I started to go to Sue Kuru’s Ladies’ Bible study and your Wednesday night meetings. My husband, Lee and me.

It was amazing, because I’d been brought up with a mother who came from Exclusive Brethren Church and father not a Christian. Lee grew up with a single mother whose father died when he was seven and then an abusive stepfather. We didn’t know what it was.

I remember when I was pregnant with our Kelly, our first. God spoke to Lee. Lee was beside himself because he said, “I don’t know how to be a father! I don’t know. I’ve never had a father. I don’t know how to be a father.” And God said it was OK, that he had His hand on it, and He would be a father to Lee, and Lee would be a father.

It was really amazing, because that was when we came into Christian fellowship, and all we’d meet were these strong fathers in our church where men of God are. We so needed to have men in the church. It’s blessing to have women, but to have men in the church too. We were really blessed to be under some really great men. That’s how we learned to be parents. That’s how we learned what a family looked like even. That was our beginning.

From there we moved up to Taranaki and New Plymouth. We would minister. We were very involved with the AOG Church and the Elim Church. We loved it there. But with all that, we really didn’t get it together. We met at 16 yrs old. It was my 17^th birthday, and Lee was 16 years old. We were babies having babies, really.

Nancy: Now, today, you have 19 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, so far!

Robyn: Absolutely. The blessings of my heart. Beautiful children. My oldest granddaughter is 27. She’s married with two children. My youngest is one. His mom is pregnant, and due in April.

So, we moved to New Plymouth. We loved God. We did love God, and we ministered for God, but we didn’t always click. Marriages are fluid, it goes, but I knew that we could do better. I was really praying to God one day. Someone had given me a message by Larry Lee. I don’t know much about him, but he used to preach on the Lord’s prayer.

I listened to his video, and I couldn’t tell you a thing he said about the Lord’s prayer, but he made one comment. He said, “I’ve been married for 10 years, and it was the best thing that has happened.” I thought, “Well, I’ve been married for 10 years by then and it was sometimes hell.”

I thought, “Lord, I’m not doing this right.” I’d had you as an example. I thought, and I looked at my measure and I’ve written in the book I’m writing, and that I’m about to publish on marriage. I put in there about Nancy Campbell, and you had given us a measure stick to what it looked like to be a wife.

I’d done that. Run a bath when he came home. Made sure I did all the things you taught us. Made sure there were potatoes on the element boiling so he’d come home to the smell of food. He was a Maori and Maori people love food. I’d do these little things. Lee’s mother would say, “You’re making a rod for your back!” But I loved serving my husband and my children. But I thought, “There is something that isn’t quite right.” I went on search about what it was to have a kingdom marriage. That’s what my book is on.

From there, I put these things into practice. We became pastors and assistant pastors in 1990. We took over church in 1994 in Taumarunui and then we planted a church in New Plymouth. Even though I put these things in process. I realized that it was nothing to do with Lee. It all came back to what I was as a wife.

Proverbs 31 is my favorite chapter in the Bible. I could see that she made her husband look good. He would sit in the gates. That was always my whole desire, to make my husband look good. I became a manager of a social service. Even then, I thought, “If I make my social workers look good, I look good! If my husband looks good, I look good!” It was always my mission to make sure that he looked good, and that he had everything he needed, that he was blessed that I served him.

It became my heart’s desire. Lee would say, “What would you like for Christmas,” or “What would you like . . . ?” To be honest, my whole desire was always to be the best wife I could be. If you know God said, “What would you like to pray for?” “I want to be the best wife.” “What would you like, Robyn?” “I want to be the best wife.” It’s always been my heart’s desire, always, to be the best wife.

We had some beautiful years together. It was a terrible time in 2010. That’s another story. We moved to Auckland. In 2014, Lee had a heart attack on Kelly’s birthday. He was in hospital. He had six new arteries put in.

In March of 2014, he had a massive stroke, which left him in a wheelchair. It was a terrible time. Eight months in hospital having rehab. We were in Auckland at that time. He was in the Middlemore Hospital. They wanted to take him to the Auckland hospital because after a stroke, your brain can swell. We were there for four days.

They wanted to take us back to Middlemore Hospital. But he just had gone downhill. I got very annoyed with the hospitals. They said, “The ambulance is here.” I said, “Look, there’s something wrong. I’m not letting him go anywhere until a doctor comes.” They were fighting me on it. But in the end, I was very stern. I can be very stern.

I said, “We’re not leaving here until a doctor comes.” Praise God, I praise God, because his brain had swollen. If we’d got to Middlemore, he would have died. They took him into surgery, removed his skull bone. He was eight months without a skull bone. Then he went to rehab.

Then he came home, still with no skull bone. My brother died and I was at the funeral. They rang to say, “Bring him in.” They were going to put the skull bone back in. I had to go home. When they put it in, they screwed his skull bone in, and a screw came loose from his head.

I’d get up in the morning and I’d go to work. By the time I got home at lunchtime to make sure he was OK, his head had sort of crumbled in, if you like. It’s hard to say. For six months I took him to hospital. I went to the doctors. They would tell me it was normal. It’s gravity. But what was happening at nighttime to put him to bed, to lay him down! The pain was so bad we both cried.

Nancy: Oooh.

Robyn: They got him a bit of movement back in his arm, so I rang and asked for physiotherapy to come back. They said he’d never walk again. We’d already proved that wrong. I’d help him move his leg and by Christmas, with help, he was sort of able to walk a little bit. He was in a wheelchair. She came. I was at work. My daughter was home. We had moved in to be with them.

She walked in the door, and she said, “Oh my gosh, what’s happened to his head?” Because it was all caved in. Rebekah explained I’d been trying to get help, and she said, “Well, I’m not prepared to do anything.” She had a neurologist doctor, and she went back to talk to him, and I got a phone call at work. “Bring him in straightaway.” I took him straight to hospital. I was really annoyed because we had to fight to get him into a ward.

