FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Episode 74: The Glory of Womanhood (Part 7)

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello ladies, wonderful to be with you again. We are continuing our series of The Glory of Womanhood.

Today I want to talk about a Scripture where God says that He wants to fill the whole earth with His glory.

We go to Numbers 14:21 and it says here: “But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD.”

Now this is in the context of when Moses has sent the twelve spies into Canaan to spy out the land. They came back sharing what an amazing land it was. It was a land filled with milk and honey, but they also saw giants there and they were scared and afraid.

Ten spies brought back an evil report. In fact, the Bible actually uses the word “slander.” That is very interesting— they brought back a slander upon the land! It was the land that God had promised to them, but they had slandered the land.

Of course we know there were only two people, two men, Joshua and Caleb who said, “We can go in! God is with us!”

God was so disappointed. He could not believe that they wouldn’t trust Him after all they had seen Him do. How He had delivered them from Egypt and how He had shown His mighty right arm and brought them through the red sea and done great miracles.

And now they still could not trust Him, and He said to Moses, “I’m just going to do away with all these people. I’m going to start again with you.”

Moses interceded for the people and said, “Oh no, God, if You do that all the people who have seen Your power will say ‘Oh no, He couldn’t do it.’”

Any way, He brought judgment on the children of Israel and said that all those 20 years of age and up could not go into that Promised Land. They would die in that wilderness and it would be their sons and daughters who could go in. Then He concluded with these words: “But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD.”

We see these words written in other passages, too.

Psalm 72:19 and the psalmist praised Him here saying: “And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen.” I’m not just saying that [amen], that’s the Scripture!

Again in Habakkuk 2:14 the words say: “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”

What is this glory? Is it kind of beautiful clouds floating around with the colors of the rainbow and the glory of God upon them?

No. God is speaking about people here. People are His glory. His creation, male and female that He created, they are His glory. They are the reflection of His image. They are to reveal Who He is and His likeness in the world.

Because His people whom He had gathered (He was making a people, His very own people who would reveal Himself to all the other nations around), now they couldn’t even believe Him. They could not even trust Him. And so He had to bring judgment upon them.

But He said, “There will come a time, it will happen, when the glory of the Lord will not only fill the land of Canaan, but it will fill the whole earth.” And God was speaking of a time when His people would fill the earth with His glory.

We can go over even to the New Testament. In fact, I was just reading this passage this morning, Ephesians chapter one. I noticed that in this chapter the word glory is mentioned five times.

We look at verses 5-6: “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”

He is saying here that we, His people, His redeemed people, are to be to the praise of His glory. That’s what He wants us to do. He wants us to reflect His glory and as we do, we are praising His glory.

We go down to verse 12. Here it says it again: “That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.”

I love the Amplified Classic translation of that verse. There are two Amplified versions of the Bible, did you know that? One is called “The Amplified” and one is called “The Amplified Classic.”

Here it says that we “have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of His glory!”

Isn’t that wonderful? That’s what you’re doing today, dear precious mother, dear precious wife, in your home. You are living to the praise of His glory.

As you allow Christ to live His life in you and through you to your husband, to your children, to those you meet each day, you are bringing glory to the Lord as you embrace who He created you to be as a female.

Don’t resist that but embrace who you are and live it to the full. You are being a praise to His glory for this is how He made you and this is how you will bring glory to Him.

We go down to verse 14: “Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.”

We read it again.

Would you listen as I read verses 17-23? I want to actually speak about verse 23, but these words are so incredible that I want to read them to you. It’s just the Scripture, it’s not what I’m saying. In fact, you’re going to get more out of hearing God’s living Word more than what I say.

So as I read these wonderful words from God’s living Word, let them go into you and seep into your being. Embrace them into your whole being. Not just your mind and your heart, but your whole body. Let them just take it in.

That’s how we should read the Word, isn’t it? Not just read it on the surface and say, “Oh well, I better do my Bible reading for the day” and we read it and we hardly know what we’ve read. But no, it’s so good when we open our ears, eyes, and hearts and our whole beings and say, “Oh God, I want to take it in and let it seep into my very being.”

So from verse 17 it says: “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory [there’s the word glory again. He’s the Father of glory], may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what [what? What does He want us to know? That ye may know what . . .] is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints [oh, that is His glory: what He sees of Christ in us, His children whom He has redeemed with His precious blood], and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places . . .”

By the way, we are there with Christ now if we are born again. The Bible says that we not only died with Christ, we were raised with Christ, and now we’re seated with Christ in heavenly places. It tells us about that in chapter two of Ephesians. And there we are . . .

“Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.”

See, God wants to fill the earth with His glory, and He is going to do that with His people.

He wanted to do that back when He raised up the Israelites. They were His people He wanted to show forth to the nations all around His glory through them. Of course they sinned and turned away from Him, but of course we know the glorious story of the Bible where Jesus came.

He came to lay down His life and redeem us so that, as it says in Hebrew 2:10: “For it became him [Jesus], for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain [or the leader and chief] of their salvation perfect through sufferings.”

We see there in that Scripture how that Jesus came. He not only came to die to save us from our sins, but to redeem us to Himself and to give us the hope of what He is doing now in preparing us a place in eternity.

He wants to bring many sons into glory. That is His purpose. Oh, He came to redeem many sons to fill eternity, to fill His glorious eternal home with redeemed sons and daughters, redeemed by the blood of Jesus.

As we read these Scriptures, we are seeing the two commissions that God has given.

He gave the first commission in the very beginning: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”

That was the very first commission God ever gave to man. They were the very first words He ever said to mankind.

But then we go over to the New Testament and we have a second commission. It’s called the Great Commission where we are to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, discipling them and baptizing them in the name of Jesus. That’s called the Great Commission.

There are some people who say, “Well, you know, all we need to do today is the great commission. God’s not really interested in actual children today.”

You know, there are still many Christian people today who still believe in limiting their families.

You perhaps say something to them, and they say, “God’s not interested in the natural children. Now we’re in the New Testament and He is only interested in spiritual children and bringing people into the Kingdom of God.”

Well I believe in that with all my heart and that is the Great Commission for each one of us, even us wives and mothers, in our homes.

We go out and we meet so many people as we go out into the supermarket and roundabout with our children doing this and that. We are to be witnesses wherever we go, through our lives, through our tongues, speaking His truth, His Gospel and His Word. Yes, yes, yes!

But that doesn’t negate the first commission. In fact, if we negate the first commission, we’re going to have fewer souls to win to Jesus!

In fact, this is the thing: the more children that we have in our families means the more witnesses we are raising for Jesus. So we are not only bringing more natural children into the world, but we’re going to bring more spiritual children into the world. As our children grow up and go out and are witnesses to Jesus, they are going to impact more and more children.

Both commissions are so important. God wants the natural children to be brought into the world so that they can be redeemed by the blood of Jesus and become His spiritual children. That’s how it works.

We see this Scripture here how He wants the whole earth filled with His glory. That word glory is the word kabod.

We’ve talked about that glorious word kabod that God uses when He is speaking about women. But it is mostly used of God Himself. He is the God of glory, the Father of glory, the Lord Jesus Christ the Lord of glory, the Holy Spirit of glory. He also wants His glory to be revealed in us.

Let’s go on to some other Scriptures, shall we?

I mentioned Genesis 1:28 where it says: “ . . . Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish [fill] the earth . . ..”

Let’s look at those words:

“Be fruitful” is the Hebrew word parah and means: “to increase.” Increase. It doesn’t mean just stop. It means INCREASE. Remember, this is the very first commission God ever gave, the very first words God ever gave to man: “Be fruitful.” So we are to increase.

“Multiply.” That is the Hebrew word rabah meaning “abundance, exceedingly, make great, more and more.”

Then “To fill the earth,” that is the word male. It just means “to fill to overflowing.”

What we’re really going to talk about today is the glory of the Lord is filling to overflowing. We’re going to see where these words are used in the Bible. He wants the glory of the Lord to fill the earth.

Here in Genesis 1:28 He says, “I want you to fill the earth.” What are we to fill the earth with? Not inanimate things, no! We are to fill the earth with people. With babies, with children, with people who grow up to reveal the image of God in the world, especially as they grow up in godly homes.

As your precious children grow up in your home and you are raising them in the ways of God and you’re filling them with His Word, as you do this they are getting filled with Jesus, filled with His Word, filled with His truth, they will reveal His glory.

We go over to Genesis chapter 9:1. This now is after the flood and after God wiped out all mankind because of their sin. He had only saved Noah, his wife, their three sons and their wives.

He came again and He said these words again. This time He repeated them two times. He didn’t just say it once, but He repeated it twice. “And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.”

What does it mean? It means: “fill to overflowing.” This time God, to make sure they got the message, He spoke this first command He had ever given to mankind two times.

Actually, if we just look at that a little closer in Genesis chapter nine, He goes on and makes something even clearer. In verse three He talks about how the fish and the clean animals could be food for them.

Verses 4-7 says: “But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.”

He’s not only saying this a second time, but He’s saying the words a second time as He reiterates this.

Why is He saying this? He said: “For in the image of God I created you.”

