FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Podcast 47- How Can We Change the World- Part 13

Rocky: Welcome to the podcast, FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy: Hello ladies, daughters, mothers, and grandmothers. Lovely to be with you again today. We are now up to point number 14 on HOW DO WE CHANGE THE WORLD? We are talking about this as wives and mothers. We may not be out there in the corporate world, we may be hidden in our home, but I believe that we can be world changers.

NO. 14. DILIGENTLY EMBRACING MOTHERHOOD
God not only wants us to be mothers but to whole-heartedly embrace mothering. We are finding out that we don't really impact the world, or we don't impact anyone around us very much if we are ordinary and status-quo. No, it's only as we are more, as we are more than is necessary, we are abundant, we are over the top. This applies even in mothering. We can just do mothering and get by. I think this is how many women mother. They just get through each day. They somehow survive.

God wants us to thrive as mothers. He wants us to thrive in every aspect of our being, in every moment of our life. It's not so much what we are doing, but who we are being that causes us to impact other lives. As a mother, you have such a privilege to impact and influence lives. You have little ones all around you, some of you have middling ones, others of you have teens and bigger ones and some who are married with having their own children.

With every season of life, we are influencing; we are training; we are imparting. That which we pour into our children, it goes on. It goes into their lives, and then it continues into future lives, and into their marriages, and into the children that they train, and into future generations. As mothers, we are impacting not only this generation and not only this nation. Mothers are those who are truly the IMPACTORS OF THE NATION because we produce the next generation. The next generation will be how we have input it into their lives, how we have trained and mothered and nurtured and inspired our children. This determines what the next generation will be like. Mothers determine the destiny of nations.

Precious ladies, no matter who you are today, with little ones or big ones, you are determining the future of this nation. You have such a powerful role. Don't just try to survive and think, “Oh wow, I've got to look after my children, but I've got lots of other things I want to be doing.” No, this is the most important thing you will ever do.

I realize that more myself now at this stage and this season of my life than I did when I was in the throes of it. Yes, I can remember being in the throes of mothering. I think back to the days when I had my first children. I started off with my first baby and then seventeen months later, I had another two babies. I had three babies in seventeen months when I started out. At that time, it was an overwhelming time.

We had just come back from the Philippine Islands where we had been missionaries. We came back to New Zealand, and we were living out of suitcases for the first little while, and I was there suddenly with these three little babies, three little babies in “nappies”, as we use to call them Down Under. I have to remember to say diapers now here in the States, but that's what we used to call them. Back then, I didn't have the washing machines that we have today. I remember having an old ringer washing machine where you wash the clothes in that and then you have to put them through the ringer. We didn't have dryers, so I would have to wash and then put them through this ringer, turning it by hand, enough diapers for three little babies and then hang them out on the line.

We always hung our clothes out on the line. There weren't any dryers. New Zealand is a wet country. The Maori name for our country, New Zealand, is Aotearoa, meaning the Land of the Long White Cloud. Often when we fly back to New Zealand and we arrive in Auckland, it's like that. You look out, and there's this long cloud. Of course, we are not seeing the whole country. Even what we do see, there's this cloud over it because it rains a lot and that's why it's so beautiful and green. The green often is like as though it's luminous it's so green. It's so amazing. Even the vegetables are greener and brighter. I love going into a Greengrocer. Yes, that's what we used to call it. That's where you buy your greens and your vegetables, a Greengrocer, or even the supermarket. Seeing all the vegetables, I can’t believe how much brighter, greener they are. It's amazing. There's a different ozone layer down there in New Zealand.

In fact, I was talking today with some folks at lunchtime. One of my little granddaughters came in and she'd been playing out in the sun this morning. Her skin is quite white, and she wasn't sunburned, but she had this pinkness all over her skin. It was so lovely, just lovely to see her out in the sun. I was saying that back when I was a child, I was continually sunburned in the summer, and I was just covered in blisters. It was normal to have blisters all over my shoulders, and that's going out on a cloudy day.

You can be playing out on a cloudy day and come in and be sunburned and blistered. It's quite amazing. Whereas here where we live in Tennessee, our summers are so much hotter than we ever experienced in New Zealand, but we don't get sunburned the same. In fact, I can remember our children, some of our children were prone to freckles like I was as a child. I remember our eldest son. He was a redhead. He had so any freckles that all his freckles turned into one big blob there were so many of them. It's amazing now, he's in his fifties, and they've all faded now.

Pearl, our beautiful Pearl, and most of you know Pearl of Trim Healthy Mama, well, I don't know if she would like me telling her secrets, but when she was a little girl, she was covered in freckles. She hated her freckles. She got most of them when we lived in New Zealand. Then we moved to Australia for ten years, and Pearl was in her teens at the time. Although we lived just about right on the beach, the rolling breakers of the Pacific Ocean, I don't think Pearly hardly ever went to the beach. If she did, she was totally covered up because she didn't want any more freckles, and her whole life was just getting rid of her freckles. Well, I can’t see a freckle on her today. They do fade as you don't live out in the sun.

Anyway, I don't quite remember how I got talking about sun and freckles. I was talking about motherhood and back in those days when I'd hang out clothes on the line. I still love to hang my clothes out on the line. I'm one of those great believers in getting the sun on your clothes and airing them in the sun and letting the wonderful sun sanitize your clothes and deodorize them. In fact, I refuse to sleep on sheets that haven't been dried out in the sunshine. I always wait for a sunny day to wash my beautiful linen sheets because after many, many years of saving and saving and saving, I actually didn't buy them. God wonderfully blessed me, and someone gave them to me as a gift. I love linen sheets because linen is such a healthy fabric, along with wool, the healthiest fabric there is, and I certainly don't like to lie in synthetic sheets all night.

Synthetic clothes are not really good for us. I wear them myself, especially when I'm going out, although I try not to wear synthetic around home because it's not good for you. I think, I'm sleeping all night in sheets, so I'm now so happy to have my linen sheets, and I always dry them in the sun. They come in so aired and beautiful. I love to dry all my clothes in the sun, although I haven't even got a clothesline.

Now, Pearl and Serene know how much I love hanging out my clothes so a few years back for Christmas, they bought me a clothesline, a revolving one. One of those that we used to have in New Zealand where it is revolving around. Somehow, my loving, wonderful husband still hasn't had time to put it up. So, I hang my clothes on the deck. At least I get them out in the air.

I think I was getting onto that because when I had my eldest son, then the twins only seventeen months later, and after I had been washing all the diapers, I'd go out and hang them on this line. I'd take the twins out, and I had swings for them. I would hang one swing on the other side of the clothesline and one swing on the other to balance it out. As I twirled the clothesline to hang up the nappies and all the baby clothes and all the other clothes, they would swing around with me. That was how I kind of cared for them while I was hanging out the clothes. They were very overwhelming days.

In fact, I have to go back to those days to let you know that that's really where I got the revelation for God's heart for mothering. I didn't have it when I started. Well, of course I loved my children. Doesn't every mother love her children? When my first baby was born, I could not fathom this love I had for this baby; it was so incredible. I wondered how I would ever love another baby as much. How could you have enough love for another person when you love this one so much?

Of course, these babies came along, and you find then you have as much love for them. Although I loved these children, I still hadn't come to that place of loving motherhood. You see, when Colin and I got together and were engaged, it was while we were engaged that we, my husband, went out full time for God. We have really been serving the Lord full time since we were engaged. My vision was to change the world for God.

We got married, and we had our first baby and then these two babies came along, all unexpected. Can you believe it, that I didn't know I was having twins until I had them? Now today, that would be hard to believe because everyone has their ultrasounds every month to check their baby. Back in those days, we didn't have ultrasounds. In fact, I wasn't even checked until the end of my pregnancy. I conceived in the Philippine Islands, and we came back to New Zealand when I was about eight months pregnant. I went to a doctor. He said, “Well, everything looks fine. Actually, I'm going off to England so when you are ready to have the baby, go into the hospital. Whoever is on duty will look after you.” That's just what happened.

In fact, I went in a week early, and it was a false alarm and still nobody detected twins. Nobody looked at me and said, “Oh my, you look big. Do you think you could be having twins?” You see, I'm tall. I may have shrunk a little bit, but I am/was 6 ft, so nobody really noticed. Although, I did. I thought, “My, I've got some huge baby in here.” It wasn't until my due date that I went in again, yes, I was in labor again and lasted right till then for twins. They were listening to the heartbeat with the old doppler, and the nurse said, “Hmm, interesting, I can hear another heartbeat. Oh well, could be an echo. Let's just wait and see!”

Evangeline was born. They felt my tummy. “Oh yes, there's another one there,” they said. About five minutes later, Stephen was born. That was the first news that I ever had that we were having twins. Suddenly, here I was, with three little babies in four walls, living out of suitcases, washing nappies with this old ringer washing machine and didn't know anybody, just come back from the Philippine Islands, and I wondered what had happened to me. My husband, he kept going out serving the Lord, and I was stuck at home.