Nancy: Oh, my goodness!

Robyn: We didn’t see anybody. They came at three o’clock and took him. I didn’t know they were doing an MRI on him. He was a big man, so it was quite stressful for him. Brought him back.

They came in at five o’clock, and said we could go home! I said, “I’m not going anywhere until I see a doctor! What’s going on?” They came in to say that the screw had come out and that they had to make a plastic skull for him. We would have to come back in two weeks. They’d put staples in his head when they put the skull back on. I said, “Please don’t put them back in his head!” Because they just pulled them out. It was such a traumatic time.

Two weeks later, we had not heard from the hospital. So I rang, and she said, “Well, I ordered the skull from Australia, and I’ve got nothing for him.” Oh, my goodness me! I’m very stern at times. She said, “I’m onto it.” Another two weeks later, we got a phone call. Had to take him back in. Came back out with a new skull. The staples in his head again. I was so angry. So angry.

But he came out of it crying. The nurse said to him, “Are you in pain?” I said, “No, he’s not in pain. He’s relieved.” She said, “I’m asking him. Are you in pain?” He pointed to me, and I said, “I told you what’s wrong with him.”

Why don’t they listen? There are so many things in the hospital that were so wrong. They told me I wasn’t able to visit him in the morning because the visiting hours are at two o’clock. And I said “Well, that’s lovely. I think it’s a very good thing that the visiting hours are as of two o’clock but I’m not a visitor. I’m his wife and I’ll be here first thing in the morning!”

I slept there to start with and then they told me I couldn’t do that. I slept there on the floor, and I wasn’t allowed to do that. I wasn’t allowed to sleep in a chair. So then, they gave me a room with a little bed underneath the window and I’d sleep on there. That was to start with.

But the second time he went back, I’d go up in the morning after work and stay and put him to bed and go home. That was our life. Then he came home with his nice new skull bone. And he was really good. He was walking a little bit. I advertised in the church for someone who could take him out one day a week.

I was told I should put him into respite, so I said to him once, “Do you think you need to go to respite?” He said, “Well, if you need a break.” I said, “When you took all your boys on your motorbike down to the South Island for a ride, it wasn’t because I needed a break.” He wanted to go. “But if you want to go to respite, I’ll do that. But if not, I’m not getting respite.” And he didn’t want to go. I said, “Well, you're not having to go.”

One dear man, Jeff, would take him out once a week. It was what he needed. It was fantastic. He knew something was happening. Lee made me promise not to resuscitate him. We’d talk about all these things. If I’m really honest, things were really hard. I had to get him into bed at night, get him into the car.

I had to learn how to use a wheelchair. Wheelchairs have no toilets when you go to movies, they have disabled toilets but are either in the men’s room or the women’s room. I had to push him into the women’s room, and quickly help him, and wait till everyone went out then push him out again. No one thinks about wheelchairs, but I must admit I hadn’t before either until having my husband in one for two and a half years. I have now my husband was in a wheelchair. Now if I see anyone in a wheelchair, my heart goes out to them. People at times helped me, but I want to say, it was a lot easier just to do it myself.

We bought a van and an electric wheelchair. In New Zealand, if you have an accident, they’ll pay for everything. But if you’ve got medical, and no insurance, you pay for everything. We went from two wages to one wage. God was good, but I have to admit, one part we thought we would end it all. He couldn’t cope with it all and I said, “Well if you’re going, I’m going!”

“But we can’t do this to our grandchildren,” I said. About a week later, he said, “Should we end it?” I said, “Too late, we’re living!” It was hard.

But it was hard. It was hard. You don’t want to live in pity, so you go to church with a smile. I used to lose him. He’d be in there with his wheelchair. The lights would go out and I’d be running around the church trying to find him, because he would have gone off to talk to men in his wheelchair.

But then he had the last massive stroke. It was about two weeks before he’d wake me up and say he wanted to run away. He’d had enough. So, we talked about our life for hours. He said, “You’d better go to sleep.” He touched my hand and said, “It’s OK. Summer’s coming.”

Nancy: Summer’s coming.

Robyn: Summer’s coming. I thought he was going to be healed. We’re going to get back into the ministry. It’s going to be OK. And he died two weeks later. I thought, “Well, maybe he was telling me he was dying.”

For two-and-a-half years. When he had a massive stroke. We took him to the hospital, and they said the first stroke had had taken the right side of his brain. That’s why he was paralyzed on his left side. It was completely mushed. But the second stroke he had took the left side of his brain, so his whole brain was mushed. They said if he came out of it, he would never be able to communicate. We couldn’t communicate with him.

What should I do? Well, you know, when you're asked what do you do? “God, what do I do?” You feel like you're playing God. What do I do? Basically, do I let him die? Well, I wanted to take him home, vegetable or no vegetable What do you do?  

Praise God, his brother, who was a pastor Mahau, he came. I talked to him. I said, “What do I do?” He said he knew we’d have this death talk. He said, “What does he want?” I said, “Well, he made me promise never to resuscitate. He said, “Oh. So basically, you've got to choose what you want versus what he wants.” I thought, “It’s a big decision to make.” So, I prayed God. I don’t know what to do.

We had this dear friend come up. They had been friends with us for many years. Unknown to me Lee had had a word for him Sunday in church, which was spot on, just a few weeks before that. He said to me, he’d been praying that morning, and God had told him to come and tell me to let him go. And he said he was scared to tell me, because he said, “You're such people of faith.” He thought I would chastise him and say, “Don’t say that to me!” But I said, “No, I’ve been praying, “God, what do I do?”

