LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 203: THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD, Part 14

God is a God of fruitfulness, and He looks for fruitfulness, MORE fruitfulness, and MUCH MORE fruitfulness.

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies. Here we are, podcast 203! We’re talking today about fruitful families.

 In Deuteronomy 30:5, it says: “And the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed. And thou shalt possess it, and He will do thee good and multiply thee above thy fathers.” So, when He brought them into the Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey, He said that He would bless them and do them good by multiplying them and making them fruitful.

Deuteronomy 6:3: “Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it, that it may be well with thee, that ye may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee in the land that floweth with milk and honey.” In the land of motherhood, it’s a land of fruitfulness, a land of increase. Our God is a God of fruitfulness. Our God is a God of increase. He is never stagnant. He is always wanting more.

I love that Scripture in Proverbs 4:18: “But the path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”

We read the words of Jesus, in Matthew 18:5: “Whoever receives one little child like this in My Name receives Me.” The word “received” there is dechomai. It means, not the attitude of just take it or leave it, but it says, “active receiving, to receive by deliberate and ready reception of what is offered.” It means “Do not reject.”

Again, in Luke 9:48, Jesus said: “Whosoever shall receive this child in My Name receiveth Me. And whosoever shall receive Me, receiveth Him that send Me.” We should always have this attitude of receiving, actively receiving.

As we read through the Word of God, we’ll see the words “multiplying, fruitfulness, increase.” We see the word “filled.” Filled. Let’s look at some of these Scriptures, shall we? I know I give you lots of Scriptures, but, dear ladies, this is the most wonderful thing I can give you.

Because if you’re just listening, whatever you’re doing at this moment, and you’re taking in the Scriptures, it’s the Scriptures that will change you. The Scriptures will edify you and lift you up. The Scriptures will strengthen you. They are so powerful. They are life-giving. They are alive and active. There’s nothing better in the whole world that you can listen to.

Genesis 1:28: let’s start at the beginning: “And God blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.” It is interesting that the very first word that God spoke to man included the word “fill.” It is obviously very much part of God’s heart.

Then we go over a few chapters, and we read where God spoke to Noah. This was after He destroyed the earth. Then He repeats this same command to Noah again and says: “And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.”

So, we see it again. God meant what He said. He repeated the command to Noah. This time He doesn’t say it only once. We go down to verse 7, and He says the exact same words again. Now we’ve got in those first few chapters of Genesis, God speaking this word to His creation three times.

Multiplying is always God’s blessing. Psalm 107:38: “He blesses them also, so they are multiplied greatly.” That word “fill” is male, M-A-L-E, which means “fill to overflowing.”

Now, I know a lot of people take objection to that today. Isn’t it strange, how people take objection to God’s Word? They’d rather have their own words. Many homes today are more filled with stuff and gadgets, and furniture, and bigger TVs, and computers. Well. I think most homes today have more TVs than they do children! It’s not how God planned it.

All right, let’s go to Exodus, chapter one. This is where Jacob and his family have come down to Egypt. There were only 70 of them when they came down, but now, 400 years later, they have emerged a mighty nation. Exodus 1:7: “And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them.”

Yes, that’s what God loves! He wants the land to be filled with His people. They became more and mightier than the Egyptians who began to fear them. Yes, the heathen will begin to fear God’s people when they are more and mightier, not when they are a decreased and a small people. God wants His people to be more and mightier than the heathen.

We know how Pharoah began to make them slaves and to build his cities. They lived a very, very terrible persecuted life for some time. But the more the Egyptians afflicted them, the Bible says, the more they multiplied! This is God’s purpose. Not just when everything’s going fine! I mean, that was amazing! The more they were persecuted, the more they were afflicted, the more they went through, the more they multiplied!

Psalm 105:24: “He increased His people greatly and made them stronger than their enemies.” Now, when we are a diminished people, we are not stronger than our enemies. No, it is only when we are more and mightier that we are stronger. You see, those words that God gave to mankind, the words He spoke into the ears of His very first creation, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”

But He didn’t stop there! It goes on to say: “And subdue it and have dominion.” It is a progression, and it is a true thing that God has put into order, that those who fill the earth are the ones who will subdue it and take dominion. That’s just how it happened. God wants His people to take dominion, to reveal His glory in the earth. But they cannot do it if they are diminished. They must fill the earth!

Let’s go to Numbers 14:21. God says: “But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.” This is not only talking about creation, but God’s people, who bear His image in the earth! God wants His image, His likeness, to be revealed in the earth. That’s why He wants to fill the earth with His people, with His glory.

We go to Psalm 127:4-5: “As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver,” what is it? “full of them.” You see how this word keeps coming up again and again? It’s the language of God. It’s the language of the Bible.

Now, lovely ladies, if we belong to God, and we believe His Word, don’t you think we should speak the language of the Bible? It’s a bit of a dichotomy if we say we are believers, and we say we believe the Word of God, but we don’t even talk the language!

In fact, the Bible language is often strange to us. It’s often opposite to how we live. You see, Bible language is “fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, increase.” This is God’s heart. This is the Bible language. Let’s get with it! We’re either with it, or we’re not! We’re either a Bible believer, or we’re not. We say we are Christians, but do we really believe His Word? Do we speak it? We should be speaking it! It should be our vocab!

“Happy is the man that has his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemy in the gate.” Parents who have their quivers full are happy. The word is actually “happy, happy.” It’s a double Hebrew word there.

Psalm 128:3: the next Psalm, talking about the wife: “Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine.” There it is again. Not a vine with just one or two miserly grapes on it. No, a vinedresser longs for fruitful vines, vines with luscious bunches of grapes, just hanging off those vines.

Can you imagine what those vineyards were like when the children of Israel first went into the land? Do you remember how Moses sent out 12 spies, one from each tribe, to check out the land? When they came back, they said, “Oh, it is an exceedingly good land, flowing with milk and honey! Look! Here’s just one bunch of grapes!” It took two men to carry one bunch of grapes!

Now, that’s fruitfulness, isn’t it? That’s the land that God was taking them to. That’s the land that He wants us to live. The land of Israel is just a type of the lifestyle He wants us to live today, a lifestyle of mothering, in our homes.

“Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house.” That just means “within your home.” That word in the Hebrew is yerekah. It means “in the very heart of your home, in the recesses.” This is where God has placed us, in the heart of our homes, “Your children like olive branches, round about thy table.”

We go over to Ezekiel. It’s amazing where we can read about motherhood in the Bible. Ezekiel 19 is an allegory, talking about Jerusalem, or Judah actually. As we read, God is likening Judah to a mother. When we read it, we see how God sees motherhood.

Ezekiel 19:10: “Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood, planted by the waters. She was fruitful.”

Haven’t we already just read that Scripture in Psalm 128:3: “Your wife is like a fruitful vine”? Well, here it speaks of that description again. “Your mother is like a vine. She was fruitful and full,” full, full “of branches.” Not a few, full! That word “full” again! “Full of branches by reason of many waters. She had strong rods for the scepters of them that bare rule.”

That was talking about her children, and her young men, growing up to be mighty in God. “And her stature was exalted,” lifted up high, “among the thick branches, and she appeared in her height with the multitude of her branches.” Here were all her children, and her young men, growing up in their youth all around her. She was in the heights. She was lifted up.

When God talks about motherhood, He talks about it being exalted, lifted up high. You see, motherhood is the highest career that God has given to women. Yes, we can all do many things. We all have so many gifts where God has put within us such creativity and gifts and uniqueness. Yes, it makes us the uniqueness of who we are.

But because He created us female, He created us physically to give birth, to nurse babies. He created us innately with a nurturing anointing. He created us for this high, divine calling of motherhood which is the most exalted career in God’s eyes. Because this is the career that impacts not only the children God gives, but impacts our surroundings, impacts our cities, impacts our nation.

We, as mothers, determine what the nation will be like, because we bring forth the children, we raise them. How we raise our children will be what the nation is like. If they are raised by people who have no understanding of God, and therefore, they are embracing progressivism, and humanism, and feminism, and all the -isms, and now even transgenderism, and everything that’s contrary to the heart of God, we’re going to raise a nation, which we are now, we’re raising a nation of liberals who are brainwashed with humanistic, socialistic ideology. That’s what our nation is becoming.

But we, as mothers, have the power to raise godly children, who are steeped in the Word of God and His truth, who are richly filled with His Word. Those kinds of mothers can determine a nation that is strong in truth and righteousness. It is righteousness that exalts a nation. We have such influence and such power as mothers. Our career is exalted. When mothers lay down this career, the nation fails.

Ezekiel 19:12: “But she was plucked up in fury, she was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit.” This is all allegorical. But her fruit, the fruit that God wants to come forth from her womb, it’s dried up. Now, when a woman decides that she’s leaving the home, oh, she still loves the children God has given her. Yes, how every mother loves her children!

But she’s obviously lost the love of motherhood. We can love our children, and yet not love motherhood! But when she leaves the home and embraces another career, you can’t keep having children. How do you do it? You may survive with your two or three, but to trust God completely, to have more children, you have to be IN YOUR LAND. Because that’s where it happens.

So. her fruits dried up. “Her strong rods were broken and withered; the fire consumed them. And now she is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty ground.” Now, literally, it’s talking about Judah being taken to Babylon. They’re now in a wilderness place. They’re now captives in a foreign land.

Babylon speaks of confusion in the world, and in the flesh. That’s where she’s now planted. “And fire has gone out of the rod of her branches, which has devoured her fruit.” Oh, if we are not in the home, if we are not teaching our children, the enemy can get ahold of them.