This is why every person that comes into the world is sacred. Every new conceived human being is sacred. Every new conception is a person from that moment. God says that their life will be required.

Life is sacred to God because life is being created in the image of God. God wants His image revealed on the earth.

This is His glory and He wants His glory to fill the earth.

Now we know that every person who is conceived and grows in the womb and is born is created in the image of God. There is a light of God that God puts in every new creation. Sadly in homes where they do not love God and they may be even atheistic or antagonistic toward God that light can be dimmed. That child therefore doesn’t grow up with the knowledge of God.

But they still have opportunity. God is over all and in some miraculous way God moves and works and that person can be born again. We know of great, glorious redemptions of people who have grown up in terrible, antagonistic toward God and atheistic homes and God has redeemed them by His precious blood.

But oh, how glorious it is for children to grow up in homes where God is loved, and His ways are taught. This is so strong on the heart of God.

We talked just recently on a podcast how God says in Micah 2:9, “Oh, you have taken children, My children, out of the home. You have taken them away from Me and you’ve put them with pagans.”

You see, God wants His children raised in godly homes learning about Him.

Every single child is sacred, and everyone has that opportunity. Yes, more so in a Christian, godly home, but by the moving of the Holy Spirit others can come to know Christ and become sons of God. Amen?

There we see it all reiterated.

So precious ladies, God wants to see our homes filled with children. He loves to see our homes filled with children. It’s sad that there are many homes in our nation today that have more TV’s than they have children. Often, they’re just filled with material possessions and often just one or two children.

I was recently reading some recent statistics, the National Center for Health statistics. The latest I read was from 2018.

The 2018 birth rate for the US had fallen to 59 births per one thousand women during the ages of 15-44 years. That is the lowest birth rate ever recorded in US history.

Now ladies, isn’t that sad? I mean, here we leave in this affluent society. We are more affluent today than in any other time. I think this generation today has no idea of the affluence in which they live.

I grew up in New Zealand, an affluent country just like the US, but our lifestyle was so different than it is today. I think even grandparents today, their lifestyle was more different than it is today.

I thought when I grew up that we were rich. We had everything we needed! But we didn’t have what we have today.

I mean I can remember Christmas time. Oh, I couldn’t wait for Christmas. In my little stocking, well my parents would put up a pillowcase. We didn’t believe in Father Christmas, but my parents still just did this for fun.

We’d wake up in the morning, and we knew that it was mummy and daddy who had filled our little pillowcase with things.

If I got an orange, an ORANGE, ladies, in my pillowcase I couldn’t believe it. It was so exciting. Back then if you got an orange— wow! I mean if you grew them on the tree that was great. But to buy them in the shops out of season, you didn’t do that because back then, of course, we didn’t have all the refrigeration or all the deep freezers. So you only ate what was in season. You didn’t have anything out of season. This generation doesn’t know how to live like that.

They can have anything they want from any season and from any country of the world. You just go down to the supermarket and buy it.

You didn’t just go out and buy new clothes. You made your clothes. Today of course it’s just about cheaper to buy your own clothes rather than make them.

This was back in these days. You lived so frugally. Even now I absolutely cannot stand to throw out food. I have to eat it.

When we have our big family gatherings and all the children are there for Thanksgiving and Christmas and other big celebrations, we have all this food laid out. It’s like a feast.

Then I will say to all the children, “Now children, just take what you can eat. You’re so welcome to come back for more. But don’t take more than you can eat because Nana’s not going to be very pleased if you leave food on your plate.”

So I give my little lecture every celebration. But sadly every celebration I go around, I am collecting the plates and there is still food left on the plates.

I feel so sad to throw away this food, beautiful lamb and turkey and chicken, all good food. It’s just as well we have some dogs we can give it to.

But that is so sad. Today I notice how most Americans eat. They fill their plate and then just leave half of it and throw it out like it’s nothing, just nothing! Oh, goodness me! Oh! it doesn’t matter!

They have never known what it’s like to have just enough money to survive and you eat what’s on your plate. In fact, back in those days if you didn’t eat it, it was put away and you ate it for the next meal. It was never thrown away.

It’s just a different generation.

But in this affluent generation, what are the birth statistics? We are the lowest birth rate in history. How can that be when our forefathers struggled? They didn’t have what we have today. But they had children.

What is it? What has happened? And yet, especially us who are God’s people, who say we’re “people of the Book.” Who say we believe God’s Word and His very first command is “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth to overflowing.”

And we can only have our 1.7 children. That’s what the statistic is, it’s 1.7 per family. That is not enough to replace the next generation.

That’s why we have to bring in all this immigration and of course who is coming in but all the Islamics? They’re bringing in a different culture and a different religion than how this country began. It’s all because we will not have our own children.

We see what’s happening in other countries. We know the one child policy of China (which I think they’ve just changed to two just recently). The statistics are that by the year 2030 there will be 30 million more men of marrying age than women of marrying age.

This is because they have done selective abortion and they have only been allowed to have one child for years and   they therefore would abort the daughters. You can hardly take that in.

What about India? In India there is a study by The Population Research Center. They have discovered that one in ten of every ten men in India will never have been married by the time they have turned 50 years of age because there are no women to marry.

All of this is because we have become a selfish people. We want more material things in our homes than we want children. Isn’t that amazing? Oh goodness me!

We will see just a few little Scriptures as I finish this session. We go to Ezekiel 36. This is a glorious chapter! Oh, I love this chapter of the Bible, ladies.  It’s a chapter speaking of God’s prophetic word to the children of Israel coming back to the land.

We know how God spewed them out of the land because they began to do these wicked sins like the people of Canaan whom God told them to wipe out because of their sin. Now they began to rebel against Him. Eventually God just scattered them across the face of the world.

God is a covenant-keeping God and although He had to bring judgment upon them, He will never break His covenant with Israel. The Word of God is filled with promises of how He will bring them back to the land.

In fact there’s an article on my webpage called “Israel and the Land.” Just go to website aboverubies.org and search under my articles and type in “Israel.” Actually, here is the link: http://aboverubies.org/EverlastingPossession

It gives all the promises written out under different headings. It has all the promises of how He has promised to bring them back. We are living in the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy right now and have been for so many years! God has been bringing back His people to the land. It is so incredible! How can anyone not believe the Word of God? How can anyone not believe in God when we are living in the middle of prophetic prophecy coming to pass?

Anyway, Ezekiel 36 is amazing. You need to read it sometime how God says: “Prophecy.” He doesn’t say “Prophecy to people” He says: “Prophecy to the land. Yes, prophecy to the land, to the hills, to the mountains, to the rivers, to the hills, to the valleys, to the desolate places and to the cities that have been forsaken. “ He says they’re to prophecy to this land. You’ve got to speak to this land that it will bring forth fruit for my people who are coming back.

I have seen this with my very eyes as I have visited Israel.

This chapter is specifically speaking about the West Bank, the heartland of Israel and the mountains of Israel. I’ve been out there to those mountains and they are so barren and desolate. It’s just like stones and dirt.

And yet when they begin to plant the vineyards and other things in that land, they just grow! They grow out of dirt! I mean, everything grows out of dirt, but this is just stones and barren dirt. It doesn’t even look like rich, lush soil there because there is not rich, lush soil there.

But because of the prophetic Word of the Lord it just grows, and these glorious vineyards are just growing. God said He’s going to do it.

He also said in verses 37-38: “Thus saith the Lord  God; I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them; I will increase them with men like a flock. As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts; so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men: and they shall know that I am the Lord.”

God is prophetically speaking, and it’s happening right now: this heartland of Israel and all over Israel is being filled, not only with crops and becoming like the garden of Eden, but it’s being filled with flocks of men.

God wants to FILL. When He blesses, He fills. That’s the heart of God. When God said, “Be fruitful and multiply” He didn’t just say it. No! He did something before He said it.

What did He do? Do you know? Before God said those words, it says: “And God blessed them and said, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth.”

When God came to Noah and his sons after the flood it says: “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.”

And as we read through Genesis and right throughout the Word, every time we read about God bringing forth a child or blessing them with family or multiplying them, it first says, “And God blessed them.”

God blesses to fill. God doesn’t want us to half fill. He wants us to fill to overflowing.

I’m going to talk more about this in our next session because there is so much more. 

Let’s pray.

“Dearest Father, we want to thank You for Your heart, for Your Word, for Your way.

“Forgive us, Lord, for being so ignorant of Your ways. Lord, we are Your people. Help us to be people who know You, who know Your Words, who know Your Book.

“Lord God, help us to be Your people who walk in truth and who walk in obedience to Your ways. Give us revelation and understanding and bless these lovely listeners today, Lord God.

“Bless their hearts, bless their families, bless their homes I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.”

 

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Episode 73: The Glory of Womanhood (Part 6)

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

Nancy: Hello, dear ladies. Today we are continuing our series of living in the glory of womanhood. We are continuing Point Number Seven which is raising young men to be strong is our glory. Well, it's their glory, but it's also our glory because we are the ones who are raising them. I'd like to share a little poem with you as I'm thinking about young men. I wrote this for young men. It's called, “Young Man of Valor.”