With that, my dear, dear friends from New Plymouth, Martin and Debbie came in, I was telling him, “What do I think?” Debbie said, “Martin, did you tell her?” He said, “Not yet.” He’d been praying for Lee that morning before he came, and God said, “He’s already with me. He’s already gone.” That was what I knew. I said, “God, I release him to You.” Ten days later, he passed away. We had been together 40 years on October 30^th, and he died on the fourth of November.

Nancy: Oh, wow.

Robyn: I’m over it but I miss him. But the story is not finished yet.

Nancy: God’s story is never finished.

Robyn: When he died, a lady came up here and said to me, because I was pretty mad. “God, he’s only 57. We were getting old together. We were going to get old motorbikes, Harley Davidsons. Those ones that you go round. We had planned to be 80.” She said to me, “Well, that was God’s purpose for Lee.” And I don’t know where it came from, but I said, “No, that was God’s purpose for me.”

I thought, “Oh, I can’t say that!” But anyway, I thought, “Lord, I just trust You.” I couldn’t rid of him saying, “Summer’s coming.” I thought, “Oh, no. He knew he was dying. Let it go. Let it go.” But anyway, I went down to my brother, and he pastors a church in Masterson, Solway Park, a great church in Masterson.

I went down there. They had someone speaking. They had a friend called Cornelius Perez whose wife died two months after Lee. We’d talked together as widows who had both been married for years. I said, “I’ll come down and see Cornelius.” He said, “Well, there’s a pastor with him called Mark.” I have to admit, he did send me a photo of him.

Nancy: But wait on. Before you get to this, you were telling me about what happened at the unveiling of your husband. Tell them about the Maori culture, and what happens there, because your husband was a Maori.

Robyn: He was Maori. When you're Maori . . . oh, it was beautiful, actually. It really was beautiful. We took him to Destiny Church, and we had a night at the church. Apostle Tamaki had him on the stage. On Sunday we had a funeral service, and it was beautiful. We had some Harley Davidsons on the stage because he was a real Harley rider.

We took him down to the Marae on Monday, which is where Maori . . . He is from a little place called Halcombe. Out the back, there’s a Marae called Tokorangi. That’s where his family were. He had always said, “I just want to go home.” That was home to him. For two reasons that was home to him.

But secondly, for Maori, Home is like a big, how do you explain it? Just a little village but it’s like one big house. You go to stay, you put the mattresses out on the floor. It’s family.

Nancy: I can remember going to a Maori marae. Here you are. It’s so amazing. All the mattresses are on the floor and it’s a day conference. You listen to a speaker but if you get tired, you just go to sleep on the mattress. You wake up again and there’s another speaker started. This is the Maori way. And then you’ll have a “Maori hangi,” which is cooking the food down in the ground. Then we’ll all have that together.

Robyn: He also wanted to go home, because it would mean his children would come home. It’s very important to have that. They knew who they were. So, we did. We took him down there. What happened is we have three days and it’s a very tiring thing. People come from over.

We had so many people come to see him. They come before the actual funeral, then the “tangi” (meaning “to weep”) the funeral that day. They come to give their love, and their wishes. So, what happens is they come on, they get called on, which is “karanga” (exchanging greetings, paying tribute to the dead). A beautiful woman cries out “Welcome.” And the people of the land from there would sit up and say who they are. Then you sing. They sing. Then the next people speak who had come to visit and they say who they are. Then they sing. When you’ve got lots of people it can take a while! We were there for three days.

Nancy: This is the funeral.

Robyn: This is the funeral. We had an open casket. It was so beautiful. They closed the coffin in the morning before sunrise. That’s the way they do it. I heard some lady saying it was the most peaceful covering a body they had. It was beautiful and we worshipped all night with him there.

He’d always loved Mrs. Green, who is Sue and Rebecca’s mum. We’d gone to her funeral. We worshipped around the grave afterwards. He always said . . . we were only in our 20’s, I think then. He used to always say, “When I die, I want a funeral like Mrs. Green’s.” So, we worshipped like Mrs. Green’s all night. It was just beautiful. That’s what they do for the funeral. Then we go over and we bury him and that was beautiful.

A year later, we come back and have what’s called an unveiling. I got this beautiful big headstone, and it’s a big Harley Davidson headstone. He had his favorite verse on the back, because he always wanted everybody to know who his family was. On the back, “Choose you this day whom you will serve. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

He wanted his children to always remember whose he was and who they are. That’s on his grave. But what we do is uncover the gravestone. It was covered over so we uncovered it, and we read what’s on it.

Nancy: This is Maori culture.

Robyn: This is Maori culture. It’s beautiful. It’s a time for that whole year to grieve. When you uncover that it’s a new day. So, on that night, we had all stayed at in Marae that night. We all spoke. I got up and said, “If you’ve ever read a really good book, and you’re on the last page and you don’t want to finish the book, because it’s been such a beautiful book, but you have to close it, because you have a new book . . .” I said to them, “Tomorrow, after the unveiling, I’m starting a new book.”

A lot of them had been in our church, and they called me Pastor Robyn. I said, “First, please don’t call me Pastor Robyn anymore.” Some of them were, “What are we going to call you?” I said “Well, not just late for lunch. But don’t call me ‘Pastor.’ My name is Robyn, or Nana Robyn, or whatever you want to call me.” And my granddaughter was four years old.

She said, “Mum! Nana’s having a new name! Can I have a new name?” She said, “Yes! What would you like to be called?” And she said, “Hulk Smash. So, she’s been Hulk Smash ever since. She’s 12 now. It’s just a family joke she’s picked up from there when she was four years old. Amazing.

We did that. I started my new book. I started my new chapter, never realizing what would be involved with my new chapter, but I knew I wasn’t finished from God.

Nancy: Just before you go on, tell me how this affected your children.

Robyn: Oh, he was such a huge part of our lives. He was a huge part of our grandchildren’s lives. We had a lot of grandchildren living with us. We have always been, in fact, the first church we built was on the backs of our children. The second church we built was with our children. They were very much a part, and it devastated them.

