PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 323: How Do You Keep It All Together?

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 323: How Do You Keep It All Together?

Courtney Kelly joins me again today to answer a question. A group of us mothers were fellowshipping together after church when one asked Courtney, “How do you have it all together? You have ten children, and yet you arrive on time, and you all look perfect!” Well, we all got into a big discussion with lots of debate. It was such fun that I thought I should get Courtney to come and answer this question on the podcast.

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! I’m excited to be with you again today. I have Courtney Kelly with me again today. We didn’t even plan this. Last week you heard Courtney’s story of what God has done in her life and in her family. We thought, “Well, that’s it.”

But we were sharing at fellowship meal after church last Sunday, and that’s, I think, one of the greatest things about our church fellowship here on the Hilltop. That is, we don’t just have a meeting, and everybody goes off. No, we have fellowship meal afterwards, where we actually fellowship. It is so wonderful! We get to talk about so many different things, the things of life, and the nitty-gritties. It’s amazing.

It seems the men gravitate to their tables, and somehow us women gravitate to our tables. We get talking about all kinds of things. In fact, I noticed that Sunday, we were getting so raucous so carried away with what we were talking about. We were just about screaming and yelling at one another. The men were looking, wondering what was happening!

But, oh, it’s just so sad if you miss out on fellowship meals. Some churches do have it. Not every church does. Of course, we’ve been in different churches over the years, and we’ve always tried to establish a fellowship meal. But at some, we haven’t had that. Instead, we would have hospitality. If we hadn’t been having fellowship meal afterwards, we would always invite people back to our home. Often, we’d have 30 or 40 people come back to our home.

Once again, it was fellowship, a meal that is part of church life. I’m thinking now of the example of the early church in Acts 2. Let me take you to it so that we can see it for real. But this is the example of the early church. This is what they did. It says here in Acts 2:42: “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.”

There were four things that were the testimony, the criterion, the example of the early church. Firstly, of course, it was the teaching, the apostles’ doctrine. It’s so important that we know doctrine, and we walk in doctrine. But yet, fellowship, that is such an important part of our gathering together.

And breaking of bread; well, that was fellowship too. That wasn’t talking about communion, because the breaking of bread, yes, they would often have communion with that, or a love feast. Many times, it was in homes and hospitality. “Breaking bread from house to house.” They would fellowship with one another.

“And in prayers.”

Fellowship is a big part of the gathering of ourselves together. Many churches don’t have that, so they’ve only got one part of what they’re meant to be doing. They come, they go to church to worship, get a good message to keep them going for the week, and they go home. That’s it. Help!

We are meant to be fellowshipping. We’re meant to be having hospitality, breaking bread in one another’s home with each other, and getting together to pray together. Wow! We need the whole church.

There was a time when Colin and I were part of the Foursquare Gospel. When we went to the Philippine Islands as missionaries in our early married life, we became part of the Foursquare Church in the Philippine Islands. It was called the Foursquare Church, but I believe this Scripture, really, is the foursquare gospel, because that’s how they operated in the early church.

Anyway, Sunday, we were sitting around our table, talking together. Nadia, one of the ladies in our fellowship (I have done a podcast earlier with Nadia). Some of you may know her. She is the mother of seven wonderful children. She is now a single mother. She wasn’t when we met her. Sadly, this has come to pass, but she also has the incredible responsibility of her youngest daughter, Gracie, who was born with a very rare disease, so rare they didn’t think she would live very long.

But then, not only did she face that (Gracie’s disease is that one side of the body is normal, but the other side grows these big tumors). Then Gracie also, at about four years of age, was diagnosed with terminal stage four cancer. So, Nadia has been coping with that, and in and out of hospital for the last two years or so. Still, we just keep praying for Gracie, for she lives day by day by our prayers and the healing power of God.

We were all there, and Nadia said to Courtney, “Courtney, how do you have it all together? You come to church with your ten children, and you look like a smashing model, and all your children look so ‘got together.’ How on earth do you do it?” Well, that’s what started our conversation at the table. As we were talking, I thought, “Oh, wow, we’ve got to do a podcast on this because everybody wants to know how to keep it all together, don’t we?”

Courtney: We do! I do, also! [laughter]

Nancy: Well, here is Courtney. She has ten children as you heard last week. Her youngest is Zion, who’s only one. Actually, Courtney, I realized you homestead. You are homesteading down there, just a few miles down the road from us. And you’re homeschooling, and milking cows, and you’ve got chickens, and you’re breeding dogs. Help! What else do you do? And your life is so busy. But then comes Sunday, and you look as though you have nothing to do all week! [laughter] Tell us how you do that.

Courtney: I thank you for the compliments, but I have to tell you that Nadia often embarrasses me with these pointed questions that portray me, maybe not as I feel that I am. I appreciate it, but I come with a lot of humility to this because I don’t have it all together. Probably anything that I say today came through maybe some of you listening, because I read articles. The Lord really searched me in my younger days with my family. Hopefully it’s a blessing to all of you as we share some of the practicalities.

Nancy: Well, I think they’ve come out of . . . I remember you were saying last week that when you were young, even before you were married, you would look at some big families, and think, “Oh, help! I wouldn’t want to live like that!” So, you set standards for yourself of how you wanted it to be. And somehow, you've been able to make some of them work.

Courtney: Yes, God’s been so faithful. When I had young children, and our family was growing quickly, as we had five under five years old, we would all go out together. As we really did commit ourselves to the Lord to have as many children as He would give us, my personality said, “OK, how are we going to make this work? Because if we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it well.”

So, when I would become pregnant with another baby, I’d think, “How am I going to go grocery shopping with three children?” I would plan this out in my head. Where are they going to sit in the buggy? Where are they going to stand? How are we going to still do life, because I didn’t want to quit everything.

Nancy: I love that, the fact that you were thinking about it. I think so many, we just went to the market, not thinking how we were going to do it. But you thought how you were going to do it.

Courtney: Yes, because I wanted to still be able to go to the store with my family. I still wanted to be able to go to people’s homes. If we’re going to do this, what is it going to look like? What’s going to have to happen? I tell this to people.

Obviously, if you’re going all in, your life is not going to be the same as if you only had one child, or two children. There is a revolutionary thing that happens, where we let things go, and we think on other things. But it works. God’s wisdom works.

Some people say, “Oh, how would you ever do that, with that many children?” Well, we don’t stop at the mall. We don’t buy everything brand new. That’s the choice that we made. But you can make it work. It doesn’t have to be so hard.

We would go to the store. Walmart was like our little mission field when the children were young because I had two under two years old. I got so much attention because I had these two children that looked the same age but looked total opposites.

People would stop me all the time, commenting on my family. Then when I was pregnant, they’d say, “Wow! Your hands are full!” In our hometown, the overall picture I got was that children were despised, and that they were a burden to the system. There was a lot of welfare, and a lot of what were on rough side there. I knew that was the perception of the people going into the store.

I wanted, everywhere I went, even as a teenager, I wanted my words to represent Christ. I wanted everything, “Lord, make my smile preach the gospel! Make everything in me shine Your glory.” If I had children, I would want my family to be that. I knew that everywhere we went, we spread a fragrance. I knew people were watching because they stopped me so often.

The world is watching, and I want to present them with something that’s beautiful, and something desirable; that children don’t have to be a burden. We stood out like sore thumbs in our town. It was about 15,000 people, a small town. We stood out like sore thumbs because there was a lot of depression, and people didn’t really take care of their children very much. There was always yelling at the store, and it was stressful. The children didn’t look taken care of. It was hard to see that, but I wanted to bring hope. I wanted people to notice, not so they could be discouraged, but so they could see that God’s ways are good.

As we had more children, I had so much more opportunity. “Lord, what is my message now? What can I say in this one-liner, so that ten different people who are going to ask me today, ‘How do you do it?’” My message started evolving. I felt this cheesy thing, “Oh, God gets the glory!” I would say these things, and say, “Oh, that just doesn’t fit, Lord!” [laughter]

“What better thing can I say?” I started being able to say, “God’s wisdom is so good. He’s the one who had the idea of children, and He knows how to raise them. When we can do it His way, it’s so precious. We love our children.” Make my smile

So that kind of got the ball rolling in our arena. I think I had to deal with pride over the years, with that too. This is my disclaimer, is that it’s not about making people want to be like us, oh, because we’re so good, and we have it all together.

There was a point in this Walmart visit where I would be trying to convince someone of my own wretchedness, because they’d say, “Oh, my goodness! I’ll bet you're the most patient person in the world!” And I’d say, “No, I’m really not!” “I’m sure you have everything together, and you must be a saint!” “Listen to me, ma’am,” I’d say. “Anything good that you see in me is because of Christ in me. I am just wretched in and of myself, believe me.”

I depended on God daily, because I was aware of who I was. It wasn’t that I wanted to put on airs, that I had it all together, because I don’t. I don’t. I raise my voice with my children. I don’t always look like a million bucks. I want to have humility in that too. But I want to do what I can to represent what I believe, that I am a child of God, and that we are children of the kingdom.

It’s not about wearing expensive things. It’s not about keeping up with somebody else. It's about doing what we can do to present ourselves to the world, that we are like an epistle, written for all men to see. We don’t always have a chance to say something, but our very presence does speak.

Nancy: Absolutely! OK, so now, getting back to Nadia. She mainly sees you when you come to church, and you’re all looking great. How do you make that work, with ten children? To all get there, and you're pretty much on time.

Courtney: We start early.

Nancy: Yes! And that’s amazing. They’ve actually got shoes and socks on, and shirts. The girls just look glorious, beautifully dressed. And their hair’s all beautiful. How do you do it? We want to know. How does it happen?

Courtney: OK, it doesn’t all look the same every week. Some weeks I plan, and it’s amazing! Everything’s just in order. But it’s not always like that. Sometimes we’re rushing, and I think yesterday, we were half an hour late. I was telling myself, just because you said that, that I’m late! Half an hour late yesterday.

But there are so many practical things. I try to Sabbath on Saturday, so Friday’s my big day. I hit my laundry hard, starting in the morning. I want all that laundry done, because I know I’m not going to do any laundry for a couple of days. So, the first thing is all clean laundry, which is so practical, right?

That seems silly, but laundry was something that I used to see people with piles of laundry in the basement. I said, “I don’t ever want to do that!” Well, I ate crow. We were talking about needing to say, “We don’t want to be prideful, and not judge anybody else, how their children dress, or their piles of laundry, or their socks, or any other thing.”

I was very aware, when I walked into my beautiful family closet, with shelves lining the walls, and I had a mound covering the whole floor! In that instant, no, it was very serious to me. I felt that I had received a judgment that I had passed on people when I saw their piles of laundry. It was such a simple lesson, but I took it with severity, because it was when I started in my motherhood to say, “Oh, God, forgive me, and help me not to judge other moms.”

Because this is laundry. This is not my child turning away from the Lord, or my child not going to church anymore, or any myriads of things that we judge in others. That’s my other little practical thought I’ll throw out there. “Oh God, forgive us.” Catch those judgments quickly. Because this is about wanting to honor the Lord. It’s not about setting ourselves higher than somebody else.

But anyway, the pile of laundry. When I was younger, the pile of laundry started overwhelming me! It was always such a big deal. My friend Danielle, who we talked about last week, she saw me in that struggle, and she said, “I will not have that struggle!” And she’s always kept up on her laundry. She’s done really good.

Laundry’s no longer a big thing for me. It’s so funny now, when I look back. I have way more laundry now than I’ve ever had, and it’s just not an issue. Just do a little bit every day, catch up on Friday, hang it up, and it’s done. We have clean laundry!

The other thing is that I started at some point for the boys, we had dress clothes that were black, and we had dress clothes that were brown. I wanted everybody to have the same stuff, so we decided to do khaki pants. We do brown shoes, and then they wear dress shirts. So, they know. The expectations have been laid over the years. They know we’re going somewhere nice. They’ll ask, “What do I wear?” to go over to dinner at someone’s house.

They know what it means to dress nicely. They have to wear their dress shoes. They have to put on a pair of khaki pants, and a nice shirt. There will be no tee shirts. We have firm rules that they know, so on Sunday morning, I’m not fighting with ten different children on ten different wardrobe issues. Because issues arise, but we can really eliminate a lot of it with just the basics.

Nancy: You made a stand of what you expect them to wear, and they know that’s what they dress for on Sunday. Do you have it all there, ready for them?

Courtney: It’s basically they get their own stuff. My five-year-old dresses herself on Sunday mornings. Solly just turned three. She can climb up and pick out her dress. She knows to pick out a dress, and she picks out a pair of bloomers. She can do that. We pull together, but everybody has their thing. It’s not a big issue.

I try to throw away things that I don’t want them to wear. If it has holes in it, it goes in the trash, because inevitably, they’re going to wear it. If you look at the picture Nancy shared last week, you will see a skirt that got passed up. I said, “There’s that holey skirt that I didn’t throw away! I should have thrown it away,” because you just never know when the permanent picture will be centered!” [laughter]

Nancy: Oh, yes, but wasn’t that a delightful picture, where they were going to be outside?

Courtney: No holes! But there are still things you can do to show respect for the event that somebody else held. Maybe you’re going to be playing outside, but you don’t need to have dirty clothes on. You don’t need to have holey clothes on. You maybe could match. There are ways to do this.

I also say that we buy basically nothing new. Most of our lives we buy everything thrift, everything yard sale. Early on, I was exposed to yard sale deals, and I was blown away at the amazing things I could buy for my children at yard sales. Almost everything is second-hand and thrifted. Goodwill is my go-to for everything else.

Nancy: How do you manage for them all to have matching socks on Sunday!

Courtney: [laughter] It’s funny, but matching socks can elude us. It’s such a silly thing. But they make mismatched socks. I personally prefer socks to match. So, when the socks come out of the laundry, right now we’re in transition in our family.

A GREAT IDEA – THE FAMILY CLOSET

We have a family closet. That was something I learned from a magazine years ago. We have a family closet. Everybody’s stuff is hung up in one room. We do not do dresser drawers. We do not do shelving anymore. We hang it. I’ve been wanting to try it for years, and we’re doing it, and I love it!

Nancy: So, you have one whole room, just for the clothes?

Courtney: One whole room, and as a matter of fact, we just moved into a fifteen hundred square foot house. A boy’s room, a girl’s room that’s relatively tight, and then one room, a whole room, that has to be the family closet. I’m not putting children in that room. I’ve done that. That’s becoming a logistical blessing. That’s what it is.

It was a very over-sized closet in terms of the family closet. It’s right off the hallway now. Everybody’s laundry is in there. I don’t even allow them to keep laundry in their rooms, because we would fold it, put it in the drawers. They would have to dig through it to get it, and it would be all over the room. It was always a sight. Now it all goes into one room. Everything is hung, and everyone has one bin for their underwear. They put their socks in there, or their tights, things like that. Everything is easy.

Nancy: They go to their bin, get their stuff, get their pants, and then take it from the hangers, and go to their rooms.

Courtney: There’s shelving along the floor, and all their dress shoes are in there. Overhead are boxes with other seasonal clothes and other extra clothes that can’t fit hanging. I keep organized so that it’s all right there.

Nancy: Wonderful! That’s so great! Because the children, I guess, do they do the laundry too?

Courtney: Yes, it just depends. We do jurisdictions, so it rotates. Right now, I do a lot of the laundry. Arden helps with a lot of the laundry. The little girls are seven, five, and three, so Hadassah and Remeny, the seven- and five-year-olds, they can switch the loads, and they’ll go hang it up.

Nancy: That’s so lovely! So, they can get identical socks, because you have a bin, don’t you?