Young Man of Valor

Young man of God, will you guard your eyes

And keep them only for your greatest prize?

The wife God planned for you from the beginning,

She’ll be enough to keep your head a-spinning!

Don’t waste your emotions looking at other girls,

No matter how special or gorgeous their curls,

Instead, keep your eyes fixed on the Lord,

Follow His leading and you’ll never be flawed.

Young man of might, will you guard your heart?

Don’t give your feelings to any upstart,

Keep your heart disciplined and wait for the time

When God gives you His choice; it will be sublime!

A daughter of virtue who has kept herself pure,

Who follows after truth and trusts God for sure,

One who loves children and keeping the home,

And who delights to serve without a moan.

Young man of valor, will you keep your body pure

For your wedding day when it’s bliss for sure?

Will you start your marriage on a holy foundation?

This is the way to strengthen the nation.

Establish a family that will endure any test?

God will be with you and you will be blessed,

In the storms, the wind, and the battles of life

If you keep the covenant with your lovely wife.

If you'd like to have that poem for your young boys growing up you can email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and I'd be happy to send it to you.

We are continuing our thoughts on raising young men to be strong in the Lord for that is their glory. We read in the last session in 1 John 2:14: “I have written unto you, young men because you are strong and the Word of God abides in you, you have overcome the wicked one.” How do they become strong, mothers? It's by having the Word of God in them. Therefore, as mothers, of course along with our husbands, their fathers, we need to get the Word of God into our sons, right when they are little.

We don't start when they are older, we start at the beginning. When is the beginning? I believe the beginning is in the womb. You can speak the Word of God over your little babe in the womb. Then, when the little babe is born, and you're nursing your little baby at the breast, you're sitting around the table with your older children, and the father is reading the Word to the children, your little babe is there, and the Word is going into their hearts.

They won't understand, but somehow, it's going in because the Word of God is not an ordinary book. The Word of God is alive and active. The Bible tells us that in the homes of those who love the Lord and where His Word is read, it prepares our children for salvation. 2 Timothy 3:15, this is Paul writing to Timothy and he says: “That from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures.”

Remember, in another passage it talks about his mother and his grandmother who taught him the Word of God (1 Timothy 1:5). It's interesting that there's no mention of a father even, or a grandfather, in that Scripture. Maybe his father didn't walk with the Lord, yet this mother and grandmother were faithful to teach Timothy in the Word.

Perhaps you are a mother listening and your husband really isn't walking with the Lord or maybe he is resistant about reading God's Word to your family. Well, dear mother, you can still get the Word into your children. God will show you how. Maybe, as your husband goes off to work early, you can take devotions with them at the breakfast table. You can read the Word to them. You can get the Word into your children just like Timothy's mother and grandmother did, even though there was no mention of a father.

It says here: “That from a child thou hath known the Holy Scriptures.” From a child. That word, child, in the Greek is the word brephos. That word is used of a babe in the womb. It's used of when Jesus was in the womb (Luke 2:12) and then again, it's used of a newborn babe. That was used of Jesus too and how the shepherds came to see Him, and the angel said, “You'll find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, in a manger. It speaks of a newborn (Luke 2;16). Brephos speaks of a toddler and a little child. It's from the womb, and birth, and growing up as a little one. It's not waiting until they are older. It's when they are little that you are putting the Holy Scriptures into their lives.

“From a child (from a little one), thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus.” In a home, where the Word of God is being constantly read and the little ones are hearing it, they can come to a readiness for salvation quite early, even four years of age, maybe even three years of age.

I remember when little Breezy, our granddaughter, was only about three years of age, and she was with us at family devotions and my husband was reading the Word, and he saw the presence of God all over Breezy, and he felt she was ready to receive Jesus. He said to her, “Breezy, would you love to ask Jesus into your heart?” She said, “Oh yes,” and she followed him in prayer, asking Jesus to come into her heart. It was amazing.

The next few days she was going around singing and making up songs of how Jesus was in her heart. Breezy will be ten in a couple of weeks, and she is still walking with Jesus. I love watching her in church, without any pressure from anyone, on her own, and we are worshiping the Lord, and she has her hands up raised in worship to God. Such a beautiful thing to see in a young girl.

Most of our own children came to know Jesus at about four years of age. They are all continuing to walk with the Lord today. That experience wasn't something that was forgotten. It was something that they remembered in their lives, and they continued to walk with the Lord. I believe that it is important for our children to find Jesus at a young age because the enemy is after their souls. The sooner that Jesus comes into their lives and there is an openness to Christ, to His Word, to come into their world, that the more they can walk with him.

Even we, as adults, have to learn to walk in victory. We have to learn in all the situations we face to say no to the devil and yes to Christ.  Because we have two natures living within us—we have that old fleshly nature, but of course, we have Christ who dwells within us, and we want Him to fill our lives. We don't want that old nature to rise up.

When we face temptation, when we face situations when we want to blow it and yell and scream and get mad and angry, or when we have a bad attitude toward our husbands, that's the flesh! That doesn't belong to Jesus. We have to learn to say no to the devil and yes to Christ.

“Lord Jesus, I thank You that You dwell in my heart. I thank You for Your love that is within me. Thank You.” You're saying yes to Christ, yes to His nature. We teach our children this. We don't have to wait until they are older for them to learn to walk in victory. When they face these little things and they get mad and angry, we teach them, “That's the old nature, but darling, you have Jesus living in you now. His nature wants to love. His nature doesn't get angry and mad. His nature forgives.”

We teach our children about how Christ dwells in them. They can say yes to Him and the more they get in the habit of saying yes to Him, the more they learn to live and abide in Christ and live in the nature of Christ and be conformed to the image of His son. We start when they are young, and we keep going. We get our children into the Word.

My husband was reading an article this morning before we started out family devotions, and it was saying Bible illiteracy is at a crisis point in our nation. I have to agree with this writer. Bible illiteracy is at a crisis point in our nation because I find that so many young people in our church today don't know God's Word. They know so much about sports, so much about the latest movies; they know so much about social media, but if you ask them Scripture, they don't know it.

 Oh my. I have been doing a little competition recently at our family camps and different family gatherings that we've been at and asked to speak. I've been speaking about the Word of God and encouraging parents to get the Word into their children. I've said, “Let's see how well we know the Word of God, shall we?” I have quoted a few very familiar Scriptures, ones that I learned as a child, ones that we as Christian parents should be teaching our children. I would say half the Scripture and say, “Ok, what's the rest of it?”

Well, I was so sad to realize nobody answered me, not the moms and dads, not the children, not the young people. Nobody knew the rest of the Scripture. In some places, one or two would get a couple of them right but mostly, they didn't know them. Dear ladies, that means we are Bible illiterate. This wasn't just the children; this was the moms and dads. How can we, as moms and dads, get it into our children if we don't know it? That means we are not in the Word of God. We've got to get into the Word ourselves.

There's one way I find is such a blessing. Although I love to have my own time in the Word of God in the early morning, I also love our gathering as family for family devotions or whatever you like to call it in your family—family Bible reading, family worship, or whatever. When we come together, and the father reads the Word and we are hearing it every morning and we come together again at the evening meal at the end of the meal we are hearing it again. We are getting the Word into our hearts. I would have to say that most of the families are not doing this, or they would know these Scriptures.

How about I have a little try on you? What do you think? Is that a good idea? Maybe it's not a good idea. Well, I think I'll give you a little competition anyway. I'm going to say it halfway through and see if you can, in your heart, say the rest of the Scripture:

“Thy word have I hid in my heart that . . . ” What comes next? Did you get tit? I know some of you got it. “That I might not sin against thee” (Psalm 119:11). That's a wonderful Scripture to teach our children, isn't it? And also to have in our own hearts. “Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.” You see, we've either got the Word in our hearts or we can be tempted to sin. As one little statement says: “The Bible will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from the Bible.”

We've got to get it into the hearts of our children. Here's another one:

“Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way . . . ” Can you get it? “By taking heed thereto according to thy Word.” That's Psalm 119:9. That's an important word for our young people to know because it's talking about the young man. How can a young man keep clean? This is the way—having the Word of God in his heart. Amen?

What are we talking about? Raising young men to be strong. 1 John 2:14 says they will be strong if they have the Word of God abiding in their hearts. Lovely mothers, get that Word into your children and into your sons. Amen?

Here's another one for you. “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you . . . ” How is it meant to dwell in you? How is God's Word meant to dwell in our hearts? Did you get it? I'll give you the answer in case you didn't. “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly”  Colossians 3:16). Not a little bit, not just here and there. It's not enough, darling ladies, to take our children to Sunday School on Sunday or church on Sunday or Saturday, whenever we worship. No, we've got to get it into them richly, filling their lives. That means every day, every morning, every evening. Amen?

Alright, John 6:37: “Jesus said, him that cometh to me . . . ” What? Can you finish it? “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”

What about Romans 6:23? I learned this as a child, so important for our children to know Scriptures about salvation if they are going to be able to lead people to Jesus. Romans 6:23. Do you know it? “The wages of sin is death but . . .  What's the rest? “But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Such an important one to know, isn't it?