In fact, we knew he was dying. He had ten grandchildren. I brought them in and set them down and told them that Granddad was going to be with Jesus, and that they needed to say good-bye. We set them down and it was really hard. They all said they had spent time with him and said goodbye. It was a really beautiful time.

But my oldest granddaughter, she never actually grieved. She had a miscarriage after her daughter. She just bawled and realized that she was also grieving. We saw now, this is a whole new thing, and I don’t want to offend anybody at all, because we’ve all taught our children about familiar spirits, people going to do Ouija boards and mediums. It’s demonic. It’s wrong.

But I believe after this experience, we haven’t talked about me talking about this. We had so many strange things happen after he had died that I could write a book. The first one was my granddaughter Olivia had prayed for his sister, and had really broken something off her.

She dreamt that night that we were at our church in New Plymouth. Lee came, and she said, “Koro.” They called him Koro (usually a term to address an older man). “What was that demon that came off Renae? I prayed for her.” He never said a word but on a piece of paper he wrote, “Garth is a spirit.” The next morning she rings me and says, “Nan, what’s a ‘Garth-spirit?’” I said, “What?” And she explained her dream to me. I just got cold.

Honestly, I didn’t know what to say. I rang back and I said, “Did he write ‘Garth is a spirit,’ or ‘Garth is a demon?’” She said, “He wrote ‘Garth is a spirit.’” They rang me back and I said, “Garth is your mother’s brother. Before we had Kelly, I had a miscarriage, and we called him Garth.” We had never spoken to anyone about him. It was just between the two of us, even the name. So, I said, “He is a spirit.”

Nancy: He’s alive in eternity.

Robyn: Yes, But I could go on and on. That’s a whole new subject. I could go on, because that’s not the only thing that happened. When I see people now, I say, “So, what strange things happened after your loved ones died?” And they look at me, with this “Hmmm!”  to talk about that, because Christians don’t.

But I tell you, there is stuff about death we don’t know. Honestly, I’ve had such amazing experiences. I could write a book alone on what’s happened with our family since he was dead.

Nancy: But what a beautiful confirmation that this little one, “Garth is with the Lord, in eternity, waiting for you.”

Robyn: My granddaughter had her miscarriage because she knew instantly that child was her koro. That was beautiful. There was such healing. God never wastes anything. God uses everything. Absolutely everything. Every tear, everything. It’s beautiful.

Nancy: Yes.

Robyn: So, now I’m in America. Now I’m Mrs. Coughlin.

Nancy: Yes!

Robyn: They’ll have to tell that story.

Nancy: Well, maybe we could do it in the next podcast.

Robyn: Well, I could do it very quickly. Basically, he said, “Summer’s coming.” I met Mark. He asked me to come to Texas. We got on so well. We kept in touch and a month later I came to Texas. I had a terrible time getting here. Missed a flight, delayed a flight, lost all my bags. I came from the middle of winter to the middle of summer. And Texas summers are out of this world.

Nancy: Everyone won’t understand that if they don’t know New Zealand, because New Zealand has such a very temperate climate. When we left the shores of New Zealand, the first time we left the shores of New Zealand, we went to the Philippine Islands. We were going as missionaries there. I will never forget the first night I was in Manila. I truly didn’t know whether I’d get through the night. I didn’t think I could breathe, it was so hot!

Robyn: I’m not used to that, but I walked into his house. I opened the door, and I was beside myself, because here I was. I didn’t really know him that well. And he said to me, “Oh, it’s OK. Summer’s here.” The last words of my husband, “Summer’s coming.” The first words from Mark when I arrived here to spy out the land, “Summer’s here.” And I knew that God had a plan for me in America.

Nancy: Yes. How many years had you been on your own?

Robyn: I’d been on my own for two-and-a-half years after Lee died. I’ve been married to Mark; it will be six years in September. God is faithful.

Nancy: Wow! That’s so beautiful. Over all these things, the Lord has taught you many things about marriage, especially during the years with Mark. I think it would be good if we could do another podcast. Would you like share some of the things that God has shown you?

Robyn: Absolutely. Because one thing I was thinking, “Oh, my gosh! I’ve written a workbook.” I’ve done it with our churches and our leaders had to do it. The marriage course is being taught in America and New Zealand, both.

Then I’m married to another man! I’m thinking, how’s this going to work? This workshop was mainly based on Lee. Do you know what? The principles work. Mark had been married before. I was a widow. We’re older in life and you can get set in your ways when you're older.

Nancy: There are more challenges!

Robyn: There are. But you know what? The principles that God gave me for my kingdom marriage work with Mark as they did with Lee. It’s not about the man. It’s about what God has done for us as women and the power that you have as woman. Amen. Hallelujah!

Nancy: Well, would you like to pray?

Robyn: “Oh, Father, Lord, I thank You. I want to thank You Nancy. Father, I thank You for the wisdom that You poured into us, that, Father, here I am. Not quite the next generation, but Father, it’s so alive in me that I want to pour it into the next generation. And Lord, You said older women teach the younger. The sad thing is a lot of older women don’t know the very precious gems that we were given.

“Father, I thank You to be reconnect with Nancy. Father, we thank You that You’re there for us. I thank You, Lord, that this podcast, and I pray that every woman, Father, that is listening to this podcast, that Father, You would pour into her life the gems that You have for her as a woman. Lord, we are in a day where the world that is trying pull down and destroy womanhood. Father, we lift it up high, because Father, it is Your design. We thank You, and we praise Your mighty Name. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Nancy: Amen.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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DON’T FORGET TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THIS PODCAST, “LIFE TO THE FULL” WITH NANCY CAMPBELL.” DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF. IT IS ENCOURAGEMENT FOR ALL WIVES AND MOTHERS.

