Above Rubies Daily Encouragement Blogs

A downcast face will lock you into tiredness or anxiety. A happy face will ignite a spark of joy in your heart. A miserable face will sink you into self-pity.

Put on a smile, even if it is the last thing you feel like doing, and you will feel your heavy burden lift.

Proverbs 15:12 MLB says, "A happy heart makes the face look sunny."

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

Do you realize that you create your own world right where you are? You have the power to make your marriage, mothering, and home pulsate with life. It all depends on your attitude.

If you think that mothering is insignificant, you'll be frustrated. But, when you realize you were born for this task, embrace it, and put your whole heart in it, you'll never have another boring moment!

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

You can always find things to complain about. However, you can also find things to be grateful about, too. Life is all in how you look at it. You will enjoy life if you are filled with gratitude and thankfulness. You will be miserable if you groan and complain. You choose.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

Dear mother, do not be lured away by the humanistic voices all around you, in the church and in the world. Listen to God's voice. Listen to your heart. You are needed for your children. No one else will ever love and care for your children like you do. No one else will ever be sensitive to their physical needs, and especially their innermost needs as you are.

Someone else can always replace you in your career, but no one can adequately replace you as the mother of the children God has given you. You were born for this mission. It is your destiny. You are in the perfect will of God.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

I am one of those people that need to wear an apron when I am preparing food. I am not like some women who can do messy things and still stay clean. I remember when we lived in Australia and were painting our new church. It was just as well I wore old clothes as I ended up with paint all over me. A friend arrived in beautiful clothes, high heels, and even her hat to match! I thought she had come to say Hi. But, no. She'd come to join the team. She began to paint and never got a drop of paint on her! I guess she doesn't have to wear an apron in her home.

Not me. I have to make sure I wear an apron. However, there is an apron that God wants us all to wear. 1 Peter 5:5 (Williams) says, "You must all put on the servant's apron of humility to one another, because God opposes the haughty but bestows His unmerited favor on the humble."

When we dress each morning, it is important to also put on our "servant's apron." The apron of humility. Oh what a mighty difference this makes in the home and in our relationship with our husband and children. It’s not always easy to wear, is it? But this is the apron that will make you look the most beautiful – and it is precious in God’s sight too.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

God's love in our hearts is not "just enough." He wants His love that is "shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost" to spill over! The meaning of "shed abroad" is "to pour forth, to gush out, to spill." Is God's love getting out of your heart or are you blocking it? Perhaps it is just trickling out. God wants it to pour out.

1 Corinthians 13 in the Williams translation reads, "Love is SO patient and SO kind. Love never boils with jealously; it never boasts, is never puffed with pride; it does not act with rudeness, or insist upon its rights; it never gets provoked, it never harbors evil thoughts; is never glad when wrong is done, but always glad when truth prevails. It bears up under anything. It exercises faith in everything. It keeps up hope in everything. It gives us power to endure in anything. Love never fails."  

This is the amazing kind of love that is shed abroad in our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. Our human love gives up, runs out, and doesn’t have these capabilities. Draw from God’s supernatural love that is in you because the Holy Spirit lives in you (Romans 5:5).

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

Today Colin and I leave for the UK to speak at Retreats and Seminars throughout UK. We would value your prayers, most of all for God's anointing as we speak, but also for safety, health and energy. Thank you so much. We appreciate your prayers very much.

We are also taking our grand-daughter, Chalice with us. This is her Christmas gift from her parents, Sam and Serene. Chalice loves to read books about Scotland and they thought it would be such a wonderful opportunity for her to see it in real life! Now I must get back to packing.

I didn't get much time yesterday--church in the morning and last night we had a big family gathering to celebrate the 50th birthday of our oldest son, Wesley. It was a great night of food, fun, and fellowship and of course, as is the tradition in our family, loads of speeches as everyone shared memories of Wes's life.

We'll be back 28 March.

~ Blessings from Nancy

"Being cheerful keeps you healthy. It is slow death to be gloomy all the time" (Proverbs 17:22 GNT).

"In the name of Jesus Christ, who was never in a hurry, we pray O God, that You will slow us down for we know that we live too fast. With all of eternity before us, make us take time to live--time to get acquainted with You, time to enjoy Your blessings, and time to each other."

~ Prayer by Peter Marshall

Each week in our home we learn a passage of Scripture. We have currently been memorizing Psalm 119:7-11 which starts off with "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul." This word "converting" is amazing. It is the Hebrew word "shuwb" and is translated 100 different English words in the King James Bible. It is the same word that is used in Malachi 4:4-6, the prophecy about the hearts of the fathers being TURNED back to children. It is the same word as Psalm 23:3, "He RESTORES my soul."

It has such a full meaning. It means to "turn back again, to restore, renew, revive, and refresh." It also means "to bring back home again." I love that, don't you? It is God's Word that brings us back home--into the fold of His will, His Word. His thoughts and His ways. We are only truly home when we understand who God created us to be and walk in it with all our hearts. We are "at home" when our hearts and minds are in tune with Him.

"The Scriptures," a very accurate translation of the Bible, translates it this way, "Bringing back the being," It's easy to follow the humanistic thinking and ways of society which are antithetical to God's ways. When we come back to God's Word, meditate in it, and embrace it, we will know who He wants us to be in our very being. And we'll have peace.

Dear mother, you are "home" when you embrace your maternal anointing because He has given it to you by divine creation. It is who He created you to be. You are "home" when you stop striving and relax in His perfect will.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

My husband reads Proverbs 31 every Friday night at our meal table. Last Friday evening my lovely grand-daughter, Meadow mentioned how that "all the days of her life" means exactly what it says and how it applies to a daughter even before she is married. She will do her future husband good and bless him "all the days of her life" by praying for him and keeping herself pure for him until their wedding day.