Romans 10:13: “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall . . . ?” “Shall be saved.” Amen?

Let me give you one more. Are you getting them all? That means you are one who knows the Word. If you're not, that means, my lovely darlings, you're a little bit illiterate, and we don't want to be illiterate in God's Word. We want to be familiar with it, don't we? One more. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock . . . ” That's Jesus speaking. What does He say next? Do you remember? Say it with me, I'm sure you know it. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me” (Revelation 3:20).

Lovely ladies, these are not obscure verses in the Word of God. These are very familiar ones. They are ones we should all know. They are ones we should be teaching our children to memorize.

It's a great thing to teach your children to memorize the Word of God. I think that was one of  the greatest lessons of my childhood, perhaps even more in my growing into youth and my later teenage years. In those years, I really began to be more purposeful in memorizing the Word of God. I did learn many Scriptures as a child, but I really went into memorizing. It was such a great blessing because as I memorized those Scriptures, they are still with me today.

I was blessed to have a father who loved to memorize the Word of God. My father never slept very well. All his life, he only slept a little bit off and on through the night, but he never got into a state about it. He would memorize the Word, and he would go over and over the Scriptures, and we would learn Scriptures together. Even in his late eighties, he was still memorizing Scriptures. In fact, he would memorize whole chapters of the Word of God. When he got up to preach, Scriptures would  just come out of his mouth, and he would quote whole chapters of the Word.

That was a great blessing in my life. I would encourage you, dear ladies, to do this because we are raising young men to live in their glory, remember? If they are going to be strong, they have to know the Word of God and know how to overcome the wicked one. How did Jesus overcome the wicked one? We go to Matthew 4:1 when Jesus was taken out into the wilderness, and He didn't just land there. The Bible says that he was led. God led him into the wilderness. Satan came to tempt him.

You know, don't you, that every temptation Jesus came back at the enemy with, “It is written?” The first one was: “It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” We live physically by bread, by food to keep us alive, but we live spiritually by the Living Bread, the Word of God, which keeps us alive spiritually and keeps us strong from the enemy.

If Jesus used the Word, He showed us the way. We have to do it. We teach our children to do it. We teach our young sons growing up to do it. Amen!

Do you remember how Jesus was only twelve years of age and they had come up to Jerusalem for Passover? They all began to go home. All the families and Jesus' mother and father didn't even notice that he wasn't with everybody. When they noticed, oh goodness me, they were looking for him everywhere and they thought, well, we better go back to Jerusalem. Three days later, they found him in the temple, discoursing, debating, talking, and listening to the teachers in the temple. There he was speaking over the things of the Word of God. He was only twelve at the time, but we say, “That was Jesus, the Son of God!” But he became flesh and blood and sometimes we think our children don't really have to get interested in the Bible while they are young. One day, they will. No, no, no.

Why was Jesus able to talk about the Scriptures with these teachers? Because he would have grown up learning them in his home. Back then in those days they learned the Scriptures, they learned the law, they learned the Torah. They memorized it. Back then, young men were mature in their youth, even the disciples.

Now, most people often think of the disciples as older men. You see pictures of them with their beards, and they look older or at least the age of Jesus, who was 30 years of age when He became a rabbi and gathered disciples to Himself. The law in Israel was that you had to be 30 years of age before you could be a rabbi, and there were lots of rabbis in Jerusalem at that time and each one would gather disciples around them.

Ladies, we often get it wrong because the disciples were young. Back then, rabbis didn't gather grown men around them. No, grown men were either a rabbi themselves or they were in their business, their family business. They had to provide for their families. They gathered young men. Back then, in the time of Jesus, most young men finished their education at about 13 - 15 years of age. That seems young to us today, doesn't it? But they had a good education. By that time, maybe some of them could recite the whole first five books of the Bible. They were serious in their education, and they knew the Word of God.

Then they would come out about 13 or 15 and they would either go be with a rabbi, perhaps like going to college, and learning more from the rabbi, or they would get into their father's business. It was like this with all the disciples that Jesus called to be His disciples. He called Peter, James, and John from being fisherman. They had already got involved in their family business as fisherman. He called them from that, and they became his disciples.

Later, we know that Peter was the only one who was married. It speaks of his wife, well not really, it speaks of his mother-in-law and that they were in his mother-in-law's house and how Jesus healed his mother-in- law, so he was obviously married. Usually by about 18 years of age. They liked to make sure that the young men were married by that time. I know that sounds so young in our society today, but these young men were ready and mature and ready for marriage. They were ready to take on the responsibility of a family.

Not long before the death of Jesus, Jesus said to Peter, “Hey Peter, go and get a shekel for you and me.” Every person who was 20 years of age and over had to pay taxes. It was half a shekel a year, so Jesus told Peter to go and get a shekel, half for Him, half for Peter because they were the only two among his disciples who needed to pay. The others were all younger. They were young men, but they had grown up to be mature in their youth and to take responsibility, and they would have also been very familiar with the Word of God, with the whole Torah, and the Tanakh, the whole of the Old Testament. They had been grounded in it. As young teenagers, they were not unfamiliar with the Word of God when Jesus called them to be His disciples.

Dear lovely ladies, I must give you this Scripture. It's found in Hosea 8:12. It says: “I have written to him the great things of my law.” Here, God is saying, “I have given you great things in my Word. That means ‘abundant, excellent, multitudinous.’ There's multitudes of wonderful things in my law, people.” Sometimes we think ,the law, oh that's just the Ten Commandments. No, the law is the word, torah, and it actually means teaching. It's all the teaching that God has given in His Word.

He says: “I have given you great things in my law, but they were counted as a strange thing.” Isn't that sad, ladies? May that never be in our families as you raise your family. Don't let that ever be a testimony of your family, that the Word of God is a strange thing. Don't ever let that be a testimony of your children or your young sons growing up, that it's a strange thing.

That Word has got to be in them; it's got to be richly in them. It must not be strange; it must be familiar, these basic Scriptures of the Word of God. If they don't know them, start making them memory verses so that your children can, when you say or speak a very familiar verse, they can finish it, they know it. It's in their hearts. Not only in their hearts but in their mouths. You see, lovely ladies, it's not enough to get the Word into our children's hearts. We have to get them into their mouths. This is the mandate God has given to us as parents. Isaiah 59:2, I'm sure I've shared this Scripture before, but I'm reading it again because it's so powerful, and it is the mandate that God has given to us.

It says: “'As for me, this is my covenant with them,' saith the Lord, 'My Spirit which is upon you and my Word, which I have put in your mouth.'” Did you notice that, ladies? It doesn't just say the heart. “My word which I have put in your mouth.” That's in the mouth of us parents. Fathers and mothers, we've got to have it in our mouths so that we can get it into the mouths of our children. It says, “'I've put it in your mouth, and it shall not depart out of your mouth nor out of the mouth of your children, nor out of the mouth of your children's children,' saith the Lord, 'henceforth and forever.'”

Do you see God's plan? We are getting God's Word into the hearts and mouths of our children so that they will pass it on to their children and their children will pass it on to their children, for every generation. Amen?

God's word is the anecdote to deception.

Dear mothers, we are raising children in an absolutely deceived world, and the only anecdote to the deception that's all around us and in the world is God's Word. Now, what does it say in Matthew 24:24? “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and they shall show great signs and wonders: insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.”

Yes, the deception is so powerful that God says even the elect can be deceived. Therefore, we have to be girded up and filled with the Word of God. We've got to get our children filled with the Word of God so that it's coming out their mouths, so that it's familiar with them so that when they face deception, they discern, they know that's not right because they've got that Word in them, which is the anecdote to deception. It discovers and discloses the deception.

This is the thing today, even Christians are being deceived because they don't know the Word; they haven't a clue, so they go along with what society is doing.

2 Peter 1:4: “Whereby give unto us exceeding great and precious promises.” He hasn't just given us promises, no. “Exceeding great and precious promises: that by these we might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

If you want your sons to grow up pure, cleansed, and holy young men of God, they've got to have the Word of God in them, for it is the Word that delivers from corruption. It is the Word that keeps us from the lust in this world today. Amen? Lovely ladies, raise your children and your sons to live in their glory which is to be strong in the Lord and have the Word of God in their hearts, so they can overcome the wicked one. As you do that, you are living your glory. Amen?

“Dear Father, we thank You for Your precious Word. Yes, You’ve given to us great things. You've given to us exceeding great and precious promises. Lord, Your Word is that which keeps us from corruption. Your Word keeps us form the lust of this world. Father, we pray that You will anoint us. I pray for every precious mother. Amen.”

 

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Episode 72: The Glory of Womanhood (Part 5)

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

Nancy Campbell: Today we continue our series, The Glory of Womanhood. Now this is not really the vocab that we use today. But ladies, it is the vocabulary of the Word of God.

Let’s do a recap. So far, we have talked about five different points.

Number one. First of all, the first point is we have been endowed with glory from the beginning of creation. God has put upon us as females His glory because we are created in His image. Our job is to keep and hold on to that glory.

Number two. Motherhood is our glory.