 

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 357: A LIFE POURED OUT

I want you to meet another New Zealander today. More New Zealand accent! Sue Kuru was my neighbor when we lived in Palmerston North, New Zealand. It is my first time meeting Sue again after about 45 years!

Along with Val Stares who is now the director of Above Rubies in Australia, Sue was the first person to hear about the vision of Above Rubies. We share about the amazing things that were happening in those days as Above Rubies began, and in our church life.

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Well, we’re continuing today to hear from some of my wonderful friends from New Zealand, back in the early days, when I started Above Rubies, and when we were raising our young children in New Zealand.

Last week you heard the wonderful testimony from Rebecca Southey. Now Rebecca and Sue, who I’ve got with me now, are sisters. Although Rebecca was adopted into their family, of course, they grew up as sisters, and are sisters today, so close together.

Today I have with me Sue Kuru. Sue is very special because Sue was my neighbor when we lived in New Zealand. Sue was part of everything that was happening. My weekly ladies’ Bible study when we all got together as mothers and all these children. Always more children than mothers! They were such wonderful times. She was part of our house group during the week, part of our church, and all that was happening.

Oh, mighty, mighty things were happening in those days. We thought it was normal, although we don’t actually see these things so much today. Every single Sunday, people would come to know the Lord and be baptized. The baptismal pool was always open, because every Sunday night, people were being baptized.

Ladies were coming to know the Lord at our ladies’ meetings which we were having all over the city. People were coming to know the Lord in our house groups which were all over the city. It was just the most amazing time.

And it was in the midst of this time that I got the vision for Above Rubies. It didn’t happen all out of nowhere. It actually happened through the vision of another woman. I do believe this   that when you get a vision from God, it will always be ongoing, and it will branch off into greater visions.

What happened at that time was the inroads of feminism were beginning to infiltrate even our little country way down in the bottom of the world, New Zealand. These feminists were arranging a national conference and bringing the women of New Zealand together. It was under the normal women’s convention thing, but now it was being taken over by the feminists, and they were having seminars on abortion, and a female god, and all these different things that they were trying to bring in.

But there was a woman, a pastor’s wife, in Christchurch, Anne Morrow, who got the vision to put on a convention to eclipse this feminist one. God put this strongly on her heart, to have this convention, where we would have seminars on the biblical values for families. She asked me at that convention to speak on Motherhood. Well, this was the very first time I’d ever actually spoken about motherhood.

So, I prepared for that seminar and there were loads of other wonderful seminars. Anne said to me, “Nancy, get as many women as you can get.” I lived up in the North Island. She was down in the south. I ended up filling a Friendship plane, and just about filling a Boeing plane. You came too, Sue, didn’t you?

Sue: I did.

Nancy: Yes, we all went down to Christchurch, and we eclipsed that feminist convention!

Sue: We did.

Nancy: It was amazing!

Sue: Amazing.

Nancy: Oh, yes! And here we are talking. I haven’t even introduced you to them yet. This is Sue. Say “hi”!

Sue: Hi from New Zealand!

Nancy: Yes, and you're going to hear more from Sue in just a moment. Anyway, that wasn’t the end, because I came home from that convention and God put it upon my heart to start a magazine, something that would keep coming to the home, and keep coming to the mothers and the families to encourage them in their high calling. Yes, this convention was amazing but there needed to be something ongoing.

This burden was so strong upon me, the strongest burden I’ve ever had upon my life! In my whole life! And the amazing thing is, I can’t even imagine why God chose me, because I didn’t know what I was going to do or how I was going to do it.

But I had this vision, and the very first person, well, there were two people who first heard about it. Sue and my friend, Val. Sue was in the hospital with her little daughter, Hine. I went up to see her, and my friend Val also arrived to see her. What happened there, Sue?

Sue: Well, the exciting time we had there at the time.

Nancy: We were at the hospital, remember? I prayed for Hine, didn’t I?

Sue: We were at the hospital. Nancy brought some oil, and we wanted to anoint Hine and pray for her. We were on a mission for the healing of my daughter to be set free of this condition that she had. She was going in for a big operation and we were praying for that. We had big results. It was a miracle how it all happened. My daughter had three kidneys and was healed after the operation.

Nancy: Yes, praise the Lord. Well, anyway, it was there when we were visiting together. Then I said to Sue, and to Val, “Hey! I’ve got this vision from the Lord! We’re going to get out” (notice I said “we.” I didn’t say “I.”) I said, “We’re going to get out this magazine to the women of the nation to encourage them in their high calling of motherhood!”

Well, I remember Val looking at me with this blank stare. Interestingly, her name was Val Stares! I didn’t know that that very morning Val had said to the Lord, “If Nancy Campbell comes up with anymore of her great ideas, I’m not getting involved!” Well, she got involved. Val is still involved today, 47 plus years later since we started Above Rubies. She’s now the director of Above Rubies in Australia, carrying on. But that was the very beginning.

So, Sue, who is sitting here with me today, was, along with Val, the very first to hear the vision. Oh, it’s so wonderful having Sue here, and her sister Rebecca, and their dear friend Robyn. I’m going to do a podcast with Robyn too. Oh, it’s so great. We’ve been having wonderful times together.

Then, of course, we got involved. We began Above Rubies. I didn’t know what I was doing but I just forged ahead in faith. God began to lead me, and all those I involved, just as we went along. I remember saying to my husband, “I don’t know how we’re going to pay for this. I just have this vision.” He said, “Well, don’t come back on me. We’ve got enough bills, thank you!” I felt led to make it by donation.

I remember going to the Christian printers in our city. That was “Gospel Publishing House.” Yes, and I went to them, and I said, “I’ve got this vision to get out a magazine to the mothers of this nation. Will you print it?” Well, I told them, “I don’t really have any money up front. I’m going to make it by donation.” Well, I think usually they would laugh at you. But it must have been God because they didn’t laugh. They said, “We’ll print it.” I couldn’t believe it.