He plants his seeds of unbelief, his seeds of doubt, his seeds of all the things that the enemy wants to put in them. If we’re not there, hovering over them, the enemy can get to them. That’s what happened. He devours her fruit, “so that she hath no strong rod to be a scepter to rule. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.” This is what God is saying.

It was literal, but it was also allegorical about motherhood, that when the mother leaves the home, when her fruit is dried up, when her fruit is devoured, it’s a lamentation because it’s not God’s plan for her. He wants her to be full of branches.

Let’s go on, shall we? Zechariah 8:4-5. This is one of my favorite Scriptures. I believe that this is a Scripture for the millennium. I don’t think that it’s actually going to happen until that time. But it gives us a glimpse of God’s heart.

“Thus saith the LORD of hosts; There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age. And the streets of the city shall be full.” Full. There’s that word again, ladies. And what will the streets be full of? “Full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof.”

Don’t you love that picture? I love it! That’s what God wants, that’s His heart! That’s what it’s meant to be now! But we can’t have it now, because the enemy is too busy, prowling around. How can parents leave little children playing in the streets today?

Well, I look back on my childhood, and praise the Lord, we were able to do that back then. That’s what we did. We went to school, we came home, we threw our bags in the door, and we all went out in the street and we played. We played in the streets because it was so safe. There was no one going to come and take off little children.

You can’t do that today. Parents have to drive their children to school for safety! My, parents wouldn’t think of doing that back in my day! Goodness, you walked to school! Even if you walked a couple of miles. That was good for you, and it was, too. But, today, you can’t do that. You’ve got to watch your children, right to their school gate, and then right when they come home.

Well, I already think I would never send them there, because now, today, when you leave them at the gate, you’re no longer watching them. You don’t know what is happening. You don’t know what is being spoken into them. You don’t know what influence those other children around them are having on them.

It is a different world today. I was a teacher myself. But today I would never send my children into the schools because there is nothing of God in there. Why would we, as believers, send our children to receive anti-God indoctrination? That seems ridiculous, doesn’t it?

That’s what God loves, that beautiful picture of boys and girls filling the streets, playing. Yes, I love that! Playing! God loves children playing.

OK, let’s go over to the New Testament. Luke 14:23. Jesus was giving them this parable, and He said to them: “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that My house may be filled.” You see, God is the God of the full house. He wants a full house, ladies.

This parable was about all the people who had all their excuses because they couldn’t come to the wedding feast. Well, the host said, “OK, they don’t want to come? Well, you just go out and grab them in! Compel them to come in! But I want my house filled!” That’s God’s heart. He wants His home in heaven filled.

I think that’s why He waits. He waits, He longs for those who will come to Him. But also, He wants us to get our homes filled too, because if He’s the God of the full house, He lives in us. He wants us to also have houses that are filled, not filled with TVs, and all this stuff!

We can have so much stuff, can’t we? Don’t you find stuff is a nuisance? I’m always trying to get rid of stuff! But somehow, more stuff comes! We’re always getting rid of stuff, aren’t we? Because, really what is it? It’s just a lot of nuisance. More stuff to clean.

But God wants our houses filled with children, filled with people, filled with babies. Yes, He wants them filled, not with stuff, but with precious souls, the children that He gives us. Then those who we want to bless in this life and bring into our homes. So, ladies, there it is! It’s a fruitful land. Amen?

Let’s see, what is our next one? Oh, yes, I should say that I found over 40 Scriptures about how the Lord wants us to multiply, increase, be fruitful, and fill our homes. I haven’t given them all to you, but maybe in the transcript I will list all the Scriptures for you, so those who really want to get into the Word can look them up.

No. 8. IT IS A LIFE-GIVING LAND

Deuteronomy 30:15-20. Let me go to Deuteronomy 30. God is speaking here: “See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil; In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.” 

Notice that little phrase again? “IN THE LAND.” Look out for it when you’re reading the Bible. I love that phrase, “In the land.” What’s He going to do when we are in the land? Bless us! This is where He wants to bless us, in the land.

“But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them; I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it. 

“I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore, choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto Him: for He is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.” 

What a wonderful passage! And what does it say? “Therefore, choose life.” Dear ladies, we have to be women who always choose life, in every situation in life, and also from the womb to the grave. No matter what the situation, we always choose life. God is a God of life. God loves life. He is the author of life.

And, ladies, I hope you realize the devil can’t give life. He does not have the power to give life. He is jealous of God who is the only One who can give life. Because he is jealous, and because he hates God, he hates life. And he does everything in his power to eradicate life. He especially wants to eradicate life in the womb. even before it is conceived.

Today, of course, we have birth control—contraception, sterilization, and abortion. Those three. It’s interesting that there are three. It’s interesting. We go to John 10:10, and we read how the enemy comes to Jesus, the three things. The devil comes “not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.” It is the same thing as contraception, sterilization, abortion. They all have the same purpose: to eradicate life.

Abortion really is a back-up plan. If the enemy can’t take life and stop life from coming into the world through contraception and through sterilization, well, then he’s got abortion as his back-up plan. Because that’s what the enemy does. He comes to steal, kill, destroy.

God comes to give life. Ladies, if we are on God’s side, we are on the side of life.

If we are siding with death, if we are siding with the elimination of life, we are on the devil’s side. There’s no in between. There’s only one side or the other.

Even if you have been born again. Many people can be born again, and yet, they are not yet transformed in their minds. They are still bound by the enemy’s thinking of the old kingdom of darkness. But we have to come into the new understanding, and the new vocabulary of the kingdom of God. It’s a vocabulary of life, of choosing life.

We’ll talk a little more about it in the next session. But let’s pray.

“Dear Father, we thank You that You are the God of life. Help us to always understand, Lord God. Help us to firmly be rooted in Your kingdom. Your kingdom, which is a kingdom of life. Lord God, save us from ever, ever siding with the enemy’s kingdom.

“Oh, God, help us to be always life-choosers. Lord, we ask it in the precious Name of Jesus. We thank You for the preciousness of life. Help us to understand and see the preciousness of life, to see that life is not just for now. It’s eternal. That every new soul is an eternal soul that lives forever. It is precious, and it is eternal.”

Oh, God, help us to always guard life, and love life, and choose life. I pray for Your blessing on every mother and daughter listening today, or this evening, in the Name of Jesus. Amen.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If you have a moment, it would be lovely if you could email a little thank you letter to Darlene. She sacrifices much of her time to transcribe these podcasts for you and I know it would encourage her to know that you are blessed by her hard work. Thanks so much.

FRUITFUL LAND SCRIPTURES

Leviticus 25:19; 4-10; 26:4, 5; Numbers 13:23-27; Deuteronomy 8:7-10; 11:13-15; 28:3-5, 11; Nehemiah 9:25; Psalm 67:6; 85:12; 107:36; 37; Isaiah 30:23, 24; Ezekiel 34:27; 36:8, 29, 30, 34-36; 34: 26; Zechariah 8:12; and 10:8.

MULTIPLY IN THE LAND SDRIPTURES

Genesis 1:28; 9:1, 7; 17:2; 22:17; 26:4, 24; 28:3; 30:15; 35:11; 48:4; 49:22; Exodus 1:12, 19, 20; 23:30; 32:13; Leviticus 26:9; Deuteronomy 6:3; 7:13; 8:1, 13:17; 28:4; 30:5, 16; Psalm 105:24; 107:38; 115:14; 127:4, 5; 128:3; Isaiah 26:15; Jeremiah 3:16; 23:3; 29:6; 30:19; 33:22; Ezekiel 36:10, 11, 37; 38; and 37:26.

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 202: THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD, Part 13

Another miracle testimony about manuka honey. Today we discover that the land of motherhood is a land of dependency. We don't live like Egypt in the land that flows with milk and honey. It is also a land of fruitfulness.

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies. Here we are together for podcast 202. Last week I was giving you some testimonies about how powerful honey is as a healer. I wonder if any of you have tried honey. Any honey is good, but the most effective honey is manuka honey.

It comes from New Zealand, my country of birth, and I was telling you about that last week. But you don’t have to live in New Zealand to get it. It’s now become very much available across the world so you can go onto the internet and check it out. It comes in different grades. The higher grade it is, the more effective it will be.

I was telling you of how, well, actually Arrow came and told you his testimony of how he had his whole face completely burned. Yes, how the manuka honey made it look so beautiful. He healed liked a little baby’s face.

My mother was healed from an ulcer. I was healed twice, from two different infections that I got out of getting a cut. Antibiotics wouldn’t even touch them. The moment I got on to manuka honey, it was miraculous.

I want to tell you one more story before we move on. That is about Serene’s youngest little girl, Solly. When Solly was born, she was born with a hemangioma. Now that’s a big, long name, but it’s really just a name for one of those strawberry birthmarks. When Evangeline was born, she was also born with quite a big hemangioma on her arm, down the lower part of her arm.

They say that it’s actually a little bit of placenta. As the placenta will have life to grow for nine months, a hemangioma will grow for about nine months to a year. It will stop growing and then it gradually begins to fade. When Evangeline was about five years old, her strawberry, we used to call it a “strawberry” in those days, it was pretty much faded.

But about ten percent of those who are born with a hemangioma, they will get infected. Sadly, little Solly’s strawberry got infected. Hers was on her leg. It became a terrible ulcer that was eating into her. It went right down to her bone. It was terrible! She was just this little baby and it was so sad to see. They are so, if they get ulcerated, they are so unbearably painful.

The doctor said that Serene would have to give her beta blockers for one year, plus she would have to go under anesthesia for surgery. Serene certainly didn’t want her to go through that. She didn’t want her on those drugs for a whole year.

Then, of course, oh, goodness me, why do we forget? Suddenly we thought of manuka honey again! Yes, so back to our miracle working, whatever you can call it. It’s a miracle worker. Serene got hold of the high-grade medical grade manuka honey. The moment she began to put it on, the change happened immediately. In about two weeks, this revolting ulcer was healed! It was miraculous! Amazing!