Courtney: Yes, right now, I have three five-gallon buckets that used to be my food buckets. Like I said, we’re in transition. Two are for matched socks. The matched socks, whose ever they are, they just go in those buckets. Then there’s a third one for mismatched, because we always have mismatched, but you don’t want to throw them away yet.

Nancy: No! Because you’ll find the other one!

Courtney: Yes, so every now and then, that’s a chore for one of the little ones. “Go dump the socks and do the matching.” Because I was saying that as our children have gotten older, there are so many. When they were younger, I just stuck with one kind of sock. “You have this kind of sock, and also a funny secret, so don’t tell anyone else, OK?”

My children have worn the same kind of underwear throughout their lives. For instance, I don’t want to give away any particulars, but for instance, maybe your eight-year-old started wearing striped Fruit of the Loom when he was two. He can wear striped Fruit of the Loom his whole life. And then maybe your other daughter can wear polka dotted. So, the whole time, I know all their undies apart.

But socks have not gone that way. When they were younger, I could remember, but now there are so many different kinds that they all go in the bucket. Everybody knows all the socks are in there. You dig for a moment and find one of yours, because you have ten pairs or more. And then we’re good to go. Socks are a non-issue.

And you have to wear socks. They know they would not go out without socks. They taught little children how to fold these. You hear the funny stories of your children showing up to church without socks. We have done that. We’ve been there. We get to the grocery store, and maybe they don’t have shoes because we didn’t do a quick check before we left. That happens to us.

But overall, they know the rules. You have to have shoes and socks on. You have to be dressed a certain way, or you're not coming. So, fix your hair. That was another thing. We talked about the meals, about coming to the meal table. You have to wear your shirt to the meal table. It has to be on. It’s just a small thing, but it’s the way we show respect for the person who made the meal, and to honor the occasion. It brings it up a notch.

Nancy: Oh, it does. I love that.

Courtney: “Go fix your hair!” I like their hair to be longer cut, and if it’s not taken care of, it’s all over the place, and I’ll just give them a look. They jump up, and they run, and they fix their hair really quick and come back.

Nancy: I think that is so true. The value that you put upon the table, and the expectation you have for your children will determine how they are at the table. It even determines their behavior. If you allow your children, when you say “Suppertime! Come!” And they just come how they are. They haven’t washed their hands, done their hair, or they’re just dirty. They come like that.

They are not realizing, “Oh, this is special. We’re coming to the family table! We come in a way that is going to honor the table.” You establish that with your children, don’t you? So, they know now that’s how they come. At suppertime, the boys make sure they have a clean shirt on. Yes, that’s so great.

Courtney: It’s a small thing, because some of their lives, we unschool. We do a lot of things loosely. We do a lot of things very tightly also, but there are so many loose things that it’s nice to have those things that pull your family together.

We were talking about respect being lost. In almost every area of our lives, there are very few ways for us to show respect now. You almost have to create them for your family. You have to bring them back or create your own. What is it that you want respected in your family? Maybe it’s your Bible time. Or maybe it’s when you go out in public. You can form opportunities for your children so that your children know how to show respect.

They will grow up doing that, and they’ll do it with their children. “We always came to the table with our clothes on. We always did our hair.” And hopefully it’s something that they’ll continue to perpetuate, and they’ll have their own things that they’ll add in there. “Wow, we were pretty loose, Mom, when we did this and that,” so add to it.

Nancy: I think that’s so wonderful. In fact, the more we can bring respect and reverence and honor to the way our children behave, the better in this society which is so lost. I’ve always found that the meal table is the place where you don’t just come as you are. You bring it up a notch, as you said.

I remember reading about John McCain. He’s now passed on. He was going for president at one stage but didn’t get it. He wrote this book about his time in Viet Nam, and about his forefathers, his parents and his grandparents who were great patriots. But he said his parents always came to the meal table—his father in a suit, and his mother in an evening gown.

Courtney: Wow!

Nancy: That was really up a notch! But it shows that the honor way back there that they put on the family meal table.

Courtney: Yes. And wouldn’t we feel weird serving peanut butter and jelly to someone in their evening gown or a suit? You would have to bring your whole meal up a notch.

Nancy: Oh, absolutely! But now people hardly even sit at the table, let alone know how to!

Courtney: You taught me that. You taught me that so much.

Nancy: That’s so wonderful.

Courtney: I feel that we almost, as a mom, we love ourselves by creating order in our homes, around everything we do. Order is so valuable to us. Anywhere we can have order is really going to love on us more too. It’s good to love on our family, but if you let your children eat all day and come to the table, and leave the table, that’s so chaotic.

When that happens in my home, I’m not enjoying my meal. I’m not enjoying my children. It’s very chaotic. “Come back to the table! Stop carrying that around! Are you finished? You’re not done. Finish your food!” And there’s just constant chaos, and they’re hungry an hour later. It affects the whole day.

Nancy: It does. And you know, I think that Scripture, I often think of it. Isaiah 9:7: “Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon His kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever.” You see there that God ordered His kingdom. He doesn’t have a chaotic kingdom. It’s an ordered kingdom.

We’ve been called into His kingdom. I think we just read that Scripture this morning at our family devotions. We’ve been called into His kingdom. Let me look it up, because it is so amazing.

1 Thessalonians 2:12: “That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto His kingdom and glory.” So, we’ve just read how God orders His kingdom, and now we read that God has called us into that kingdom, a kingdom that is ordered.

This is a kingdom we’ve been called into. A kingdom belongs to a king. We’ve been called into this kingdom. We’ve become royalty. We’re no longer commoners, amazingly. In Christ, we’re called into this incredible ordered kingdom. It also says, “And unto glory.”

Wow! If we think about it, that should have an effect upon our lives and our family life, and how we’re ordering our little kingdom. Because our family is another little kingdom, part of God’s kingdom. We’re meant to do it the way He does His kingdom and orders it. That is so cool.

Anyway, what were some of the other things that we . . . I remember Nadia saying to you that not only do you look put together yourself, but you always look so beautiful, so feminine, and so lovely. It’s so beautiful to see your girls. You dress them so femininely and so beautifully. It’s so wonderful.

She was also asking how do you get them to look like that? But I think you’ve really been sharing that. But maybe I should ask . . . wow, we’re getting to the end of our time, aren’t we? Maybe we could have another session and ask a few more questions.

Courtney: OK.

Nancy: I think we’ll do that. We’ll close this one now, and we’ll do another one.

Courtney: Can I say something really quickly? That would be that this is something on my heart as we were coming over. Sometimes these things can feel overwhelming to a mom. I don’t know the different situations of the people listening, but you hear all these views, and the things that you need to add, and it can feel so overwhelming. But my heart in coming was that everyone wouldn’t hear just Nancy and Above Rubies and Courtney, but this is from the Lord, because His heart for our family is so valuable.

Motherhood is so under attack. It’s so powerful. It affects everything. It affects the family, the generations, our nation, our world, the kingdom of God forever. The enemy will do everything he can to cut off truth. We want to always be open to what truths the Lord is speaking to us. Maybe it doesn’t look the same, but “God, how do I apply this? Is there an area that You want to minister to me?”

But it’ll never be a burden. God’s ways aren’t burdensome. They’re a blessing, and there’s truth to be had, so we don’t want to cut it off. I’ve been in that place, where I cut off truth because of offense, and because the enemy’s voice saying, “Oh, yeah, there’s another thing to ask.” Just hear the voice of the Lord speaking to you and your family.

Nancy: Yes, amen! I love that, love that. Actually, I was just given a book over the weekend. It’s the story of this dear woman who went out to India to serve the Lord, but how she learned to serve the Lord. It tells how she learned to wait, to stop, and to listen. She’d been so busy serving the Lord, and so busy preaching, and so busy telling everybody what to do and how to get saved, and nothing was happening. Just nothing.

And then, this visiting minister came. Someone came to him with a problem. He said, “OK, well, let’s just wait and hear what God will say to us.” So, he waited, and he taught the person there to wait. “And we’re just going to listen to God speak.” And then God began to speak. This person was miraculously, incredibly saved from this terrible life, and they got convicted, and repented. It was all so amazing.

This woman began to see, “Wow! Is this how it’s meant to work?” And she began to live like this. The book tells the stories and the miracles that happened out of just doing this. Every time there was a problem and every time there was a need, “OK, let’s just come together, and we’re going to wait.” They wait in silence before the Lord, and they listen. And then God would begin to speak, and He’d show them the answers! It was amazing!

I haven’t quite finished it, but every story is so miraculous! I’ve just been amazed! That carries over to what you have said. It’s not doing what someone else does. It’s doing what God wants us to do and listening to His voice. I remember reading that Scripture, how God gave the whole plan of the temple to David by the Spirit, by the Holy Spirit. David listened to the Holy Spirit.

I think that’s what we, as mothers, have to do. Help! We don’t know what to do, we don’t know how to do just the practical things, even just the ordering of our homes, and we don’t know what to do in certain different things. We need to get with the Lord and wait and listen until He speaks, and He’ll show us.

Courtney: He will speak.

Nancy: Yes! I love it!

“Lord, as we close this session, we ask that You help us to listen to You more, Lord God. Listen to You in Your Word, as we read Your Word, but to listen, Lord, even as we wait on You. So often we’re so full of words, and Lord, we’re asking You for this, and that, and everything. But Lord, teach us how to listen so we can truly hear Your voice showing us what You want us to do. We ask that You’ll help us all in this. Lord, we want to know more and more of Your ways, in each circumstance. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

DON’T FORGET TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THESE PODCASTS AND TRANSCRIPTS.

“LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell, Above Rubies”

DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF.

IT IS ENCOURAGING FOR ALL WIVES AND MOTHERS.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 322: Courtney’s Story

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 322: Courtney’s Story

Courtney Kelly joins us today to tell her story. Every mother’s story is so unique. Growing up, her mother owned a bar. How did Courtney end up raising ten children for God’s kingdom?

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Great to be with you again. This morning, I have another visitor coming to this podcast with me. Her name is Courtney Kelly. Courtney and her husband, Rob and family, have come to be with us here on the Hilltop. They’ve been here about a year now, haven’t you, Courtney?

Courtney: Yes.

Nancy: Yay! So great to have you with us!

Courtney: Thank you! Thank you for having me on.

Nancy: Oh, you're welcome. Courtney and her husband are blessed with ten amazing, wonderful children. In fact, little Zion was born after you got here. He’s the most gorgeous little baby, just such a good little baby. I can never get over how good he is! He’s so amazing.

But anyway, why don’t you tell us about all your other children? Just quickly go from top to bottom. The ladies love to hear the names you choose for your children. That’s why, in Above Rubies, I always put all the names of the children, because people love to see the names. In fact, I know that many have used names that they found in Above Rubies, even the names of some of our children!

Courtney: I love reading the names in Above Rubies and I’m always looking for new names when I read it. My oldest is Elias Lee and he is 17. My second boy is Addison Brennan and he’s 16. My daughter is Auden Alaney, and she is 14, almost 15. Then it goes down to Arden, my third boy. Arden is 10, and then Josiah Afford. Down to Addley. Hadassah Grace is our second girl. Then we had three girls in a row. Hadassah Grace, Remeny Rain, and Solly Joy. Then down to our sixth boy, Zion River. That’s ten!

Nancy: Oh, so wonderful! And I love all those names.

Courtney: Thank you!

Nancy: So beautiful! It’s lovely to see their family growing up here. They’re all growing up in the Lord. These young children, from the teens, right down to little Zion, are always at the prayer meetings. I love to hear her children pray. Even some of your young boys! They pray like older men! It’s amazing! Oh!

Courtney: They impress me. And surprise me. They prayed for Netanyahu.

Nancy: No one was trying to coach him along. He just comes out with these most amazing prayers. Then watching your little darlings just worship the Lord with their hands raised! It’s coming from their own hearts. It’s so amazing! You are so blessed. The hand of the Lord is upon your family.

And I look at Auden. She’s only 14 and so mature, so grown-up. I was thinking of my own granddaughter Breezy. My sister Kate called this morning, and she is sort of laid up with a very bad leg and back.

She said, “Oh, Breezy came over this morning and she brought me a cup of coffee. And she prayed for me.” I thought, “How wonderful! Young people usually don’t think of anybody else. But she’s so mature too, like Auden. All these beautiful young people are growing up so mature in the Lord. It’s so beautiful to see.

So, Courtney, you arrived, sort of on our doorstep, unexpectedly! [laughter] You didn’t even plan to come here, did you?

Courtney: No. No.

Nancy: Isn’t that amazing?

Courtney: I did not plan to come here. As a matter of fact, when we were in Alaska, we looked at real estate in Primm Springs. There was nothing. On Zillow there’s all these little dots all over the place, but Primm Springs, there was nothing. “We’re never going there!”

Nancy: I know! So many people want to come to Primm Springs and want to come near the Hilltop. They can’t find any land and you found some.

Courtney: It was the Lord and His timing. That’s all I can say, because it was out of our provision and out of our sight.

Nancy: Yes, and they live just down the road from us! It’s amazing. But tell us where you started and where you lived until you got here.

Courtney: How far back do you want me to go? Where do you want me to start?

Nancy: When you married.

Courtney: Just the journey of coming here?

Nancy: Tell us where you lived.

Courtney: We started out in Ohio. I was actually born in New Mexico, but we lived in Ohio since I was young. My husband lived in Ohio, so we both grew up there. Then we moved to Oklahoma to go to Bible school. My husband had gone before we were married, but then we went together. Then we went back to Ohio to join back in with the ministry that we had grown up in, in our teen years.

Then we were traveling. One summer, we were trying to break free of the nine-to-five job, and do road-schooling, and go on a big adventure. So, we did that. We packed into a little pop-up camper that cost us $1,000 and we hit the road. We started traveling. It was when we were out west that my husband thought he could breathe. He was so excited! He said, “We’re going to move west!” It was not on the agenda at all. He was Mr. Steady, and I thought we would stay forever.

We did move. We went home and sold everything and bought another camper that we retrofitted for our family. We moved to Alaska, sight unseen. Had never been there and never thought we would ever go to Alaska, but looking back, it felt like the Spirit of the Lord was driving us. The things that we were able to leave behind, our amazing families, and all our possessions, precious possessions that we left, the grace of the Lord was on us to do that.

And when we showed up the Lord had a place for us there, just like He provided here. There was this little community nestled in the middle of the wilderness, a Christian community that was desperate for young families to come in. They were all older, in their 80’s, and they welcomed us in with open arms. We lived there for a number of years.

Sometimes I feel like it’s the Scripture about the Spirit of the Lord. You don’t know where it’s going. The Lord has led us. It hasn’t made sense, but we tried to always be open to the door the Lord was leading and be able to drop anything. We haven’t had a lot of things tying us down, so the Lord has really done that. But it’s been very difficult also. It’s not all hunky dory. But God’s in charge.

Nancy: That’s great. Let’s now hear your story. Why don’t you start now, from when you were young, listening, and what God has done in your life.

Courtney: OK, just a little bit of background. My husband and I have been married for almost 19 years. We have ten children. Our oldest is 17, and we homeschool our children. We’ve homeschooled them since the beginning. But none of these things were ever on our plans, or our agendas. It’s something the Lord did in us.

My husband was raised in the church. They were Methodists. He went to a private Christian school growing up all through his growing-up years. Went off to Bible school and prepared to be a minister.

I was on the opposite side. I was not raised in the Lord. My granddad had turned away from the Lord. The whole family really fell apart and there was mental illness, and suicide, and immorality. The family just went to pieces.