Number three. The home is our glory. If you don’t believe me, go back to those podcasts and listen again to God’s Word because this is Bible language.

Number four. Even breastfeeding is our glory. That’s what the Bible says.

Number five. Raising our children to present before the Lord at His coming is glory. That is going to be our greatest glory when we bring our children before Him on that Day. You see motherhood is an eternal work. We’re not doing something that’s just for this life. We are doing something for eternity because our children are eternal souls.

And number six. We’re up to today to: Femininity is your glory.

When God created man, He first created the human as one. Then it was later that He put Adam to sleep and He brought out those female, womanly qualities or hormones or whatever they were that were already in the man. He brought them out of the man and from that He built (that’s the word God uses), He built and created a woman. This woman was to reveal another aspect of God.

So they were originally one then God made them two.

The male, his role is to reveal the masculinity of God. Although God is genderless Himself, He created the man to be masculine and the woman to be feminine. Both reveal who God is like in different ways.

The greatest thing a man can do is to reveal the father heart of God. God has put within man those masculine qualities of leadership and strength.

Of course, we as women have great strength too, but our strengths are in different directions and different ways. Maybe we’ll talk about that on another podcast sometime.

But we are also to reveal God’s nurturing and maternal heart and a femininity that He delights to see in His female creation. It would have been purposeless for Him to create another man, another male. God wanted someone who was different.

I do believe, especially now in this transgenderism culture in which we are living, which dear ladies, it’s hard to believe. It’s hard to believe we are living in a culture that encourages transgenderism. I mean, it’s unbelievable,

I have talked with teachers recently who, in their schools, they are encouraged as teachers to promote this. One teacher was telling us he has two students in his class who are changing to the opposite gender. They are encouraged to promote them and lift them up in the classroom as though they are doing something that is wonderful.

Can you believe this? This is just too much? And I think we dare not get used to it.

In Romans chapter 12:9 it says that we are to “hate evil.” Now the word in the Greek there literally means “to shudder at evil.” I believe we need to have that shuddering.

Do we really have that? Or are we getting so used to what is happening in our society today that (of course we don’t agree with it), but we kind of get used it.

We dare not get used to it!

We should have that shuddering of evil and that attitude should also come upon our children. If we don’t have a shuddering of evil, how will our children have it? They need to have it because they are going out into this society where this is beginning to happen more and more all around them. It is promoted in schools.

Therefore I believe this that in this society, and in this culture, we should be the pictures of femininity. We don’t want to try and be masculine. We don’t want to look masculine and we don’t want to be masculine in any way.

That doesn’t make us endearing to anyone and it doesn’t help us because we were created female and feminine. Therefore, that’s how we should live.

How sad to go through life and not be to the absolute fullness what God created us to be.

Therefore, because we are female, let’s embrace our femininity with all our hearts. Let us let people see everywhere we go that we are female. Let our children see that we are female, that we are embracing this role, that we love to be female and embrace our female like qualities and love to be feminine. It is true that our children will imbibe more from what they see than even from what we tell them.

I was blessed to grow up in a home where I saw the difference in the sexes. My father was a man’s man in a man’s world. He lived out there in that man’s world and he was a real man. There was nothing wimpy about him in any way.

In fact, he was an incredible man. He was what you would call a “Jack of all trades.”

Now sometimes you think of people who are called a “Jack of all trades but a master of none.” You know, they can do a bit of everything, but they are not really a master.

But my father happened to be a master of many things, not just one thing. They were very mannish things.

Apart from all his jobs, he was the world champion sheep sheerer of the world in his prime. He used to also run a sawmill. He knew the whole business of butchering. He did so many careers. He also was a hunter and a great outdoorsman.

I saw this real man, and yet a man with a father’s heart. I was blessed to have a father who had a father’s heart. I know who I am today because of my father who put great trust in me and who constantly encouraged me.

He saw in me things I didn’t see. I didn’t think much of myself, but he, because of his belief in me, somehow, I had to rise to it because he was a great father. Yes, he disciplined me, but he loved me. Because of his love I could receive his discipline.

My mother was a beautiful feminine woman. My father loved her as a feminine woman. She was a great seamstress. She used to make all her own clothing and her hats and everything. She was very creative. She always dressed like a queen.

It is so different today. If we want to get something from the supermarket, we just pop out of the house in whatever we’re wearing. But you didn’t do that back in those days. You would get dressed up.

To go to the shops, my mother would walk. You didn’t’ have a second car in those days.  She would walk and she would have on her beautiful clothes that she had made with her hat, handbag, and gloves to match—walking like a queen. Oh how my father loved her, and he was so proud of her. He had a queen! He was king and she was the queen.

She loved her home. She loved her family. She loved to be in the heart of her home.

And so I saw the roles distinguished. It is a very powerful thing. I didn’t think anything of it growing up, but then as I’ve grown up, and more and more as we are seeing the merging of the roles today, I am so glad that I saw that.

I didn’t have to have any lectures about it. I saw it! That’s what our children should see in us, lovely mothers. They should see it. Our sons should see our femininity. Our daughters should see our femininity so that we dress femininely.

Well sadly, hardly anyone dresses femininely today, because we all wear the uniform. Growing up I went to school and I had to wear the uniform. Back in those days you all wore a uniform and it was always the most horrible thing you could ever wear. It was always dismal, dark, boring, and horrible.

Oh goodness me, I hated it! And yet, isn’t it amazing how today, people wear the uniform. Not quite the exact uniform, but everyone today is dressed in jeans and top.

I’m not saying you can’t wear that, but I must admit it is a bit of a uniform. I also have to admit it’s not really very feminine. Sometimes you can make it feminine by putting on a feminine top and make it look a bit more feminine. But to tell you the truth, it’s not truly feminine, is it?

Yet here we are, that’s what everybody wears. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the secular place or in the church. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in the world or you’re in God, you’re still wearing the uniform, because we are like sheep. We follow what everybody else is doing.

Sometimes I look at some of our beautiful young people walking around. They are lovely young people and they love God with all their hearts. I look them with their jeans on with holes in their knees, holes in their thighs, and I think, “Oh goodness me, grandmothers would turn over in their graves to see them like this! They wouldn’t even be able to believe it!”

But there we go. That’s the uniform. But really, it’s not that feminine and to tell you the truth, I don’t even see any godliness about it. Yet, that’s what we do because that’s what everyone is doing.

We say, “It’s just as well God looks on the heart.” And I know so many of these who are dressing like this. Their hearts are beautiful. Yes, they just love God with all their hearts. But they are conditioned by society.

It’s true. We are conditioned by society more than we are the Word of God or even the heart of God Who created us feminine.

I’m at airports a lot of the time going to speak out at Above Rubies retreats. Sometimes we have to wait for planes. As I’m waiting, I look around and think, “I wonder if I can see a real feminine woman.”

It’s very rare. Every now and then you’ll see one with a beautiful skirt on, just really looking so feminine and they do look so lovely. Actually, they stand out.

In fact I was at a church one night, not our church that we are part of, but I went to this big meeting. This has actually happened a couple of times to me and I was unbelievably amazed. These young people came up to me and they said, “Oh, you just look so beautiful.”

Now here I am, this older person, and I have this lovely skirt and jacket on. And I mean, I have to confess, I don’t think I was looking very beautiful because I am older and here are all these glorious young people.

I thought, “I wonder why they said that.” I thought later, I think it was something about my femininity. Something about what I was wearing gave that feminine image.

They were all in their uniform of jeans and top. Even though that is what they wear, there is something inside them that obviously related to “Oh, yes, that is beautiful!” It has happened more than once.

It’s interesting. I love to have a dress up box in my home because the children love it, especially the young ones, the little ones. They love to come and get out the dress up box and find all these lovely dresses. Sometimes they get wrecked and we run out of them. But I have also lots of leftover lacey curtains and things. They are so creative! They can just take bits of material, lace, and curtains and dress themselves up like princesses and queens.

I find every time they come, that’s how they dress. They want to be a princess and they want to be a queen. It’s in them, this femininity, this wanting to look beautiful like a princess.

Then of course, as they get older and get into society, they get with the groove and start to wear those things. But really, inside of them, they delight to do that.

Coming up very soon we will be having Breezy’s Ball. Breezy is one of Serene’s children, Serene and Pearl of Trim Healthy Mama.

Breezy will be having her 10^th birthday. But when she was only four years of age, Serene was putting on a little party for her. She decided, “Okay, I think we will have a ball for Breezy.”

Breezy, at that age, she was only four, but oh, she just wanted to be a princess. She always was dressing up like a princess. Every time you saw Breezy ,she was in a princess dress and she wanted to marry a prince.

So Serene said, “We are going to have a ball for Breezy. All the girls and mums and aunties, you have to come dressed up as a princess. Boys, you’ve got to come as a knight or a soldier or a prince and dress up as someone pretty amazing.

Because when we have parties at our place we don’t have “All of the little girls come to the little girls party” or “All of the boys come to the boy’s party.” Although that happens sometimes, because the boys will go out and sleep out into the woods sometimes. But mostly we have family parties, and everyone is asked.