I’m telling you these stories because we’re talking about honey and how powerful it is, and how the land of Israel was the land flowing with milk and honey. We’re also relating it our land of motherhood. So, ladies, if any of you, or your children get any kind of infection, and you can’t break it, any ulcer, or any terrible burns, you can go for manuka honey. Maybe it’s good to have some on hand. D honey is miraculous

d) HONEY IS MIRACULOUS

My fourth point about honey, of course, is that it is miraculous!

e) HONEY ENERGIZES

The last point about honey, honey energizes. We know that. It energizes the heart, and it increases the blood flow so that in the physical, but I believe also, our homes should be filled with energy.

Now, I’m not talking about screaming children bouncing off the walls. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of that! But I believe we should have the energy, not of the flesh, but of the Holy Spirit. Of course, the energy of lots of wonderful projects, and things that we’re doing in our home. Our homes should never be stagnant, boring places, but places that are filled with wholesome energy of productivity and things that are happening.

I believe the home is first a nurturing center. It’s also a birthing center. Maybe many of you have birthed at home. It’s a training and education system. This is where many of you who are listening are homeschooling. It’s a praise and worship center, a prayer center, and an eating center, of course. A hospitality center, a cultural development center, a social center, a counseling center, a health and healing center, an industry center. I’m sure you have many projects going. Maybe some of them you are even making a little bit of money on the sideline. You’ve got a webpage, and you’re selling the products that you make because of your great creativity that you have. It’s a convalescent center, and a garden center.

Well, wow, ladies! How do you have time to vacate your home? When your home is all these amazing things, the home is meant to be that hub. It’s the hub of our family life. It becomes the hub of where we live. Our society and home should be the hub of the nation. Sadly, we are living in this society where homes are being vacated. We are losing the strength of our nation because homes are the strength of the nation.

No. 6. IT IS A LAND OF DEPENDENCY

Let’s move onto another point. Another description about the land of Israel is that it is the land of dependency. So is the case in our land of motherhood.

Let me read you Deuteronomy 11:10-12. This is what God says to His people about the land they were going to: “For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, when you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden, but the land which you cross over to possess is the land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven. A land for which the Lord your God cares. The eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year.”

What a beautiful promise! Dear ladies, you can claim that promise for your land, for your home, too. When you make your home a home where God delights to dwell, when you seek to have His presence in your home, you can claim that promise. “The eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year.” Don’t you love that? That would be a beautiful promise to print out and pin up on your wall somewhere to remind you.

Now, you notice that God’s eyes were upon them in the land, in the land that He was giving them. This is where God’s eyes are upon us, dear mothers. When you come into your home and embrace your land and all that God has given to you there, oh, you can claim that promise! His eye is upon you. Because you’re in the place where He wants you to be.

We see that they no longer had to do everything in the flesh. When they got to the Promised Land, they didn’t look after their gardens like they did in Egypt. In Egypt they had to rely on the overflow of the Nile. They stored their water by artificial means.

They irrigated their fields with treadmills. Do you notice that the Scripture says that they had to water it by foot? You see, they were using the treadmills. They had to use their feet to make them work, to get the water out of them. It was very, very tiresome work. It took human sweat and toil.

But when they went to the Promised Land, they didn’t have the Nile River. Well, they had the Jordan, but that wasn’t like the Nile. It couldn’t provide all the water they needed. They had to rely on God Himself! They had to rely on the early rains and the latter rains.

When God sent the early rains, it was just at the right time when they were planting the seed. Then He would send the latter rains at the time of harvest, to get it ready for harvest. When the children of Israel were walking in obedience to God’s ways, those rains came. They would have bountiful harvests.

There were times when God stopped those rains. There was famine when the rains didn’t come. That was because they were walking in disobedience. But when they walked in obedience and trusted God, He did it for them! You see, it was different in the land that God took them to.

And darling ladies, it’s different in our land of motherhood too, where we are learning to trust God. We’re not meant to do it like so much of society is doing it today. There are many, many wives who, because while they’re just barely making it, they’re hardly getting through financially, they think, “OK, well, my husband, he’s just not doing enough. I’ll have to get out and get a job too. We both need to work. We can’t even survive without two incomes coming in.” That’s how most people think today. “We need at least two incomes.”

Well, of course you do, if you’re going to do it according to Egypt! If you’re going to do it according to the flesh, and you’re going to tread the treadmills yourself and do it your way, you will need two incomes. But if you realize you’re in the land that God has brought you into, it’s a land where you no longer do it on your own strength. This is land where you become dependent upon God. You’ve got to trust Him! Wow, that’s not easy, is it?

But we find that when we trust Him and we walk in obedience to His ways, He will be faithful! He told them, “This is how it is going to work. You’ve just got to trust Me. I’ll send the rains. I’ll provide. You walk in obedience to Me, and My eye will be upon you, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year!”

So, lovely ladies, I know many of you have come back into the home. Others of you, you long to. This is where you want to be, and you think, “How can I ever do it? How will we ever survive? We just barely make it on our two incomes!”

Because you’re doing it the way of Egypt. You see, we’re not meant to live the way of Egypt when we come into the Promised Land. We’re not meant to live the way all society lives who do not know God, who do not know how to trust Him. But when we learn to trust Him, walk in obedience to Him, we will find that God is true to His Word!

Romans 8:1: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Even when we’re wanting to walk in the Spirit, we often find we’re still walking in the flesh, don’t we? We’re so used to it. But may God help us to learn to walk in the Spirit, trusting God, believing His promises.

In the flesh, you most probably would never come home from your job. Because in the flesh, you can’t see how you can do it. There’s absolutely no way. It’s all a step of faith. I remember such a dear friend of mine, Val Stares. More than a friend, she has been with me in the vision of Above Rubies from the very, very first day that I got the vision. That is about 45 years ago, back in New Zealand.

I remember walking up, well, no, I drove up to the hospital to see a friend. Her little boy was in hospital. Val had come too. We were both there, visiting her. While we were there, I said, “Oh, Val, I’ve just got to tell you something! I’ve just got this incredible vision! We are going to get out a magazine to the families and the mothers of the nation to encourage them in God’s ways!”

Well, she looked at me with this blank stare. Interestingly, her name is Val Stares. She really had this blank stare that day! I didn’t know that that very morning she had said to the Lord, “If Nancy Campbell comes up with any more of her great ideas, I’m not getting involved!” Well, she got involved! She’s still involved with me today. Since we left the shores of Australia, she has looked after Above Rubies in that nation for all these years.

What was I telling you that for? Oh yes! Because, if you only knew Val, she is the most motherly, nurturing person you could ever meet. She is a lover of babies, and a lover of children. But when she started her life as a mother, she wasn’t saved. She didn’t even know the Lord. Her husband wasn’t saved. He didn’t have any vision for family. They stopped at three children because that was, well, what you did. That was pretty good, having three children! She even had a tubal ligation.

But then, she gets saved! Oh, I remember the night she came into our church! She was not saved! Not even interested in God. The Holy Spirit came upon her. That night she was born again. She went into the baptismal pool that same night. She was baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit and never the same again.

But she’d had a tubal ligation. And she longed and longed for children. Also, her husband, who wasn’t a Christian, he still made her work. OK, he was adamant! “No, you can’t leave your job! We won’t be able to survive!”

She was wanting to be a lovely Christian wife and please her husband. But every week we would have an Above Rubies prayer meeting. We would be praying for all the needs of Above Rubies, praying for women who we knew needed prayer. We would always pray for Val. “Oh, Lord God! Please free Val from this job! Lord, You know how she longs to come home! Oh God, we pray that You would touch Bill and let her come home!” We’d go on and on praying. We’d all be praying.

God never answered our prayers. Bill just stayed the same. Then the time went by. One day she came home from her job, and she found her eldest daughter in the bathroom, with a man. Val was so devastated. I have never seen anyone so devastated. She wasn’t well at the time either. But it gave her that last thing to say to her husband, “I cannot do this any longer. I have to be home for my children, for my other children.” Grudgingly, he said OK. Very grudgingly, wondering how they would ever work.

She also wondered, “How will we ever do it?” She was working three jobs to try and make ends meet. Well, she gave in her notice by faith. And the time came she got her last paycheck. Do you know, Val would tell you this, if she was sitting here. Sorry, it was a bit hard to get her when she lives down at the bottom of the world.

But she says, “God continued to provide! We didn’t land up on the streets. We survived. Oh, we didn’t have everything we wanted, but we never went without a meal again.” And God continued, from that moment, to provide for their needs! All it took was one step of faith.

You see, when we do it our way, God has to stand back and say, “Oh, well, you want to do it like Egypt. Well, OK, I’ll just wait. But when you come and you trust Me, I’ll show you that I am faithful.” So, there you go, ladies.

No. 7. IT IS A FRUITFUL LAND

Let’s go on to the next one, shall we? Number seven: it is a fruitful land.

Deuteronomy 7:13. God says to His people: “He will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: He will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy cattle, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee.”

He's telling them that in the land He’s going to bless their wombs, and He’s going to bless everything else! That’s the amazing thing. You see, God always speaks of first things first. The very first thing He says here is: “I will love you and bless you.” And how is He going to bless them?

The next thing He says: “I will multiply you.” Oh, there’s not a lot of people who actually name the name “Christian” who like those kinds of Scriptures. Because that’s not the only one! There are so many Scriptures where this is what God says. He says: “I will bless you, bless you.” The next thing He says is: “I will multiply you.”