Nancy: Just picking up there, Courtney. Isn’t that amazing? The decisions that we make as parents, how they affect the coming generations. You said your grandfather turned away from the Lord, and then it just went down. I see that in our own family. My father was one of five brothers. His father had an incredible conversion and came to know the Lord. His parents raised him for the Lord. Then they all married, and were having children, and were all growing up together.

Then the sad thing happened. The oldest brother, because of an offence; someone said something to him, and I wouldn’t have a clue what it was. But he got offended and he left the church. He never went back. Well, that line of the family still doesn’t go near a church. That’s about four or five generations.

I can remember my father going to his brother and saying, “Oh, but what about your children? What about their salvation?” He said, “Oh, when they’re old enough, I’ll take them to an evangelistic meeting, and they can decide for themselves.” Well, he never did. And those children never walked with the Lord, nor the grandchildren, nor the next generation. Isn’t it powerful, the decisions we make? They’re not just for us, certainly. They affect coming generations, don’t they?

Courtney: They do.

Nancy: But anyway, carry on!

Courtney: Well, I was just thinking the other day how I can look at my grandfather, and how the family fell apart. I think, “Lord, somewhere in my line, probably, there was someone who followed the Lord, and it’s the reason that I came back.

Nancy: And kept praying!

Courtney: Because it was the generations before that the Lord sees. It would be interesting if we knew who our greats and our great-greats were, their heart for the Lord, or their opposite, because we can know so much about ourselves.

OK, so my mom, at that time, she was really young. She ended up marrying really young. She was 15 when she got married. She never came to the Lord, but when she was younger, she had experience in the presence of the Lord because she had a relative who took her to prayer meetings in the Jesus movement. She remembers falling asleep on the floor in the prayer meetings and feeling the presence of God.

So, she had a longing for the Lord through all these years, but she just never came, she never came all the way. She never was born again. She raised us. She did her best as a mom in that situation. She left my dad when I was two-and-a-half and my brothers were about four, six, and eight. She left and moved in with an old boyfriend.

Our life was very typical of someone in a downtown area who had divorced and doesn’t have a lot, and lives in darkness, really. The Lord was drawing her all these years, but she didn’t really come until I was 11. I was 11 when she came back to the Lord.

Nancy: Didn’t she own a bar? You were kind of raised in a bar?

Courtney: She didn’t marry. She lived with that man, and they moved to East Liverpool, Ohio, and they bought a bar. I guess I was probably four at that time. So, from the time I was four, up until eight, yeah, we owned a bar. I spent my days there in the bar. My brothers were in school.

But during that time, the funny thing is that I was being homeschooled because she had known a Christian woman in her past who used Rod and Staff curriculum, all the way in New Mexico. That impacted her, and she thought, “I want to give my children a good foundation before they go to school.” So, she homeschooled us.

Nancy: I can’t imagine Rod and Staff curriculum being used in a bar! [laughter]

Courtney: In a bar! And I thank God for that curriculum because my mom didn’t, we didn’t grow up reading the Bible. There was never a family devotion. I share this with my children. “Do you realize what you have and how much light and sunshine there is?” Because this was not any part, any hint. We had never even heard of these things.

But I thank God for that curriculum because it’s all Scripture. It’s completely Scripture. All your reading, all your writing, everything is Scripture. So, we did have a little bit of foundation in those early years in the Lord.

My mom wanted out of that life, so even before she came to the Lord, she wanted out of the bars. She sold the bar to my stepdad. She ended up marrying the man she sold the bar to, so they kept it a while longer. Changed the name and did some turnaround. But it wasn’t until I was 11.

There was a woman who she had met through the business where she worked, which was bringing her the gospel regularly, and was hounding her. I mean hounding her. This woman’s name is Kay Price. I’d like to honor her. She just passed away recently. But this woman hounded my mom, hounded her at her work. She’d tell her, “Roberta, you've got to come back to the Lord. You’ve got to come back to the Lord.”

My mom, her belief at that time was that she could never return because she held onto the Scripture in a bad sense. She held onto the Scripture that said those who have tasted of the goodness of God can never return. She said, “I can never come back because I’ve done so much bad in my life. I can never come back.”

But finally, after Kay had annoyed her so much that she didn’t even like Kay anymore. She really couldn’t stand her. Finally, Kay was able to break through to her by the Spirit of the Lord! It really broke through.

Nancy: Is that amazing? The tenacity in never giving up!

Courtney: Yes! Yes! And this woman wasn’t an evangelist. I actually called Kay. I hunted her down about a year and a half ago on Facebook. I found Kay lived down the road in East Liverpool, maybe 15 minutes from where we lived.

I was able to talk to her. This woman became one of the most precious people in the whole world to me, because Kay, and I wanted to be able to tell her. I felt this urgency of, “I’ve got to find Kay before she’s gone, because I want her to know this side of heaven what she did for my family.”

When my mom came to the Lord, she came to the Lord, and He redeemed her. We went from darkness, I mean darkness, darkness, drinking, and parties, to total light. I’m so thankful for this woman, and to be able to say, “Kay, our whole lives, and generations to come, all these children, this life that we’ve been given. We owe so much to you because you were willing to hound my mother and not take no for an answer.”

One of my pet peeves is that people say, “If you shared the gospel properly, or in the right way, people would receive it. If you're sharing it, and they’re rejecting it, you must be doing something wrong.”

I’d like to set the record straight that I am so thankful that Kay hounded my mom in a way that she didn’t like, and it was uncomfortable, and annoying. Even my mom was rejecting the truth, but the bottom line is that the Lord was after her, and the truth is that we need to share. It’s God’s responsibility to do the rest. We just share. I’m so thankful for Kay.

Nancy: Oh, that’s a beautiful testimony.

Courtney: She’s such a beautiful woman to me. So, my mom came to the Lord. I was 11. She started going to church regularly and then she put us all in Christian school. Thank God, she put us all in Christian school. Then it wasn’t for a couple of years (even though I was in the church, and I was on the worship team, I was getting involved), but I didn’t come to the Lord for two years. But I just thank God.

My testimony is to say that God redeems. He plucks out of darkness, and He sets on a Rock, against what we deserve and anything that we’ve earned. But when we came to the Lord, we came solely because we came to the Lord in a mainstream church where having families wasn’t really encouraged. Homeschooling certainly wasn’t encouraged. We didn’t really know other people who were homeschooling. Around that time, when we had two little tots, was the time . . .

Nancy: Oh, but you should tell us how you met Rob! Oh, you can’t leave that part out!

Courtney: [laughing] That should be a separate podcast! I met Rob when I was sent to the Christian school. He was in the Christian school. He was a senior and I was in seventh grade. We saw each other because it was a small school. We ate lunches together, we did chapel together, and sports were combined. Things like that. We were around each other, but of course, at a distance.

I was a perfect heathen, and he remembers me as being such. But he graduated and went off to Rhema Bible School. I stayed, and I was born again in that school. Rob and his parents had left the Methodist church when they were filled with the Spirit. They had started a new fellowship.

The church grew and became a really beautiful outreach to the city’s youth. Sunday morning services may have had 20 people in it, but the Thursday night outreach to the teenagers would have 70 to 120 kids coming.

My mom was very reluctant to let me go because on the street, on Thursday nights, it looked like the outside of a club! Gothic kids, you know. It was somewhere my mom really didn’t want me going. But there was a boy in school. He was a senior, and he was delivered from drugs and alcohol. He would say, “It’s Fire tonight! It’s Fire tonight! Everybody’s got it!” He’d go down the hall. “You’ve got to come to Fire!” That was the name of the ministry, was “Fire.” Fire Youth Ministry.

Finally, my mom let me go, and it was there that I experienced the presence of the Lord and was baptized in the Holy Spirit and jumped into the leadership program. It was a really intensive discipleship program that really taught me how infinite God is, and how to truly draw near to the Lord and be close to Him, something that I hadn’t been taught yet. The nitty-gritty of having a morning devotion, and growing in the Lord, and having Him change you. So, I thank God for that ministry too. Just totally transformed my life. The Lord was so faithful to give me that.

So, while I served in the ministry and the Lord really matured me, kind of quickly, Rob was looking for a wife in Oklahoma at the Bible school. He had this dream he would meet someone at Bible school. It’s a great place to meet someone your age, probably.

But when he would come back, we would see each other. We’d serve in the ministry, so my life went from attraction when I was 13 to being interested in him as a husband. It came over the years. By the time I was 16, Rob and I were good friends, serving in the ministry together. I had my strict list of things I was looking for in a husband, and they were very mature things, like he had to be undignified enough to dance but humble enough to bow. This was truly something on my list! [laughter]

The Lord was faithful, because everything on my list was slowly being crossed off. I was lost in love. I would love to find the list now to see what other ridiculous things were on there. But it was what the Lord really used to show me that “This is the man for you.” I didn’t have parents necessarily who were guiding me in that. The Lord really fathered me so much in my youth to make good decisions. He was faithful.

Rob and I were married when I was 17 and he was 23. We’ve been married for almost 19 years this month—Nineteen years!

Nancy: So, tell us, how you began your family. Did you plan? What did you do about children? Were you planning to have ten? Or that was not even on your radar?

Courtney: No, it wasn’t. I came from a family that had two older brothers. My husband came from a family where he had two older sisters and a younger brother. We never talked about it, just to be honest. We did have premarital counseling, but we never talked about any of the things that maybe you would think you would talk about.

But now I see the hand of the Lord in that, because I see that we haven’t really done anything that we assumed in our own minds that we would do. The Lord was faithful anyway. We thought we’d have three or four children. Rob assumed we would send them to private Christian school.

I wanted to be a missionary. Rob wanted to be a pastor. Our first two children came very quickly. I had Elias when I was 19 and the next year I had Addison. Then my vision became, “Well, they’re coming really close together.” After I had Auden, I became pregnant with Arden, and I thought, “I’m going to have my children very quickly! Have three or four, raise them up fast, move them out of the house so I can go on the mission field.”

That seemed like a great plan to me, but it was during that time that the Lord started giving me the vision. Like everyone else, I had seen the Duggars on TV. That planted a vision in my heart. I had also come across a family that was a beautiful homeschool family that had their house ordered so amazingly. That put a vision in my heart for what . . .

Nancy: You were telling me the other day, how you weren’t happy about having many children because you thought many parents didn’t know how to keep the house clean. You couldn’t stand all that.

Courtney: Yes, I thought that to have a big family, everything would fall apart and be messy. You wouldn’t have enough money, and your children would be ragamuffins, and your home would smell bad. My experience was that, any families that were bigger, that was my experience as a young person, and I thought I did not want anything to do with this.

So, I went to babysit for a beautiful family in our church who happens to be an Above Rubies family, but I didn’t know that at the time. I think they had six children, which seemed like a lot to me. Their home was so clean and organized, and their children were so well-behaved, and they were so sweet. I remember seeing the chore chart on the fridge, and it seemed like God spoke to me, or gave me this vision. If your children help in the house, then there isn’t so much work, and things can be nice and be orderly.

It was like the Lord connected it all for me and gave me this picture. It really started transforming my picture of what life could be like. At the same time, I started receiving Above Rubies magazine. I saw the Duggars on TV, and my vision completely changed. I thought, “If we can have godly children, why wouldn’t we have as many as we can?”

Nancy: And raise all these missionaries! Not just you be a missionary, but all these children as missionaries!

Courtney: Right! Perhaps I would never be a missionary, as I thought, but maybe my children would be. And maybe one of my generations.

Nancy: Every mother is a missionary. In fact, when you think about it, what did Jesus (who came ultimately to die for our sins, to pay the price of our sins), His whole mission, while He was ministering on earth, was making disciples. That’s what He did. He trained disciples. He chose 12 young men. They were only young men. Sometimes we think, “Oh, the disciples were older men.” No, they were just young teenagers. He chose them and He trained them.

That’s what every mother is doing. You’re doing the same ministry as Jesus! Isn’t that incredible? Jesus trained those disciples who went on, after He went back to heaven, to turn the world upside down. Really, we have the most incredible mission, the most incredible task in the whole world, to train disciples.

As you said, the more you have, the more impact you have for God, because the more disciples you are training, the more missionaries you are training, and the more of God’s love and His truth and the image of Who He is goes out into the world through our children. It's incredible, isn’t it?

Courtney: So true. Something my husband and I loved to do, and we used to do when we had young ones, we would serve in the summer camp in our church. All those children would come in, and we’d share the gospel with them. It was something that we loved. It was near and dear to us. So, our boys, this summer, went and served in Missouri at a camp, sharing the gospel.

That was so precious, because that’s something we would normally do, but we have our family now. It’s not as much in our ability to do that, but here we are, we’re at home discipling our children. Our two sons in Missouri, they’re serving too. Two of them giving their full attention to the ministry there while we’re here. The other one goes here, and the other one going here, and this is just the beginning, right?

Nancy: Oh, absolutely.

Courtney: It’s got to be amazing, to be you, and to see your arrows all over the place that you shot out. It is a multiplication. One of the things that I realized is that so many things I thought I would have to give up as a young person when I was starting to have children. I thought so much would have to die in me, and I would have to say good-bye to so many things. I DON’T THINK I’VE HAD TO SAY GOOD-BYE TO ANYTHING

Anything that was of value, but I remember thinking, “Well, we’ll never get invited over to supper anymore. No one will have a big family over to dinner. There will be too many of us. We’ll never get to go out to eat.” They’re just lies, really, lies is what they are. “You’ll never get to travel.” Or “You’ll never have alone time with your husband.” Or “Your house will never be clean again.” All these things. They’re just not true.

Nancy: No, no. I know it’s just the lies of the enemy. The devil is a liar, and because he hates God, he hates motherhood because God is the One Who instituted motherhood. He’s lying to women. He’s constantly calling lies into our minds. Even you lovely moms who, even though you love motherhood, the devi’s still going to come along and try to put these little lies into your mind. These little subtle things, but don’t listen to him.

That’s why you need the podcast, because you need to come every week and be encouraged in the Word, and in the testimonies of other women, to know you're walking in the perfect will of God, and you're doing the greatest career that you could ever do as a woman. Amen.

Courtney: I’ll agree. When we started having children, we still didn’t have a vision for having our full trust in the Lord though, either. We had three, and then we had four. I think we had five under five. They came along quickly. It was a lot, and my husband was saying, “OK, let’s slow down!”

In the meantime, the Lord was moving in my heart so much, just to trust Him with our family size. That was interesting to figure that out. But over the years, the Lord has really moved on my husband and changed his heart too. Everything that I’ve read and that the Lord’s showing me, I’m always pouring out to him, because he works, and he’s busy. As the Lord’s showing me things, I’m sharing, and he’s coming on softly, just like it came on softly with me.

Over the years, finally, I think we have had six when we decided that we were going to fully trust the Lord, and stop preventing our children. And let go of the fear, “Oh, you're going to have 19!” I thought, “Well, why would that be so bad first of all?”

But then, as I got bold enough to ask women, older women, “Did you trust the Lord? And how many did you have?” It was amazing to hear the testimonies of people who fully trusted the Lord, and had three, or had four. The Lord knows, and He sees, and He knows our lives and what His plan is for us, and the arrows He would give to us.

I started researching, “Well, a quiver full. How big is a quiver, Lord?” The thing that came back to me was “Well, people have different size quivers.” I thought, “How can that be?” You don’t go out with just one arrow in there.

But we have to leave some of our dogmatism behind and realize that the heart of it is to be willing, and to say, “God, I want whatever you have for me, beyond what the culture is saying, or what my body is saying, or the situation that’s present.” Because so many reasons that we limit our family for are temporary. They’re financial. It’s contained in a moment.

They’re emotional stress or anxiety, so many things. Even in a home situation, where your house is too small, or your car is too small. Many of these things, God changes the situation. I have never wanted to base my decisions on those things because they change so quickly.