Well, it turned out to be one of the most amazing fancy dress ball we have ever had. We do a lot of dressing up here, but everybody just went” to the nines” and it was just glorious.

Then we had some beautiful ballroom dancing for Breezy. It was such a beautiful night. It was so glorious that we have now made it a tradition and we do have Breezy’s ball every year where we all get dressed up.   

It just shows, though, doesn’t it, ladies, that it is actually inside us, it’s there right from the beginning. It gets sort of brainwashed out of us because of the culture we live in. But I think right down inside we really know that God wants us to be feminine. So I think we should seek to be as feminine as we can in the way we dress so when we go out in society there is a distinction between male and female.

I’m a great believer in seeing a distinction. Not just a blur, a distinction between male and female.

A distinction in the way we dress, yes, but in the way we talk, in the way we walk, in the way we sit. That’s another thing today. So many young people do not know how to sit because they are used to wearing jeans and they can put their legs any way they’d like because you can’t see up to everything.

If you are wearing a skirt, then you have to make sure that it’s long enough covering your knees and that you sit in a way that no one can see anything. You learn to sit femininely and in the correct way for women.

There are all these different areas of our femininity. I’m not putting any laws on you at all. But all I want to say is, God created us feminine. Let’s seek to be as much as we can and in every way, feminine.

This is our glory. We give glory to God when we are feminine. We’re not showing the glory of how He created us when we dress and act and speak masculine.

So I think we need these little reminders, don’t we?

Let’s go on to our next point, which is number seven.

Number seven. Raising young men to be strong is glory.

The Bible says in Proverbs 20:29: “The glory of young men is their strength . . ..”

That is so true. It’s wonderful to see young men growing up and growing up tall. Well some are going to be short but growing up strong. They are taking on their masculinity and are real males. There’s no little wimpiness or femininity about them. Once again, young men need to show their masculinity.

So lovely mothers, we are training our daughters to be feminine and we’re training our sons to be masculine and to grow up and to be like men.

To grow up in their youth to be like men. Psalm 144:12 talks about our sons growing up to be mature, even in their youth. We’re not keeping our sons as little boys, little wimpy boys who don’t know how to work and don’t know how to take responsibility. No, we’re raising sons to be mature.

We’re raising them to be strong physically, but strong in character.

Girls, of course, have to be strong in character too. But we’ll talk about that another day. Today we’re talking about our sons because we’re talking about how God says that for young men, their strength is their glory.

Who are the ones who are raising these young men? It’s we as mothers. We’re going to raise them to live in all their glory or to be wimpy and immature. What are we doing? I think that even from a young age we need to encourage our children to have a work ethic and our boys to work hard. It’s not always so easy when you live in the city and often it’s hard to find things for boys to do.

We are blessed out here in that our grandsons living here on the hilltop are able to do manly things. Their fathers get them to do things on the land and they’re driving tractors and they’re doing this and they’re doing that.

In the city you often think, “Well what can I do to get my sons doing some really manly things?” Of course, if you’ve got a yard, you’ll be getting them to keep that clean and keep it right. But maybe you’ve only got a little wee yard. What are you going to give your sons to do?

I printed in Above Rubies in one issue about this lovely mother in the city. I’ve actually stayed in her home on two or three occasions and met all these wonderful young sons. But they live in the heart of the city and all around them are these effluent people and these doctors and lawyers. So this mother who wanted to train her sons in maturity, she thought, “What can I do?”

God began to give her ideas. They began to check out with their neighborhood. Because so many of these people living around them are professionals and businesspeople, they don’t have time or even inclination to look after their yards or mow their lawns or do any of that kind of manual work.

She suggested, “I have sons who are willing to come clean your yards, mow your yards, and do creative work around your home, and anything that you need done that needs to be done by a man. You can employ them.”

These young sons have found so much work. They’re still homeschooling but even before they are moving on into their own realms and careers (their own father is a doctor himself), they are finding great work and income as they go around to their neighbors and they do their work for them.

Even their daughters have found their own work of cooking for these professional people.

So even in the city they were able to find work to do to train their young men and get them working hard and get them working physically. Because even if a young man is going into a career that is perhaps more using his brain, he still should have opportunity to use his brawn because men need to do this.

If they don’t use their brawn, they become wimpy and flabby and they’re not walking in the glory of their strength. Amen? I’m sure you’re all saying amen with me.

I also want to take you to another Scripture about young men. It’s in 1 John in the New Testament, chapter 2 verses 12 and 14: “ I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. I have written unto you, fathers [it’s interesting how he repeats it again. It’s something so strong on John’s heart so he repeats it again], because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and [now it tells us how they are strong] the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.”

Those are powerful words, aren’t they?

Of course we are preparing and feeding our young sons to become strong. Of course we have to do a lot of cooking for that, don’t we? We want to do good, nutritional cooking because we don’t want them to grow up fat and flabby. We want them to grow up strong on good, wholesome food. Amen?

I see too many flabby young men around today. You never ever, ever saw that in times past.

In fact, I was looking at some pictures recently from back in my generation when I was young, and I couldn’t believe it. They were all very trim and I couldn’t’ see one fat person.

Then I began to think. I didn’t even know one fat young person when I was growing up. They were all trim and healthy because we all worked hard. We didn’t ride in the car everywhere. We either cycled or we walked.

We also lived on good wholesome food. We lived out of our gardens. We didn’t have all the fast food today that is putting on all that weight and causing so many to have Type 2 diabetes. They’re just all getting fat and flabby. Oh goodness me, it’s so sad.

No, we have got to raise young men who are not weak and flabby but who are strong physically but also strong in the Lord, strong in their convictions, strong in the Word of God so that they know how to overcome the wicked one.

Young men who are growing up strong and in their glory are young men who know how to overcome the enemy, who know how to overcome the deceptions in this culture in which we are living, who know how to overcome the temptations of the enemy.

Now precious mothers, they’re not going to just know this because it just happens. No, they will only know this by our mothering, by our training, and by our teaching.

We are the ones preparing them to live in their glory. I think this is one of the greatest needs there are today for young men to not only grow up strong physically, but strong in the Lord and who know how to walk in God and who are prepared to face life.

I think today of so many beautiful young women who know how to run a house. They’ve been raised in a family where they know how to run a home, where they’ve had children and babies around them. They love children.

They can’t wait to be married and have a home of their own because it’s within every young woman to have a home of her own. It’s within us to have a home and we want to establish a home and raise a family.

So many can’t find a suitable young man because there are too many wimps. Where do we find these young men who are strong in the Word of God, who are not giving into the temptations around them, who are not giving into pornography and all this junk. Men who are not giving in and who are not overtaken by social media.

So many of the young men, teenagers and twenties, what do they do all day? They’ve got their iPhones and are on social media. Oh goodness, this isn’t making a man out of them.

They’re looking for men who know how to overcome temptation. They’re looking for a man who is ready to marry, who is ready to have children, and who is ready to take the responsibility of having a home.

Where are they?

I know some of you are raising them. Thank you, thank you, that is so wonderful.

But there are so many beautiful girls who are getting into their late twenties and early thirties and they haven’t been able to find one. They’re in my prayer box. I pray for them. I pray that God will do miracles and bring these kind of young men into their lives.

Dear ladies, we’re raising young men, not to be like every other young man in our culture today, but to live in their glory.  We’re going to talk more about it in the next podcast.

“Dear Father, we thank You so much for the way You remind us about our glorious role and how You’re wanting us to raise children for Your glory, daughters, of course, and even sons that we’re talking about at this moment.

“I pray for all these precious mums to whom you have given sons, little baby sons, bigger sons, and older sons. I pray you give them the anointing of Your Holy Spirit to raise them to be mighty in God and to be strong in the Lord and to be mature even in their youth.

“I ask this in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.”

 

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Episode 71: The Glory of Womanhood (Part 4)

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

Nancy: So great to be with you again today, ladies. Today, I have someone special with me. I have one of my great granddaughters-in-law or grand-in-law-daughter in-law. Anyway, I have Kahoru with me and Kahoru was one of my Above Rubies helpers, one of my glorious, beautiful Above Rubies helpers. My husband and I always call them the “cream of the earth.”

Anyway, Kahoru came to us from Japan. Japanese was her first language. When she first came, she thought, “I don't know if I'll be able to answer the phone. My English is not good enough.” You know what? Her English was perfect because she had spent a year in Australia. Anyway, Kahoru ended up marrying one of our grandsons. I think you may have got to know that this has happened a few times! Our amazing grandsons have looked at these beautiful girls and decided “This was their one for life, the one that God had picked for them.”

(baby laughter in background)

Nancy: That's a little sound from Finn. Bowen and Kahoru now have a little baby boy called Finn. Anyway, I wanted Kahoru to come today because we are talking at the moment about the glory of womanhood and the glory of motherhood. I love to see Kahoru with her baby because she is the most wonderful mother. She's always smiling and always happy and revels in her motherhood. It's great to have you here today, Kahoru.