So, I plucked up much courage and printed only 1500 copies. Absolutely nothing to the thousands I print today. But I think that took the most faith because I didn’t know what was going to happen. So, the magazine was printed.

I was sharing at a ladies’ conference in Rotorua, New Zealand. I shared the magazine. I said “Take it wherever you go. Send it to friends. Send it to people. Put it in the waiting rooms of doctors and hospitals and dentists and everywhere you go.” The ladies left that conference, and they began to do it. I began to get letters from all over the nation, from the top to the bottom, saying, “Thank you for this magazine.” And they sent a donation. Wow! I went and paid the printers! It was miraculous.

Sue: It was.

Nancy: Yes, yes.

Sue: I’d like to mention that when Nancy got the vision, we were like an army. We were like a fort.

Nancy: Yes, you are right!

Sue: And all I could think about in this world is people, people. All we wanted was for people to hear about the goodness of God and we went straight into action. There was no worrying about whether we were going to get any help. We were a team, and it was about to bite forward. It was the vision of Above Rubies under the direction of the Holy Spirit and through Nancy.

We were never short of helpers. Everyone just wanted to get on board and help each other, and to see that this vision was brought forth. We learnt lots of things from this vision, being homemakers, mothering, cooking, giving, caring. And also having the fruits of the Spirit, which were love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. “Against such things there is no law.”

We were that army. Seeing that this was happening. We had a force with us and that was the Holy Spirit. We needed it to do this because we had the feminists doing their force, which is not of God. But ours was of God and we were moving. This was a beautiful vision that we could participate and help with.

Nancy: Oh, I know! It’s true, Sue. We were like an army together. We’re all together, because we were all in such unity back there. Another wonderful thing was that Gospel Publishing House so wanted to help us that they said we could come in after their workday closed when we were printing a new magazine. And we could collate the magazines, collage the pages together. Do you remember that?  It wasn’t in the church. We just piled into Gospel Publishing House. We would be there until about midnight collating magazines!

Sue: It was so straight. It was going for the vision and seeing the vision for women of this nation at the time.

Nancy: I know. Here I was, a mother of all these little children. Serene was just a baby. But we were still all in the home. All of us mothers together were part of it. Everybody. In the evening, when a magazine was being printed, the men would come out too. We’d all be collating together. It was so exciting.

The second issue, I printed 5000. The third issue, 25,000. In three years, we were printing 100,000 copies for New Zealand. You couldn’t even go anywhere in the country without bumping into an Above Rubies magazine. I remember driving along the Desert Road. There was just a little restroom. I went in, and even there, there was an Above Rubies waiting! It was so amazing.

But yesterday, we were going through some of the old magazines that were first printed. I noticed that while we were in New Zealand (because we then moved on to Australia) that Sue, you actually were part of five of the Above Rubies magazines. It was so amazing. I’m just picking this one up now. This is # 5 way back in the ‘70’s, because we started in September 1977. This is a magazine from 1978. Here you are.

I did a panel with homemakers, speaking about being homemakers, and here’s your picture, right here. I’m asking here in this panel, “Sue, what does your husband, Jack feel about you being at home?” And you answer, here I’m reading it from the magazine: “My husband enjoys being a real man.”

Sue’s husband was Jack, and he was a married man, such a handsome guy. Such a lovely man. He passed away five years ago. That is such a loss to Sue. But here she says, “My husband is a real man. He loves to be the provider in our household. He definitely does not want me to work outside the home anymore. He likes to come home to a hot meal, and a happy atmosphere, and to a wife who is fresh and loving.” Wow! I love that!

Sue: It moved me.

Nancy: And that was the testimony of your home.

Sue: Doesn’t that make you feel particular, ladies?

Nancy: Oh, yes, yes. And Jack was a great provider, wasn’t he?

Sue: Right. Great provider.

Nancy: Oh goodness me. You’re telling me the legacy he has left your children! Whoo! And now they’re millionaires.

Sue: That’s right.

Nancy: God was good. He is faithful. You could have thought, “Help! I’d better go out and go to work.” But no, you just trusted your husband and he started off being a hard worker. But look how God blessed him and multiplied his vision of being the provider for the home! So incredible.

Then I asked you here, “OK, how do you manage financially, now that you're not working? Because you had been working before and God brought you home.” And you say, I wonder if you remember? “We manage well. I make sure that we have no more than two things on hire purchase at one time.” Well, in America, that’s on installment, or layaway,

“Best of all, I found that as I sought to do what God wants from me as a mother, that God has abundantly showered upon us provisions of food, clothing, and furniture. He’s a wonderful provider! For example, last Easter I was expecting visitors for the weekend. Sixteen people in the house! But as the weekend approached, I lay in bed, wondering how I would provide the food for them all. And then, the very next day, I received a check for $50.”

Well, how much would that be today? Goodness me, help! 45, 48 years ago. “Which I wasn’t even expecting. And extra food arrived from different people. Another time my husband was sick and off work. I’d invited a family for a meal. All I had in the house was meat and potatoes. I just committed it to the Lord, and that very afternoon, a friend arrived with a carton full of vegetables of every description.” And so it goes on, all these wonderful things that you wrote there.  

That was, let me see, oh, the next one you wrote in was # 7. And that was in ’78, the next magazine. And you write your testimony here. “A SOFT ANSWER WORKS” And how in the beginning of your marriage, it was pretty hairy. But then Jack came to the Lord, you came back to the Lord, and things changed hands.

You talked there about, “Are you a nag-bag? I used to be. But now I love to encourage my husband, telling him his good points, and complimenting him. I love to give him soft answers. I have proved over and over again Proverbs 15:1: ‘A soft answer turns away wrath.’” And so on. That was a beautiful testimony.