He’s going to make them fruitful in the Land. But he doesn’t stop there. That’s the first thing. “I will bless the fruit of your womb. But then, I’m going to bless your land, your corn, your wine, your oil, your cattle, your sheep! Oh, all of it! Why? Because you’ll need that to provide for the fruit of the womb.”

You see how God works? The fruit of the womb comes first. Then the fruit of everything that’s needed to provide for the children He gives us. And notice what He says here. We see this over and over again. He will do this IN THE LAND, not out of the land. If you’re out of the Land, and doing it your way, you can’t really expect God’s promises. The promises come IN THE LAND, in the Land.

So, here they are. They’re going into this land that God has provided for them. It wasn’t a barren land. It was a fruitful land. Oh, amazing! In fact, God was the first real estate agent. He was the One Who went out and searched out this land.

Ezekiel 20:6: “I lifted up My hand in an oath to them, to bring them out of the land of Egypt into a land that I had searched out for them, flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all lands.”

Now we notice, when we look more into the descriptions of this land, that we see that God speaks about fruitful gardens and fruitful families. Let’s look at some of the Scriptures, shall we? I’m not making all this up. This is all from the word, ladies. Although firstly it’s speaking about the literal land of Israel that the people of Israel went into. Back in that time, when they went into it, it was the most fertile, flourishing land that you could ever dream about. It is starting to come back to that today now that God is bringing His people back there again. But let’s look at a few Scriptures, shall we?

FRUITFUL GARDENS

First of all, about “fruitful gardens.” Did you know that God loves fruitfulness? He is a God of fruitfulness. He longs for us to be fruitful in the natural and in the spiritual. Everything in the Word of God is first that which is natural, then that which is spiritual.

We go over to John 15, and we see the spiritual here in John 15:4: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.”

Well, before we get to that, I should go back to verse 2, actually. We’ll start at John 15:1: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit He taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.”

You see here the progression. God wants us to be fruitful, but He says that’s not even enough! “I’ll even prune you so you’ll bring forth more fruit.” Then we go down to verse five, where I was reading. It talks about bringing forth much fruit. In fact, I think He actually says that word, “much fruit” again. If I can just find which verse it is in. But it’s down there in that chapter. Yes, it’s John 15:8: “Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit. So shall ye be My disciples.”

We’re going back to the Old Testament. We see fruitfulness in the natural. Here in the New Testament, we see fruitfulness in the spiritual, although I must pop in here. I have had people say to me, “Well, God’s not really interested in people having children today. He’s only interested in our bearing spiritual fruit and bringing people to Jesus. We don’t have to bring them through birth. As long as we bring them into the Kingdom through evangelism.”

Well, that’s a little ridiculous, because if we don’t first bring them in through birth, how will they even be here to evangelize? It’s being fruitful in the natural and fruitful in the spiritual.

OK, let’s get back to these fruitful gardens. We see, in fact, in the very second chapter of Genesis, the very first thing God did after creating the man was, do you know what it was? The first thing was to plant a garden. Can you believe it? People don’t take much notice of gardens today. “Goodness, what do you want a garden for? Just go down to the shop and get everything you want!”

Of course, they couldn’t do that in those days. But maybe it won’t always be like that either. Even now, even when we go down to the shop, even to get our vegetables and our fruits, they are, unless they’re organic, they’ve been sprayed, or they’re GMO’d. Even organic, you look at them sometimes, and they’re all wizened up. You think, “How long have they been sitting there?” It’s absolutely nothing like going out and getting fresh vegetables from your garden.

I guess many of you are aware that they are currently seeking to organize a famine. This country is filled with food, an abundance of food. There’s so much food thrown out. It’s unbelievable. And yet, they are trying to make a famine. They’re trying to bring this country down. I’m sure many of you have heard this. Even Biden himself is saying that this could be happening. Those who are wise, and listening, are preparing foods. They are putting food away. They are preparing their gardens. Gardens may be very important in the future.

But let’s go back to Genesis 2:8: “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden. There He put the man whom He had formed.” We just read, “And the Lord God planted a garden.” Well, how do you plant a garden? Just say the word and the things appear? No, to plant a garden you have to put your hands in the earth.

I’ve had some ladies say to me, “Ooh, I don’t want to do a garden. I hate getting my hands all there in the dirt. I just don’t even like it.” Well, God liked it! That was the very first thing He did after creating the man! God put His hands into the earth and literally planted the seed. The seed is “planted.” He didn’t just say, although He said “Let there be” for all of creation, now He actually wants to get into the garden! He wants to do creative things, and He actually plants! Yes! We see that happening, right there, in the very beginning.

Let’s look at a few other Scriptures. Isaiah 27:6: “Israel shall blossom and bud and fill the face of the world with fruit.” Yes, Israel again is starting to do that. You get these wonderful Jaffa oranges from Israel. Now they’re even importing their amazing wines from Israel that are growing out there on the West Bank of Israel. Vines that are prophesied. God said that when the people come back to the Land, that they will plant vineyards.

This is what is happening out there on those barren hills of Samaria where there are just stones. There’s hardly anything there. Then you see vineyards! You see all these barren stones, and then next to them, there’s where they’ve planted vineyards, and they’re prolific!

I have been there myself. I have stood on those dirt stones and picked these glorious bunches of fruitful grapes off these vines that are growing out of stones! It’s all miraculous, because God said in Ezekiel 36, He prophesied to those stones, and those barren hills, and those waste places. He said that when His people came back, that they would grow, and they would come forth out of the ground and be fruitful. It’s happening now.

Leviticus 25:19: “And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety.”

Psalm 107:36-38: “He maketh the hungry to dwell, that they may prepare a city for habitation; and sow the fields, and plant vineyards, which may yield fruits of increase. He blesseth them also, so that they are multiplied greatly; and suffereth not their cattle to decrease.”

Jeremiah 2:7: “I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof.” So, we go on. I’m just giving you a few, because, actually, I looked up all the Scriptures about fruitfulness, fruitful vines, and vineyards, and gardens, in the Word of God. Let’s see, I found over 40 Scriptures about this. Don’t worry, ladies, I’m not giving all of them to you.

Just a couple more, because time is going again. Isaiah 65:21: “And they shall build houses and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them.” It’s amazing how many times God speaks to His people about the mundane. We think it’s mundane, but God sees it as very important. Building houses, planting gardens! That’s one of the most basic things God wants us to do. He’s so interested in your building your home. Or getting your home, however you do it. And planting a garden!

Ezekiel 28:25: “Thus saith the Lord God; When I shall have gathered the house of Israel from the people among whom they are scattered, and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the heathen, then shall they dwell in their land. . . and they shall dwell safely therein and shall build houses and plant vineyards and dwell with confidence.”

We go over to Jeremiah 29:5. The last Scripture was talking about in the land of Israel. This time, this Scripture is talking about when they were taken into captivity, to Babylon, away from their beloved land of Israel! Here they are, captives in a foreign land. And the prophet comes to them, and he says: “Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel.”

In Jeremiah 29:5, what does he say? “Build houses and dwell in them. Plant gardens and eat the fruit of them.” Then he repeats it again, down in verse 28! “Build houses and dwell in them. Plant gardens and eat the fruit of them.”

Did you know that this is all Bible, ladies? Sometimes we think, “Oh, yes, this Christian life. You go to church, and you hear a message about sanctification or faith.” Good subjects, but when do we hear about building houses and planting gardens? There are so many Scriptures about it. And God longs for fruitfulness. He loves fruitful gardens, and He wants us to be fruitful. We will be fruitful when we have fruitful gardens.

But time has gone, so we’ll talk more next week.

“Lord God, I thank You again. We’re always thanking You, Lord, for Your wonderful Word, which is so precious, and so real, and so down to where we live, and how You want us to live. Dear Father, help us not to slide over Your Word, but to take every word.

“Lord, You want us to build houses and live in them. You want us to plant gardens. Yes, this is very close to Your heart because it was the very first thing You did after creating Adam. Lord, help us to take notice of Your ways.

“I pray that You’ll bless all these precious dear wives and mothers today, Lord God. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 201: THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD, Part 12

We talk about how to get sweet honey flowing in our marriages and homes. And also, the amazing and miraculous benefits of Manuka honey to heal the body. My grandson, Arrow Johnson, joins us today to tell his testimony of how Manuka honey saved his face from terrible burn scars.

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

Nancy Campbell: Hi, ladies! We are still on the point of THE LAND THAT FLOWS WITH MILK AND HONEY, flowing with milk. Not only in nursing our babies, not only in continuing to nourish them with good, wholesome food, but also, ladies, we’re to be Word nourishers. The Word of God is also likened to milk, and also likened to honey.

We read in 1 Peter 2:2: “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby.”

Just as babies have to have that milk to grow, so we’ve got to give our children, our little children, our middling children, and our big children, we’ve got to give them milk so they can grow. Of course, as they grow, we’re going to pass on from milk. We’re going to give them some meat. Yes, that’s very important, because we don’t stay on milk all our lives, do we? We wean from milk onto meat. That is important, too.

As they are little, we start, even when they are little, to not only nourish them physically, but to nourish them spiritually, to nourish them with the Word. Dear mother, you are a Word nourisher.

1 Timothy 4:5. Paul writes to Timothy, saying: “You are nourished up in the words of faith, and of good doctrine.” Dear mothers, are you nourishing your children with the Word? Now, I know you are faithful mothers who give your children three meals a day, and most probably they have lots of snacks in between as well.

So how many spiritual meals do you give them a day? Well, we could even give them three. I know families who, at every mealtime, they will also read something from the Word to their children, so they’re getting fed physically and they’re getting fed spiritually.

But the minimum that we are meant to feed our children with the Word is two times a day, morning and evening. The Bible talks about the morning and evening principle. That’s a minimum. We can do more! We can do three times a day.