Do you know, ladies, at that time, I thought that I had got out of the will of God? “Oh God, what have I done with my life? I can no longer serve You. I'm stuck home with these three babies. Oh God, I'm sorry, what have I done?” I kept crying out to Him, and He began to show me. He began to reveal to me that I was in His perfect will, that He had chosen to create me a female in order to fulfill His destiny in me. It was as a female that He would be glorified in me. It was at that time that I realized, yes, this is who I am. I had never really embraced my femaleness before in my whole life. I'd always wanted an adventurous life, and I thought, “Oh my, the men have so much more adventure, and why am I a woman?” But God had to come, and He showed me, “I created you this way. I created you. Your body is created for childbearing. This is how I made your body. It's totally different to a male body. I have given you a womb; I have given you breasts. Every way I have created your body is for childbearing, even right down to your elbow.” They are shaped differently than man's; they are shaped in a way that is easy to cradle babies. Every part of a women's body is created for ultimate childbearing.

I didn't get this revelation all in one hit; it came little by little. As God showed it to me, I was able to embrace, for the very first time in my life, my femininity, my womanhood, my motherhood, so I embraced it. I was able to come little by little to that place of not only loving my children but loving motherhood, knowing I was in the perfect will of God, knowing it was His destiny for me. As I began to embrace it and love it, I could begin to walk in the fullness of it and the joy of it.

When we don't come to that place, we walk in frustration. Perhaps you may be a mom who is in a frustrated place at the moment. I understand. I was a frustrated mother in the beginning; I was frustrated. I loved these children, but I had not embraced motherhood. I felt that I had more important things to do. I had to come to that place of embracing, embracing with all my heart, knowing that this was God's destiny upon my life, that this is who He had created me to be. As a mother, I would fulfill this destiny that He had for me. It was a very powerful time in my life. I was able to come into that, and of course, more and more as I walked in motherhood.

Everything in our lives is a MORE AND MORE walk, isn't it, lovely ladies? I simply love that Scripture in Proverbs 4:18 which says: “The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” I always call my walk with the Lord a more and more walk. It's always more and more. In fact, if we get in a rut and we are not coming into more understanding and revelation of our great God, we are in a rut. Even in our motherhood, if we aren't coming to more understanding of God's incredible role for us as wives and mothers, we are in a rut. We are never meant to be in a rut. There's always more if we will only seek after Him and embrace what He gives us and then be open for more and more.

Now, some of you are in that time of little ones all around you that I was talking about in my life, and some of you are getting older children, some even older. I'm in the season now of not only being a grandmother but being a great-grandmother, yet have I finished learning about motherhood? No, I'm still learning. I come to God every day, “Father, I'm here to learn more from You. I know You have so much in Your heart for us as wives and mothers. I want You to show me more of Your ways because I'm an older mother now, and I have a responsibility to teach the younger women. Show me Your ways.”

God is continually opening the Scriptures to me. They are always new. The Scriptures are like that. You can read the Word from cover to cover, and you go back, and you still are finding new things. Don't you love it? I hope there are some older moms listening today along with young moms. Dear older, fellow mothers, we have such a responsibility to teach and encourage and train the young mothers. Don't vacate this very important season, this important watch of your mothering, which is the watch of you're now responsible for another generation. It does concern me that there are many, many older mothers today who have vacated this season, who have vacated this watch: “I've done it; I've raised my children. That’s it. Now I'm going on to something else.” No, we never ever, ever, ever stop mothering. We are mothers until we meet Jesus because this is who He created us to be, but we are mothers of different seasons. Our mothering is going to be different at the different seasons of our lives.
At this stage, we are at a season when we should be training another generation.

It saddens me when I will send out a new Above Rubies magazine, and I will get emails from older mothers, “Thank you, Nancy, for blessing me all these years as I was raising my children, but my children are grown now, so I don't need Above Rubies anymore. Can you take me off your list?” My heart is grieved because I'm thinking, their children, don't they want to keep getting the magazine for their children? Are they not passing it on to them? Are they not saying, here are the names of my children who are now getting married because they will need the magazine? Are they not thinking of another generation that is coming on, that God has mandated them to train and to encourage and to pass on God's truth to them?

Oh my, every mother needs Above Rubies. In fact, single women need it. I have loads of young women, who are not yet married, who love to get Above Rubies because they are wanting to prepare their hearts for motherhood. Of course, every mother with little ones and middling ones and teenagers all need Above Rubies. The older moms need it too because we need daily refreshing so that we are refreshed to encourage the young moms. How can we do it if we are off doing something else? How can we show them the way if we don't know it ourselves, and it's not in our hearts, and we are not getting refreshed in it ourselves?

Wherever you are in your mothering season, I want to encourage you today to embrace it. Embrace it with all your heart. Don't be an ordinary mother, surviving, and just getting through each day. Embrace it so that you intend, as you wake up each morning, to be the greatest mother in history, where you are going to pour out your life as a mother. Ladies, there is never enough time to pour out everything we want into our children.

Now, can I talk to you young mothers? It's like one blink of my eye of my children growing up. Even when my first son was married, it was like one blink of my eye from the day that he was born—that glorious, wonderful, amazing day when he was born. When your firstborn is born, it's the most incredible moment of your life, and I still remember it vividly. It was like one blink of my eye, and he was married. Now, he has children who are married, and grandchildren. You see ladies, don't take it for granted. You will always feel, if only I could have poured more into them. there wasn't enough time. Embrace your motherhood. Do it passionately. Do it diligently, with all your heart.

Can I encourage you with this? I do believe that mothers who are passionate mothers, who have embraced their vision from God, they know their mandate from God, they know who they are, they know that God has given them this mothering, this anointing of motherhood because we all have this anointing. Even if you don't have any children, you are still an anointed mother. God has put within you this anointed, nurturing heart. It’s in every woman. Every female is created with a nurturing heart, and it is in us. If we don't feel it's in us, it's only because it's been brainwashed out of us by this society and this education system.

Yet, it's amazing, even those who have it brainwashed out of them to have children, you will notice, they still have pets. Oh yes. If a woman doesn't have children, she will have a pet because she's got to pour out her nurturing heart on something. That's why so many people have so many pets today who don't have children. I know older women who are longing for grandchildren; their children have grown, and they are not getting married and if they are, they are taking so many years to have children. These poor grandparents are waiting and waiting because we are not ever meant to be waiting for grandchildren.

No, it's meant to be a cycle. We have children, if God blesses us and continues to bless us with children. Often, we will be having a little baby and our older children will be in late teens, maybe getting into twenties, sometimes they will be getting married. As this little one is growing, instead of having the empty nest for years and years, then you have a grandchild coming on, and that's how God intends it. Instead, many have the empty nest for so many years, and they are waiting to be grandparents for year after year after year. I know one beautiful woman, and she's going to be the most amazing grandmother the world has ever seen, but she hasn't got a grandbaby yet, so she has lots of little puppies. We've got to nurture; that's who we are.

Let's pray, shall we?

“Father, we thank You so much for Your plan. Lord God, in this society, Your beautiful plan for women is disdained, and there are so many growing up who have been brainwashed with lies and delusions about who we are as women. I pray, Father, that You will come to every daughter, mother, grandmother listening today and confirm and affirm them in the truth, in Your truth of who they are and how You have created us to be nurturing women, Lord, with our own children or in society, to the hurting and the needy. Father, I ask, Lord God, that You will save us from being passive mothers, and You will change us to be passionate mothers who embrace motherhood with all our hearts, and we will be great mothers in our homes and in society. Wherever we go, we will go with this mothering anointing upon us, to bring Your compassion and love and Your nurture into society. We ask it in the precious name of Jesus, Amen.”

 

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Podcast 46- How Can We Change the World- Part 12

Rocky Barrett: Welcome to the podcast, FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello.  Well we are still on point number 14 of “How do we Change the World?” And, I still have a few more thoughts on this point, which is ADAMANTLY ADVOCATING FOR LIFE.  And so we’ve been talking about this for some time, and last time we were talking about nursing our babies again. This is all about life, precious ladies. And, you know, how do we change the world? Goodness me! These are sessions about how do we change the world and I’m talking about nursing babies?! How on earth do we change the world nursing babies?  Well, I believe that we can do mighty and powerful things as nursing mothers. Because when we’re nursing a baby, we have another baby, another life that God has given to us that God has planned, that God has chosen before the foundation of the world, and who knows who this baby is that we’re nursing at the breast? Who knows what this baby is going to do in life? Who knows the impact this baby is going to have on the world?

Precious mother, as you’re nursing your baby, you’re not wasting your time. No, don’t be reading some stupid magazine—well you can be reading Above Rubies—but don’t be reading some junk while you’re nursing your baby. You can open the Word, or you can read Above Rubies and get blessed and encouraged, and you can pray, and you can read stories to your other children. Of course, it’s lovely to have those beautiful times when you’re just nursing, but you can do lots of other things too with your children. You can even be homeschooling while you’re nursing your baby. 