And then, wow! Let’s see what number this is. This is # 12, and here we did another panel about hospitality. You’re talking in that one, too, all about hospitality. In fact, I remember, Sue, just right in the beginning, when you became the most hospitable woman you could ever find.

But I remember in the beginning, when I was speaking one day at our ladies’ group about hospitality. You came to me, and you said, “Nancy, I so want to ask people, but we’re just on our budget. I don’t know how we could get extra to feed extra.” I said to you, “Sue, just go ahead in faith, and ask a family that is on your heart, and see what God will do.” So, you went ahead in faith and did it. And then . . .

Sue: Knock, knock at the door. A box of groceries that added to the meat and potatoes. I found out it was from a family that had five children, and they didn’t have a lot of money. I’m just saying it was the Lord at the time. He knew exactly what I needed.

Nancy: Yes! And then, from then on, goodness me, you never stopped! You haven’t stopped having people in your home to this day!

Sue: Not to this day, Nancy. I’m going to be 74.

Nancy: Yes, that is so amazing. Oh, yes, and then, let’s see, what’s here? No. 13. This time, it’s actually a beautiful feature page. It’s a picture of your beautiful little boy, Arana. Oh, such a handsome little boy! I wish I could show you this picture. We had a poem with this picture. It was written by Beryl Person. She was another one of the lovely ladies in our fellowship. She wrote this poem. Oh, wow. I should read it out.

My Influence

By my bickering and arguing,

By my loud voice and impatience,

By my condemning and disapproving voice,

I can so hurt this small child of mine.

I can make him want to run and hide.

I can make him afraid and scared of the world.

I can make him into such a nervous child—

 

One who stammers and stutters,

One who feels insecure and very unsure,

One who feels so unloved.

 

BUT

 by my patience and my love,

By my kindness and my care,

By encouragement each day,

I can make him a very different child—

 

One who is unafraid.

One who will face the world with confidence

and self-assurance.

One who will love others as himself is being loved.

 

Who then would dare to stand and say,

“A mother’s role is nothing?”

If you and I can mold a child,

And so affect his future,

Then the role we have

Is the greatest role God can give.

Amen! And then you were in number 17! Here we did another panel. This panel is called “Let’s Encourage One Another.” Do you remember that back then? That was just our lifestyle.

Sue: It was our lifestyle. And it was known in our street. We were known as the “Bible study they had that the talk that went on.” It was incredible. We got ladies into the Bible study. We had ladies give their hearts to the Lord and copied all what we were doing, all the mothering parts of being a mother, and all the hospitality things, and all the cooking, and all the healthy cooking that we were doing as well.

Nancy: Yes, yes! Let me see if I can pick out some of the little things you say in this panel. Of course, there were others in the panel too. This is Sue.

“A wonderful way that I’ve found to encourage people is by posting them a lovely card, with a personal message of encouragement or appreciation. I’ve had so much joy in blessing widows, single mothers, and mothers at home. Every time I do this, it’s always the perfect timing.

“It’s a good idea to have a pile of cards handy for when the Lord lays someone on your heart. I search for hours in bookshops for appropriate cards. One time my next-door neighbor, who knew we were Christians, asked me to pray for a friend of hers who was very ill. For three consecutive days, which was always while I was hanging out the washing, the clothes on the line, the Lord impressed me to send her a card. I shared with her that although I did not know her, I was praying for her. I told her that Jesus loved her and wanted to be her Friend. I told her how she could find Jesus as her Savior. This lady was so blessed by receiving this from me that she found out where I lived and came to thank me. The following day she died. How glad I was that I obeyed the prompting of the Lord.”

Sue: I remember now.

Nancy: And then, I actually share a little testimony in that panel. And it was about your mother! Your mother Maureen Green. And Sue’s mother was a widow. She lived with you, Sue, for how many years?

Sue: Ten years.

Nancy: Ten years. Such a wonderful, godly woman. Anyway, I shared this wonderful testimony. One of the ladies in our fellowship, and in our ladies’ Bible study . . .  It was Maureen’s birthday, Sue’s mother’s birthday. She wanted to do something lovely for her, so she went to the shop, and said, “Lord, show me what I should buy for her.”

And the Lord directed her to a beautiful little vase, and it was just a vase that would only hold one flower. It was so pretty and beautiful.  She took it to your mom. Oh, your mom was so blessed that she would think of her and buy her this beautiful gift.

But God wasn’t finished yet. There was another lady in the fellowship, and she also had Maureen on her heart. She said, “Lord, I want to give her something for her birthday. What should I do?” She thought she’d give her some flowers. So, she goes to the florist shop and looks at all these beautiful bunches of flowers. “Oh,” she said, “I’d just love to get them.  They’re so beautiful!”

And yet she didn’t feel right. She kept walking around, and she found this one flower. It may have been an orchid. I’m not sure. But it was one flower on its own. She knew that’s what she had to buy! “Lord, why am I only buying one flower?” But she obeyed the prompting of the Lord.

A little while later, after Maureen had received this vase, this other lady arrived to bless her on her birthday with the one flower to go in the vase that would only take one flower. Just such a little thing, but both of these ladies were prompted by the Spirit of the Lord. This is the glorious ministry of encouraging one another. It’s supernatural. When we listen to the Lord, His heart, He wants us to encourage. Wow! Miracles take place, don’t they? Oh, yes.

That’s just a little glimpse, ladies, of the early days of Above Rubies, where Sue lived next door to me, and her oldest daughter Rochelle was Pearl’s best friend. Pearl can’t wait to come tomorrow night to Shabbat so she can hear all about Rochelle, and what’s happening, and catch up with her. And then Serene was friends with Hine. They were such wonderful days. What do you want to say, Sue?