We’re talking about eternity. Our children aren’t just for this life. They’re not just for when our home can be filled when we’re old. They’re for the kingdom of God, and He wants His kingdom FULL. That’s the vision. If we can just pass all these other things. It’s not about eating out or traveling the world. Even if we had to give up everything. I said that if I had to live in a tent so I could stay home with my children, I would do that, because . . .

Nancy: That’s so interesting.

Courtney: And I have! [laughter]

Nancy: You have lived in a tent!

Courtney: Not for a long time!

Nancy: It’s so funny, because I haven’t really met anyone else who said those exact words. But that’s exactly what I used to say when I was raising our children. With everything that was in me, I could not even bear to think that I could put my children aside and go out and do something else. I would live in a tent, rather than give up my children! I never had to, though. It’s amazing, isn’t it? God is so faithful.

And what did David say? “I have been young, and I have been old, but I have never seen the righteous begging bread” (Psalm 37:25). It’s so true. God is so faithful. I love that Scripture in Deuteronomy 28. That’s the blessing chapter. It’s wonderful to read all the blessings, but the interesting thing is that it’s also the cursing chapter, because it has all the curses as well. There are more curses than blessings.

But the blessings are so wonderful. It says that if we walk in the ways of the Lord, He will bless us. The first thing that He mentions is “And I will bless the fruit of your womb.” That is the first blessing. Then it goes on to say, “I will bless your cattle, and your sheep, and your store.” Everything around you, meaning your business and your provision.

You’ll notice that that comes after the blessing of the womb. God says, “I’ll bless your womb, AND I’ll bless you with all these other things.” That is what God does. When He blesses us, He blesses our womb, and we bring forth another child, well, then He blesses us to provide for that child.

I get so many testimonies of women saying, “You know, we had our sixth baby. We were wondering how we were going to survive. But God did this amazing thing, and my husband got a raise.” Or another testimony; “Well, the Lord just miraculously provided this big van for us!” It goes on and on and on. It’s always some great provision that happens with every new child. Have you found that too?

Courtney: Yes. Maybe not with every child. I haven’t sat down to prove it, but I realized that we were younger when we had Elias and Addison. They were just little tots, and I remember going to a food pantry because we had nothing in the house.

I look at us now, and I think, “Nothing has really changed financially for us.” Rob still works a job. He hasn’t gotten some big raise or amazing promotion, but we feed all these children, and we have a storehouse of food. The Lord has provided through the years. It doesn’t mean that you don’t go without. There are people who have one child who go without, and people with no children who go without.

Nancy: Paul said, “I know how to abound, but I know how to be abased.” And we go through those times. But I’m amazed that there are many families who will say, “We cannot, we cannot manage unless we have two incomes.”

But it’s only because they’re thinking that way, because I look at all these families who the Lord is blessing them. They have six, seven, eight, nine, or ten children, even as you have. And their husband doesn’t have some great incredible career. He’s just a very ordinary working man, just making ends meet. But you're eating and God is providing. You don’t have to have extras to enjoy life, do you? You just have to have what we need! Just food and clothing, really.

Courtney: A home that’s nice. [laughter]

Nancy: That’s so great. Who wants things, really? Your children are riches, aren’t they? If we had a fire or something, what are we going to save? We’re going to make sure every child is safe. We don’t even care if we lose everything else.

Another thing you were telling me about, how when you were first married, you met this Above Rubies lady. She sent you the magazine, didn’t she?

Courtney: Yes, the family that I watched their children in their home . . .

Nancy: Is that the lady?

Courtney: She passed the magazine to my best friend, who was a new friend in the Lord. We had just started our family. She was starting hers, and she had just come completely out of the world radically in her salvation. She was starting her walk of faith, and we were getting together every Tuesday.

This lady, I’ll say her name; Paula Ricardi, if you’re listening. She passed the magazine to Danielle, and Danielle started sharing these stories with me every Tuesday. She started sharing stories from the magazine, and they were amazing, with what life could be like. The stories that she would share about people’s children helping to run the home and taking care of everything while the mama had the baby. The mother actually takes a nap while her little ones are awake! We were amazed!

These stories were like nothing we had ever heard of, nothing we had ever seen. It was like coming to a foreign country for us. We were so excited to hear the possibilities of what life could be like for us. It really gave us a vision for our lives. It was so powerful.

Nancy: That’s so wonderful! So great. I see our time is coming to an end. But, Courtney, maybe you could just share with the ladies. Now you have teenagers, and you have little middlings, down to little baby Zion. Just tell us, what is your biggest passion you have for your children as you’re raising them.

Courtney: Oh, my. My biggest heart is to see them follow the Lord. My prayer is always, “God, may their hearts be after You. May they be for Your praise, and may they be for Your glory. May they be ready for Your kingdom.” One of the biggest things we need is God’s wisdom. We need His wisdom for everything.

I think this is the issue with money, and all of these things, is that God is the ultimate Father. The family was His idea. So much of the time, we’re relying on our own wisdom, and the wisdom that the world’s given us. But God has wisdom for how to do things His way. We need it, and we need to ask for it daily. “God, I need Your wisdom for today. I don’t know how to raise teenagers. I don’t know how to be married for 20 years. I don’t know how to homeschool. I don’t know how to do all the things that I need to do.”

We need wisdom, and we need our children to have wisdom from God. They’ve got to be seeking the Lord. They have to be seeking the Lord for themselves. They have to be in the Word. That’s the big thing. They need their Bible time in the morning. From the time they’re toddlers until they’re 100. When you’re a toddler, you read your picture Bible. It starts young.

But I’ve had the blessing of seeing my older ones. It’s something that’s so ingrained in them. My sons get their Bibles open while they’re eating their breakfast. I never have to say a word. It’s something they do, and they take an hour in the Word, daily. I’m so thankful that I forced, I forced that.

People would say, “Oh, you don’t want to force it. They’ll spit it out.” Well, no, it’s something that we decided is going to be a priority in our family. We homeschool, and we do all kinds of other things very loosely, but this is going to be something foundational in our lives. I thank God for that. This is wisdom.

Nancy: And you're seeing the fruit of that in their lives. It’s so beautiful. Thank you, Courtney, for sharing.

Courtney: Thank you so much for having me on. It’s such an honor.

Nancy: Let’s pray.

“Dear Father, we thank You so much for the way You work in our lives. Every single one of us has a testimony of Your work in our lives, and leading us, and showing us Your ways. Oh, that is one of the most wonderful things, to learn of Your ways.

“I pray for every mother listening today, that You will encourage them, that You will come to them today, and show them something new that You want them to do in their home, some new idea, some new thing to strengthen their marriage, to strengthen their home life.

“Because, Lord, that’s what it’s all about. We as the mothers are the anchors of the home. As we are building our homes, help us, oh God, to never get stagnant, never get in a rut, but always be seeking You for new ways to bless our husbands, bless our families. We ask this in the precious Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

DON’T FORGET TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THESE PODCASTS AND TRANSCRIPTS.

“LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell, Above Rubies”

DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF.

IT IS ENCOURAGING FOR ALL WIVES AND MOTHERS.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 321: Your Past Does Not Define You, Part 2

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 321: Your Past Does Not Define You, Part 2

Pam Fields continues her story. Although coming from a home of confusion and evil practices, God has brought Pam into a large place, enjoying her marriage, family, and ministry. She is proof that your past does not define who God made you to be.

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Pam Fields is with me again today. She’s going to finish up her story of telling you things behind the scenes. Anyway Pam, you mentioned to me about how when you were a little girl, you found it very hard to sleep, obviously because of the things that were going on in your home. But what did you do?

Pam: Well, it was the most amazing thing, in retrospect, how God was looking after me and drawing me to Himself. You mentioned earlier, in the last episode, the nearness of God. When I was little, and I could not sleep, for some reason I went out to the bookshelf. There was a black King James Bible. I took it back to my bedroom and I lay on top of it, and I fell asleep.

It worked every time. I wasn’t opening it. I wasn’t reading it. I didn’t understand the words inside of it, but somehow, just sleeping with my arms wrapped around the Bible, the Word of God, gave me peace. I was able to sleep amidst all of the stuff.

Nancy: Amen! Yes, that Word is alive and active. Praise the Lord! Now later on in your life, you actually met someone who lived in that house you lived in for so many years. That one they had the police raid on. That opened up someone interesting information to you, didn’t it?

Pam: Yeah. We still lived in Oregon. I saw that they were going to be bulldozing that property, that house, to make way for a shopping center. That couple that lived in that house at that time had a garage sale. I thought, “Well, I never set foot in that house again as a child. Before it’s gone, I should go look.”

So, I went to this garage sale and started talking to the young couple that lived there. It turned out that he’d grown up in the house. There were a couple of owners after us. I said, “You know, I grew up in this house.” They said, “Were there weird things that happened there?” I said, “Oh yes. There was a lot of weird things that went on in this house.”

They said, “Did the demons live here then?” I was shocked. I said, “I know there were demons here in this house.” I didn’t know as a child when I lived there, that’s what they were.” But I said, “Yes. It was very much a house where things like that went on.”

This was a young, Christian homeschooling family, I found out, by what they were selling at the garage sale. They said they had had several missionaries come that had been out of the country, places where maybe people see this a little more often and recognize it. They said they had walked in the house, these missionaries, and just jumped back. They said, “Do you see that? Do you know the presence that is in this house?”

The couple said, “Yes, we know it’s here. It’s always been here. We pray for the Lord’s protection on our family.” I told them that I know as a child my siblings had broken up a few walls and hidden a few little treasures in the wall, so maybe someday someone could find them if we ever moved out. Knowing the place was going to be bulldozed, this young man said, “Well, tonight when you leave, I’m getting out the sledgehammer.” Sure enough, he did find some of our treasures that we left.

My mom went to the garage sale the next day, just to see that house one last time. She brought home those treasures from the garage sale. She said, “Pam, this was yours. I thought you might want it.” As soon as my mom left the house, that went in the trash outside. It never entered my house. I wanted to be on guard.

Nancy: Yes. The amazing thing to me is how did those people live there, knowing that this demonic activity is there? You would have thought that they would have brought in some elders and prayed over the house and cast out those demonic spirits. I couldn’t live there, knowing that was happening.

Pam: Yeah, I think maybe we sometimes aren’t knowledgeable of how to fight the enemy in that way.

Nancy: Yes, I just couldn’t live under that at all. In fact, doesn’t it show you that if you're moving into a new house, that you maybe have bought from someone (we often don’t know what has gone on in houses, do we?) I think that every home that people buy that people have lived in before, unless they’ve known the people, if they haven’t known who lived there, they do need to pray over the house. Go into every room and pray over it. Bring in folk from the church to pray with them.

I do believe it’s very important that we do that, because especially, there are all kinds of things going on in homes. You want your home to be completely free of any enemy activity and filled with the presence of God. That amazes me that they actually even survived it. I’m so glad to hear it was bulldozed down!

Pam: I know! And it affirmed for me things that, as a child, you get further away from the situation, and you wonder, “Did that really happen? Was that my memory or did I make that up?” Some of the conversations I was able to have with them (we’re friends on Facebook now) affirmed that these things did happen. But God is greater, and He has redeemed my life. I say that He has lifted me up out of a miry pit and set my feet on solid ground, so I praise God for that.

Nancy: Yes, I love that Scripture in Psalm 40:1-3. Such a wonderful testimony. “I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, (wow, an horrible pit) out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.” Amen.

That’s your testimony, isn’t it? OK, that’s your testimony, Pam, but what’s the testimony of your siblings? How did that delusional lifestyle affect them?

Pam: Well, it’s still playing out. The things that happened to us, and around us in our childhood still affect our lives. My sister is a lesbian. She is currently divorced from her wife. They had some children through donors, so they have a few. That’s part of her story. That’s probably the part that I can tell, right?

Then my brother is younger than me. He has always dealt with a lot of mental illness, and, I think, demonic oppression. I think I was the one who was pulling my hands back from that Ouija board in those early days. The Lord somehow prompted me to step away and to be fearful from that. I don’t know that that was the case for my siblings.

My brother battled a lot of mental health issues. I didn’t find out until well into my adult years that my dad was bipolar. My brother struggled with some of that as well. We can have a conversation of, is it only a spiritual issue? Is it a physiological issue? I don’t know. But I know that there was a place where the enemy was able to take a foothold. Our home was not protected.

You have that study guide about Nehemiah and the walls of your home and protecting the walls of our home. (GATEKEEPERS OF THE HOME). We are the ones who set that standard and allow things in, or don’t allow things in. I see that that security was breached in our childhood. I am thankful that the Lord had His hand on my life, but my sister has her own set of struggles. She’s, though ill, an ordained minister, which is an interesting . . .

Nancy: Yes. Tell about what your father did. An ordained minister but walking in unrighteousness.

Pam: Correct. Correct. And my brother continued to be tormented and be a tormentor, actually. He lived with my mom for decades, I think. At least 15, 20 years after my dad passed away at the young age of 54. Recently, my brother finally took his own life. So, this is the legacy. But again, I’m thankful.

Nancy: And here you are, in the middle of this, coming forth triumphant, and walking in the ways of the Lord. It’s just amazing. But I think you were soft toward the Lord, and as He wooed you, you responded, didn’t you?

Pam: Yes.

Nancy: Yes, because you could have easily gone that other way, like your siblings. They responded to the other side. You responded to the Lord.

Pam: Absolutely. You know, we hear a lot of people talk about church hurt, and all the things that churches have done wrong, that believers have done wrong. But I am one of those people who, when I started going to church at the age of 15, my youth pastor and all of the youth leaders, the youth pastor’s wife, they all took me in. Not physically. I didn’t live with them, but they breathed life into me.

They taught me the Word of God. They taught me about prayer. They created a community around me that filled my emotional needs and gave me security. They kept pointing me to Jesus. I see that as something that started then. It has really continued for the rest of my life. I have been supported by people who love the Lord, and who continually point me towards Him, and teach me about Him.

When I was a young mom, I thought, “I don’t know how to do this mom thing! I know the results that I want are different than what I experienced, but I don’t know how to do it.” Then I got that Above Rubies magazine and found The Power of Motherhood. I can’t say that I did everything perfectly, right? We’re all learning. We’re all under refinement. I’m still under refinement. But I see how the Lord has placed people and His Word in my life, to teach me along the way.

Nancy: Yes. And I’m sure the fact that because you were in that environment, you met a godly young man and married him. What a blessing that is too, because you married into a godly family, and that was a wonderful support to you too, wasn’t it?

Pam: Absolutely. Absolutely. Even when we met, I thought, “How can he marry me? Does he not know? He doesn’t know what I came from, and who I am.” I think at that point, I didn’t even know, really, who I was, or what I came from. I just knew that I was different. The girl from the other side of the tracks.

But yet, his family welcomed me and accepted me. I learned so many, many things. Even basic practical things which we, as mamas, it’s helpful to have someone teach us how to can. A little bit about gardening. What to do when the little one’s having a temper tantrum. I’ve learned so much from my husband’s family, and then the resources that you put out, and that I’ve found along the way.

Nancy: Yes, yes, absolutely. And The Power of Motherhood is still going, praise the Lord! I revamped it a few years ago. I’m sure you’ve already got it, but if you haven’t, I think it’s a manual that every mother needs, just to help them along the way, and encourage them that what they’re doing is God’s plan, that they’re in the perfect will of God.

The fact you were able, from the beginning . . . I don’t think you set out to have as many children as you have, but God revealed that truth to you along the way too. Motherhood, as I was saying in our last session, it is a powerful thing; that motherhood is sozo. It saves us. We are saved through the embracing of children, and mothering, and nurturing them.