Kahoru: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Nancy: Now, I know that when you got married to Bowen. (By the way, Bowen is Pearl and Charlie's oldest son, Pearl and Serene of Trim Healthy Mama. She has Meadow, who is married. Meadow and her husband Kendall are currently living in Japan because he is an engineer with Nissan, and they are there for the year. And then there is Bowen). Anyway, I know when you got married, you couldn't wait to have a baby. Life isn't always perfect, is it? You were excited when you conceived and then you had a miscarriage. How did you feel about that?

Kahoru: Very sad. I was disappointed, but I wasn't having my period and my body wasn't really in a healthy state, so I was afraid, and I was pretty worried during that first few months. When I started bleeding, I knew that I was miscarrying. After five months of the miscarriage, I didn't get my period back, but God has blessed us with Finn. I had a wonderful pregnancy.

Nancy: Yes, God is good, and now she has this beautiful little boy. Is he nine months now?

Kahoru: He's almost nine months, next week.

Nancy: I can't believe it.

Kahoru: I know; it goes fast.

Nancy: Yes and if you happen to be on Instagram, go to Bowen and Kahoru, and you'll see pictures of Finn. He is so gorgeous.

Kahoru: Yes, he's the star.

Nancy: Tell me what you love about motherhood, Kahoru.

Kahoru: There's lots of things, but one of my favorite things about motherhood is definitely nursing, breastfeeding Finn. I didn't know the importance of breastfeeding until I became a mother myself. My mom had twelve children and the last two were twins, and she couldn't breastfeed because the hospital bottle fed them. They were premature, and they stayed in the hospital for a week, and she was so desperate and sad. She tried pumping, but the babies got too used to their bottles, so they didn't take the mom's breast. I couldn't understand her sadness until I had my own baby. The importance of breastfeeding, the bonding time you get to have with your baby during breastfeeding, I think it's amazing.

Nancy: Yes, it is. It's interesting that you say that because that's actually who we are. We are a suckling mother. God created us with breasts and to nurse a baby at the breast. Not only is it a physical thing, but nursing is a picture of God Himself because one of the names of God, Almighty. The Hebrew word is El Shaddai and that comes from the root word “breast” and that word El Shaddai means “The Breasted One, the One on whom I can lay my head”. I can lay my head on His breast, and He is my comfort and my solace.

We, as mothers, when we nurse a babe at the breast, we aren't just feeding that baby, we are satisfying them and consoling them and comforting them, and it tells us about that in Isaiah 66. It really is a picture of God Himself and of how He wants to be our Comforter and our satisfier. Isn't that wonderful?

Kahoru: That's beautiful.

Nancy: It's amazing. How does God reveal Himself? He reveals Himself through creation. Of course, the greatest creation were the male and female. We are made in His image, therefore, even in the image He created us we are showing little aspects of what He's like. It's a very physical thing but a very spiritual thing too. We are living in the glory when we are doing it, the glory of our womanhood.

Kahoru: Yeah, that's so amazing.

Nancy: It's great. Another thing I notice about Kahoru is she's so content about mothering. You're not wanting to do something else.

Kahoru: No, I love it. I love it so much. I actually wanted twins. I was praying for twins, but God gave me Finn and maybe one day I'll have twins.

Nancy: You never know because it's in your family. It is back in our family but way back, well, not too far back because I had twins. I forgot about that. The thing is, Finn is the third generation and none of my children had twins and so far and most of them are getting past their childbearing age. There's only Serene left who is in her childbearing years, except our adopted children. We will have to wait and see. Maybe it will come out in your generation, so you've got it on both sides.

Kahoru: Yeah, I'm so exited. Bowen's like, “Oh, but you'll be so busy.” I'm like, “That's great. I want to be busy.

Nancy: Yes, I know. You are such a great, capable person. When you were an Above Rubies helper, you used to love Fridays.

Kahoru: I know (laughs).

Nancy: Fridays here in our home is what we call, Preparation Day. Did you know, ladies, that there's actually a specific day that is written in the Word of God? In the King James Bible, it is written with a capital P. Do you know what it is? It's called the PREPARATION DAY. Before the Sabbath, they had the Preparation Day. If you want to have a day of rest, you can't really unless you have a day before where you clean up everything. Otherwise, on the day of rest, you're still cleaning up again and cooking and going on. God provided a day that precedes the day of rest so that we could clean the house, cook extra food, and then on the day of rest. You can put your feet up, look around, and everything is great, and you don't have to work hard. Isn't that amazing?

Kahoru: Yes, that's true.

Nancy: Friday, here in our home, is cleaning day from top to bottom. Kahoru couldn't wait because she loved it. She would get into her shorts, and she would start cleaning, and she was in her element.

Kahoru: Yeah and now that I have my own house, almost every day I think, I mop and vacuum and clean the bathrooms. That's part of my morning routine. I love it. I enjoy it so much. Finn likes the noise of the vacuum too, and he chases the vacuum and it's so much fun.

Nancy: Yes, they can be part of everything we do, can't they? Especially as we make them part of it. Talking about the Glory of Motherhood, I found a little quote this last week, and it talks about the glory. It's written by James Russel Miller. He lived back in the late 1800s, early 1900s, so he's back in the time when, really, mothers considered motherhood as a glory. Sadly, in our society today, so many of our precious young moms are brainwashed, and they're propagandized that motherhood is insignificant, and they are wooed out of the home, when God wants to woo us back to the home and find our delight in our homes. Anyway, this little quote says:

“O that God would give every mother a vision of the GLORY AND SPLENDOR of the work that is given to her when a babe is placed in her bosom to be nursed and trained! Could she have but one glimpse into the future of that life as it reaches on into eternity; could she look into its soul to see its possibilities; could she be made to understand her own personal responsibility for the training of this child, for the development of its life, and for its destiny,--she would see that in all God’s world there is no other work so noble and so worthy of her best powers and she would commit to no other hands the sacred and holy trust given to her.”

Isn't that a powerful quote, ladies? Let's look at that last line: “And she would commit to no other hands the sacred and holy trust given to her.” I believe that it's so true. When God gives us a baby, He doesn't give us this baby to give to someone else. I mean, how would you feel leaving Finn every day at a daycare?

Kahoru: Oh no, definitely not. I left him only one time since I gave birth with Mom and Dad for two hours when Bowen and I went on a date. That two hours felt so long because Finn wasn't with me. It felt so weird in the car, driving to town. I was like, “It's so quiet, Bowen. Finn's not with us.” It was weird.

Nancy: I know, I use to find that too. My husband would say, “C'mon Nancy, we've got to get out. We've got to get away together.” He would pull me away from my baby just to go out for a little meal. We would go out and you know, I'd think, “I'm missing my baby, I wonder if he needs me. I wonder if he's alright.” Then, the milk would let down, and I would think, “Oh goodness me, why aren't I just home?” You know?

Kahoru: I know. Yes, so true.

Nancy: I think you know, especially when our babies are little, we are inseparable as mothers. I really don't understand how mothers can so easily give up their babies and their children for others to look after them. I think when you're nursing, the bond is so strong. When you're nursing a baby, you have those hormones. You have prolactin which is a very strong protective hormone, and that makes you want to protect your baby, and you have oxytocin, which is this beautiful, calming, blissful hormone.

They encourage and inspire your mothering. God puts them in us to make us even greater mothers. When women, perhaps, are not nursing, because the studies say that the more you nurse, the more prolactin you make, therefore, the more motherly you become.

The less you nurse, the less motherly. The more you nurse, the more motherly.

You look at the animals... Often, I would walk amongst the sheep with my father back in New Zealand because he was a great sheep man. He was, in his day, the world champion sheep shearer, and we would walk amongst the sheep with their little lambs, and you noticed how the little lambs wanted to be close to their mother. The sheep would never go any further than earshot form their mothers. There was that close bonding. You see that in animals, yet here we, who are the highest creation that God created. What has happened that mothers can leave their babies?

This is showing the opposite of how God feels about us because the breast speaks of the nurturing heart of God. It speaks of how God wants to be near to us, close to us; He's always available, and we can come to him. The actual understanding of shad, the breast, is “that which is enough.” The breast is enough to mother our baby, either physically for milk, but more than that, emotionally satisfying and comforting and consoling. But God is “He who is enough.” We are just a little tiny replica showing what God is like, that He is enough.

What are we showing when mothers leave their babies? How are they showing that they are enough to their babies? This is how God wants us to reveal His image. Isn't it amazing?

We aren't only enjoying motherhood because God has put it innately in us,

but we are showing and revealing the image of God.

Kahoru: Yeah, that's beautiful. I think having your baby in your bed at nighttime definitely helps. Finn will wake up and look for my breast, and he'll eat, maybe two or three times a night at the moment, but if he was in a different bed, he'll cry, then I'll feed him, then I'll put him back, and he'll probably cry again. It's so much easier, and he feels more comforted and secure in my arms, and the thought of not having him in bed makes me sad. I'd miss him. Bowen said, “Eventually, he'll have to sleep in his own bed.” I understand that. By that time, I'll probably be pregnant again.

Nancy: Yes, how gorgeous. It's great, Kahoru, that as a young mom, you have found this beautiful way already. It takes a little bit of an art, doesn't it, to learn how to nurse in bed so that it's safe and you can do it easily? You learned the art and it's wonderful, and you get so much sleep.