I remember when I started Above Rubies, over 41 years ago, and many times I was nursing my baby as I was doing Above Rubies. It was Serene who was a baby when I started Above Rubies, and it’s amazing what you can do. I believe the greatest way that we as mothers can change the world is by embracing the children, being open to the children, saying Yes to the children that God wants us to have and to be raising them for God—and that begins with nursing them. 

Oh, all this is so powerful, precious ladies. It’s powerful, and I believe that it’s time that we got back to God’s original plan and the blessing that He has for us in our lives. And we’ve been talking a lot, but I’d like to read you some Scriptures.  I’m turning to them here. I believe that they are all wonderful Scriptures as we think about the possibility of “Could I have another baby?” and so on. So many mother think, “Well I have two, three, or maybe have four,” “Well, my husband doesn’t want any more and we think that’s about all we will want.” But you know, the ultimate thing is just to trust God, to let Him be sovereign. Don’t you think that’s the best thing that we can ever do in life, to yield ourselves to God’s sovereignty?   don’t think there’s any more beautiful thing than being yielded to the sovereignty of God. 

I’ve often had mothers, with even quite large families, come to me and say, “Well look, we’ve got eight or maybe nine children and, whew, I think that’s enough. Don’t you think we should stop now?” I say to them, “Well why stop when you’re just about at the finishing line?  How ridiculous to stop before you finish!  What does it say in Ecclesiastes 7:8? “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.” Even Jesus Himself said to the Father when He was praying in John 17:4: “I have glorified Thee on earth.  I have finished my course.” 

I think that’s a beautiful testimony to have. Jesus had it. Don’t you think it’s a wonderful testimony for us to have, too? I want that testimony to be able to say when I stand before the Lord, “I glorified You when I was on earth. I finished the course You gave me to do.” And because God created you to mother, and you’re only able to do this in this particular season of your life. Life is full of seasons, and dear ladies, this season is not a very long season when you think how today people are living into their eighties and into their nineties. And yet this season of motherhood is only twenty, or at the very most thirty years of our lives. That’s not even near half our life and it’s this special season when we are yielded to God to visit us, if this is His plan.

And the wonderful thing is, is that when we yield ourselves to God, if He doesn’t give us any more children, well, we know we’re in His perfect will. But if He gives us another baby, well then, we know we are in His will again, because He is sovereign. And what He does is perfect, and it’s perfect for our lives. It’s perfect for what God wants to happen in this world. It’s perfect for eternity. So, let’s just be yielded to His beautiful and ultimate sovereignty. 

First Corinthians 6:19-20 says: “What?  Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own.  For ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” 

We glorify God in our body by yielding to who He created us to be. When we stop being who He created us to be, and as we were talking in last session, when we stop, not because God stops, but because we planned to stop and we stop having children, we are no longer, not only glorifying God as a woman, as a female, but we stop the blessings on our life. The blessings of health, and we put ourselves in that place where we can be perhaps even susceptible to female cancers because we’re atrophying, and our body is not doing what we were created to do.

Okay, let’s go back to the Old Testament.  Isaiah 29:16, and the Bible says here: “You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay? And the thing made should say of its maker, ‘He did not make me’, or the thing formed say of him who formed it, ‘He has no understanding.’”

We’ve turned things upside down today, haven’t we?  It seems today that the clay tells the Potter what to do. We say to the Potter, “Well God. That’s all the children I want. We’ve got our boy; we’ve got our daughter. That’s it, thank You. We’ve got to do this, and we’ve got to do that.” And we tell the Potter—we’re the clay, but we’re the one in charge! This is upside down because the clay is in the hands of the potter and we who are the clay are to be in His hands. 

Isaiah 45:9: “Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots. Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’? Or woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’ or to a woman, ‘With what are you in labor?’” Questioning God!

Isaiah 64:8: “But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.”

 Jeremiah 18:6: “O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD.  Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel?” 

And, of course, He is speaking personally to each one of us.  How do you read the Word of God?  I read it personally.  Is that how you read it?  I read it as though God is speaking every word personally to me. 

Now of course I know that there are many passages of the Word that, especially in Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and many of the minor prophets, where there are prophetic words which are speaking absolutely directly about Israel, about the physical Israel, the land of Israel, the land of Israel that we know today. It’s speaking about that land and prophetically of what God is yet going to do in that land and what He is going to do with His people, and they are literally for Israel. So we recognize that and we claim those promises for Israel. 

But even in them, there’s always that personal word, too, because the Word of God comes in so many layers.  It comes to speak directly to that person or that nation that it’s writing to. But it comes personally as well. And that’s what makes the Word of God alive and living, and how I love it! I love every word of His precious living Word. 

Back to the New Testament, Romans 9:20: “Who are you, a mere human being, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me this way?’”

Sometimes women will say to God, “Why did you make me like this?   mean, I didn’t plan to have a womb.” But you see, this is how God planned it. This is who we are, and who are we to say to God?  e is the Potter, we are the clay, and it’s all for our blessing.  h dear ladies, there’s something about embracing, and with abandonment, God’s plan for us and that’s when we come into the fullness of joy and delight in our mothering and who we are as a woman. 

One last Scripture, because there’s nothing better than the Scripture. They’re better than my words, aren’t they?  Romans 12:1: “I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” 

Presenting, yielding our bodies to the Lord because He is our Potter, we are the clay and He is totally sovereign. 

Now, I’d like to just go on to a different thought.  I’ve been thinking about this since I saw some newspapers and also on the internet of some information about people who are on opioids today.  These are some of the headings that I read just recently: “Drug Overdose Deaths among Middle Aged Women Soar.” My, that caught my attention! I thought that it would be amongst young people.

Then I noticed this heading: “Biggest Jump in Drug Overdoses was among Middle Aged Women.” One article stated that in 2016, 52,404 died through drug overdose, 20,101 of these were using prescription drugs, and of these the No. 1 percentage were of middle-aged women using anxiety drugs and anti depressants. Another article said that the rate of death from opioid overdoses soared 500 percent among women over thirty. 

Now, this was really getting me very concerned.  I read one other article and it said that two thirds of those taking dependant forming medicines are in their fifties and sixties. I thought, wow, why is this? 

Now of course, I’m not a professional and I know that there will be medical reasons for many of these. But, dear ladies, I don’t think we have to look very far to see that one of the reasons, perhaps the biggest reason, apart from the exceptions (there’s always exceptions) and there’s always certain situations, always, you know, these medical things. But I believe that suddenly, in these last few years, for middle aged women to actually have the biggest percentage of all these people on anxiety drugs and anti-depressants, I believe it’s because women have turned away from the lifestyle God intended for them.  I believe, ladies, it’s impossible to go in the opposite direction to God’s plan and still walk in all His blessings. That doesn’t work. 

Now we have been talking in some of our last sessions about the blessings of motherhood and being in the home and how that when we’re in the home that we are able to enjoy these beautiful hormones and especially that wonderful, blissful, and anti stress (did you hear that? Anti-stress) hormone of oxytocin (even prolactin is also anti stress). Oxytocin is a hormone that we enjoy when we’re nursing a baby, when we’re sitting around the meal table together, when we’re eating, when we’re hugging and touching our husbands and our children, and we’re love-making in a beautiful and permanent marriage. All these things release oxytocin and yet we have these women, thirties up, and middle age, and even up to fifties and sixties taking these anti-depressants. Oh, this is so sad.  

But when you think back of what’s been happening in the last couple of generations, or three generations or so, and how that the trend has come for women to delay getting married. The current statistics in our nation today are now 29 years for men and 28 years for women. That is very late. It is not biblical. Couples are meant to marry when they’re young, unless they don’t meet that wonderful person until they’re older. And sometimes that happens. A person just doesn’t meet that one until they’re older. But often they do meet them when they’re young. But they don’t get married. Sometimes they just live together and that is living in adultery and the Bible says that no adulterer will enter the Kingdom of Heaven (2 Corinthians 6:9, 10). Some are going from one partner to another and so they’re delaying getting married where in a godly marriage, you can enjoy bliss. And they are delaying children. They wait to get married and they wait to have children, and when they eventually have children, well they have their one and two and that has been happening for a number of generations now. 

And so what happens ladies? These women, of course, they have their one or two and they get out in their careers and they get more and more entrenched in their careers and that becomes their life and then they get to middle age. What have they got?  Instead of now, at this age of their lives, when they’re getting near to this age of life, when they would be getting grandchildren, but, oh no, their children are following the same lifestyle as them. Getting married later, delaying child-bearing and limiting the number of their children. And so they don’t have any little babies around them. They don’t have any little children of their own flesh and blood around them. They’re just in the rat race of society. They’re out doing what God intended the man to do which is to be the provider, out there in that market place, out there in the fight and to provide and to be protecting the family. Instead the woman has chosen that role. It’s not her role. That’s going to give her stress and then she doesn’t have all these beautiful hormones because she’s not in the home and she hasn’t got little ones around her. 

I meet many grandparents who are our age, and often I’ll say to them, well I say I meet grandparents, but actually many of them aren’t even grandparents, but our age, and we’re grandparents. In fact, now we are great-grandparents and we’re getting on to the great-grand-parenting now. But I will meet them and say, “Oh, so do you have some grandchildren?”  Sometimes they will say, “Yes, we have two” and their faces are just beaming. They are so blessed to have these children; they’ve waited so long for them and they are their life. 