We’re saved, not just physically, because, yes, it’s amazing how even pregnancy can save you physically. Many people have been saved from many physical ailments through pregnancy. But we are saved emotionally from deception. I think that’s one of the biggest things. We’re saved from deception.

When you think of the road you could have gone down, but instead you embraced motherhood, and it forced you into that kingdom of truth and God’s kingdom. Because God’s kingdom is a kingdom of the blessing of children.

When you think of what Jesus said when the people were bringing the little children to Jesus, and the disciples, a young disciple said “Oh, goodness me! Jesus is too busy for all these little children hanging around Him!” But Jesus was very irate! He said, “Don’t you stop bringing those children! Let the little children come unto Me, for of such is the kingdom of God.”

Yes, we want to be in the kingdom, we want to serve in the kingdom, we want to live in the kingdom. Well, children are part of His kingdom. Very much. So, as you were embracing children, you were saved from deception. Of course, you continued walking and moving in truth. You were always searching for truth. You were always one who wanted to find the truth.

Pam: I think that’s the nature of the parenting cycle and the years where we’re in seasons. We’re like, “OK, what do I need to learn now? What do I need to learn now?” I just want to speak to the mama who is new in her faith, and says, “I don’t have the tools to teach my children this. I wasn’t raised in it. I don’t know what to do.”

It’s OK. I wasn’t either. I started picking up those little children’s Bible story books and doing children’s (I didn’t let on that I have no idea what I’m telling you). I would read it, in faith that the Lord was teaching them and me. We started doing family worship as our children got a little older and they learned so much.

Really now, even, they have so much greater knowledge of the Word than I do, because they’ve had it thrown into them from their youth. Sometimes my knees knock a little bit. “I don’t really know what to say. I don’t really have that much Bible knowledge. My children have more knowledge than I do.” But the Lord, He has been so good to teach me, and to disciple me along the way. His nearness, His presence is with me.

Nancy: Yes, I think that’s a wonderful thing. We can change the whole direction of generations. This is so powerful! You have changed the generation where you grew up. It was going one way, but you have, as you have embraced the Lord, embraced His truth, and walked in obedience to it, you have changed that.

And your children, your generation, are now going a different way. They’re going God’s way. It’s so powerful, and it’s not just for now. But it’s the next generation, and you've now got grandchildren. And you’re beginning . . . there’s going to many, many more to come. Wow! That’s another generation! And you’ll most probably live, like I am now, into the next generation of great-grandchildren. It’s amazing how you can see generations in your own lifetime, isn’t it?

Pam: And we can’t expect perfection, right? But while I was raising my (and I’m still raising children), my youngest is 11. But in those early days, I would think, “I can’t be the perfect mother. My mother-in-law was the perfect mother. Nancy’s the perfect mother, and there are so many people who have it all right. They came from such good situations. I just can’t do it.”

I would go, “No, I’m going to be faithful to what God has called me, and what He’s showing me. I’m going to trust Him for the results. I’m going to keep sowing into my children what He is teaching me.” I just pray that the Lord will move in that and that I will be a better mother than my mother. Then my daughter will be a better mother than I am. That we keep thinking generationally, to pour into them, and then allow the Lord to create an overflow for the next generation and the next.

Nancy: I guess you can look at Emma and see what a beautiful mother she is. She’s not having to start from where you started. She’s starting from, oh, such a greater level, isn’t she?

Pam: Right. Right. And so, if we can give our children that, what a gift.

Nancy: Yes, yes. So amazing. I think that the power of generations is so important. In fact, I think if we’re mothering, we have to think generationally. Sometimes, dear mothers, oh goodness me, you wonder how you're going to get through just this day! But it’s only for a day. Just a day in the life of generations. We’ve got to see the bigger picture and that you are mothering not just for today.

Oh goodness me, you're going to fail. We all fail. I can remember times when raising our children thinking, “Oh, what a failure! Oh!” But you can’t think like that, because what does the Bible say? “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be cast down.” (Psalm 37:23)

The thing is, as we’re walking in the steps of the Lord, we’re still going to fall. We’re still going to fail. But we won’t be cast down because He will lift us up! “Come on! Keep going! There’s a bigger picture! Yes, you’re not just mothering for today! Wow! There’s a new generation! You are building into a new generation. You are building God’s truth into them and His ways! That’s a new generation, and they’re going to carry it on to their generation!”

It’s so powerful. We, as mothers, have such power. That’s why I called that book The Power of Motherhood. Yes, motherhood is not insignificant. It is powerful and the devil knows it. That’s why he tries to eradicate it, tries to do away with it, tries to woo women out of the home, because if he can get women out of the home, he is destroying motherhood, because MOTHERHOOD AND THE HOME ARE SYNONYMOUS TERMS. Motherhood happens in the home. That’s where it happens.

If we are truly mothering, we’ll be in the home because that’s what God planned. He provided the home right back in the beginning. God created the home. In fact, He didn’t even create the woman until He had created the home, so it was ready for her. She woke up to life in the very sphere where God wanted her to be, in the home, and mothering children, and mothering generations to come! Amen!

Pam: The enemy tries a lot of ways to assail us. and quiet us, and to make us ineffective. I chatted with a gal on my podcast, and she talked about that verse, that we’ll overcome by the power of His blood and the word of our testimony (Revelation 12:11).

I know I’m not the only one who has come from a difficult circumstance. I think we need to remember to not live in that same place, and not try to hide it under the carpet; but to really share and declare what God has done in our lives. When we acknowledge what He’s done, and the power to change our lives and the lives of those around us, it sets the enemy back a little bit instead of him setting us back.

Nancy: You were saying before, you don’t define your life by your past. No, you define it who you are in Christ now. “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27) When He is in us, He is in us with everything that He is. That’s our victory. That’s our deliverance, isn’t it?

Pam: That was something very practical you taught me at one of these retreats, a decade ago, maybe more. I was so frustrated. I had so much anxiety and was so impatient. Now I can see that it was probably a result of so much that I was going through, subconsciously, from my childhood.

But you stood there at a retreat, and you said, “Does Christ live in you?” I said, “Well, yes.” And you said, “Then you rely on His patience. You don’t have to be patient! You ask Him to fill you with His patience.” I remember standing there dumbfounded, thinking, “I can do that? I can do that?” Nancy, you tell us that’s what we’re supposed to do, right? He lives in us.

Nancy: Amen! Exactly. And actually, that very revelation revolutionized my own life as a mother. I started off as a mother, well, young, and kind of immature. I lived by my feelings. You can feel great some days, and other days bad. You’re a failure, and you're hopeless, and you're no good.

But no, we do not live our lives by our feelings, but by the truth of the Word of God. And that revelation came from a Scripture in Philemon 1:6: “That the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.” So, every good thing that’s in Jesus is in me if Christ dwells in me. Therefore, I have no excuse.

As you’re saying, help, if we’re just starting to get impatient and mad with everything that’s going on, and ready to blow our tops, well, we can do one of two things. One, just give into those emotions or, “Oh, Christ lives in me, He is all long-suffering. He is patient. Wow! So, thank You Lord. Thank You for Your patience. Thank You that I’m the most patient woman in my city because you live in me!”

Yes, and every need that we have, whatever it is . . . you know, we’re in depression and self-pity but Christ does not dwell in self-pity. No, He lives in joy. And I have joy if Christ is in me, so I can live in joy. Yes, we choose to live in the truth rather than in the flesh.

I found that revolutionary and I began to live that way. But you still fall, until it gradually becomes the habit of your life. Yes.

2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” That’s the Word of the Lord! That’s truth! So, we stand on it, don’t we?

Pam: That is what I remember learning very early in my faith walk. And then just being reminded of that over and over. That’s the way it was. It’s not the way it has to be. The Lord has new stories for us. He changes our lives and transforms us. We need to step into that and listen to Him and follow that. I find that He has ministered to me through books, through podcasts, through people, in person and online.

I look back, and I see this amazing past, that there’s been all these stops along the way. It makes me giddy, where I’m just like, “Go, God! I see it now! I see what You did. I see how You had Your hand on my life. You protected me and guided me. Yeah, there may have been some bad things that happened. The circumstances weren’t great, but I see Your sovereignty in what You’ve done. I give You glory for what You have done in my life and to lead me into this place that I am now.”

Nancy: Yes, yes. I was just thinking, yesterday, when we were talking with Wes. That’s our oldest son. He was sharing something very traumatic that he had to go through in his life. I remember him saying that he would never have not gone through it because it’s made him what he is today. He couldn’t be the man that he is today unless he had to go through those things.

Pam: As Nancy Leigh DeMoss Wolgemuth says, I don’t know the exact words, something like, “Anything that forces me to lean into God more, that’s a blessing!” That is something that we need to learn, to depend on the Lord, and to lean into Him. I saw that in my childhood. I was in circumstances where all I could do was to reach out to Him. So, I’m so thankful.

Nancy: Yes, yes. I also believe that if you have . . . Maybe you’ve been listening to Pam these last two sessions. Maybe you have come from, not the same circumstances, but also difficult circumstances or childhood in other areas, or maybe even the same area, even suffered abuse, which you didn’t mention. You did suffer abuse also from the hands of your father. Pam has been through that. She didn’t even mention that.

I think when you come to Christ, I believe when you’ve come from something traumatic, you can’t be a fence sitter. You’ve got to go all the way with God. I remember, when I was back in New Zealand, I met this woman. I found out she was living in the gay lifestyle. I continued to pursue and talk to her. She wondrously was converted. Wondrously converted.

A few months ago, I was talking with her on the phone again in New Zealand. This happened years ago, and she is still walking with the Lord today. But after her incredible conversion, she shared with me. She said, “Nancy, I can never be on the fence. I have to go all the way with God.” She had to do a 180 turnaround. She came to such a place of victory.

I can remember her sharing with me, “Nancy, I have now such victory that I am not even tempted in my mind.” But that was because she chose God with all her heart. I just want to say that today, because if you are going to sit on the fence, or on the border, you’ll never have full victory. We only have full victory when we go all the way with God.

It brings me back to that principle back in Exodus, yes, because we get so many of the principles of our Christian life back in Genesis and Exodus. This was when the children of Israel were coming out of Egypt. God was doing mighty, wonderful things. But He had told Moses, “OK, when you come out of Egypt, you’ve got to bring those children of Israel out of Egypt and come a three-day journey into the wilderness.”

We see, if you go back, and look and read about that, you will find that Pharoah is a type of Satan who tempts us. Pharoah did everything in his power to keep the Israelites in Egypt. He used compromises. There were four compromises that he used to get Moses to keep the children of Israel in Egypt. “Oh, well, you can just sacrifice to the Lord, but only the men go. Leave the children.” “No,” said Moses. We are going with all our families.”

Then Pharoah said, “Well, don’t go too far away. You can go and do it but just on the border. Just over the border.” “No,” says Moses, “God has told us, a three-day gap.” So, he went on for those four compromises. But the big thing that came out was it had to be the three-day gap, the three-day journey. That’s a long way out of Egypt, when you are walking for three days with all these millions of people. That is the type.

When we come out of the old life, the old kingdom, we come into this new kingdom. We do not stay on the border. We have to come right into this kingdom. We get a three-day journey away from the border. If you can take that, if we do that with every decision in life, everything in life, we’re going to have a three-day gap, a three-day border away from the kingdom of darkness, away from Egypt, which is a type of the flesh, and of the kingdom of darkness.

Today, so many Christians want to just say, “Oh, yes. We’re born again.” But they are so close to the world, so close to the border. They will never live in victory. You do not live in victory unless you make the gap.

Pam: Go all in. No turning back.

Nancy: Amen. Absolutely. You did that and you came into victory. Now you're living this victorious, beautiful life. Amen.

As we close, I want to remind you again that Pam has her own podcast, “The Mom Next Door,” where she interviews women who have gone through all kinds of things in their lives, that they’ve come through with the Lord and have seen great, wonderful blessings. You’ll love that podcast. Then what else do you have? Tell them all your other things.

Pam: I’m on Instagram, as you are, Nancy. My Instagram handle is @TendingFields. We’re all tending the fields of our homes, our marriages, our families, our finances, ministry, all those. We want to tend our fields right well.

Nancy: What a great name, “Tending Fields,” because your last name is Fields. You’re tending to your fields first, and now as an older mother, you are tending to many other fields and blessing them.

Pam: Yes, and I want to invite all of us to tend our fields well, with the strength that God gives us. I’m on Instagram with that name, and then I also have a Facebook page, a Facebook group called “Tending Fields.” We enjoy the community there in that group, where we can pray for each other, chat about some of the practical aspects of life and motherhood. It’s a great place to be, so maybe you ladies can join me over there.

Nancy: So, you can check those things out. And, Pam, why don’t you pray today as we close?

Pam: “Lord Jesus, I do thank You for this opportunity to share. Your Word tells us to tell our testimony, to share it to the next generation of the things that You have done, Lord. Each one of us has a testimony. Each one of us has transformation in our lives. Lord, I pray for boldness, for each one of us to go share what You have done.

“And Lord, for women who are struggling, and feeling like they’re in the pits right now, Lord, I pray that You would direct their minds to You. That You would bring Scripture to their hearts and minister to them in their time of need, and sometimes desperation. We know that You can do this. You have the power to change lives, to transform them, Lord, whatever their situation is right now. I ask that You intervene, and You uphold them, and You protect them, and You lead them into victory.

“So, Lord, I pray for them today, and that they would step into it, where You have called them. And I thank You for the faithfulness of this ministry of Above Rubies and the Campbells. I thank You that You have blessed their ministry. I pray that You continue to do that. Thank You, Lord, for this time, and this podcast, and that Your Word is going out. We praise You for that. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”

Nancy: Amen!

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

DON’T FORGET TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THESE PODCASTS AND TRANSCRIPTS.

“LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell, Above Rubies”

DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF.

IT IS ENCOURAGING FOR ALL WIVES AND MOTHERS.

THE POWER OF MOTHERHOOD

What the Bible Says About You as a Mother

By Nancy Campbell

I believe that one of the greatest challenges of young mothers today is that they are isolated. They are all on their own as they stay home to care for their precious children. I believe that every mother needs the support of older mothers, sisters, and friends around them. They need one another for friendship and fellowship. It lightens the load of motherhood. When raising our children in New Zealand I always conducted a Ladies’ Bible Study in my home and the fellowship, togetherness, and hospitality strengthened us all in our great role of parenting.

We shared our hearts, our failures, and our victories together. We opened our homes in hospitality to one another. We enjoyed luncheons together. Picnics together. We planned all kinds of functions with our babies and all our children running around. Even if it was chaos, we were happy because we weren’t doing it on our own.

I only wished that I had the book, THE POWER OF MOTHERHOOD back then! In the end, I had to write it myself! But now it is available for you. I believe every mother needs this manual which tells you what God says about you as a mother, not what society tells you! You will be encouraged, uplifted, and inspired to new heights of motherhood. It is a great foundation for a mother’s Bible study group from which you can discuss together all the questions about motherhood.

There are questions at the end of each chapter (which you can use personally in your own study) but are geared for mother’s groups. And it is much more fun to get together and discuss.

Of course, you will love this book PERSONALLY as well.

Retail price: $18.95.

P.S. If you are planning to use it as a Bible Study for ladies and need multiple copies, call the office at 931 729 9861. You can receive 40 percent discount if purchasing 10 or more copies.

ANOTHER BIBLE STUDY MANUAL WHICH YOU CAN USE FOR LADIES’ BIBLE STUDY GROUPS

This is such a great study for mothers (which you can also enjoy personally or as a mothers’ Bible study course).