But the minimum is the morning and evening. I hope that you are getting into that habit in your home, where every morning and every evening, at the minimum, you will be nourishing, nourishing your children with the Word of God, with the words of faith, with good doctrine.

So many children, even in homeschooling families, can grow up, and not really know the doctrine of the Word of God. They’re not, oh yes, they know some things, but they’re not really nourished. What does it mean to be nourished?

When we nourish our little baby from the breast, and then when we go on to giving them solid food, we’re so concerned about nourishing them up and fattening them up. We always want our babies to be so fat, don’t we? We all love fat, cuddly, babies. We’re wanting to nourish them.

Do we have that same concern to nourish them up in the Words of God? Because it’s both. Our children are not just of flesh and blood. They are spirit, and that’s the most important part of who they are! That is the eternal part. That is what will live forever, and that’s what we have to be more concerned about in nourishing them up.

BECOME A WORD NOURISHER

Dear lovely moms, become Word nourishers. Now, I know that takes time out of your day, and you’ve got to make it happen. You’ve got to put aside other things. But this is number one! It’s up there with feeding your children physically. You’ve got to feed them spiritually.

We are physical nourishers and spiritual nourishers of our children, aren’t we? So much so, that as our children grow, we’ll be doing, as I said before, we’ll be getting them onto the meat of the Word of God. They won’t grow up just being people who still only take a bit of milk.

Do you know that there are so many adults today in the faith, who go to church, and they’re still on the milk! I can’t believe it! They don’t even read the Word during the week. They go to church. They open their mouths, like little birds, and let the pastor or the minister pour some milk in. And away they go. They don’t really even know to how chew on some real meat!

What does it say in Hebrews 5:12-14? “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” 

So, have that vision, dear moms, to be graduating your children, as they get older, to be able to take the strong meat. Don’t let them leave your home still on the milk, like babies! No, you’re not sending babies out into this world. You’re sending men and women who are strong in the faith and strong in the Word. Amen? That’s what we’re doing. Read 1 John 2:13, 14.

IT FLOWS WITH HONEY

Let’s go on to our next point. This land, the land of Israel, was called the land that floweth with milk and honey. Our land of motherhood is the land that floweth with milk and honey. Let’s talk about the honey, now, shall we?

Yes, honey. We all know that honey is so sweet. I’ve got five different points here about honey. The first one.

a)    HONEY NOURISHES

Just like we’ve been talking about nourishing our children with food and with the Word, honey is also a nourisher. It is filled with the most wonderful nutrients. It’s so good for you.

In fact, the manna in the wilderness tasted like wafers made with honey. It not only tasted like honey, but I’m sure it was filled with all the nutrients they would ever need. It kept the children of Israel alive and healthy for 40 years.

The Word, also, is like honey. God likens the Word to milk. He also likens it to honey.

Psalm 19:10: “More to be desired are they than gold (talking about God’s Word) Yea, than much fine gold. Sweeter also than honey, and the honeycomb.”

Psalm 119:103: “How sweet are thy words unto my taste. Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth.” The Word is like honey. You’ve got to give that to our children too, to nourish them.

b)    HONEY SWEETENS

This land of motherhood, dear ladies, is not a land of complaining and sourness. It’s a land of pleasantness and delightfulness. It’s a land where we are sweet and kind. It’s a land where we speak sweet words. It’s a land where we try to sweeten our marriage. It’s a land where we try to sweeten the atmosphere of our homelife, to bring sweetness to it, to make it like honey. Because it’s a land that flows with honey! So, you’d better make it like honey. And honey tastes sweet.

We go to the Song of Songs 4:11. This Scripture has always been such a challenge to me. It’s the Bridegroom speaking to the bride. Or we can also relate it to the husband speaking to his wife:

“Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb. Honey and milk are under thy tongue.”

Now, is that a picture of you and your relationship with your husband? Can your husband say to you, “Darling, oh, your words are just like honey to me. They drip with honey.” Of course, what does the honeycomb drip with? Sweetness. “Oh, darling, you’re so sweet. Your words are so sweet.”

Well, that’s what the Bridegroom is saying here, to the bride: “Honey and milk are under thy tongue.” Sweetness and nourishing words. These are the kind of words that should be dripping from our mouths. We want to make our marriage and our home like honey. Well, we’d better speak the right words.

In this land that flows with milk and honey, we’re speaking beautiful words, caring, comforting, considerate, cheerful words, delightful words, encouraging, enriching, forgiving words, gentle words, helpful words, joyful, kind, loving, life-giving, pleasant, positive, sweet, soft, supportive, wise words. We’re dripping these words. This is the land that FLOWS with milk and honey. Not just a little drip. Flowing with honey.

Let’s also go to some other Scriptures.

Proverbs 16:24: “Pleasant words (or that means “delightful words”) “are as a honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.”

Proverbs 15:1: “A gentle answer turns away anger.”

Song of Songs, here’s another Scripture from the Song of Songs 4:3. In the Knox Translation, it says: “Thy lips are lines of scarlet, guardians of that sweet utterance.” In other words, our lips are guarding that sweet utterance. They’re guarding that nothing comes out of our mouths unless they are sweet words.

As we’re talking about sweetness, what does it really mean? Because sometimes sweetness can be a little bit sickly, or sweetness can be a reality. Sometimes people can be sweet, but somehow you think, “Oh, goodness me, I don’t really feel the genuineness of it and it’s a little bit sickly.” You’re a little bit . . .  “Do they really mean it?”

We get a more understanding of sweetness out of a story in the Bible of Samson. It was in Judges 14. Samson was on his way down to meet this woman that he was in love with, which wasn’t good, because she didn’t belong to Israel. That was not what he should have been doing.

However, on the way, this lion attacked him. He was able to kill the lion because of his strength. But then, on another visit, he’s going down again to meet this woman and he sees this lion, the carcass of the lion. But in the lion were all these bees. There was this honeycomb. He put his hand in and pulled out all this beautiful honey and just devoured the honeycomb.

He’s going down to his wedding, and he decides, as it was the custom in those days, to give a riddle to see if the people present could decipher the riddle. This was his riddle. “Out of the eater came forth meat. And out of the strong came forth sweetness.”

Well, we know the answer to the riddle because we know what happened. The people at the wedding didn’t know what happened, and they couldn’t answer the riddle, until they got onto his wife. They plagued her and plagued her until she got the answer out of him.

The answer was, of course, the sweetness came from the strong, and who was the strong? The lion. What could be sweeter than honey? Nothing. It was the honey that came out of the lion. The sweetness came out of the strength.

That’s rather powerful. We see such a teaching there, that sweetness is not just some little sickly thing that doesn’t mean anything. DSWEETNESS COMES OUT OF STRENGTH. It’s from that strength that we can be sweet.

There are some people who are in a marriage relationship where the husband, maybe he’s not a Christian, or maybe he’s not acting like a husband should act. In fact, he’s not very easy to live with at all. Now, how could you be sweet to a husband like that?

You can only do that when you have the strength of God in you.  You can only do that in His strength, His ability, His enabling. Out of that strength, you can be sweet, even in the midst of something that is so difficult. So, sweetness can come out of strength.

It reminds me of a little thought that I’ve been discovering this last couple of days. That’s about meekness, which relates to gentleness and sweetness. At the moment, in our church fellowship, my husband is encouraging us all to memorize the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7, because he says that, although Jesus gave so many sermons, this was the one sermon that was recorded.

If we are truly disciples of Jesus, if we’re truly faithful followers of Him, we’ll at least know the one sermon that was recorded. Just the one! So, he’s encouraging us to memorize it. We’re doing it little by little. I’ve managed to learn the first 26 verses. I’ve got a way to go yet.

But I’ve been also meditating on these words, and as I’ve been learning the Beatitudes, I came to “meekness.” I thought, “Well, I have to look up, what does “meekness” really mean?” I was quite amazed. I’ve written that down here to tell you about it, because in the lexicon in my Hebrew-Greek Study Bible, it tells me here that, how do we pronounce this word? It’s P-R-A-U-T-E-S. Prautes. I think that’s how they pronounce it in the Greek.

According to Aristotle, this word is the middle course of being angry, standing between two extremes--getting angry without reason and not getting angry at all. Therefore, prautes is getting angry at the right time, in the right measure, and for the right reason. Prautes is not readily expressed in English, since the term “meekness” often suggests weakness. But prautes is a condition of mind and heart which demonstrates gentleness, not in weakness, but in power. It is a virtue born in strength of character.

So, once again, meekness comes out of strength. Sweetness comes out of strength. Gentleness comes out of strength. Because in many situations, we cannot have sweetness, we can’t have gentleness unless we have the power of God enabling us to do it. It’s not some sickly thing that has no meaning. It comes out of strength.

Now, in the Strong’s Concordance, it has another meaning here, prautes, “displaying the right blend of force and gentleness.” In other words, it is strength in gentleness. It means “to avoid unnecessary harshness, yet without compromising or being too slow to use necessary force.” For the believer, prautes is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, and can never be something humanly accomplished. It’s only through the strength of the power of God within us. Amen?

Let’s bring sweetness, even when it’s so hard to do, ladies. Can you do it? No, you can’t. You can’t do it. You could only do it through Christ, who dwells within you, who gives you His strength to do it. When everything is not sweet, you can bring sweetness into anger, sweetness into chaos, sweetness into hatred. You can bring it by the power of God, in the strength of God that is within you.

c)     HONEY SOOTHES AND HONEY HEALS

Honey is a healing property. Did you know that? Honey heals the body, and honey heals the soul, because He heals us through His Word. Our task as mothers is to soothe and heal heartaches, the broken-hearted.