But many others will say, “No, sorry, we’re waiting, we’re still waiting, but our children, they’re not interested in having children yet” and so there they are. What a life? I mean, it’s not the life that God intended for us.

That’s one of the reasons why I believe God intended women to go through menopause at about 50 years of age because if a woman is embracing the children that God has for her, and He blesses her (sometimes God just gives a couple one or two, I don’t know, God’s plan is always His best plan) but many times as couples will trust Him and His sovereignty in their lives they may have eight, nine, or even ten children. And by the time they’re getting to 50, they’ve got children who are already married and so they’re getting grandchildren and they’ve got no little babies left, but now they’ve got babies coming on. So there is always the lifestyle of babies, a little baby in the home. As this baby is growing up, well, then a grandbaby comes. 

Some mothers are so blessed to have a baby, a grandmother, along with their daughter who is having a baby at the same time. I think that’s a very special thing. I always hoped that would happen to me, but I didn’t get that joy. But I think that’s wonderful when that happens. And so, these mothers never have the empty nest syndrome and they just have babies coming on and they’re still in that lifestyle of being in the home and mothering and so on. I think this is one of the reasons why it must be that so many women in middle-age today are on these anti-depressants. Wow! That’s just so sad. 

Of course, for some it may be that they have not learned yet to live in the rest that God has for us. Because that’s another thing we do have to learn, whether we’re mothers or women who are out in their careers. We have to learn to live in the rest that God has provided for us. God intends us to live in rest. Did you know that ladies?

Rest. God gives rest. God lives in rest. God never get’s in a state of stress. God never get’s in turmoil. God never get’s overwhelmed, He is always in a state of rest. It’s part of who He is.  When Christ comes to dwell in us He wants to bring His rest. You all know Matthew 11:28-30 where Jesus said: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”  You see how He loves to give rest. “Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” 

Now we see rest two times in that Scripture. In the beginning it says, “Come and I will give you rest”. Now I believe that first rest is speaking about the rest that we have when we receive forgiveness of sin and when we receive forgiveness from Jesus and His blood covers our sins.  We are set free from not only the sin, but the guilt of the sin and we have such rest, because we have no rest when we are in sin. Even when we are born again, well we’re still not perfect and we can sin, and if we do sin, we’re certainly not going to be in rest. Have you found that? You’re not going to have any rest while you are in sin or you have done something you know has grieved the Spirit of God. So you’ve got to get right. 

We go to 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” And so we come, and we seek His forgiveness and rest comes again. 

But this Scripture goes on to say: “And ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Deep down in your soul. Even when you’re going through a challenging, difficult, trying, oh, terrible ordeal, did you know that you can still know rest deep in your soul? Just as when the ocean is storming and terrible on top and foaming and there’s gale winds and the waves are just lashing around, underneath there’s stillness. And we can know that. And Jesus said you’ll know that when you take My yoke upon you and you learn of Me, you yield to Me.

That’s what it means to take on a yoke. When two oxen are yoked together, they have this yoke and they’ve got to yield to one another because they can’t work unless they do. They’ve got to plow that field and they’ve got to work in unison, and they’ve got to work together. If one pulls ahead or one lags behind it just does not work. It’s total yielding to one another and so we yield to Christ. We yield to His sovereignty. We yield to His commandments. We yield to His ways. We’re not yielded to the spirit of the world, we are yielded to Christ and as we’re yielded to Him and His plan, therefore we know that whatever happens, when we face difficulties and when we face things that, wow, we didn’t expect to face, we can face them because we’re yielded to Him.  We know He is in control, we know He is working everything out for us. He is the first and the last, He is the beginning and the end. So we can completely trust Him because He knows the end and we can’t see the end, but He sees it, He knows it, and He’s got it all in control. So we can yield to Him completely, and as we learn to do this and take His yoke (sometimes it seems a yoke, sometimes motherhood seems a yoke to you), but yield to it and it becomes easy and then it becomes light. 

Sometimes motherhood is very hard for some women and especially mothers who are just starting out on their role. They say, “Oh, this is too hard.” Why? They haven’t learned to totally yield to it. Still, there are other things in their lives that they’re wanting to fit motherhood around all of these other things and so, because they have not totally yielded, it’s still hard. But when you totally yield, it’s easy. It’s easy! And the burden is light! Are you getting it?

And this is what God wants you to enjoy in your motherhood. He wants you to enjoy rest.  Hebrews 4:9 says: “There remaineth therefore a rest unto the people of God.” It is for you. There’s a rest for you. 

Let me give you a couple other of Scriptures as we close. And let me see where I put them because I did bring them because I thought I’d get to share them with you. Let me have a look here. Proverbs 24:15: “Lay not wait, O wicked man, against the dwelling of the righteous, spoil not his resting place.” In this Scripture, God calls our home, our dwelling place a resting place, and look out anyone who comes to spoil our resting place! And so dear mothers and wives, we’ve got to be on the lookout. We’ve got to be on the lookout for those things that would spoil our resting place. Oh, and the enemy is so subtle. Often things come in. Of course, often circumstances will come to seek to spoil our resting place. Sometimes we allow things in, we allow that spirit of the world, we allow things to come in.

Oh! Even social media! Oh ladies! Don’t let your home be overrun with that. That will spoil your resting place.  Now, I’m not saying you don’t have social media. We’re living in an age where, goodness me, that’s our society in which we live. But with everything it should not become an idol. It should serve us. It should serve us. I use it to serve me so I can bless you. I send out a message to you every day on Facebook and I send out encouraging things to you on Instagram and on Twitter and through email. I use it to serve you, to bless you, because I love you. My passion is for mothers, to love you and lift you up and encourage you and strengthen you. So, I use this media to serve you, but, it’s not something that’s my idol, really, I couldn’t care less about it, except I use it as a tool. And you need to teach your children this. 

Oh yes, and make sure when you sit down at your meal tables and you sit down together as a family, I hope you don’t allow one iPhone at your table. I think that is the most sacrilegious thing that could ever happen. I will never allow an iPhone at my table because the table is also a resting place, although it can be full of life and fun and debate and all kinds of wonderful things, because our tables are always very exciting! But they’re also resting. As you eat you are relaxing and you’re resting and you’re enjoying fellowship and to bring in iPhones and social media would totally spoil your resting place. Don’t allow that to happen. 

In Hosea 11:11, God talks about settling Israel in their homes: “’I will settle you in your homes,’ the Lord says.”  I love that. God wants you to be settled in your homes. Yes, He was talking about how He wanted Israel to be settled, but it’s showing the heart of God. Every Scripture reveals His heart and He wants you, dear mother, dear wife, to be settled in your home. I love the KNOX translation, and it says: “’In their own home,’ The LORD says, ‘I will give them rest.’” Isn’t that beautiful? 

Once again, it’s talking about the home as a resting place. God wants our homes to be that, but sometimes we are too busy to make them a resting place. In fact, we’re often too busy going here and there that we’re not even in the home. We’re taking our children here, we’re taking them there, we’re taking them to this lesson, we’re taking them to that sports activity. Oh my! We’re running around like a hairy goat! And we’re getting overwhelmed and we’re getting tired. We come in and because we’ve been out then we’ve got to get the meal ready and we’ve got to do this, and that wasn’t done because we weren’t there. 

Oh my, dear ladies, don’t be a victim. Too many mothers are victims. They are victims to the lifestyle of our society, they’re even victims to their homeschooling curriculums. I mean, did you know you just don’t have to do everything? And your children don’t have to get through every lesson and every plan? Oh my, you can do all that and they still don’t end up knowing everything. 

Let’s just live and make life in your homes a resting place. My, they will learn so much more in that beautiful environment. Oh yes, the place is the home of learning, and I’m a great believer in education. But in the right way, God says we learn little by little, precept upon precept, line upon line, and it’s just little by little, in the home, walking by the way, sitting down, rising up, and so on, in a place of rest (Isaiah 28:9-12). And if you are getting overwhelmed, stop running around too much and come back to your home. Make home your resting place because God said it, I didn’t. “In your own home,’ saith the LORD, ‘You will find your rest’”.  Isn’t that wonderful?

Shall we pray? 

“Dear Father. We want to thank you so much that You are the God of rest and that You want us to live in rest. This is your plan for us. You’ve shown us how to live, you’ve given us the lifestyle.  Lord, save us, please, from moving into lifestyles that are out of Your will, where we will not live in Your rest. Father, help us to embrace the way that You want us to live and to live in Your rest and to be yielded to Your sovereignty, yielded to Your yoke. We thank you that we can accomplish great things when we are yielded to You, Lord, because then You can use us to bless our families and bless this world.  When we are out of sync with You, God, it is impossible for You to use us. So help us to be yielded totally to Your sovereignty. And, Lord, we thank You that You dwell in our hearts and You give us rest. Help us to live in the rest that You’ve come to give us.