GATE-KEEPERS OF THE HOME

How to Guard Your Home

By Nancy Campbell

Learn how to guard your home from the temptations of the devil who is always looking for a way to creep into our homes.

This book comes from Nehemiah, chapter 3 where Nehemiah restored and built up the gates and walls of Jerusalem. There were 12 gates in Jerusalem at that time and each one was called a specific name. The names of these gates relate to our homes today and we discover how to strengthen and build up the bars and gates of our homes. We are the watchwomen of the home.

Retails at $14.95.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 320: Your Past Does Not Define You, Part 1

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 320: Your Past Does Not Define You, Part 1

Welcoming Pam Fields to the podcast today. Pam has done five podcasts with me in the past, but for the very first time today, she shares the story of her hidden past.

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

Nancy: Hello, ladies! I’m always so blessed to be with you. “Life to the Full” is for the purpose of blessing you and encouraging you, and yes, sometimes challenging you as a wife and mother. So, I trust you will be blessed again today.

Now, I have a guest with me today. It’s going to be wonderful. But before I introduce her, I want to share a Scripture with you. I was reading this yesterday and I found it in Deuteronomy 4:6-7, “Keep therefore and do them,” that’s God Word, “for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for?”

What a wonderful promise, dear ladies! God reminds us here that He is near us. Oh, you couldn’t get anything more wonderful, could you? That the God of the universe is right near you! Yes, with you—in your kitchen, where you are with your children, even in all your mess, and all your overwhelmingness, He is with you. Right near you!

Maybe you don’t really feel like it. You don’t feel that at all. You feel as though, “Help! Where is God in the midst of all this?” But we’ve got to acknowledge the truth. Ladies, we don’t live by our feelings. We live by the truth of the Word of God. If you are born again, if you’ve received Christ to come into your life, you have Jesus Christ living within you.

“Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

He’s in you, He is with you, and He’s right near you. Don’t listen to your feelings. Look up to the Lord and thank Him. Say, “Oh, thank You, Lord, I thank You that You are near me. You are with me as I mother my children, as I get through the day. Lord, I thank You for Your nearness.”

You may begin to say this not really even feeling it. But as you acknowledge this, as you confess this truth, you will begin to experience more of His nearness with you. That’s my prayer for you today, that you will know His nearness. Whatever you're doing, whatever is happening in your home, that is one of the greatest blessings that you can know.

So, who have I got with me today? Well, it is my dear friend, Pam Fields. I’ve known Pam for so many years. Pam has done podcasts with me before. Maybe you’ve missed out on them. I’ll have to tell you what ones they are, because after hearing Pam today, you might want to go back and check them out. The first ones we did together . . . Pam, by the way, you’d better say “Hi!” so they’ll know you're here!

Pam: Hello, I’m so glad to be here. I wish everybody could experience the hospitality of coming to the Campbell home. It feels like I’m going to Grandma’s house. I appreciate this opportunity so much.

Nancy: Yes, well, the first one we did was way back, I don’t know when, but it was podcast number 30.

Pam: I think it was 2018.

Nancy: Really? Wow, you were still living in Oregon then.

Pam. Yes.

Nancy: Now the Fields have moved to Tennessee. They decided to leave woke Oregon and come to Tennessee, which they have enjoyed doing. Pam spoke there about how she got this idea of making prayer bracelets. I often talk to you about prayer boxes, but Pam got a lot more personal with prayer bracelets, and how she has a bracelet with the name of each one of her nine children. Then she prays for them. I do this too, and we haven’t got our bracelets on, do we?

Pam: Neither of us have them on today!

Nancy: We are disgusting! [laughter] But when you’ve got your bracelets on, you can pray for one child even as you're going around the house. When you pray for that child, you can put it on the other hand, so you know you’ve prayed for all your children when the bracelets are all on the other hand. You haven’t missed out on any. But she tells you in that podcast how to go about it. That’s a great one to check out.

Then we talked more about homeschooling because Pam has been a homeschooling mother for how many years, Pam?

Pam: Probably about 23. Something like that.

Nancy: Whoo! 23 years! Yes, she has two married children, and one is getting married next month. So, the years go on, don’t they?

Then you came again, well, you’ve come lots in between, because Pam visits me quite often, Then number 101 was the vision of connecting older moms with young moms. That was a good podcast. Then we did number 263, “Life’s Not Perfect. What Can I Do?” Talking about the many griefs of life, but no matter what we’re going through, to end strong.

Those were great podcasts, but today we’re going to do something special. In fact, Pam is going to share the testimony of her life, something that she has never done before. When you look at Pam, you look at this wonderful, overcoming mother of nine children, who’s homeschooled them all throughout their lives. She’s such a blessing to so many other mothers, an encouragement, and an inspiration.

But I guess most don’t know her background. This is the amazing thing. I’ve known Pam’s background. I’ve always looked at her and thought, “What a trophy of grace! She has come out from confusion and delusion and deception into the most blessed life!” So, no matter what you’ve been through in your childhood, God can do anything. We’re going to hear about behind the scenes today, aren’t we, Pam?

Pam: Right. I have shared a little bit here and there, but we haven’t just sat down, and lingered, and talked deeply. We’ll see how this goes.

Nancy: And then, we’ll see. May the Lord guide us. Oh, before we get into it, I should say that Pam also now has her own podcast called “The Mom Next Door.” She interviews women, those who have been through all kinds of things in their lives. She interviews them. Want to say something about that, Pam?

Pam: Well, really the inspiration to start my podcast was being at the Above Rubies retreat. I love the testimony time when people stand up, and they share, on the last day of the retreat. Hearing people’s testimonies, what the Lord has done in their lives, has been such an encouragement to me.

When we hear what He’s done in somebody else’s life, we realize how amazing God is, and how powerful. No gone is too far gone, no far is too far off. He’s the Redeemer, and our Savior, truly. That’s why I started my podcast, to have an opportunity to hear the testimonies and the stories of the faith of women because I know it encourages my heart.

Nancy: Oh, yes. So, you can get onto that and listen to these wonderful stories. Like you, Pam, I love testimony time at our Above Rubies retreats. In fact, it’s a lovely time for me. I sit down and listen! I’m usually speaking! But then I can sit and listen, and I am always amazed.

I look at these women. Women will get up, and they’re . . . this lovely mother and they’ve been homeschooling for years. And then you hear their testimony, and goodness, they’ve had about six abortions and goodness knows what! Your mouth’s wide open and you can’t even believe it, because there’s no taint upon them. Amazing what God does, isn’t it?

Even my girls like Serene and Pearl, they’ll often, when I get home, they’ll say to me, “Oh, Mom, did you hear a new juicy story?” Because they always loved testimony time when they would come to Above Rubies retreats too. It’s just amazing! God is in the business of restoring and redeeming and making whole, isn’t He?

So, let’s start a little bit. Start where you think you're going to start, OK?

Pam: OK, well, it’s all on me now. I think that when we meet somebody, we often see them, and we think, “This is who they are. This is who they’ve always been.” We don’t realize, until we throw out the anchor, and say, “Tell me about your life. Where did you come from? What is your family history and family of origin?”

Nancy: The interesting thing is, I was just asking you before, I said, “Pam, you've had this beautiful life of raising your children. But you shared with me how recently you went for counseling. But what on earth did you go to a counselor for?” You can tell us why you did. It’s interesting.

Pam: Sure. I am 52 now. I can’t remember if it was 49, or right about 50 when I first went to a counselor. The only reason I went was to prove my medical practitioner wrong because I had never been to a counselor.

I was in a position where I was starting to lose my words. I couldn’t think of the word, “You know, that thing across the room. I need you to move it from here to there. I can’t think of what that is.” The other person would say, “That chair?” “Oh, yeah, yeah, that chair. I need you to move the chair.” Just the simplest words, I started to lose. Putting well-functioned sentences together was becoming difficult for me.

I started thinking that maybe I was dealing with early memory loss, Alzheimer’s. “What is the deal? I’m losing my mind!” It was such an extreme brain fog where it was hard to concentrate. Now, as I’m starting to podcast, and starting to write, I’m really using my words a lot. Just the difference, even, of my life, as my children are growing. I thought, “What in the world is the matter?”

After we looked at blood tests and different things, the practitioner said, “I think you need to go to a counselor and work through some of your PTSD.”

I said, “That is the silliest thing ever! I don’t have PTSD!” She told me a counselor to go to, a biblical counselor.

I walked in, and she said, “Tell me about your stress life.” I said, “I don’t have any stresses in my life.” I’m sure she was thinking, “You have nine children, you just moved 2,000 miles from Oregon to Tennessee. How do you NOT have stress in your life?”

Then she asked me about any past traumas in my life. I said, “I don’t have any traumas. Are you kidding me?” As we started to unpack my story a little bit, she asked me about my childhood and my life. She was like, “Well, that was trauma. That’s another trauma. That’s another.” I didn’t ever recognize it.

I think we’ve become very focused, at least I did. I became very focused on what was in front of me, the people in front of me, and what the Lord was calling me to do, right now at this moment. I became very invested in those things. I think maybe as my children grew older, it shifted. Some are brain focused. The Lord maybe protected me to not have full memory and a desire to work that out, because I was so needed hands-on for the raising of my children.

Nancy: I think that’s very interesting too, because I believe motherhood has saved you. The Word in 1 Timothy 2:15 says “You shall be saved in childbearing.” The word sozo is not just “saved.” It means, “saved, delivered, protected, healed.” That’s body, soul, and spirit.

I think, as you were pouring your life into motherhood, that pouring your life into your children saved you from having trauma of your past life. But then, as your children grow, somewhere along the line, OK, it's going to come out. Now that they’re growing up and you have reached a season in your life, around about menopause, it all comes out. So now, you've had to go back and face this rather interesting life. So, carry on!

Pam: Right. I knew I had a different childhood. I even knew as a child that my life was a little different from my other friends. Other children weren’t allowed to come play at my house or spend the night at my house. I knew our family was a little different, but I also knew all families are different. They’re all different from each other.

I don’t think I really understood the capacity or the depth of how different it was until, one, I started parenting. I became a mom. I started; it was like glimpses then. I knew when I got married and when I became a mother, that I did not want to be like, and raise my family the way that I was raised.

Really, that probably started at the age of 15. My grandmother sent me to a Christian summer camp. I looked around and I thought, “All these people have something that I don’t have. I want to live my life completely differently than how I have been living, how I have been raised.” At 15, I knew that.

I think it’s incrementally that He gives us new vision. One, at 15, I wanted to live my life differently. Then when I got married, “How do I live a godly life as a wife?” And then as I moved into parenting, there was that. I think that it was when my oldest was just a few months old that somebody handed me a copy of Above Rubies magazine, and said, “You’ve got to read this. This is so great!” He’s 28 now, so for 28 years I . . .

Nancy: That’s quite a long time, isn’t it?

Pam: Yes. I’ve been getting the magazine, and you had just published The Power of Motherhood which really counseled me in the different aspects of motherhood. I had thought my goal was to keep this child alive and make sure they stayed out of jail. That was what moms do!

Then when I looked at that book, each chapter counseled me that there was more to it than that. Then at one point, I was able to come listen to you speak. Finally, down the road, I was able to host retreats. Each step of the way I’ve learned. And I’ve completely forgotten the question that we started with! [laughter]

Nancy: Oh, yes. Well, I don’t know where we were. That doesn’t matter. I think you're sharing now . . . keep sharing about why it was different in your home? You didn’t realize at the time. But, of course, now you look back, and see what a delusion it was.

Pam: Right. Yes, I think I was saying how I always knew we were a little different. I wanted to do things differently within my home. But when I went to that counselor, I was confronted with a lot of memories that I had forgotten. They had been pushed aside. I hadn’t had to deal with them.

They were not important for that day-to-day work that I had to do in parenting, although in retrospect, they did affect the way that I did parent my children. I think there were some things that I could have done differently as a mom, there are ways that I could have nurtured differently. In some regards I was not trained to be a nurturer, and I did my best.

But in some ways, I was still learning. I think we always look back, and we go, “I wasn’t perfect. I could have done things better.” And then I go, “No, that’s OK. God gave you those children, in that season, for that purpose. He will work out His story in their lives with what He gave you at that moment.” Each child needs something different. In His divine placement for each child in our lives . . . They each learn different things from me, and I learn different things from them.

Nancy: OK, well, tell us a little bit about this lifestyle.

Pam: I’ll just really briefly say that my parents met at a Christian youth camp. He was the lifeguard, and she was the camp nurse. They fell in love and decided that they would be missionaries and do ministry together. From the get-go of their relationship, that was their purpose.

Of course, I have an older sister, and I was the middle child, and I have a younger brother. I don’t have a lot of distinct memories of that childhood and of those years. I really don’t remember. I’ve seen some pictures, but I don’t remember much until about second grade.

My parents, most of their work was with North American Indians, and we did live on reservations when I was a child, and anywhere near Native American populations. There was that. And then around second grade, to help another missionary family, we moved to the state of Montana so my parents could take care of or look after another missionary family while they were at language training. Our family all went with. We were available.

I went to school there. That is one of my earliest recollections of family life. They weren’t great. When I think through that, our family game night was a Ouija board. My dad passed pornography around. I remember sitting in a circle, and he said, “I want you all to go pick out your favorite picture and tell me what it is.” I remember thinking, “I don’t like any of this! I just want to leave the room.” I wasn’t allowed to leave the room until I pointed to a picture.

That Ouija board, I didn’t not want to play with that. I didn’t want to touch it. I remember being afraid of it. But I had no knowledge of what it was. I remember my dad with his hand on mine, forcing it onto the device, whatever it was. I was actively trying to pull my hand away. I did not want to have part of that.

There was alcohol in the home. He provided it, and suggested, and gave us alcohol as children, as kind of a funny thing. “I want you to test this out.” I think his philosophy was, “If I provide my children with this now, in a safe place, they will not have a desire to go figure it out on their own. Therefore, I have more control to protect them.” I think that was his philosophy. It came to bear in some later years, in some situations where that was what he said. That was part of our life when I was in second grade.

We moved back from Montana, and we had a little apartment for our family of five. The memory I have in that apartment is there was a guy. I have no idea where my dad found him, or what his circumstance was. He lived with us for a while with his extremely large boa constrictor. That was a little frightful for the children and my mom but also humorous to the men that were in the home. That was my one recollection of landing back in Oregon.

About this time, I think now that I recognize trauma, sometimes our brain can play tricks on the exact timeline and the circumstance. I slow down, and I’m like, “What? I’ve got to remember this right, because I want to be truthful, and speak well.” I’m always a little careful as I step into here, but it was about this time that my parents, with their heart for North American Indians, had purchased a piece of property a few miles down from the Indian school. It was a boarding school for high schoolers, just for Native Americans.

They purchased this plot of land so that they could do ministry there. About that time, there was a church across town that was doing this huge renovation and rebuilding. They had a parsonage that needed to be gone. To support our ministry, which was an official ministry by then, with supporters, and people donating for this Indian mission, the church sold us the building for one dollar. It went up on the airplane movement wheels. We carted that house across town and put it on a foundation.

That became known as “Samawah Chapel.” The name of the Indian school down the road was Samawah Indian School there in Oregon. So, we had this ministry center in this little church building. In the basement were rooms for residents. Those were runaways, or people who had recently gotten out of jail and needed a place to stay.

My dad very regularly picked up hitchhikers. It was not uncommon to be . . . Maybe he’d pick us up after school, and we’d be driving home, and he’d just pull over. He drove a pickup truck, so he’d say, “Scoot over and let him in.” We’d have hitchhikers or homeless people in the truck with us. We’d go home, and we’d give him a place to stay. They’d stay in our basement.