Sue: What do I want to say? All those years, and all your years, as women, all the saints that have gone before you are to make you who you are now in this day and age. All that we experienced, all the education that we had over the years with being with people, because life without people . . . When we’re with people, this is how we learn. It’s like an education with us. We learn things that can help us walk in the direction of what we’re meant to be doing and how we choose things. This has been my walk and my life with how to walk with the Lord. That’s always been connected to natural type spiritual people. That’s what Above Rubies is all about as we’ve just heard.

Nancy: I think, Sue, after we left New Zealand, and that was, I was working it out, 43 years since we left New Zealand. So, we are meeting together. This is the first time in 43 years!

Sue: It is.

Nancy: It’s so amazing! But when we left, your life continued. Your life has been one of just pouring out to people. You adopted this little boy. Maybe you could tell us about him.

And then you went on to foster very needy people and you're still fostering one today, at 74 years of age. Our time is getting to an end, but tell us about your adopted boy, and then maybe tell us about the one you are looking after now, even though you've had so many in between.

Sue: My adopted boy. That’s lovely, Nancy. He comes from a background of gang members.

Nancy: That’s quite a big thing amongst the Maori people.

Sue: It is. I was a nurse at Te Awamutu Hospital. One of the social workers came and said, “We’ve got this baby here. He’s been here for three months. Sue, what are we going to do with him?”

I said, “Well, I’ll just take him home as an emergency. But the emergency grew, because I was a woman who loved children, and loved family. I love seeing people go forward in their lives. So, I spoke with all the children. We all sat round the table. I said, “Are we going to have this baby come into our lives?” They said, “Yes.”

Then it came to . . .  there was a gap over the love and attention that this baby was given. Then there was a time when we had to make a decision for the mother to come and stay with us. I was there to put all into this mother, all the things that we had learned through Above Rubies. The mother flourished but still wanted to move on about five hours from us to a place called Auckland. I was to give the baby back.

I gave Matthew back, and it wasn’t too long after when I got a phone call from a social worker saying, “There’s been a baby screaming for one week.” We’ve been to see him. Do you agree to take him?” The baby was Matthew. He hadn’t eaten any food for a week. The mother had taken off and just left him there. They said, “We will fly you to Auckland to pick this baby up.” So, I did that.

When I saw him, he had a dark face. He left my care with a large suitcase of beautiful things, clothes, and diapers. When I picked him up from the airport, he had a paper bag with one diaper in it. It looked like he didn’t know. He just looked terrible. When I got him on the plane, the Lord said to me, “Start singing to him, Sue, like you used to.” I started singing to him in his ear in the plane and I saw this darkness just leave him to life.

He came back into our lives, and then we all had to have another family meeting/get-together to make a decision. Did we want to keep this child and adopt him? We made sure that the children knew that he was going to be equal to all the other children. He is going to be treated no differently. He’s going to be loved like you children are. That’s what we did.

And later on in life, the years have gone. We had a beautiful life with Matthew just like we did with all our children. Then he got into the drug scene, which is very, very sad. We never knew that. And alcohol. That changed his life for a number of years. We’ve always loved him. We always will love him and fight for what he is.

But he’s homeless at the moment, which is hard for a grieving mother who would like him to be set free of that. We love him, and we pray for him. He’s 36 now. When he sees me, he says, “You’re right, Mom? Are y ou alright without Dad?” because my husband’s passed away. He’s with the Lord. Matthew said, “I love you heaps, Mom,” but he still wants to stay in this state. What I’m saying is, I always look at the end result of his life, and I believe by prayer for him, and loving him through it, he will be the Lord’s.

Nancy: Yes. And then, you know, we could be here all day, just hearing the stories of these very needy people that you have continued to foster throughout the years. Just tell us about the one you have now.

Sue: The one I have now? She is cognitively five. She is named Crystal.

Nancy: But she’s about 22.

Sue: She’s 22 years of age, but she’s got the brain of a five-year-old. I’ve had her since she was three, and she’s now 22. She loves the Lord. I’ve had the privilege of leading five children to the Lord, and she’s one of them. She loves going to Sunday school and looking after all the babies.

I’ve had a ministry of leading five children that I’ve had, from very severe autism to physical scoliosis. All these other conditions, heart disease, and four of them have passed onto the Lord during the years that I’ve had them. What a blessing it is to be able to be involved with that!

Nancy: Yes. And you embrace these people that no one else has even been willing to take.

Sue: That’s true.

Nancy: Thank you, Sue. Well, just continue in your beautiful life, just pouring out, not only to your family, but to everyone you come into contact with. Even now, you still have meetings in your home, don’t you?

Sue: Oh, I do. Prayer meetings for Israel, Prayer meetings for the pastors, and worship and praise in the house. I’m helping a woman. I’m going to be getting some tips from Nancy. It’s a shift, 43 years later. I’ll get the feeding from her before I leave. All I can say to you ladies is:

“People, people, people. Love, love, love. Hospitality, hospitality, hospitality.”

Nancy: Amen. Thank you, Sue. It’s been the greatest joy to be with you again.

“Lord, we thank You so much for the way you lead each one of our lives. And Lord God, we pray today for every precious mother and wife listening. And I pray, Lord, that many of them have got wonderful friends around them. Many of them haven’t. And I pray that You will help them to find kindred spirits, Lord God.

“I think back to our days when we were in New Zealand, and Sue was part of so many other mothers. We all learned our mothering together. We shared our joys. We shared our challenges. That was what kept us, well really, always in joy, because we had one another. There’s something powerful about having one another. And I pray that You will help mothers, Lord, who feel isolated, that You will bring to them kindred spirits. Help them to find the right fellowship to be part of. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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DON’T FORGET TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THIS PODCAST, “LIFE TO THE FULL” WITH NANCY CAMPBELL.” DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF. IT IS ENCOURAGEMENT FOR ALL WIVES AND MOTHERS.