Kahoru: I know.

Nancy: You are so blessed because I have to confess to all you ladies today, I didn't actually find that way until my fourth baby. Oh goodness me. When I started out, I knew nothing. When I had my first baby, I listened to all the old wives’ tales. Back then in New Zealand, we had what was called the “Plunket nurse” who use to come around and check on you every week. They would check on the weight of the baby and how many times you were feeding the baby, and you were meant to only feed your baby every four hours. That was deadly because my poor darling baby woke and was ready for me before four hours, and I was the most frustrated mother, and he was the most frustrated baby.

Then, I had twins. They came 17 months after Wesley was born. I began to mother more and more, but I still thought, you weren't meant to take a baby into bed with you. Goodness me, that was wrong. It wasn't until my fourth baby who, oh goodness me, screamed night and day. He screamed all night, and it wasn't until I thought, “I'm going to try just taking him into bed, against all the wives’ tales, and I'm just going to do it.”

I took him into bed with me and he stopped screaming. He was the happiest baby for the rest of the time. I learned to nurse, I learned the art of nursing him in bed. He would come and nurse and then go back to sleep, as you find with Finn, then they'll come and have a little nibble again, but you're not getting up all night, walking the floor, trying to put them back to bed, and they are still crying. Goodness, what a way to mother; it's just deadly. Then, when you bring your baby to bed, it's dreamlike. It's wonderful. Then, all the rest of my babies I nursed like that.

It was wonderful. It changed motherhood for me. That completely changed motherhood. I began to enjoy motherhood from that time. Also, you have that blessing of natural amenorrhea because your baby is nursing throughout the night. You're there, and the baby can nurse off and on. The baby is sucking more from the breast, and it's the sucking that holds back ovulation, so you have longer amenorrhea, not that you want it because you're wanting another baby, but you have natural time. You're not having a baby right on top of another one because God planned it this way, that your breastfeeding would hold it back until that time. God has the plan. It's wonderful.

Kahoru: Yeah, He gives enough time for me to enjoy time with Finn and then the next baby. Actually, I understand the hardship of not being . . . When I had c-section, we were in a hospital for a week because Finn came a month early. When I started bleeding out, his toes were already coming out when I got to the hospital, so it was an emergency c-section.

Nancy: I know. It's not something you wanted, but praise the Lord, Finn was safe, and we were praying. When we heard, he's a month early and you were bleeding, we went into prayer.

Kahoru: He was also breach, and the doctor said if I was couple hours earlier, he could have turned him around, but his toes were already coming out, so that didn't happen, but Finn is healthy and everything. For a week in the hospital, the nurses taught me to feed him every three hours and then put him back in the bed. He did not sleep well and when I came home, Aunty Vange is the one who taught me how to lay down and feed him. I got so much more sleep. It was so restful and precious. It was a special time.

Nancy: I know. It seems now with all our new, young mothers coming home from the hospital, we have to get with them and re-show them how to mother after they've been  in the hospital. I think Aunty Vange has become the pro at doing that. Goodness me, can you imagine trying to carry on? This is what gets me sad. It's so sad because the hospital, I don't know, don't they really know what a mother is all about? They send these new mothers home, and they have no one. You girls, you have us all around you. Many mothers go home, and they don't have a person and they try to continue feeding their babies like they showed in the hospital, and they get you to feed in a football position which is uncomfortable. You can’t sit back and relax. You're having to put them back the moment they finish feeding in their beds. No, babes are not meant to be isolated in their beds. They are meant to be with their mother, sleeping with her at night, being carried in a carrier, nursing off and on, this is normality. But so many mothers try to do it the hospital way and they are frustrated mothers. They usually end up weaning, and they don't enjoy the blessings of motherhood.

Kahoru: It's sad when you think about it.

Nancy: I know, even after being there for a week, it's so great that you were able to get back into normality.

Kahoru: I know. I'm blessed to be living on this Hilltop with so much support and advice for mothers.

Nancy: Yes, I was actually hoping to have some of our other young moms today too, but they will come another time. Some were sick and some couldn't come, but there will be more times. I think too, although you're at this stage, you don't even want Finn out of your sight, but as he gets a little bit older, you have the blessing of all your, what do you call them, like Autumn, who, even now, is minding Finn, and she's so amazing with him.

Kahoru: I know. She's amazing.

Nancy: That's Bowen's younger sister, and then I think of Evangeline's family. She has three married now, but there's still all the young teenagers, Tivvy (Tiveria), Sahara, and Iqara, wanting to mother each baby and play with every toddler. As more children are coming on, they've got the blessing of all the aunties. Rashida and Jack can go out to a meal together now that their little ones are getting a little bit bigger, and the girls are happy to go over and watch them.

Kahoru: I know. They love being mommies.

Nancy: Yes and that's the blessing of big families. It's a blessing all the way around, isn't it?

Kahoru: Yes, I come from a big family with twelve sisters and brothers.

Nancy: I know. Isn't that amazing for Japan? Aren't you so blessed?

Kahoru: Oh yes, I know. In Japan, most families only have one or two, three are considered big. These days, some people choose not to have any. They don't get married until 35-40 or don't get married ever.

Nancy: Then they are too late to have them. Isn't it so sad?

Kahoru: It is. They want to have their own life and be by themselves, I guess. We were very rare in Japan. We were considered odd. We would drive in town with our big van, and everyone would know that that is the Higurashi family.

Nancy: I think, secretly, you were hoping that this miracle would happen and that the Lord would give you a husband here that loved family because it's hard to find them in Japan, isn't it?

Kahoru: Yes, it's hard to find a Christian man and then, after I lived in Japan, I moved to Australia and there's more Christians there, but it's so hard to find a man who has a vision for family, who wants to be married and get married and have children and surrender their fertility to God. That's very rare. They always want to plan and maybe wait three years until we get married, maybe wait five years until we have the first baby. I felt very blessed to meet Bowen and to be married to him. He is such a godly man and has a great vision for family.

Nancy: So wonderful. Another beautiful blessing you have is that Bowen's cousins, like Arden and Crusoe and Jireh, they are all getting married and all having their babies so just as our grandchildren grew up all together (not all of them because some of them live in the city but the three girls’ families are around here), and their children grew up together. Not only did they have their siblings, but they had their cousins, and they were so close. It was such a glorious thing and such a keeping power. Now, the great grandchildren are going to be growing up together too.

Kahoru: I know. It's amazing.

Nancy: They are all babies now, but they are going to grow up and they are going to have such friends.

Kahoru: Yes, so fun. They get to play together and grow up together. It's such an encouragement.

Nancy: It is. Any other little things that you thought of about motherhood?

Kahoru: Oh, my family is in Australia, and my dad is in Japan and it’s been almost three years since I moved to America. When I first got married, I felt very lonely because I was driving back in Australia, but I couldn't drive, I couldn't go out; I felt very stuck at home. I didn't know much of everyone. I didn't have close friends, but having my own flesh and blood, Finn, has definitely made me more joyful. He's my little best friend.

Nancy: Aww... Isn't that beautiful? I love that.

Kahoru: He keeps me company all day. He makes me smile. I'm not talking to myself all day. I'm talking to Finn all day. When Bowen gets back home, it's the three of us as a family, and we have a good time. It's wonderful.

Nancy: So great. Love that. Your little best friend. Isn't that so beautiful? Of course, now you've got a license here in America. You and Finn have a bit of fun getting around.

Kahoru: I know. I take him swimming. We do go grocery shopping together, and he makes everyone smile in town.

Nancy: You're going to make him a swimmer like you. You were training for the Olympics back in Japan, weren't you?

Kahoru: Yes. He'll be a swimmer, and he can play basketball like his dad. He can do whatever he wants to, try everything.

Nancy: Well, Kahoru, thank you for coming to be with me today.

Kahoru: Thank you, Nana.

Nancy: I hope, and I know you've been inspired. Lovely young moms who are listening, I hope you are encouraged by Kahoru's enthusiasm for motherhood and her joy. If only you could see her face. Her face is radiant and filled with joy. Every time I see her, I feel uplifted myself because you're so radiant and you're filled with the joy of motherhood, just as the Bible says. Psalm 113:9: “He makes the barren woman to make a home and to be the joyful mother of children.” That is the testimony that God equates  with motherhood. It's joy, and I think when we embrace it, we come into the joy of it. Let me pray for you today.

“Father, we thank You so much that You created us in Your image. You created us to show forth Your glory, to show forth Your image. As mothers, we can show some of what You are like as we nurse a babe at the breast.

“Of course, these times are for a season of our lives and we get past childbearing years. I pray for the older moms listening too, that, Lord, even if they cannot nurse a baby any longer, that they will pour out from their nurturing heart, Lord, Your love and Your nurture to everyone they meet because this is Your ultimate plan for us. Whoever we are, whatever stage of life, we are to reveal the nurturing heart of God. We thank You, and I pray for Your blessing upon every mother today.

“All the young moms, be blessed. Middling moms, with all your growing children around you, be blessed. Older moms, I trust you're encouraging and teaching the younger moms, be blessed in the name of Jesus, Amen.”