On the main floor was the kitchen and the dining room. We had a VHS player, and games in my dad’s office, where he counseled people. He was an ordained minister. He wore one of those black shirts with the little white collars. He had gone to Bible college. He also did prison ministry at the time where he would go in. He did prison ministry.

Back to the home, at the top level was where our family had our bedrooms and our bathrooms. It was separated out, so we did have a protected space that was just for us. That was the house we lived in.

You’ve got to keep me on track again.

Nancy: Yes. So, how many years did you live in that house?

Pam: We lived there from, I believe, about second grade until, I believe it was the summer right at the end of my eighth-grade year.

Nancy: Yes, and that was when one day you were brought a message from somebody.

Pam: Well, my sister and I were driving home from school in her little orange VW bug. There was a friend of my parents . . .

Nancy: You were driving home?

Pam: We were driving home.

Nancy: She had her license?

Pam: She had her license. I didn’t. I was about in eighth or ninth grade. We were fairly close to the house. There was a woman on the side of the road who was literally waving her arms to flag us down. She said, “Don’t go home! It’s not safe! You need to go find somewhere to be and call into your grandma’s house. She’ll give you the next instructions.”

We looked over, and what we saw was a police raid on our home, on that ministry center. Police cars all over. We never looked back. We went to a safe place, my sister’s friend’s house, and called into my grandmother’s house for next instructions.

Nancy: OK! So, what happened that the police raided the house?

Pam: Well, my dad was under investigation for charges of furnishing alcohol to minors, furnishing pornography to minors, and sodomy with a minor. This was in the ‘80’s. I don’t know if those would even be charges today, you know, but it was definitely not acceptable. I would like to research the police records and see if I’m even remembering everything accurately. Were there more charges? Or how things went.

We were taken out of school to attend his arraignment hearing. My dad explained to us that “It’s very important that you come, because the judge will be more lenient on me if he sees that I’m a family man.” We left school that day, and we went and sat in the gallery or whatever they call it.

In the end, my dad was let out. They called it “ROR,” released on his own recognizance. Then at one point, the charges were dropped. He never went to jail, never did anything, but we still never went back to that house. Of course, it hit the newspapers, and all the churches that funded us, our ministry, dropped us, as they well should have.

Nancy: It’s amazing that he wasn’t tried.

Pam: Right. And again, as a young child, I don’t know all the pieces to that. I’ve asked my mom some recently, and she doesn’t remember. I know it was a lot for her to absorb, and a lot to remember now, this many years later. There might still be some mystery, but I don’t ever know the exact details.

Nancy: Yes, yes. So then, did your father carry on this kind of lifestyle? He had this heart for people, but he wasn’t walking a straight road.

Pam: Absolutely. Yes.

Nancy: It was very disillusioning, wasn’t it, to think you were in a supposedly ministry house, and here you are, facing all this evil stuff in the house.

Pam: Right. Yeah. As a little child, and again, bits and pieces of my memory, I do remember he would take some itinerant pastors, or somebody’d be on vacation. He’d go and teach that Sunday. We would get put up on the stage to sing “Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.”

Then they would pass the offering basket for us to support our ministry. He would preach the sermon, but I remember, as we would leave the churches, he would make fun of the church people. It was such a distorted view of Christianity.

Nancy: And then you never went to church, did you?

Pam: We did not. We did not go to church at all. The only time we talked of faith or anything, was those times he was preaching as a sub. I really didn’t step into going to church until I was 15.

Nancy: Yes, yes. So, OK, so now, people are not going to support this ministry when he’s exposed of what he is. How did he support the family after that?

Pam: Well, he took a vow of poverty back before all this began. He really did not support our family at all.

Nancy: So, it was your mother who was supporting your family.

Pam: Yes. My mother was an operating room nurse. I think she’s close to 40 years as an operating room nurse. She worked very long hours. Probably 50 to 60 hours a week? Because we had bills. The ministry, as a missions organization, brought in funding that was then spent on some of the mission’s expenditures. But not completely, and it didn’t provide for our personal things as much.

It turns out that at some point during all this, my dad really started spending a lot of money on alcohol. It’s just so distorted. When he would counsel people, in his office, he did not want them to feel that they were being judged, so if they wanted to smoke pot or drink alcohol, he would do that with them, to put them at ease. So, it was convoluted, and probably very expensive. Then, when it came to a screeching halt, that was a new chapter of our lives in a lot of ways. But then, still, some other things continued on.

Nancy: So, your mother working such long hours, she would hardly have been there for you, or had time to cook for you.

Pam: She was very faithful. In the morning, before her work, and I don’t know how she did it, she would always make several casseroles and put them in the fridge so that when we came home from school (and this is the latchkey kids’ generation). We came home from school, and we had instructions of what temperature and what time to put that casserole in the oven. Then we could feed ourselves our dinner and put the leftovers back in the fridge. She was faithful to that.

Nancy: So, you just ate your meals on your own. Where was your dad then?

Pam: Sometimes he was driving around, rounding up more people. Sometimes counseling, sometimes out working. He taught some life skills, kids how to change spark plugs or oil, things like that.

Nancy: Goodness, our time is up, so I think you’ve got to finish this story. We’d better have another session together.

Pam: Right.

Nancy: Oh, Lord, we thank You again so much for the way You love to restore and redeem. And Lord, we’ve been hearing some of Pam’s lifestyle. But Lord, we thank You that You redeemed her from this, and You’ve brought her into Your kingdom, and into Your culture, and into Your ways. Lord, we look forward to hearing more of that in the next session.

Bless all the mothers listening today, I pray. Bless their homes, and Lord, I pray that You’ll lead each one closer and closer to You, and that they will truly know Your nearness. In the Name of Jesus, amen.”

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 319: Keeping Your Children’s Hearts

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 319: Keeping Your Children’s Hearts

Allison Hartman from Pensacola shares today about keeping your children's hearts. Do you have your children's hearts? What about your older children? Tune in to hear these powerful pointers on how to keep your children's hearts throughout all seasons.

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! I still have Allison with me, so we’re going to take the opportunity to do one more podcast together. All the children are playing downstairs so they’ll just wait a bit longer for lunch. A subject that is very close to Allison’s heart is how to keep your children’s hearts. So, Allison, let’s hear from you!

Allison: You know, I’m so thankful that I’m able to raise my children with many different age groups. I have littles all the way from four to married, age 25.

Nancy: Three children married now, two of them married to two of my grandsons.

Allison: Yes, we’ve got sisters who married brothers. One of the benefits, I think, of having a larger family is that you’re able to see what to look forward to. As parents, as you’ve heard me speak before, I think it’s very important to think about what is our goal, what is our purpose as mothers? My goal, and hopefully it’s yours as well, is to raise adults, raise godly mamas and daddies. That’s our end goal. Therefore, everything we do has got to lead up to that.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a friend reach out and private message me. She said, “Can I have some godly mother counsel?” She had shared with me about her child before. This child was extremely disobedient, extremely naughty, and just not controllable. She had them in child daycare. They were kicked out of kindergarten. Until K-3, they were asked to leave. They were having a really tough time with her.

Instead of just answering her, I went to our Above Rubies family group. The greatest thing about our family camp that we put on is that we have a continuing chat on Signal. It’s so wonderful because you’ve got 100 families at your disposal to ask advice from. I think it’s important to glean from each other.

So, I asked our group, “What would you say to this mom who’s struggling with the disobedience thing?” Obviously, my first response would be, “You’ve got to stay home with your child.”

Nancy: Yes, that’s what I would say. When you were telling about it, that’s the first thing, “Well, she’d better come home!”

Allison: She shared that that’s not an option right now. You’ve got to meet people where they’re at so I was trying to answer her appropriately. Yes, my first and foremost would be, “You’ve got to be at home.”

But then, when I started asking other people their thoughts, my answer to her was this. I said, “First of all, I think it’s important for us to realize that we’re all a sum total of our experiences. The way we parent is so much the way we were parented, unless we’re careful. When I’m parenting, so much of what I do as a mother is what I’ve seen. But just because we’ve seen it doesn’t make it right.”

I shared with her that if you’ve only seen discipline done in anger, then you’re typically going to do that. But we shouldn’t. Also, the statement, “Rules without relationship lead to rebellion.” When we’re parenting with rules only, we’re only going to get, typically, rebellion. Or children who, we don’t have their hearts.

A couple of years ago, our local news did an article on our family. They asked me, “Why do you homeschool?” My answer to them was . . . was it because I’m a really good teacher? Or I can really make sure that they’re learning the subjects I want them to learn. But my answer to the news station was because I want my children’s heart. I want, not when they’re just little and four, to obey immediately. I want when they’re 25 and they’re 18, and they’re 17, and they’re 15, I want to have their hearts.

So then, I shared this with this mom. Her response was, “What does that mean?” I was kind of amazed. I didn’t realize everybody doesn’t know what that means. It brought me to our group again, our family camp again. I said, “What does that mean to us, guys? What does it mean to have our children’s hearts?”

I think when they’re little, personally, I think it’s easy to have your children’s hearts. They want to be with Mama. My little boy just got hurt a second ago. What did he do? He immediately came to me because he knows I’m going to make sure he’s going to be OK. But when they’re older, and they have peers, it’s very often that we lose their hearts, because they have others that they can go to. So, how do we do that? How do we keep their hearts?

Just a few thoughts on that. I think you can’t have your children’s hearts unless you spend time with them. We have our husbands’ hearts because we spend time with them, right? We are their best friend. Well, we have to do the same with our children.

So many mothers will say, “I’m not your friend! I’m your mother!” Can we do both? I think we can. I am now to a point where if I really stop and think about who my best friends are, I would say my best friends are my older girls because I spent time with them. They trust my answers. I love being with them. And I think I’ve proved that over my life with them, because I chose to spend time with them. We talked about family-integrated churches. I chose not to put my children in children’s church and Sunday school and youth group. I chose to spend time with them. Therefore, I have their hearts.

One suggestion I would have to a mother listening today who says, “I don’t understand, I don’t know how to do this,” well, one of the best things I’ve done is glean from other mamas. One way I’ve become a better wife is by watching you be a good wife. So, if you don’t have a good community around you, a good church group, come to our family camp, because you’ll see a hundred different families, and trust me, a lot of them are doing it way better than I am. But the reason I keep coming back is, I’m learning from other mamas who are doing it well. That’s just one encouragement.

But to have our children’s hearts, I think it means we have to, number one, invest time into them. Spending time as a family. Doing things as a family. Not pawning them off to other families and letting them go spend the night or letting them be involved in sports. My children know that I am their greatest cheerleader and we’re a huge sports family. Whether it’s volleyball, and now it’s fight ball as the new sport. Whatever my children are into, I am their number one cheerleader.

So now, there’s that trust. They know that I’m going to cheer for them, but I’m also going to fight for them. They also know I’m probably also one of the hardest moms around. My children’s friends know, “Ooh, Mrs. Hartman, she scares me!” Well, it’s because I don’t let anything go. I’m not an easy mama. I think we have to be careful not to think that to have our children’s hearts, we have to give into them.

Nancy: That’s right.

Allison: We don’t! You can have your children’s hearts by being a tough mama. I don’t let anything go. We don’t watch TV. We don’t play video games. We don’t hang out with families that I don’t want my children to align with. You don’t have to give in by saying, “I want to be the nice mom because I want to have their hearts.”

You can actually do just as good of a job of keeping their hearts by being that tough mom, but you can’t just be rules, rules, rules. You have to have a relationship. I think those things are really important. We have found that being in a family-integrated church is such a great way to allow this.

I would answer that mama that asked me a question, and maybe you are listening, “How do I have my children’s hearts?” I think you have to invest time in them. You have to not just give quick answers. “I said no. Don’t do it because I said no.” “Don’t do it, but let me sit with you and explain to you the why behind why I’m saying no. Instead, let’s go do something together.” “No, I don’t want you to hang out with that friend, but I’m not going to just say no. I’m going to explain why.”

I’m not going to say, “No, you can’t wear that shirt that shows your belly because I said not to. I’m going to explain to you that the reason I don’t want you to wear that shirt that shows your belly is because you’re a beautiful lady. Boys will be immediately noticing your belly. I want them to notice your face. I want them to see your heart.” I’m going to explain to them that I’m not just being mean. I’m not just being the mean mom. “I want you to be the most beautiful modest-dressed lady out there.”

Again, it takes time. You’ve got to spend time with them. You’ve got to be surrounded by like-minded families who are doing the same. If you don’t have that, then you’ve got to create it. We didn’t have it, so therefore we created it by starting our family camp. Maybe sometime I’ll be able to plug in the dates for the family camp.

Nancy: Oh yes, you do that.

Allison: I am so honored that we now have all three of our married children coming to our church. That is super unusual nowadays but not just coming to our fellowship church. They desire to spend time with us. I really think it’s because when they were younger, we desired to spend time with them.

We prioritized everything, whether it’s a business venture. Whenever my children are into business, I am all in. My son just injured his leg, so of course I’m taking him to doctor’s appointments. But not only that, I was helping him think, what can we do with this time, now that you can’t walk on your foot for the whole summer. So, he got into selling honey. It wasn’t just, “Sure, that sounds like a great idea. You go do that. I’ll go do my thing.” No, “I’m going to be there. I’m going to get this started with you. I’m going to set you up for success.”

Nancy: I just noticed yesterday . . . what mother could do this to an 18-year-old son? We were going off to the luncheon, and you said to Ethan, “Well, OK, if you don’t want to come, you can stay home and clean the house.” What mother says that to an 18-year-old boy? He’s not some sissy boy. He’s handsome, he’s muscular, he’s sporty, he’s cool. He said, “OK, I’ll do that.” I simply cannot believe that.

As I walked in yesterday afternoon, there was something about my house that I couldn’t believe. It looked as though a professional cleaner had come in and I’d paid out all this money. He spent the whole day cleaning this huge home, upstairs and downstairs. It was the greatest thing he could do! It was just amazing! You don’t get 18-year-old boys doing that just because their mother said, “OK, you can do that.” It was so incredible!

Allison: I’m not sure how we really got to that point, other than I just look back, and everything we did, we did together. I don’t ever clean my house as one person. I will wait until everyone’s here, because our family is a team. When you're on a sports team, you can’t play volleyball with one person. You have to have your team, and you're all good at different things.

I’m a real big believer in, when you find out what their strengths are, you really go for it. You praise them, and then you give them big, big jobs, and you expect big, big things.

We also believe in working six days a week. The Bible does not say to work five days a week, and then take a weekend off. It says six days a week. That’s why today is Saturday, and my husband is out there with a whole crew of boys, working. We raise our children to be workers, even if it’s just cleaning the house. But he loves to serve, and that’s his way of showing you that he appreciates you.

Nancy: Yes, yes. And then your boys are used to this. Your girls are married now, so now it’s teenage boys. “Can I get you a cup of coffee? What kind would you like?” because they’ve got the coffee machine, which you always bring with you. [laughter]

Allison: Right. We always have to have a good coffee machine!

Nancy: Ethan made one for me yesterday and he had written on it because he knows how to do it. It had an “N” on it. My sister Kate, he made one for her, and she couldn’t believe it. It had a “K” on it for her! She was so blessed.

Allison: Aww. Well, with our family’s church that we do in our home, that has become his little ministry. These families will come to our church, and it’s a little intimidating to come to someone’s house that you don’t even know. But there’s nothing like a good cup of coffee that will break the ice.