I speak the rest of God upon every mother, every grandmother, every child, every home, every marriage. I release Your rest to come to them. I come against the turmoil and stress in homes. O God, I break the power of the spirit of the enemy that comes to spoil our resting places. I take authority over him in the name of Jesus and I speak rest to everyone listening at this moment in the name of Jesus. Amen.”

 

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Episode 45: HOW CAN WE CHANGE THE WORLD? Part 11

Rocky: Welcome to the podcast, FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy: Lovely to be with you again. Last session, we were talking about the blessings of nursing babies and how we enjoy oxytocin and all the wonderful, blissful things that God gives us to enjoy through the hormones we have when nursing a baby. Then, I did mention at the end of last session another wonderful blessing about nursing a baby is that we can have natural contraception. Now, I said we would talk more about it this time.

I know when I say a statement like that, many mothers can say, “Well, I was breastfeeding my baby, or I am breastfeeding my baby and my menstruation came back quite quickly. It didn't work for me.” It is an interesting thing, I know. I realize that we don't live in a perfect world today, but I do believe that this was God's original intention, that nursing would hold back ovulation. This is what it is meant to do—that nursing, the sucking stimulation at the breast, holds back ovulation, therefore, we cannot conceive.

Many women enjoy this wonderful blessing, and there are others who don't. I wonder why that is. It's not a phenomenon that is experienced in countries that are very primitive, that still mother very intuitively. They always have this longer time of amenorrhea between their babies.

I must tell you about one study I read in a book. It was interesting. The book where I read about it was called, What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell. It was a book about many different subjects, and I was just thumbing through it. Someone gave me this book, and I looked at this chapter, it was called “John Rock's Error,” who brought in the pill actually. In that chapter, it told the story of this scientist, and it's very interesting.

A young scientist named Beverly Strassman went out to Africa. She went to the Dogon tribe of Mali, which was about 20 miles from Timbuktu. She was way out there in Africa, and she went to study the reproductive lives of these women in this tribe. They were a primitive tribe; they hadn't been influenced by our American culture. They hadn't read books about mothering; they just mothered intuitively. This scientist stayed out there for two and a half years, very faithfully keeping records of every woman and every menstrual period and everything about their whole reproductive life.

She found that, on an average, the girls started menstruating at about 16 years of age, and on an average, gave birth to about eight or nine babies throughout their life. She found that that the average time of the return of menstruation, while a mother was nursing her baby, was 20 months. Now that's nearly two years. That's pretty good amenorrhea, isn't it? These mothers nursed their babies day and night. Their babies came to the breast, sucked at the breast whenever they wanted to. There was no schedule. They slept with them at night and nursed off and on during the night. Usually, when mothers will breastfeed their babies in this fashion, they will have longer natural contraception. Most mothers will have a while of amenorrhea before their period comes back.

I remember when I was reading this story, it was a number of years ago now, I was in my kitchen and reading it out, and Serene was there, and I was telling her about it. She said, “Wow, I am right on cue.” It was her baby Breezy at the time, who is nine years of age now. She said, “I have just got my period back.” And Breezy was 20 months.

Now, why was she on cue? Because those of you who know Serene from Trim Healthy Mama, you know that she is the “purist” and Pearl is the one who will take a few shortcuts. Serene never does anything by half, she does everything to the absolute full. She does that with nursing her babies. There have been times where my daughters have had babies about the same ages of each other, and they've been nursing together, and they've all been wonderful mothers, nursing their babies, completely available to their babies, but Serene would always nurse her babies even more than the others.

A mother will wait until a baby is showing that she needs her and crying a little to pick it up and nurse it. Serene never waits for that. She puts her baby to the breast every time she looks at her or looks at him, so she is constantly nursing. Now, her baby is often in her carrier during the day, often nursing while she's carrying her baby in the carrier. She still accomplishes amazing things and so much, but she does it while the baby is nursing, still getting on with things, and her baby is just in the carrier. Then her babies nurse at night, so she has always had a lengthy time between each baby, not that she's trying to do that.

Oftentimes, she thinks, help, I need to wean this baby; I want another baby, but because she nurses so frequently, it holds back that ovulation. I have noticed oftentimes mothers will say to me, “I'm breastfeeding my baby, yet my period still came back.” In our western culture and the mindset that we have, I don't think we really have yet, perhaps, got the mindset of the primitive culture where they are completely available to their baby, and that's just their life, it's day and its night. Whereas even when we are an on-demand feeding mother, we still can limit it somehow, so there's not that absolute freedom and fullness of just nursing, nursing, nursing.

Especially for a new mother, a young mother, she maybe can't even understand that concept yet. I think it's different when daughters have grown up in families where mothers are and have experienced nursing mothers, and they see it so naturally in their home, and they are more ready to take on that lifestyle. For a new mother who hasn't experienced this, she's grown up in a family where maybe there were two of three children, and there were never any young babies around, and it's all new to her. It's new to her to learn how to breastfeed.

Breastfeeding is an art. There's a book that's called The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, put out by the La Leche League. It’s a wonderful blessing. Get that book if you need it.

It's a new thing for a new mother, but the more you nurse each baby, you'll find that most mothers find that every baby they just nurse more frequently; they are more relaxed in their nursing, and they put the baby to the breast more often. Then, often, they have longer amenorrhea, maybe 20 months like this tribe out in Africa had, which is typical of so many tribes today and peoples who have not yet been influenced by our American culture. It might be so sophisticated, but it's put a slight on motherhood. It's taken away the abandonment and the freedom of mothering and nursing.

Did I tell you about the chapter in Matthew, Matthew 19? This gives another little glimpse into the lifestyle of nursing a baby. This was a time when the Pharisees came to Jesus and they asked him about divorce. They were always trying to trip him up with questions, and Jesus answered them and said: “Don't you know that He which created them in the beginning made them male and female?” Now, we all know that. We know the Scripture from Genesis, and we know it from the New Testament. This is from Matthew 19, but we often don't know or understand the words that are used. When Jesus said the word “female,” He didn't use the normal word for female that is used in the New Testament, which is gune. It's the most common word for women meaning “wife, mother.“

This time, he used a different word. It's only used in this time when Jesus talked to these Pharisees and another time it's used in Romans chapter one where it says that their women even gave up the natural use or the natural function and God has to give them up (Romans 1:26). That's the two times it is used.

What is this word? It's the word, thelus and it comes from the root word thele, which means: the verb means to suckle a babe at the breast. The noun means a suckling mother. When Jesus said that word, female, he was saying to the people round about Him: “Don't you know that He who made them in the beginning made them male and suckling mother?” He used the words that personify a woman. She is a suckling mother. When she has a baby, she is not scheduling her baby to just nurse at certain hours of the day because all she's thinking about is giving her baby some food. No, the concept of nursing, dear mothers, far supersedes that kind of thinking. No, nursing your baby is mothering your baby and not mothering it just to give it some food. We talked about that in the last session how that in Isaiah 66, it speaks about consoling and comforting and all those beautiful words. Food is not even mentioned, therefore, as we do this, it becomes this lifestyle.

Then we have the blessing of amenorrhea, of natural contraception. God wants us to have this. He does not intend for a mother to have a baby year after year. God has planned the way our body is to work so that there is time between having babies. Let's get back to those of you where you say, “This didn't work for me.”  Well, maybe, perhaps you're one of those who thinks you are nursing all the time but really, you're not. You may be nursing five of six times a day, seven or eight. How often are you feeding at night? Now, a baby who is intuitively mothered will oftentimes feed up to 20 or 30 times a day, and the baby will nurse off and on all night. Are you nursing that much? If you're nursing that much, you probably will have much longer contraception. Think about that.

Of course, I will admit there can be some, because of hormones, because of things that are not right in your system, because as I said before, often our bodies aren't perfect; they're not functioning perfectly hormonally, and they don't work as God originally intended, so that may not work for you. For those where that is a true problem, I have sometimes counseled those who would maybe keep having a baby year after year to maybe use the Natural Family Planning method, just until you would normally begin to start ovulating again. Then just forget that and be open and just relax for God to bless you as He wants to bless you.

Talking about different types of contraception, and of course, we know the only moral contraception is Natural Family Planning because you are not interfering with a baby that has been conceived and that can be aborted, which can happen with the pill. The pill can be an abortifacient. It doesn't happen every time, but there is always that opportunity, that possibility for the pill to cause an abortion, so if we are truly pro-life, we will not be able to go on the pill or any of its associates. Of course, there are more and more being invented all the time. There are so many different ones that you can use, and they all have the same way they ultimately work but in different ways. Usually three things are very important to happen, and one is that it stops ovulation. But they find that there is often breakthrough ovulation. Depending on how much the different way the pill or its associate is designed, it may be quite a bit or very scarce, but there can always be that possibility.

If there is breakthrough, then of course another aspect of the pill is that it causes the endometrium, the lining of the womb, to become shriveled. When an egg has been met by the sperm, and there's conception, because that happens the moment the egg and the sperm meet, a new living baby is beginning right at the moment, but then when it comes to implant a few days later, it cannot implant because the pill has caused the endometrium to shrivel up. Therefore, it is aborted. A little baby dies in the womb.