Thank you, Meadow, for this beautiful thought.

Blessings from Nancy

Your children need YOU, dear mother. You can be indispensible to a career, but not to your children.

Dear Mother, you are accomplishing great things in your home as you make your home a sanctuary for the living God and train and nurture your precious children in this God-anointed atmosphere.

Titus 2:5 exhorts young women to be "keepers at home." These words do not relegate you to an inferior position or deprive you of something greater you could be doing. THIS IS THE GREATEST WORK YOU CAN BE DOING.

It is not stagnate. It is not insignificant. You are ACCOMPLISHING. Each different Bible translation for this phrase gives more understanding.

You are a home KEEPER (KJB)
You are a home MAKER (NKJB, HCSB, AMP, CEB)
You are a home MANAGER (OJB)
You are a home WORKER (ESV, NCV, WEB).

Do you notice that these words are verbs? They make things happen. You are building a home and family to strengthen this nation and bless the world.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

Preparing meals is one of our biggest tasks as mothers. Each new day we have to plan, prepare, and provide wholesome food for children's bodies. It is a negligent mother who does not care what her children eat. It is an ignorant mother who thinks that endlessly cooking and preparing nutritious meals is wasting her time. It is a powerful part of her mothering.

It is also just as important to plan and prepare food for their souls and minds. It is a careless mother who lets them have unlimited electronic access and does not lead them to food that nourishes and stimulates their minds.

However, most important of all, she plans, prepares, and provides fresh food each day for their spirits. We are responsible to feed our children three nourishing meals each day, but what about their spirits? Are we faithful to nourish them as well? Or, are our children growing tall in body, but with tiny starving spirits?

Making Family Devotions happen each day in your home will provide opportunity to nourish their spirits. Did you notice I said, "Making it happen"? Yes, it doesn't just happen. You as the mother of the home have to make it happen. You prepare the way for your husband to read God's Word to your children.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Proverbs 9:10). And we certainly need constant wisdom as mothers, don't we?

If we feel a kindly thought,
Warm and helpful, then we ought
Not to keep it close and tight,
But instead, with all our might
LET'S SAY SO!

If we feel a thought of praise
For our neighbor's words or ways,
Which should cheer him on his way,
Streak with gold his hours of grey--
LET'S SAY SO!

But so often, what a shame!
Though we're free enough with blame,
Out of shyness, out of pride,
Help and praise we somehow hide--
LET'S SAY SO!

Some day, when it's little use,
We shall let our praises loose,
We shall wish we'd mentioned how
Kind we felt, then why not now?
LET'S SAY SO!

Mother, you are the guardian of your little flock. It's a 24/7 job! 1 Peter 5:8 tells us we must "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." He wants to devour your children. He wants to get hold of their minds and infiltrate them with subtle deceptions against God and His truth. He wants to mar their spirits and take away their purity. He wants to destroy their souls.

This is why Satan hates mothers being in the home. They stand in his way. He wants them out of the way so he can do his work. He wants their children in day cares and the public education system that is becoming more and more foreign to everything that is biblical.

King David cried out that if we want our sons to be like plants grown up in their youth (mature and steadfast) and our daughters to be strong and beautiful like the pillars in a palace we have get rid of all that is foreign to God and His Word (Psalm 144:11-13).

Paul's prayer for the Thessalonian believers is a great vision for your children. Pray and make it your passion that their "whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

Many times you face situations that get your head spinning and your stomach tied up in knots. How do you get out of this turmoil? God gives an answer in Isaiah 26:3-4, "You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee."

The answer is to STAY your mind upon the Lord. IMMOVABLE! UNWAVERING! That's easier said than done. Your thoughts quickly go back to your problem and you begin to worry again. We must learn to get into the habit of STAYING our minds upon the Lord, leaning upon Him and His promises, and trusting Him. The NLT says that peace comes to those whose "thoughts are FIXED" on the Lord.

FIXED means fixed, not swaying back and forth. Not giving the problem to the Lord and taking it back again. Leave it with the Lord. He can handle it far better than you. When you keep your mind and confession upon the Lord, He keeps you in perfect peace. The word in Hebrew is plural. It means "double peace, or peace-peace."

Le's read the rest of the Scripture, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he TRUSTS in thee. Trust ye in the lord forever: for in the Lord Jehovah is EVERLASTING STRENGTH."

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

We can confess one thing or the other. We can brood over and talk about the problems we are going through (which is what we usually tend to do), or we can choose to confess that God us with us.

God gives us such a wonderful promise in Isaiah 43:2, "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you., When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you." I hear many women confess how they are going through deep waters, or going through a fiery trial. The problem is that when we keep talking about our problems and difficulties we end up staying under them.

Did you notice something in this Scripture? God promises that when we go through the deep waters, that "I WILL BE WITH YOU." When we are enduring the fiery trial, He says, "YOU WILL NOT BE BURNED." We have to change our confession, "Oh God, I thank you that you are with me in this trial. You are bigger than this problem and I trust You!"

Your confession determines how you come through your trial. You can come out in victory, or with the smell of the fire upon you. When you confidently put your trust in the Lord, and CONFESS OUT LOUD that God is with you, it will turn your heart from the difficulties to the Lord. You may still be going through it, but you will go through it knowing His power and presence.

And when He is with you, who can be against you?

Blessings from Nancy Campbell