We all know life’s not perfect, and there will always be conflicts in family life. However, instead of being part of the conflict, our job is to bring healing and soothing and sweetness to the problem. That’s what we’re meant to do, is we’re making our land, this land, where we live in our home, making it flow with honey.

Now I want to tell you, ladies, some very interesting stories about how honey can heal the body. Of course, knowing it can heal physically, we know it can heal spiritually. I cut my heel, or my ankle, somewhere down there, on a sharp door. It got very infected. After a while, I began seeing that this wasn’t getting better, and it was starting to ache. A red line was coming up my leg.

Oh, wow! That’s time to go to the Emergency. So, I popped up and said, “I think you’ll need to give me some antibiotics to get rid of this.” They did, and I began to take these antibiotics. They didn’t touch it! They didn’t even touch it.

Just at the time, I was meeting with a friend, and she gave me a little gift. It was a jar of manuka honey. I said, “I can’t believe it! Why didn’t I think of manuka honey? This is my answer to my foot. Thank you so much!” She didn’t even know that I had this infected foot.

It was the answer, because I remembered how my mother had cured a very, very bad ulcer on her leg that had come through ulcerated veins. She had varicose veins and she had developed an ulcer, and nothing could get rid of it. It was eating into her leg. Then she found out about manuka honey. She began to put it on this ulcer, and it healed up beautifully.

Now, what is this manuka honey? It’s not just normal honey. This is a honey that comes from the manuka tree in New Zealand. Back when my mother was healed, we were living in New Zealand, of course. In fact, where we lived, we lived in a little town called Te Puke. Now, Darlene, my lovely transcriber, Te Puke is spelled T-E  P-U-K-E. It’s a Maori word, meaning “the hill.”

And just very near us, just a few miles away, was another little town called Paengaroa. There at Paengaroa was the Comvita store. We were forever passing this little store, and there was hardly anything else at Paengaroa, just a few families we knew that lived there, and the little store, and this Comvita shop which sold manuka honey.

Back in those days, we didn’t think anything of it. Manuka was all around us. It was just like a shrub that grew everywhere in New Zealand. We didn’t, back then, even know the powers of manuka honey! They have now discovered them. Now manuka goes worldwide. In fact, this little wee store that I would pass when I was a child, they’re most probably multi-multi-millionaires now! Because of the miraculous powers of manuka honey!

Anyway, as I said, I put this manuka honey on and it miraculously healed my foot. It miraculously healed my mother. It’s amazing, actually, when I think back. Here, as a child, I grew up in this little town of Te Puke. I didn’t know that manuka honey that was sold nearby would become famous.

Nor did I know that this little town of Te Puke would become the kiwi fruit capital of the world! Of course, you all know what kiwi fruit are. When I was growing up as a child, we didn’t even call them kiwi fruit. They were called “Chinese gooseberries.” We had huge vines of Chinese gooseberries growing outside my bedroom window.

In the time of harvest, my father would fill boxes and boxes and boxes of them to send away, just to get rid of them, make a bit of money on them. We had so many! They were so prolific. They seemed to grow so well where we lived there that eventually people began to realize this. They began to grow them for the world.

I remember they started up, at Number Three Road in Te Puke. It became the Kiwi Fruit Road, and all these people who bought land up Number Three Road and began to grow the kiwi fruit. They changed the name to “kiwi fruit” because kiwi is the emblem of New Zealand. The kiwi is a little bird. It’s a flightless bird and a nocturnal bird. People who come from New Zealand are called “Kiwis.”

So, they called it “kiwi fruit.” It began to expand across the world, and they all became millionaires. My father used to say, “Oh, why didn’t I buy some land up Number Three Road and become a kiwi fruit grower?” But there were some negatives, and that, sadly, many of those kiwi fruit growers, quite a lot of them did get cancer because of all the sprays that they used on the fruit. Maybe that wouldn’t have been a good thing after all.

But anyway, in this little, wee town of Te Puke, we ended up with the Paengaroa Comvita Company, and then the kiwi fruit became the kiwi fruit capital of the world.

Now, I want to tell you two more amazing stories, ladies, about manuka honey that have happened in our own family. This is something that you can use in your family. If your children have cuts, they have anything that happens to them, goodness me, this is a miraculous remedy that you can use.

I have sitting with me, right at this moment, in fact, he’s just crept up the stairs, because I called and said, “Arrow, come! I want you to share this testimony about what happened to you.” Arrow had this pretty bad accident where he was fixing his sister-in-law’s car, and it blew up in his face! Tell us what happened, Arrow.

Arrow Johnson: I got a free facial! It was very, very painful.

Nancy: How did it actually happen?

Arrow: I actually don’t remember how it happened, but I know the radiator blew up in my face. I burned off all the skin on my face. It was very painful. It was like 30 minutes, I couldn’t see. As soon as I opened my eyes, my hands were full of skin from my face. It was like, oh, it was really bad. That happened, and then my mom was like, of course, she remembered you telling her. . .

Nancy: But even before we get to the honey, you did amazing. Didn’t you put . . .

Arrow: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. My dad told me, yeah. I went straight to a mud puddle and stuck my face in a mud puddle. I couldn’t see, so my brother had to lead me over to it and tell me to stick my head in it. Then we got a hose. Actually, the hose had been sitting in the sun, so all the water was superhot. And I sprayed my face with hot water. That was painful, too.

Then, as soon as it got cold, we stuck a bowl, had a snorkel, and I stuck my head in the cold water for like. . . We live in the country, you know? The ambulance took about 30-something minutes to get here. So, I had plenty of time to get that cold water on my face.

Then, after the ambulance came, they were trying to get me full of drugs and random stuff. My mom was trying to get manuka honey on my face at that time. As soon as they got to the hospital, they scraped my face to make sure it wouldn’t blister. It was very painful.

When I got out of the hospital, we started doing cucumber juice. I’d drink like a gallon of cucumber juice a day. I’m not a huge fan of cucumbers anymore. [laughter] Then I think I did about two or three weeks, probably, of just having manuka honey on my face the whole time. It helped so much. It was a little painful, having the manuka honey on the fresh skin, but it was one of the things that healed my face, well, that, and prayer.

Nancy: Yes, yes. Lots and lots of prayer, because it was unbelievable. In fact, we had to tie Arrow’s, and he asked himself, to have his hands tied down so he couldn’t touch his face, because you just naturally want to go and scratch.

Arrow: Because the manuka honey will make your skin heal so fast that it starts to itch because all your cells are coming back, or whatever. So, it starts being really itchy, because it’s healing so well.

Nancy: Yes, yes. And they used a very high grade manuka honey. You can get manuka honey in different grades. It goes up higher and higher. Of course, the higher it is, the more expensive it is. But I noticed that jar of yours, Arrow, and it was 20+ UMF, which is the Unique Manuka Factor. And it was 830 MGO, which is the methylglyoxal, which is the chemical that’s in the honey that is so powerful. You had the 830.

Arrow: I knew the stuff that I was running with was pretty high grade. It was expensive, but it was very worth it. Yeah, for sure.

Nancy: It was amazing! If you could see Arrow’s face today, it is absolutely perfection! There’s not one scar, not one blemish, not one thing. Without that, it could have been pretty horrible.

So, that is just such a miracle, and of course, we were all praying. We watched this miracle happen, of God actually healing through these things that He has made! Because he makes these!

Arrow: Yeah, yeah. It was cool to see. Didn’t Granddad Bowen have manuka honey, right? He had a manuka honey farm?

Nancy: Well, no, he didn’t have a farm, but he did honey, of course, so yes, he did manuka honey. I was telling the ladies before, because you’d just come up the stairs, how that just a few miles from where we lived was the original Comvita store where they sold manuka honey. And we never really thought much about it at all.

Arrow: Now it’s super-sought after. Everybody wants it.

Nancy: Oh, absolutely! Well, thank you for coming over and sharing that with us, Arrow. Arrow is my wonderful grandson. He’s rather short. He’s only 6 foot 8. [laughter] He’s reached the same height as my eldest son, who is 6 foot 8. Or are you taller?

Arrow: I’m taller. Yeah, I’ve taken the crown from him.

Nancy: He’s just beat him! Wow! I think, that at the moment anyway, Arrow is holding the record. I don’t know of anyone else in the fam.

Arrow: If somebody tries to take it, I’ll go to Japan and get my bones stretched! [laughter]

Nancy: It’s been so good. Thanks so much, Arrow. Well, ladies, we’ve come to the end of this podcast. We’ll pray together.

“Lord, we thank You so much for all the things that You create for us, the healing foods, the healing herbs, the healing things. We’re filled with wonderful healing remedies. Thank You, Lord, for this manuka honey, which is so miraculous, Lord. We thank You for it. I trust that it may be a blessing to many who are listening, too.

“We bless You today, Lord God, in the Name of Jesus. I bless everyone that’s listening with Your blessing, and with Your favor, and Lord, with learning more and more of Your ways, so that we can live in the fullness of all that You have for us. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Testimonies from other mothers who have found the wonderful remedy of honey:

HUGE FEVER BLISTER. Applying honey a couple of times a day caused the swelling to go down tremendously.

Very affective on wounds to prevent infection.

ACNE. Can be cured with honey.

STINGING NE3TTLES. Immediate relief from burning pain after applying honey.

ARTHRITIS. Honey can relieve the symptoms.

Use honey for the heart muscle.

Take at night to have a good night’s sleep.

HAY FEVER. Eat honey daily from local hives.

Helps with MIGRAINE HEADACHES.

Use for EYE INFECTIONS, CATARACTGS, and GLAUCOMA.

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 199: THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD, Part 10

The land of motherhood is a land that flows with milk, nourishment, and nurturing. Jesus used the word "suckling mother" to describe "female." What does this mean to us in the land of motherhood? We talk about a study of the Dogon tribe in Mali, Africa. Surprising information.