Dearest ladies, there are far more babies who are killed  through the pill than even through abortion. Currently, we are hoping . . . I hope you are getting to see the movie Unplanned . . . My husband and I have already been to see it twice. We want to be a voice; we want to fill some more seats in those theaters. If it's still on when you hear this session, do try and go and watch this movie (if it’s too late, get the DVD, watch it and gather in others to watch it with you too). It's not a movie you want to watch. It’s a movie that is hard to watch. I found it harder to watch even the second time. You know it, but then to realize in the way this movie reveals how these babies are totally murdered in the womb, over 60 million have been murdered since Roe vs. Wade. But there are more through the pill.

It is so sad, because beautiful, godly couples who love God with all their hearts, often they may be in church worshiping God with all their hearts, but if they are on the pill and there is a breakthrough ovulation, and a little new baby is coming to implant in the womb, it can be lost—your own flesh and blood. Often, people who are so against abortion, they are not totally pro-life.

The weekend before last, my husband and I were ministering at an Above Rubies family retreat down in Louisiana. On that Sunday morning, we went to another church nearby. Well, actually, it was in Baton Rouge for the Family Retreat and then we went to New Orleans, the main city, and we were ministering at a church there. It was amazing to meet the pastor. This is a guy who has such a passion to bring down these abortion clinics. God has blessed him to shut down about nine abortion clinics in this city.

When he first started, he wasn't having much success, yet he had this passion to do it, and then God spoke to him. He said, “You're trying to shut down abortion clinics, but you're committing abortion in your own home.” He was arrested, “I beg your pardon. Me? I don't believe in abortion.” God showed him, “Your wife is on the pill.” He looked into it and began to see, yes, there is always the possibility of an abortion when you're on the pill. He came to his wife, and she wasn't very pleased to hear that news at all. In fact, it took her about a year, but God dealt with her, and God worked in her heart, and she also came to see that she could not do this any longer. She got off the pill and from that moment, God began to bless this man and from that time he was used to shut down about nine abortion clinics in that city.

You see, the devil is the one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. He comes as a trio, and he comes with contraception, sterilization, and abortion. If Satan can get rid of life through contraception and sterilization, then he is eliminating so many babies. Abortion becomes the back-up plan. If that doesn't happen and babies are conceived, then he can use abortion, which is horrific, of course. We have to keep praying that abortion will be outlawed in this nation because it is nothing less than the murder of human life. Don't forget to go and see the movie (Unplanned) if you haven't seen it (or get the DVD).

Anyway, getting back to this story. It's not a story, it's an actual scientific study that was done in Africa. Also, this scientist, Beverly Strassman, said that these women only menstruated about 100 times in their whole reproductive lives. Do you know the average number of menstruations in most modern women today? Most modern women are menstruating maybe sometimes 300, but up to 400 times during their reproductive lives.

This has never ever been God's intention. It is an abnormal lifestyle. God intended that there would be a resting time for the ovaries during pregnancy and during nursing. Therefore, that is why it is such a blessing for women to have babies. The more babies that they have, the greater blessing for them physically. The more babies that they nurse at the breast and the longer that they nurse at the breast, of course, the longer they will have the amenorrhea and the greater blessing for their bodies. Let me read something here. “Strassman believes,” (I'm reading from the book at the moment and other anthropological works back her up), “the number of lifetime menses isn't greatly affected by differences in diet or climate or method of subsistence but by the prevalence of nursing or sterility. It all comes back to this. Up until the demographic transition of 100 years ago from high to low fertility, and all this has happened in the last 100 years is, in evolutionary terms, abnormal. It's a pity that gynecologists think that women have to menstruate every month.”

Strassman continues: “They just don't understand the real biology of menstruation. To Strassman and the others in the field of evolutionary menses and this shift from 100 to 400 lifetimes menstruation is enormously significant. It means that women's bodies are being subjected to changes and stresses that we're not necessarily designed to handle.”

There is another book that's mentioned in this book; it's called, Is Menstruation Obsolete? I haven't read it. It's written by two doctors, and they say in their book, the doctors are Coutinho and Segal, they say, “Incessant ovulation serves no purpose except to increase the occurrence of pain, mood shirts, migraines, endometriosis, fibroids, and anemia.” The last of which they point out is one of the most serious health problems in the world. Most serious of all is the greatly increased risk of some cancers.

Every time a woman gets pregnant and bears a child, her lifetime risk of ovarian cancer drops ten percent. Ovarian and endometrial cancer are characteristically modern diseases. Consequences, in part, of a century in which women have come to menstruate four hundred times in a lifetime, instead of only about 100 times at the maximum.”

Precious ladies, often women think that it is abnormal to have quite a number of children and to nurse them, not for six months, but for two years, maybe three years, maybe even more because we were created to be sucking mothers. Why stop suckling when we are blessed with these beautiful hormones of oxytocin and prolactin, and also the blessing of amenorrhea, and the normality of how God created the body, and the less possibility of getting female cancers? You see, we have got so far away from God's way. If any of you are nursing today, don't limit your nursing. Nurse your baby whenever. Not just when he's hungry, just when you feel like nursing. Because it will bless you and of course, remember, your baby wants to suck.

Here's another thing. Does your baby use a pacifier? If your baby uses a pacifier, you will most probably get your menstruation back quite quickly because your baby is using the pacifier for its sucking instinct whereas God intended the breast to be the one where the baby sucks. The baby is not just sucking for food. The breast is not only for food, ladies. The breast is for that sucking, and the baby is satisfied through sucking. There's a contentment, there's a blessing the baby receives through that sucking, but ultimately, it's for you; IT’S FOR YOU. The sucking is for you. It holds back the ovulation. Don't give your baby a pacifier; it is a mother substitute. I know it's convenient, oh yes, and that's why many modern mothers get there periods back so quickly; they are used to an American lifestyle, where you are doing so many other things, motherhood is just one of the things you're doing. It's not your life; you've got so many other things in your life. But you see, in cultures where it's their life, they have that longer amenorrhea, because of that sucking. They don't plonk in a pacifier, or as we used to call it back down in New Zealand where I come from, we called it the “dummy.” I always feel so sad when I see a dummy or a pacifier in a baby’s mouth because I know it’s a mother substitute.

Another thing in our American lifestyle is we have to get the baby sleeping through the night. Somebody will say, “Now, is your baby a good baby?” “Oh yes, he's sleeping through the night.” That's not really a good testimony at all for a nursing mother. If your baby is sleeping through the night, you'll most probably get your period back pretty quickly because your baby needs to be nursing from you off and on all night if you want to have that blessing of amenorrhea up to nearly two years. You see, that's how it comes with total mothering. These are little things. Sometimes mothers say, “It didn't work for me,” but I see a pacifier in their baby’s mouth, I find that their baby is sleeping mostly through the night. That's not really how it works.

Anyway, I wanted to share those things with you, and I trust that they will be a blessing to you. Another thing too, I know, as we are talking about this, some of you precious mothers will feel so frustrated because you'd love to have another baby and you'd love to have the joy of nursing another baby, but your husband doesn't want another baby. I know that's so sad but keep praying. Don't nag, but don't give up praying. I think there's always that time where you have to sit down and talk about things. If your husband is a believer and especially a believer in God's word, well, we do need to challenge one another.

“Well, look Darling, we need to really look into the Word before we make a final decision about this.”

I did write a book years ago, Be Fruitful and Multiply. Currently, we are out of print, although we are looking at printing it again. This book was used to bless thousands of couples. Many babies have been born because of couples reading this book. I still have it as a download book, you can go to my webpage, aboverubies.org and go to  Be Fruitful and Multiply audio.

You can go to this link to order: http://aboverubiesbookstore.mybigcommerce.com/be-fruitful-and-multiply-audio-book/

It's great for husbands who can listen to it while they are going to and from work. Half the time they don't want to read books anyway, but they will listen. It's something they can listen to. It's not read by me, by a woman. They don't have to listen to a woman, no. It's read by a man who is a professional broadcaster. They can hear it that way. Check that out on the website or go to the link above.

Let's pray.

“Father, we do thank You that we can share together again. I pray that You will bless all these young moms today and the older moms listening. Lord, we need to be encouraged in Your ways so that we are speaking the right words to the young mothers. O God, I pray that You will save us older mothers from speaking the wrong words to the young mothers. Lord, we've got to give them Your ways, Your answers. I pray that You will bless every family, every child, and every baby and every nursing mother. Bless them today and fill them with joy as they nurse their babies. Give them that joy of not having to do it at certain times but just relaxing and enjoying putting their baby to the breast, anytime, all day, all night, whenever, which is the lifestyle of a nursing mother. Bless them, I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

 

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Episode 44: HOW CAN WE CHANGE THE WORLD? Part 10

How can I live a blissful life in the middle of chaos? How can I have another baby if I have physical problems? What are the special blessings God designed for a nursing mother?

