God has given a specific mandate to older women to teach and encourage the younger women in the ways of motherhood and the home. But where are the older women who are doing this?
I am always amazed when a new Above Rubies magazine goes out and I begin to get feedback from our readers. Often, I get emails from older women thanking me for how Above Rubies has encouraged them all through their child-bearing years of raising their families. But now their children have grown, and they say they no longer need the magazine!
I don’t quite get it! I am a great-grandmother and I still need it! Yes, I am inspired as I put the magazine together and gather all the wonderful testimonies from wives and mothers. It keeps me on the right track of where God wants me to be as a woman.
You see, because my children have grown (most of our children are now grandparents themselves) I haven’t stopped being a mother. We are mothers until the day we meet Jesus. This is who God created us to be. Our children leave the nest, but we keep mothering—grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and all the needy and hurting people around us. This world is crying out for the nurturing heart of mothers.
But more than that. We are commanded to teach the young mothers. I think of these older mothers who say they no longer need the magazines. What about their daughters and daughters-in-law? Are they not passing the message of encouragement on to them? What about all the young women in their church and in their lives? Are they not passing in the magazine to them and encouraging them in their divine calling of motherhood and homemaking?
What are they doing? Are they moving into a different lifestyle? How can we teach the young women if we are doing something different ourselves. We teach mainly by example! The older women must be held responsible for what the younger women are doing. It is a devastating fact (and I say “devastating” because it is totally unbiblical) that most of the young mothers in the church today are out at work and leaving their children in daycare. This is the opposite of God’s word. It is the opposite of what God tells the older women to teach the younger women.
In fact (now don’t throw stones because I am not the author of these words but God Himself), if the older women are not teaching this truth they are blaspheming the Word of God (Titus 2:5). Why does God use such powerful words? Because if we as older women are living a different lifestyle or we are not teaching the lifestyle of mothers being the “keepers of the home” it is showing a completely different way than what God’s word teaches, and therefore it blasphemes His word!
Dear older mothers, where are this young generation of mothers? Mostly out in the work force. They hardly know anything of the glory of motherhood. They have been brainwashed throughout their lives, in the public school, and through the media, that they are wasting their lives if they stay home with their children. They have been programmed with lies! And the fruit is the breakdown of marriage and family life and the continual weakening of the nation.
It's time for an army of older women to arise into the calling God has for them and call the young mothers back to the home. It is strong marriages and strong families that will save this nation.
Blessings from Nancy Campbell