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies. We’re back together again, talking about this wonderful land of motherhood. The description we’re currently talking about is that it is a land that flows with milk and honey. God speaks about this phrase, this description, 20 times in the Word of God.

Numbers 13:27: “We came into this land, and SURELY it flows with milk and honey.”

This is a figurative phrase. Well, some commentators say that it’s figurative and others say it’s literal. I believe it is both. One Talmud description says, “Milk flows from the goats’ udders, and honey flows from the dates and the figs.” Other commentators say that it also would have been honey from the bees as well.

But really, the description is trying to tell us that it’s a land that’s overflowing with provisions. It’s abundant. It’s all that you’ll ever desire. Even before they get the wonderful promises that it’s a land that flows with milk and honey, it’s a land!

Can you believe it? Ladies, they are coming into a land that they’re going to own themselves. It’s their land, the land that God has promised to them for an everlasting possession. They hadn’t had land for . . .  How many years had they been slaves in Egypt? And then wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. They never knew what it was like to even own land! But now God is giving them land. How amazing!

This was God’s gift to them. Do you know, ladies, God loves to give us a home to live in? God is a dwelling God, and He wants us to dwell in homes. It’s the way He planned for us to live. He was the creator of the first home back in Genesis, the Garden of Eden. God created this beautiful home.

Even when the children of Judah were taken to Babylon, and they were taken as captives, even as captives in the land of Babylon, God came to them with an amazing word in Jeremiah 29. He spoke it through the prophet Jeremiah, saying that this word was from the Lord God of Hosts. He said: “I want you to build homes and dwell in them. I want you to plant gardens and eat the fruit of them. I want you to have children and grandchildren.”

And here they are, captives in a foreign land. But that was still God’s ultimate plan for them. It is God’s plan for us to have a home. It is the opposite to what is the cabal and these people who planned this “Great Reset “that they are trying to bring in and trying to put upon the world at this time where they say, the No. 1 thing in this great reset is, “You will own nothing, and you will be happy.”

Of course, that is not true! Because God created us to own and to have our home. Well, of course, not everybody owns their own home. But it is a blessing from God. Even when we think we are in our own home it’s often owned by the bank.

But ultimately, that is God’s ultimate plan. When the blessing of God was on Israel, and they were walking in God’s ways, it says: “Every man sat under his own vine and his own fig tree” (Micah 4;4). That is the ultimate. Here God is taking them into their own land. It’s a land that overflows with milk and honey.

Let’s talk about the overflowing of milk, shall we? Of course, it would have been literal. They would have been getting milk to nourish them from the goats. Maybe mostly goats. I’m not even sure if they had cows. Maybe they did. But goats and sheep were plentiful. You can get milk from both the goats and the sheep.

Maybe some of you go to a goat farm and you get goat’s milk for your family. We love goat’s milk. We also can get wonderful raw cow’s milk just down the road from where we live. In the summertime we can get the goat’s milk. At the moment there’s no goat’s milk. They’ve all dried off. But, oh, I love it when it comes back! And I can make my kefir out of the goat’s milk. Goat’s milk kefir is so amazing! It’s just, oh! I think it makes so much better kefir than the cow’s milk.

And then sheep’s milk. I’ve never drunk sheep’s milk, but you can get sheep’s milk. I guess you may have even bought sheep’s cheese. I do love sheep’s cheese, don’t you? Back in biblical days, of course, because they didn’t have refrigeration, and they lived in this hot climate, they would have made a lot of their milk into kefir and cheese and so on, like that. But that was plentiful.

But figuratively, milk always speaks of nourishing and nurturing. Milk gives sustenance to build healthy bodies. In this land of motherhood, it’s also a land of milk. We begin right when a little baby is born and comes to our breast. The first thing we do is put that baby to the breast and give milk to this baby. That’s a very big thing in the land of motherhood. It’s not something to be despised. It is a very powerful thing.

I want to talk a little bit more about this today. We all know it experientially, but sometimes it’s good to understand these things from the Word of God, because then we have a real solid foundation for what we believe. Not only what we do, but what we believe, especially in this hour of great deception.

Now, let’s go, shall we, to Matthew 19. In Matthew 19, the Pharisees came to Jesus, and they were tempting Him. In Matthew 19:3-5, they say to Jesus, “Is it lawful for a man to put away or to divorce his wife for every cause? And Jesus answered, and He said to them, have ye not read that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female? And said, “For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh.”

We’re so familiar with those words. We often don’t take too much notice of them. Of course, we know God created male and female. But let’s look at what this word really means in the Greek in which this New Testament was written.

In the New Testament, there are two different words for “women.” The most common word is gune. That’s used mostly, in fact, it’s used 221 times in the New Testament! It simply means “a woman of any age, whether a virgin or married or a widow.”

But then there is another word. This word is not used very much at all. It is the word thelus. The word thelus comes from the root word thelazo. Thelazo means, listen for it, this word means “to suckle, to nipple.” Have you ever used that term? Well, here it is in a translation of this word. “To nipple, to use the nipple for the purpose for which it was created.”

The noun simply means, “a suckling mother.” Mothers who are in their childbearing years, having babies, are called “suckling” mothers. Babies who are nursing at the breast are called “sucklings.” This word, thelazo, is used six times in the Bible, thelus, five times. So, not so much as gune.

I guess this is because it’s not encompassing every woman, because single women are not going to be nursing a baby at the breast. Women who are past menopause are not going to be nursing a baby at the breast.

But the amazing thing here, dear ladies, is that Jesus chose to use this word. He didn’t use gune. He could have easily used that word, but no. He used the word thelus, meaning “to suckle.” He said, “This is truly what it means to be female, and this is how God created women in the beginning.” He created them female, thelus, “to nipple, to suckle.” Ultimately, this is one of the greatest things that we were created to do! To suckle a baby at the breast.

I want to remind you of this, ladies. Some of you, may be nursing your baby as you are listening to this now. There may be other mothers who have had difficulty in nursing their baby, or some who not even bothered to try. But I believe with all my heart, when God begins to give us babies, we should seek to nurse these babies from the breast because our body was created to do this very thing!

Now, there’s another word in the New Testament and it’s the word thaumazo. It has a totally different meaning. It comes from these root words, and it means, “to be wonderized, to marvel, to be gripped with wonder and astonishment at the view of something wonderful and marvelous.” This word is used 46 times in the New Testament.

It’s not talking about a nursing mother, but the word comes from that original word, thele, from which we get thelazo, and then we get thelus, these words, these derivatives that come from the original root.

I think that’s interesting, because as I was thinking about that, I thought, “You know, it is a marvelous thing.” It is a wonderful thing to nurse a baby at the breast. We take it for granted. But just think of the miracle, that we put a baby to the breast, and God miraculously enables the mother to pour, to flow, from her breast, this glorious, nutritious, perfect food for this baby! It is a wonder. It is a marvel. I think we should see how glorious it is. And talk about flowing with milk, if you are a new mom, you know what that’s all about, don’t you? When from your breast, milk doesn’t just trickle out, it gushes out! Especially when you first begin to nurse a baby, it’s gushing everywhere, all over the place! And you do everything in your power to try to stop it! And while you’re nursing from one breast, it’s gushing out the other side! But you soon settle down and baby and you begin to fit one another. But it is amazing, isn’t it?

This is what Jesus chose to call women: female, thelus, a mother who nipples, who nurses her baby at the breast.

We go back to the Old Testament. In the Hebrew, back in Genesis 21:7, it’s talking about how Sarah miraculously gave birth to Isaac. She says, this is what she says: “Who would have said unto Abraham that Sarah should give suck?” She’s talking about having a baby, but this is the language that she uses. It’s so miraculous, so wonderful. She can’t believe that she’s actually nursing a baby at her breast.

This is how she is describing motherhood. This is a description of motherhood. Therefore, dear mothers, in this land of motherhood we’re talking about, and in this land where God is giving you babies and you are nursing them at the breast, embrace this beautiful thing with all your heart. Begin to realize, “I’m a nursing mother! I’m a suckling mother!”

Now, when I started out in motherhood, I didn’t know what I was doing! I didn’t have a clue. I had lots and lots of wrong advice. I was told that I must only feed my baby every four hours. Oh goodness me! That was the most terrible time of my motherhood because it didn’t work!

I would try to feed my baby and do what these “old wives” told me. Every four hours! But my baby would wake up after two hours! But I’m not allowed to feed this baby until four hours! What am I going to do? This baby is screaming! I’m just about screaming. I’m upset. I don’t know what do to! How can I make this baby happy?

How ridiculous! And yet, if my baby wakes and it wants me, why aren’t I nursing it? Well, I didn’t understand that at the beginning. It was just ridiculous. I didn’t know how to be a real mother.

It wasn’t until time went along, and I realized that, of course, this is how God created me. This is what I’m meant to do! If my baby wakes, I nurse my baby! It’s the greatest way to make your baby happy.

Because nursing a baby is not just feeding a baby.

Nursing a baby is mothering your baby!

You’re most probably familiar with Isaiah 66, the last chapter in Isaiah. Beautiful description of a nursing mother here. Let me share it with you. Even if you know it, it’s so wonderful to read it again. I just love this passage. It was when I saw this passage in the Word of God that it set me free to understand how you nurse a baby. It’s amazing! Every single thing is in the Word of God. Everything is there.

So, in Isaiah 66, God is likening Israel, Jerusalem in particular, the city of Jerusalem, to a nursing mother! As he writes about Jerusalem, he writes about her as a nursing mother, so we begin to see how God looks upon a nursing mother!