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Here I am, with you again! And we continue to talk about this beautiful word, sozo, which is used in the context of motherhood. It's found in 1 Timothy 2, verses 13-15. I would like to read it to you in a couple of other translations.

This is the Ways translation, and it says: “Moreover, it was not Adam that was actually deceived by the tempter, but it was entirely true, her being utterly deceived, that woman has become involved in transgression. Yet, through her motherhood, shall women be saved.”

“Through her motherhood.” We found out last session that it doesn't mean only childbirth, but it's the lifestyle of childbearing, the lifestyle of motherhood, of embracing children, nurturing children. It goes on to say: “If your women swerve not from faith and love, and self-consecration, coupled with virtuous self-control.”

The Goodspeed translation says: “For Adam was formed first, and then Eve, and it was not Adam who was deceived. It was the woman who was deluded, and fell into sin. But they will be saved through motherhood.” There it is again, “saved through motherhood, if they continue to have faith, and to be loving and holy, and sensible as well.”

We realize that that beautiful word, “saved,” is sozo, and if I can remind you again, it means “to be saved, delivered, protected, preserved, healed, and made whole physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.” Wow, you can't beat that, ladies.

And that is the promise to you, as a mother, as you embrace motherhood. Isn't that beautiful? Yes, we are preserved and saved, both physically, but also emotionally and spiritually. We're also in the context of that Scripture, in those Scriptures there, the context is about deception. We are saved from deception.

That is so true. A mother who embraces her mothering and her home is saved from the deception of the enemy and the deception of the world. I have watched this so frequently, as women have given up their motherhood, and they put their children out to be looked after with someone else, gone out into the career world . . .

Of course, you can do both. Yes, you can look after your one or two children, and you can keep them fed and clothed. Of course, you can do that. And you can love them. Of course, every mother loves her child.

But you can't fully embrace the lifestyle of mothering, because you can't keep having children if you also have a career. That does not work. It's too difficult to fit them both in. And so, women get into a different lifestyle.

They go out into the marketplace, which is the world that God created for the man. And they become deceived. They often even, well, often their marriages even fall apart. You see, mothering, and mothering in the home, is a protection. It will protect. We are protected against deception.

And we're protected physically. I encourage you to look up “Preserved Through Motherhood” on the webpage.

Go to:

http://tinyurl.com/PreservedThroughMotherhood

But let me tell you a little more about this too. This word, sozo, is so wonderful. Hang on. Let me give you some more meanings.

Oh, I found other, more enlarging meanings as I studied this word.

It also means to deliver out of danger or destruction, and into safety.

It means to keep safe and sound.

To save a suffering one from perishing.

To restore to health.

To lift above trouble.

To cause something to change to an earlier correct, or appropriate state.

I think that's a very powerful meaning, because we are living in an age of deception, where so many women have moved from the estate of motherhood, the commission that God has given to mothers. As they have moved from it, they need to come back to this, to His original plan.

OK. Remember? We are made whole. Let me show you some Scriptures about this. This is such a wonderful promise to mothers. Often, we think, “Oh, how could I physically bear another child?”

But often, in bearing a child, you are healed. Oh, there are so many wonderful testimonies of women who are healed from physical ailments through childbirth. Remember in one of our last sessions, Serene shared how God completely healed her adrenals and her panic attacks when she became pregnant? She never, ever had another panic attack again. That's over nine years ago!

So, it is true that pregnancy preserves, and it heals. Look at these Scriptures.

Talking about the woman who had an issue of blood for 12 years: “And Jesus said to her, 'Daughter, be of good comfort. Your faith hath made (the word is sozo), thee whole (sozo).” That Greek word that occurs two times in that little statement, “Your faith has made you whole.” “Has made” (sozo); “whole” (sozo). You're getting it doubly there. So, we see that it means to heal. Jesus healed her. She was made whole.

What about when Jesus raised Jairus' daughter from the dead? And he went, and what did Jesus say to him? “Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole (sozo).” My, she was raised from the dead.

Mark 6:56 says: “And Jesus entered into the villages, and the cities, and the country, and they laid the sick in the street, and besought him that they might touch if it were but the border of his garment, and as many as touched him were made whole.” They were healed. The word is “sozo.”

When Jesus healed blind Bartimaeus, He said, “Go your way. Your faith has made (sozo), you whole (sozo).” Same word that is used for women, that we will be saved through motherhood.

Now, when Jesus healed the demoniac, it says: “They also which saw it told them by what means he that was possessed of the devils was healed (sozo).”

When Jesus healed the ten lepers, “Jesus said: “Arise, go thy way. Thy faith has made (sozo) thee whole (sozo).

 

And so, we get the message of the fullness of this word. It brings wholeness to our bodies, and not only wholeness, but so many blessings.

Oh, another wonderful article, I wonder if you read, in Above Rubies. It was “How to Live Stress Free in a Stress Filled World.” That was in Above Rubies #92. Do you still have that copy? It's the one with Rashida and Jack on the front cover, on the day of their wedding.

In this particular magazine, I write about oxytocin. By the way, you can also get that article on the webpage under “Motherhood.” You'll be able to pick it up there. Here is the link for it: https://tinyurl.com/StressFreeWorld

In this article, I wrote about this beautiful, wonderful hormone, oxytocin. The amazing thing is, the more I studied it, the more I found that this hormone is released so much in a mothering lifestyle, in the home. It is such a glorious thing. We don't really get a lot of oxytocin sitting in an office. We don't get much oxytocin, I would say we get none, when we're just working in a factory.

We don't even get much oxytocin when we're out, you know, in that career fast-paced world. No, that's not where oxytocin comes from. Shall I tell you just a few of the places where we get it? Now, of course, first of all, I've got to tell you what it's like. I mean, the descriptions of this hormone are amazing.

As I read scientific articles, these are some of the descriptions that they use for this hormone oxytocin, the most incredible molecule on the planet! It's called the stress-relieving hormone, the calming hormone. In fact, it reduces blood pressure, cortisol levels, fear, anxiety. It can even wipe out psychological and physiological problems. Yes, they have even found it helps in PTSD.

But it's also called the molecule of motherly love, the life hormone, the love hormone, cuddle hormone, bonding hormone, empathy hormone, trust hormone, and, get this one, the bliss hormone.

Now, with all those descriptions, wouldn't you love to live an oxytocin lifestyle? I want to. I just think it's a beautiful hormone. Of course, I'm isolating it, and God doesn't isolate hormones. He has all the hormones that he gives to us, He has them all working together in perfect symphony. Or they are meant to. When they get out of sync, and they're not working in perfect symphony, well, then we have problems physically.

But I just wanted to isolate this to tell you about it. It's not really meant to be isolated. It goes with other hormones. So, as I wrote in this article here, I'm just looking it up again here. I have, I think, yes, ten different ways we get oxytocin. And they're all very beautiful, practical ways. But I won't talk about them all. I'll just give you one or two here. Let me tell you this one.

No. 1. LIVE IN A FAMILY

They have found that just living in a family releases oxytocin. Because it's God's way, the way He intends us to live.

 

No. 2. CUDDLE AND TOUCH

When we touch one another and cuddle, give hugs and kiss, we're releasing oxytocin. And of course, this happens in the lifestyle of mothering. You've got a little baby. You're kissing that little baby. You’re cuddling and holding that baby nearly all day long. And as you're doing that, you're releasing oxytocin. It's so beautiful! We're meant to have babies around us.

Of course, I'm a grandmother now, even a great-grandmother. But, praise the Lord, I have still babies around me that I can hold. They are oxytocin-releasing. This is the lifestyle God loves for us. And it's not only with our little babies and our children as we hug them throughout the day.

But it's also in our marriage relationship. We need to hug and cuddle and touch and kiss our husband as much as we possibly can. In Titus chapter two, verse four, the older women are to teach the younger women to love their husbands.

Now, what does it mean, love your husbands? In the Greek, there are four different words for love. There's that beautiful word, agape love. Now that's a picture of God's love. We don't have this love naturally, because often, we love when people love us. But God's love loves the unlovely. God's love loves when we're not loved back. God's love loves even when we’re rejected and hated! Oh my. It's very hard for us to have that love. We don't have it unless we allow God's love to fill our hearts.

That's the wonderful thing. Sometimes things can happen in your marriage. Love goes out the door because you've been hurt. Oh, hurt can bring bitterness. Hurt just wipes out love in the natural. But you see, we have something beyond that. If you are born again, you have Christ living within you. And His love loves, even when you're rejected. So, you can still love with Christ's love that's in you! But that's not the word that is used in this passage in Titus, but it is a word we need in our marriage, because there are times we do need agape love. We need love that's beyond our physical love.

Then, of course, there's eros love, which is sexual love. That's very important in the marriage, but that's not the word that's used here.

There's another word, storge, which is family love.

But the word that's used here is philandros. That word is friendship love. It means to be affectionate and cuddly. Isn't it interesting that God uses that word? He wants us to be affectionate to our husbands.