Ethan is really a blessing. He’ll see a mama, especially a young mama that has lots of little children. He will look at her and say, “Can I get you a coffee?” And she’ll say, “Well, yes!” Then he’ll say, “Iced or hot?” She’ll say, “Um, iced.” “Well, would you like honey, or would you like stevia, or would you like whole milk, or would you like half-and-half?” It’s like going to a coffee shop. He really does love to bless people. We’re super thankful.

So, yeah, I will mention our family camp really quick. Probably like most of you out there, we truly could not find a solid group of families that we could do life with, and we could see in their children the things we wanted to be a part of our family. I started doing ladies’ retreats with you 20 years ago. Then we moved quickly into family camps.

A YEAR LONG + COMMUNITY

The benefits of it are so beyond, not that the teaching’s not amazing, because of course it is. We love Mr. Colin speaking to the families and the men. And you, of course, speaking to the ladies. But most of the time, the retreat will end when the retreat ends. Then we’ll pick up when we come back next year. Our retreats have turned into a complete year-long community.

Nancy: Well, they started out as just weekend family retreats, like we do all our family retreats. But it wasn’t enough, and now they are a weeklong. Three times a year, a weeklong!

Allison: That’s right. That’s right. But even not only that, but we will continue to have our Signal group, so you’ve got somebody to pass news to. Pete Pierson’s son fell off a bunk bed and had to be airlifted. He hurt his kidney. Immediately he was able to put it out on Signal to our Above Rubies family and they started praying for him. Not only did they pray for him, but people would send meals, or send gift packages, or just let him know that we love him.

For a lot of us, that is our church. That is our family. But yes, we do it three times a year. The next time we’re meeting is actually in August. That’s our family reunion, we call it. We normally just have families that have come to the retreat before, or at least they’re friends with someone who has come. That will be in August.

And then we actually started doing a winter retreat, which is really neat, because it’s down time for the venue, so it’s super rates. In January, we’ll do our winter retreat, which is a smaller crowd. If you’re interested in more of a smaller group, and not being with a thousand people, January winter family camp is a great spot.

Then our big group retreat is in April. We’re close to 110 families, over 1,000 people, which is so exciting because Laguna is building a bigger building just for our group. We are one of the main groups that they’re doing it for. So, it’s going to be even bigger, where we can have probably close to 3,000.

THE NEW ABOVE RUBIES MAGAZINE, #102

Nancy: Wow, that’s going to be so great! And you mentioned Pete Pierson. I’ve just been preparing the new issue of Above Rubies. Sadly, I don’t have all the money in for yet, but I get to that stage where I must get another magazine out into the nation, into the world. This magazine is full of the most powerful testimonies and articles. I long to get it out. So, I’m going ahead in faith. It’s now with the design artist, and Pete has written again. He’s written on PRODUCTIVE HOUSEHOLDS. It’s very, very good.

Allison: He did a breakout session.

Nancy: Yes, it was very, very good. Maybe you’re never ever actually made a donation to Above Rubies. The only way I get the magazine out is by donations and the love offerings of God’s people. I rarely talk about it, but I’m so longing to get out this magazine. It costs about $80,000 to print and send out each issue. So, I have about half of that in but I need another $40,000.

It’s amazing. If everybody would just send something, we can put this message out again into the nations. Oh, because we are living in such a deceived world! In the midst of this deception and delusion, we’ve got to get out the truth and especially about families. Because family is the very first thing. Marriage and family are God’s ultimate plan for how we are to live in this world. He designed marriage and family. This was the very first thing He mandated. Before church, before government, before everything else in the world is family.

What has happened today is that the family has become fragmented and separated and disillusioned. No, it’s not meant to be that way. The family is meant to be the strongest unit in the nation, stronger than anything else. Everything must come back to family and to godly marriages and godly families.

We need to keep getting this message out. So, if the Lord touches your heart, respond to Him. Send in whatever the Lord will put on your heart. Use your little . . . and let’s see if we can get this magazine out. It’s already with the design artist so we can just get it out. We can get it on that press as soon as that money comes in.

Allison: You know, when I think about different ministries, I can’t think of another ministry out there that is really, and you’re right, families are the hardest of everything. It’s really where all the societal issues are stemming from. All these lost children, all these confused on gender and identity. It all comes back to the family.

Nancy: It all comes back.

Allison: I don’t know of another ministry that specifically targets helping that root issue, which is the most important issue out there. So important, so important to . . .

Nancy: Yes, and as we’re saying this, dear ladies, I mentioned a couple of podcasts ago that I do believe, and it’s not just me. It’s that so many feel from what God is saying to them, and even in the secular world, that there are going to be difficult times ahead. Very, very difficult for this nation. We must be prepared. I talked about being prepared in many ways and even practically, with food and everything.

But I think the greatest preparation is bringing our families together, being strong as a family, in our marriages. If we’re not strong as a marriage, as husband and wife, and our families are fragmented, we’re not going to survive. We have to be strong and knitted together in our marriages and in our families.

Can I encourage you, dear mothers, to do everything in you power to strengthen your family, your family relationships. Pound your stakes deep. Oh, if you’re even out working because that’s the only way you can survive, I know there are so many who feel that’s the only way they can survive.

But you know what? It’s amazing. I think it’s just a thought pattern, because when I look around, and I see all these families who are surviving, and the mother is home, and the father doesn’t have some great big amazing job, bringing in thousands. He’s just a normal working man and yet they have five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten children, and they’re surviving.

They have taken that step of faith to come home so the mother is in the home, strengthening the home, as you are sharing, getting her children’s hearts. But when they do, they may not live like you’ve got everything you want in life but they have what they need. We can live on just what we barely need. We can! And live well, and live excitingly, and happily, and wonderfully!

RAISING ENTREPENEURS

Allison: My biggest heart is raising entrepreneurs. Having a family business solves several issues. It solves your financial issues. You can bring in so much more money by being an entrepreneur but it also brings the family together. People say all the time, “Well, what do you need?”

I was sitting here thinking, as the mamas listening to this, what are some true practical things that we can do to not fragment the family? And I think having a family business is a great way. Coming up, brainstorming ideas. This is what we do at the dinner table. We’ll have meals together but we’re always brainstorming and coming up with, “What about this idea? You’re really good at this so let’s do this together.” But again, everything we do, we do it together.

Nancy: The amazing thing is that you don’t just talk about them. You actually do them!

Allison: We do. We do.

Nancy: Like you set up a farmer’s market in two places, really, to sell the products the children are making!

Allison: That’s right.

Nancy: You made an outlet for them but an outlet for hundreds of others. Then it becomes another business of yours, and then the children keep thinking of new things that they can make and do and sell. They’re becoming entrepreneurs in their youth.

Allison: We talked about that verse in Ecclesiastes about dividing your substance into seven parts, even into eight. We are really big on having many streams of income. But how wonderful to have those streams of income to be connected to a certain child! It’s amazing how talented our children are. Ethan can do things I could never do.

Having those streams of income and you’re setting them up for success. Instead of them . . . I’ve said before, you want your children’s floor to be your ceiling. The best that you get to in your marriage and in your family, that should be where our children start. And the best way to do that is by setting them up for success.

I think about our married girls. They’re not only starting marriage debt-free, they have several forms of income, but they probably have $50,000 to $100,000 saved up already. And they’re in their young, early 20’s.

Nancy: They’re so young!

Allison: But it’s because when they were 10 and 11 and 12 . . . my ten-year-old made $168 last weekend selling homemade popsicles. That sounds silly but I was able to help her with it and she was able to make enough money to go buy things that she wants. But we did it as a family.

We all sat around last Sunday and we discussed ideas. Again, practical ways to keep your family from fragmenting are doing businesses together, playing sports together, opening up your home for fellowship, and inviting other families. Going to family camp, traveling together, doing ministry together. But again, the word in common is “together.” We try to do everything together.

One thing I did forget to mention about this mama, as a mom with littles, something that I think is a problem that we do as parents is, we give a command, but then we don’t follow through and make sure that that child is going to obey. I think we need to be very careful when we give our children instructions. We need to make sure that we’re following through, and that they are obeying completely.

That’s another way to keep our child’s heart and not frustrate them. We’re giving a command, and we’re yelling it out, not making sure it’s done. Basically, we’re causing division, even in those early years. They’re not going to trust us. We have to give the command, and if this is confusing, well, then set a time when you’re going to specifically give an instruction. You can start this early.

“Hey, Ezra, I want you to go do this, this, and this. But then I’m going to follow through, and make sure you do this, this, and this exactly.” If they did it, praise them. If they didn’t, they need a punishment. They need a specific, and then, let’s try again. I’m trying to think of practical ways so that mothers can take this message and not be frustrated and think, “That sounds so overwhelming. I don’t know how to do it.” Well, it’s all little steps. It all centers around spending lots and lots of time with them.

Nancy: Yes, and I think you’re talking about entrepreneurs. Some families may feel, “Well, we’re not even that entrepreneur type.” I think they’re going to be more so that way but there’s still, I think, one of the things is the actual brainstorming of it. A lot of your children wouldn’t have done anything unless you spurred them on and talked about it and motivated them.

In our family, we have some who are not entrepreneurs, and others who are. Our eldest son is so entrepreneurial, without our even encouraging him. In fact, anything that he wanted, he would get. We never, if our children wanted something, we just didn’t go and get it for them. They had to earn it.

I can remember, as a young boy, he’d even go to the dump and find stuff he could sell to get what he needed. One time Colin and I had been away, and we were ministering overseas. We came back and he was there (I think he was only 15 or 16). He was there at the airport to meet us, and he had these documents. He said, “Dad, would you just sign this?” Colin looked at it, and he had, in our absence (there was this cool car that he wanted) and he had mortgaged our house to buy this car!

Allison: Oh, my goodness!

Nancy: Well, of course, Colin didn’t sign it. But he did help him to get it in other ways! Not through mortgaging our house! It’s amazing what he used to do to get things.

Allison: We did a conference in our town called “Raising Adults.” We had a couple of guest speakers. One of the guest speakers was extremely successful but he talked about allowing our children to fail. I thought that was so interesting because he was so successful. I thought, “That’s the subject you’re going to talk about?”

But he said it’s so important to allow our children to be able to fail. A lot of people say, “I don’t want to do a business because, what if they fail?” We run a farmer’s market, and one market I went up to all the vendors and asked, “How did you do? Are your sales good?” I went up to my own son who’s 15, and I said, “How’d you do, Asher?” He said, “I didn’t sell anything today.” I said, “Oh, man, I’m so sorry.” I really felt bad for him.

I went up to Daniel, and I said, “Man, Asher, I’m putting this market on for everyone else. Everybody else made money, but our son didn’t.” And Daniel said, “Awesome! Great! That’s wonderful!” I said, “Why would you say that?” He said, “Because he’s learning how to fail.”

Just because your son might come up with a bad idea, let him run with it. Of course, we can say, “Oh, I’m not sure if that’s going to work. Maybe try it this way.” But don’t be fearful of failure. This helicopter mom thing is so dangerous. We’re doing everything for our children so that they don’t fail. You are enabling them. You’ve got to allow them to hit rock bottom, because they’re never going to learn.

Nancy: Exactly. I think of our two eldest sons. They went out together in business in so many different things. And they failed. So many times! They fell straight on their faces. But they ended up successful.

Allison: I almost think you have to allow them. I think about, how does Ethan at 18 know how to clean an entire house and do it well? Because I let him. I let him. I don’t go around, “Oh, oh, oh don’t fold that towel that way! Fold it this way.” No, I just let him fold it. If I get it in my cupboard, and it’s in a ball, but it’s clean and doesn’t smell, I’m thrilled!

There are so many moms who are so particular about the way they do it, that they don’t allow their children to fail. Therefore, they don’t allow their children to succeed. I think mine feel free because I’ve given them . . . I’ll end with my statement that I think is so huge, mamas, “Only do what only you can do, and delegate the rest.” If you can allow somebody else to do it, then let them do it, because you're only setting them up for failure if they don’t know how to do it.

By the time they’re 18, whether they’re a girl or a boy, they should be able to deep clean an entire house. By the time they’re 18, they should be able to run an entire household, or we’re not setting them up for success. If we want our girls to be mamas, then they should know how to run a household. There’s no way they can do that unless they’ve been allowed to do it.

Nancy: I was just talking with Halle the other day. And now Halle, is she 19 yet?

Allison: 20, just turned 20.

Nancy: Oh, yes. Married at 18. Halle is so beautiful. You look at her, and you think she’s like a little fairy. But wow! She can do anything! She was working on something. I said, “What are you working on, Halle?” “Well, you know, Mom and Dad have bought this,” what do you call it? Your property? Commercial!

Allison: Commercial property.

Nancy: You’ve bought commercial property. She was designing a whole strip mall! It was amazing! That’s just where she is. She’s a visionary, isn’t she?

Allison: Yes, we’re so excited. We just bought a whole commercial lot, and our goal is to have the whole property be all of our children’s different businesses.

Nancy: She’s got it all designed already.

Allison: And again, it goes back to when they were little. We would allow them to do big things, big-people things, because we want them to be successful.

Nancy: Well, thank you, Allison. Always so good to have you with me again. The children are getting hungry. We’d better stop and get lunch out for everybody.

“Oh Lord, we thank You so much for these times. We can get together and encourage one another in our mothering. Lord God, I pray that You will encourage each mother’s heart today, and inspire them, encourage them, bless them, Oh God, and help them to realize that pouring their lives into their home and into their family is the greatest thing they can do. They are in the very perfect will of God.

“I bless every one of you today. In the precious Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

DON’T FORGET TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THESE PODCASTS AND TRANSCRIPTS.

“LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell, Above Rubies”

DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF.

IT IS ENCOURAGING FOR ALL WIVES AND MOTHERS.

AUGUST 7 – 14, PANAMA BEACH, FLORIDA

FAMILY RETREAT, COMING UP IN LESS THAN TWO WEEKS!

DON’T MISS OUT!

There’s still some available housing.

Laguna Beach Christian Retreat,

20016 Front Beach Rd, Panama City Beach, FL 32413 ·

Contact (850) 221 1222 for housing.

(Our last retreat in Panama Beach until January and April next year).

For more information, contact Allison Hartman:

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 850 221 1222

FURTHER FAMILY RETREATS . . .

AUGUST 30 –SEPTEMBER 2, Labor Day Weekend

FAMILY RETREAT IN MISSISSIPPI

TIMBER CREEK CAMP

8113 Morton Marathon Rd, Pulaski, MS 39152, Ph: (601) 536 901

Website To register: lanfordlegacy.com

Connie Lanford (225) 335 3969

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

2025:

JANUARY 3 – 10, THE WINTER RETREAT IN THE SUN

FAMILY RETREAT at Laguna Beach Christian Retreat

20016 Front Beach Rd, Panama City Beach, FL 32413 · (850) 234-2502

For more information, contact Allison Hartman:

APRIL 16 – 23, INCLUDING EASTER WEEKEND

THE YEARLY BIG CELEBRATION!

FAMILY RETREAT at Laguna Beach Christian Retreat

20016 Front Beach Rd, Panama City Beach, FL 32413 · (850) 234-2502

Families come from all over the States so you must book in early to get accommodation!

For more information, contact Allison Hartman:

"A capable, intelligent and virtuous woman,
who is he who can find her?
She is far more precious than jewels and her
value is far ABOVE RUBIES or pearls ."
Proverbs 31:10

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 323: How Do You Keep It All Together?

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 322: Courtney’s Story

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 321: Your Past Does Not Define You, Part 2

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 320: Your Past Does Not Define You, Part 1

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 319: Keeping Your Children’s Hearts

More Articles ...

FREE Subscription Services

Related Resources

Regional Above Rubies Sites

Above Rubies Address