What does he say? “Rejoice ye with Jerusalem and be glad with her, all ye that love her. Rejoice with her, all ye that mourn for her, that ye may suck and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations, that ye may milk out and be delighted with the abundance of her glory. For thus saith the Lord, behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the gentiles like a flowing stream. Then shall ye suck, ye shall be borne upon her sides and be dandled upon her knees, as one whom his mother comforted. So will I comfort you, and you shall be comforted.”

Oh, what a glorious description! Do you notice the words there? The baby, yes, the baby will be satisfied. The baby will be consoled. The baby will be delighted with your milk that is flowing out. As they suck, they will be comforted.

We see the words, “console, delight, satisfy, comfort.” Do we read anything there about feeding? No? There’s not one word about feeding your baby. No! It’s all about satisfying, consoling, comforting. You see, that’s what it means to nurse a baby.

When your baby wakes, cries, you put the baby to the breast to satisfy that baby. He wakes, maybe your baby’s crying and you don’t know why he’s crying. You just put the baby to the breast, to console your baby, to comfort your baby.

Your baby may wake up half an hour, one hour after you put it down to sleep. Well, it doesn’t matter! Just feed your baby again! You are a suckling mother. That’s who you are. As you suckle, the more you suckle, the more motherly you will become.

Let’s look at a few more things, shall we? I want to give you a little illustration, because we are living in a modern age where many, many young people, many young mothers, have no idea of what is even normal. They’re living in an age where deception is normal, so they don’t understand normality.

Now if we go back 60 years, 100 years ago, when did young girls begin menstruating? Back then, they mostly started menstruating at about 16 years of age, sometimes even 17. OK, let’s look at our modern era. Many girls today start menstruating at 10 and 11 years of age. Why are they starting so early?

Well, the body needs about 12% body fat to survive, to barely survive, but, of course, you need more to thrive. Usually once a girl gets to about 20% body fat, she will begin her periods. But today, because so many people are living off fast foods that are all cooked in fat, bad fat, not good fat. There is good fat.

But there’s bad fat. All fast foods are cooked in bad fat. Yes, they’re eating all these carbs, and they’re eating all these chips, and soda, and all this junk. In fact, goodness, when I grew up, every person was skinny! Now most people are, I shouldn’t say fat, should I? But fatter [laughter] than what they used to be!

But it is true! It’s unbelievable. You look back on photos, and I can look back on photos of my childhood, and life back then, growing up. You never even ever saw a fat person! They were all skinny! I can remember as a child being skinny as a rake! You could see every bone in my body. But I was healthy.

It was the way we lived. We never had heard of fast foods. There were no fast foods. You just lived from your garden. You didn’t have any of these extra things. There never were snacks that are available today. So, everybody was skinny, but they were healthy. Amazing!

Girls didn’t begin periods so early. Now the statistics are today that, because girls will start menstruating early, and then they get married. Then they fit in with the society today, and have their 1.9 children, which is the statistic for America. In European countries, it’s even much lower, right down to 1.2.

Maybe they are having two children. They’re hoping for their boy and their girl. And then that’s done! Woohoo, finished for that! So, they are menstruating up to 450 times in their lives. God never intended that. A normal mother, if she happens to live in normality (not many live in normality today) they would only menstruate about 100 times in their whole life.

Now, I read a very interesting story awhile back. It was about this scientist whose name was Beverly Strassman. She went to Africa. Let’s see, what country was it? Yes, it was in Mali, the Dogon tribe in Mali.

They were a tribe who had never been touched by the west and all our western ideas of motherhood. They mothered innately, just how God put it in them! They didn’t have any books to read. They didn’t have any lectures. They just mothered instinctively. She went to discover, well, what do they do, and what was it like?

She actually found that, over there, without all our western ways, the girls began their first period at about 16 years of age. Then, during their mothering years, they gave birth about eight or nine times. That was pretty average.  

No, it wasn’t 22 times, like some people think. “Oh, if I trust God, and don’t try to stop having babies, I’ll have 20 children!” Well, no, it doesn’t work like that. Here’s these people, and this tribe, way out in the wilds. They don’t have any birth control. Goodness, they’ve never heard of it! But they only have about eight or nine babies.

Oh, another thing she found was that, as they had their babies, they would just nurse their babies. Of course, they nursed their babies instinctively. They’ve never been told anything about you have a four-hourly schedule or anything like that. Oh, goodness me, they’d never heard of it!

They mother instinctively. When their baby cries, they put it to the breast! They sleep with their babies at night. Their babies are nursing off and on through the night. They most probably used to have their babies in a baby carrier. Most people who are tribal people all carry their babies in some kind of carrier they have. Or they learn how to tie their baby onto them.

They work in the fields, and they’re working, but their baby is with them non-stop! Their baby is nursing on and off all day and all night. So, menstruation doesn’t start until about the baby is about 20 months old. That’s nearing two years. All that time, total natural contraception.

If they were to conceive straightaway, after they started menstruating, and, of course, you don’t always conceive straightaway. But if they did, they would be having a baby about two-and-a-half years apart. It could well be even longer, because not every mother conceives straightaway.

You see, without having all our man-made ideas, they mothered innately. It was also beautiful. She also found that these people also only menstruated about 100 times in all their lives. Well, right up, of course, in their mothering years, up to menopause.

Here’s a couple of quotations from that scientific study that this woman did, studying them. She was there for quite a few years, studying them. She says here, “What we think of as normal, frequent menses is, in evolutionary terms abnormal. Women who subject themselves to 400 menses means that their bodies are subject to changes and stresses for which they were not designed.”

It continues again, “Incessant ovulation serves no purpose, except to increase the occurrence of abdominal pain, mood shifts, migraines, endometriosis, fibroids, and anemia, the last of which is one of the most serious health problems in the world today.”

So, my lovely ladies, to embrace who you are as a suckling mother brings great blessings to you in every way! Physically, all these, why are we having such epidemic of female cancers? Of the breast, and the endometrium, the cervix, and so on. It’s because of atrophy, and because the way God has created us, where we’re not even using it!

God intended us to be birthing mothers and suckling mothers. You’re suckling your baby today? Embrace this lifestyle and understand that nursing your baby is not every now and then. It doesn’t matter how many times your baby nurses. If you’re a nursing mother, you need to have your baby with you at night because your baby wants to nurse from you at night.

Now, many people will say, “Oh, goodness me! I get my period back straightaway! And I’m nursing a lot too!” Well, sometimes people . . . I remember talking to one lady, and she said, “Yes, I’m just a natural mother! I nurse my baby lots. But I still got my period back.” And I said to her, “Well, look, just tell me, do you nurse your baby through the night?” “Oh, no, I’ve got my baby sleeping through the night.”

Well, if you’ve got your baby sleeping through the night, your period will come back, because it’s the amount of sucking that holds back the ovulation! The more you suckle, the more you hold back ovulation. The less you suckle, it comes back. It’s just as simple as that.

Then, I remember saying to this lady, “How much does your baby nurse during the day?” “Well! She nurses about seven or eight times! “Help! Goodness me, that’s nothing! When you’re a nursing mother, your baby might nurse twenty times a day, at least!

It’s just normal, because babies often don’t want to sit there and suck for half an hour. They just want a little bit and then they maybe just nap. Then they want more. It’s just a lifestyle.

I remember when I read this. It was quite a few years ago I read this study. I was reading it out to Serene. I think it was Breeze. Breeze is 12 years old now, but at that time, she was just 20 months old.

Serene said, “Wow, Mum! I’m right on cue!” Because little Breezy was just 20 months and her menstruation had just come back.

Because Serene is not a modern mother. She’s a back-to-the, what would we call it? She’s a back-to-the-beginning mother. She nurses her babies, oh, goodness me! Serene nurses her babies day and night. If you know Serene, you know she’s a psycho. She does everything to the ultimate.

So, when she’s a nursing mother, well! Her babies sleep with her, and they nurse all night. Her babies nurse so many times during the day. With all her babies, she’s always desperate! “Help! When am I going to get my period back so I can have another baby?” Because she has over two years, or up to three years, between her babies, just because of nursing, and not because she’s trying to stop! She wants to have another baby!

But I do have to pop in a little thing here. Yes, I know there are some moms who do nurse day and night, and their periods will come back earlier. I think it’s the day in which we are living. Even all the hormones that we get in our food today, and we’re living in such an artificial society, I think that affects the hormones of many mothers. But this is the way God intended it to work.

Well, I’ve got more things to say, yes! About the suckling mother. But already this session has come to an end. So, we’ll close here and talk a little bit more about it next time. Even though it’s taking us a while to get through this land, that doesn’t matter, because it’s the land we live in! It doesn’t really matter how long it’s going to take to take this drive through the land. There’s going to be many more exciting things yet.

“Father, we thank You so much again for Your wonderful Word, and how it shows us how You created us, and how it shows us how You want us to live. Lord Jesus, You are the One Who called us “suckling mothers.” You said that this was how we were created in the beginning. This is how You created us. Lord, God, help us to embrace who we are, to embrace it to the full.

“I pray that You will bless every mother today, Lord, nursing mothers, and mothers who no longer have nursing babies. But bless them, Lord. I pray that Your blessing, and protection, and wisdom, and joy, and anointing will be on every mother as they nourish and nurture their families today. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell * www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If you have a moment, it would be lovely if you could email a little thank you letter to Darlene. She sacrifices much of her time to transcribe these podcasts for you and I know it would encourage her to know that you are blessed by her hard work. Thanks so much.

If you would like to learn more about breastfeeding and natural contraception, you will love t his book:

BREASTFEEDING AND FERTILITY

How to practice responsive breastfeeding to nourish and nurture your baby and discover God’s design to naturally delay fertility.

By Jenny Silliman

Go to: Breastfeeding and Fertility (mybigcommerce.com)