Not just to know in our hearts that we love them. Yes, it’s easy to begin to live your marriage like that. You get into a bit of a rut. You know you love one another, you've got a good stable marriage, but sometimes you forget to actually show it. To every time you see your husband, to touch him, cuddle him, just have a little smooch. Love him.

These are important things. This is what the Bible tells us to do. And every time you do this, you release oxytocin! Wow. That is so cool! And so, we live this oxytocin lifestyle.

Also, we release oxytocin through eating. That's why it's so important (that doesn't mean just eating a sandwich in the car). No, it's eating together, sitting around a table together. The togetherness, the release of togetherness and discussion and fellowship and heart to heart talking, that releases oxytocin.

It's not just eating. It's eating and fellowshipping. It brings a calming. It's stress relieving. That's why it's so important, lovely, precious mothers, to make sure we prepare meals, that we set them on the table, and we gather the family.

We don't ever allow our family, our children, to sit around anywhere in the house eating their meals. No! Meals are to be eaten together. Together! Just get it together.

I just wrote yesterday on my Facebook. By the time you hear this podcast, it will be way, way, way, way down, but I wrote about how our table is an altar. If you want to just read what I wrote, you can email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. I'm always happy to send it to you. I haven't got time to go into that now. But I want to remind you that it's also a place of releasing oxytocin.

Of course, lovemaking in marriage, that's one of the greatest ways we release oxytocin, which is so wonderful. That's why you don't do it every now and then. It should be a very regular part of your lives. Even scientific studies say that this does not happen with people with one-night stands. The releasing of oxytocin through lovemaking happens in a stable marriage, where the husband and wife are continually together.

And of course, embracing children. Oxytocin is involved in childbirth, yes, even in birthing children. Oxytocin is a very powerful hormone. And also, in the afterglow of childbirth. Oh, have you experienced that? I cannot think of anything more incredible, of that incredible high! “The high,” also called the “afterglow,” that you have after you have given birth. Oh, it is so incredible! It's amazing!

Of course, you don't get that if you haven't gone through the birth process. Many will want to get panned out, and make sure they can't feel anything, and they don't really go through the labor. And they miss out! They don't know this incredible joy and high of the afterglow of childbirth. That's oxytocin too.

And then, of course, when you nurse your baby! Oh, precious ladies! When you nurse your babies, you're releasing oxytocin! And you're also releasing prolactin, too. Both are wonderful hormones.

If you're nursing, dear mother, oh, just embrace it with all your heart. Love this season of nursing your baby and don't try to stop it! Squeeze out as much oxytocin as you can! Because it's such a wonderful, calming, stress-relieving hormone!

God is so amazing! You see, He gives this hormone to mothers when they've have a little baby. It's stress-relieving. It's calming. It's bonding. It's loving. It's this hormone that makes you more motherly, and it also calms you.

Have you noticed, I think you'll notice this if you've got quite a few children, you may not notice it so much with your first baby? But when you have two or three around you, and they're all crying, and this one wants you, and this one's having a fight with another one! Oh goodness me, you feel like tearing your hair out! And then the baby cries! Ooooh!

And you pick up the baby and the milk lets down. Oooh, you relax. It's oxytocin. You see, God, the Giver of life, the Giver of blessings, gives you oxytocin to enable you in your mothering. Don't you love Him? Isn't God so good?

Prolactin, this is an amazing hormone, too. In fact, science says the more you feed your baby, the more motherly you'll become, because every time you nurse your baby, you release prolactin. And it's a very motherly hormone. It's also a very, very protective hormone. Oh my, when you are nursing your baby, you are a protective mother! You are guarding, watching over your baby! Look out! This is why a nursing mother finds it so hard to leave her baby because she has prolactin!

So, embrace this time. Oh, dear mother, remember you are actually, the Bible says, you are a suckling mother. Do you know that passage? I'm just thinking of it now, in Matthew 19. Let me go to it. The Pharisees, they came to Jesus and were tempting Him, and asking Him about divorce. And Jesus answered them in verse four.

He said: “Have you not read? That He which made them in the beginning made them male and female?” We all know that Scripture. We read it, and we don't think too much about it, because we say, “Yes, of course! He made us male and female.”

But when we look into the Greek word, oh wow! We see something so interesting, because the main word for women in the New Testament is the word, oh my, what IS that word now? Um, I'm just forgetting it. (It’s gune, meaning “woman or wife”).

But there's a different word used here. It's only used in this passage when Jesus spoke these words, and in Romans 1. It comes from the root word thele, which means “the nipple of a woman's breast.” The noun of this word means just “a woman's breast, or a suckling mother.” The verb means “to suckle a babe at the breast.”

Ladies, that's the word that is used in this passage. Isn't that amazing? Jesus was saying that when He made male and female, He made the female to be a suckling mother. Oh yes, this is only just a season of your life. But in a mother who embraces mothering, it will be quite a few years, quite a lengthy season. And as this becomes part of her life, she will continue to be a suckling mother as she suckles others (spiritually) and brings comfort and blessings to them. It's who we are as women, physically, literally, suckling mothers! But then also innately just nurturing and mothering. This is what it's all about.

The word for “male” is also interesting. It's a word that means “to lift up, to lift up a weight.” It's talking about a man who is stronger and able to lift heavier weights than the woman. It's talking about the greater brute strength of a man. So, these things come into the Greek words that are used there.

So, ladies, are you nursing? Don't try to wean too soon. No, let your baby nurse as long as your baby wants to nurse. Some babies might just want to wean at one year. Some may want to wean at two years. But some, they like to linger on for three, or even four years or so.

Of course, you're not nursing a little child like a little baby. No, it may be that little night time snack, or when they're very sick, or when they're hurting, or when they're just frightened. They still have that beautiful relationship. Just wean when they taper off, when they are ready to wean.

And don't schedule your nursing, and only nurse, well, at certain times. My goodness me! That is ridiculous. Have you ever seen in your life an animal ever doing that? “Well, I have to have my three-hourly or four-hourly schedule, and that's the only time I can feed”?

No, you watch a little lamb with its mother. It nurses a little and goes off a little way. Then it comes back and has a little nibble again. This little lamb nurses off and on all day. You watch that with all the animals, mammals. That's just how they nurse. It's just a natural way.

You think, “Oh goodness me! I just fed that baby about seven minutes ago, and it's still crying! Oh goodness me!” But you see, darling ladies, nursing your baby is so much more than only feeding your baby. No, nursing your baby is mothering your baby.

And so, when your baby is crying, and it's fretful, and you don't even know what's wrong, you can put the baby to the breast. As you do that, maybe you'll put it to the side that's a little emptier, because they're wanting to suck. It's not because they are always wanting to get milk.

They're wanting to suck. It's satisfying. It's comforting. It's consoling. You're bringing comfort and consolation and comfort to your baby. That's what mothering is all about, not just feeding at certain times. It's total mothering.

And as you do that, you are constantly flooded with oxytocin. And so, you live this beautiful oxytocin lifestyle. Isn't it wonderful? That's another amazing thing, too, that happens when you nurse this way.

God gives a picture of this in Isaiah chapter 66, in the very last book of Isaiah. God is giving a picture. It's an allegory about Jerusalem. But He likens Jerusalem to a nursing mother. And as we read these words about Jerusalem, it's amazing. We don't read anything about feeding a baby.

But this is what we read. I'm just turning to it now . . . all right, verse 11. “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 dandled upon her knees. As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted.’”

And so, as we read that, what are the words that we read? We read comfort, console, peace, delight. And we read about, not only a little newborn baby, but a baby that's being dandled on our knees, and carried on our side. An older baby, a toddler, still nursing at the breast.

Because it's mothering, it's beyond just feeding, but as we do feed, do this, mother like this, we feed our baby, and the baby gets plump and cuddly and fat and chubby, and so beautiful. And also, guess what? We actually have natural contraception! Wow!

Now, once again, time is going, so perhaps we'll talk a little bit about that next time, because I know you've got lots of qualms about that. People say, “Oh, I was nursing my baby, and I conceived!” Well, yes, that can happen. But let's talk about it more, shall we, and find out a few things.

All right, we'll do that at next time. So. let's pray.

“Father, we thank You, that as mothers together, young mums, middling, older, and even the teens and children listening, because Lord God, these truths are for us as women. And we need to know, Lord, Your plan and Your heart.

I pray that You will minister to them and bless them, Lord, with Your wonderful, wonderful Word. Oh God, precious mums who are nursing their babies, I pray that You will fill them with joy, the joy of being able to nurse, and to be who You created them to be. To receive these beautiful hormones, oxytocin and prolactin, and all the blessings You pour out.

Lord, as older mothers, help us to be encouragers and teachers of the right way for the younger generation, I pray. In the precious Name of Jesus, Amen.”

One Scripture as I close. We read it this morning in our family devotions. And it says in Jeremiah 10:23: “Oh Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” How true.

Ladies, we don't want to walk according to the steps of this world. Let's walk according to the steps God has chosen for us and that He reveals to us in His Word. Amen.

P.S. To read all the points about oxytocin, go to: https://tinyurl.com/StressFreeWorld