Moses prayed in Psalm 90:17, “Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us.” We would all like to be beautiful, wouldn’t we?

We imagine our self beautiful, even if we aren’t. Beauty is delightful to behold. In fact, “delight” is the meaning of this word in this Scripture.

More than anything else, God wants His beauty to be upon us. He wants our children to learn of His beauty and character as they watch our lives. He wants the world to see His beauty through us for this is the way He has planned for them to get a glimpse of Him.

His beauty is His presence in our lives. I love to pray these lines…

"Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me, All his wondrous passion and purity. O thou Spirit Divine, all my nature refine, ‘Till the beauty of Jesus be seen in me."

Love from Nancy

You are pregnant! But you are scared to tell your parents or parents-in-law! You know you’ll get a negative reaction (or maybe even a violent reaction)!

Can I encourage you that you only have to get through the next few months, for when your precious baby is born, their hearts will change. No one can resist a baby!

Your parents and friends have this negative reaction because they have been educated to have this response.

Society, the media and the education system all teach that you shouldn’t have too many babies and should instead give your lives to careers and jobs that you will leave behind and will have no impact on the nation or eternity! Their minds have been conditioned to believe lies from Satan who hates life.

But don’t despair. They’ll love your baby when he or she comes.

And every new baby is a revelation of God’s truth and God’s kingdom which is a kingdom of life. You are helping to establish the kingdom of God on earth and in heaven.

Love from Nancy

The Bible gets it right every time. Before science ever discloses a truth, God has already established it. Here’s another maxim that God established from the beginning, “For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23).

You can’t get away from it. What you think is how you live. Are your thoughts full of self-pity? Don’t expect to rise up out of your pit.

Are your thoughts filled with selfishness and how everything should revolve around you? Expect to stay miserable.

Do you harbor anger and bitterness in your heart toward your husband or anyone else? You are on the way to self-destructing.

There’s only one way out. Change your thought patterns. Change them to what God says about you. Meditate in God’s Word and make it your confession. Think love. Think forgiveness. Think of blessing people. Think of how to make your husband and children happy. Think joy. Think peace.

Think God’s thoughts and you are on the way to life and victory.

Love from Nancy

One of God’s attributes is kindness.

The Hebrew word is chesed which is one of the most powerful words in the Old Testament. The meaning is much bigger than our English word of kindness. It means unfailing love, benevolence, goodness, grace which we don’t deserve, mercy, loyalty and strength.

The amazing thing is that God wants us to reveal His same chesed kindness to one another. It gets even more personal when we read the description of the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31:26, “She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.” Yes, the word is chesed.

Can you imagine what our homes would be like if we daily, and constantly, demonstrated and spoke words of kindness to our husband and children?

Love from Nancy

God cannot do anything but good, because He is inherently good. This is His nature. We look out upon the world and see so much evil and suffering, but in it all, God is still good.

Because we have evil in the world does not change God’s goodness. Because we go through difficult and traumatic times does not change God’s goodness. God is Sovereign and working all things out for good.

I think of Joseph who was torn away from his family as a young teen and taken to a foreign country. He was put in prison and faced disappointment after disappointment. But God was working it out for good.

When the time came to be reconciled to his brothers, he confessed, “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive” (Genesis 45:7-8 and 50:20).

God is working everything in your life for good, too. Trust Him and acknowledge His goodness.

Love from Nancy

God revealed Himself to Moses as I AM THAT I AM! (Exodus 3:14). That says it. No one can question God’s purposes for He is I AM THAT I AM. No one can question His counsel for He is Jehovah and His thoughts are far above our thoughts.

But more than that, He is I AM today. He is I AM in the situation you face right at this moment. He is not only the faithful God of the past and the eternal future, but the God of the moment. Now! He is I AM with you in your kitchen right now, with all your frustrations and the needs of your little children and teens.

God said to Moses, “Say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.” I AM comes to you right now. Acknowledge His presence with you at this “special” moment. Never forget that every moment of the day, no matter how frustrating or difficult is “divine” when I AM is with you.

Love from Nancy

SECOND MILERS!

“Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two” (Matthew 5:41).

As we prepared to update the address labels to send out the new issue of Above Rubies, we encountered a problem. We had to manually verify nearly a thousand addresses, right when we needed to print labels! It is a lengthy task to locate the address, go to the USPS webpage and verify it, and then change it on our data base.

Knowing the urgency of the task, my Above Rubies helper smilingly started to work. She didn’t only work from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm as we do each day in the office. She worked through her lunch hour. She shifted into a new gear—the “second mile” anointing! She kept on with the job in the evenings. She worked all through the weekend and continued the same pattern the following week. She didn’t stop until the last address was verified! I called her, “Second Mile Haley.”

Read the complete story at Second Milers! - Above Rubies Devotionals

TOP POST # 3 from Nancy:

Talking together about motherhood with a few women recently, one lovely
mother said, "Oh it's so hard. It's such a sacrifice!" Immediately, my
daughter, Evangeline replied, "What are you sacrificing?"

When we confess that motherhood is a sacrifice, we are saying that there
is something better that we could be doing and we had to give it up for
the sake of motherhood! That is a lie.

Motherhood is the highest calling God has given to us. It is our LIFE. It
may be challenging, but any worthwhile career is challenging.

This dear mother is committed to motherhood and when she was confronted
with what she said, she immediately recanted her words. It's just that we
are programmed by society to think that it is a sacrifice.

We need our minds renewed to God's way of thinking, to think truth instead
of deception.

Love from Nancy

Do you find it easy to "keep your cool"? It's not too easy, is it? And yet
this quality is very precious to God.

1 Peter 3:4 says, "Let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is
not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek (gentle) and quiet spirit,
which is in the sight of God of great price."

The word "quiet" is hesuchios in the Greek and it literally means "to keep
one's seat"! In other words, when your feathers are ruffled and your
children are getting on your nerves, instead of lashing out in anger and
"blowing your cool," you stay on your seat! Don't jump off the seat of
your emotions and get into the flesh. Stay rested.

"Help, how do you do that?" you cry! By the power of Christ. He lives in a
state of rest and He lives in you. Let Him live His life through you.

Nancy

TOP POST #4 from Nancy:

I received this note today from Sally Ott (mother of 16 and 79 great and grandchildren).

"At age 77, I can tell you that it is all worth it--every cry, every diaper, every sleep lost, every evening-out missed and every tear! I would do it all over again. What did I miss? Nothing! What did I gain? Very interesting people who love me and a peaceful home always filled with laughter."

I had to share this with you.

Nancy

TOP POST #5 from Nancy!

Quote from my husband, Colin:

"I want to leave my children with a legacy that their father was a praying man and God answered his prayers."

Nancy

Nancy's TOP POST #6!

"A mother had better be missed in the church, and at the public meetings--than be missed in her own household.:"~J. R. Miller.

I am reminded of of the words of the Shulamite in Song of Songs 1:6, "They made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept."

Don't let society, or even pressure from the church keep you from keeping your own vineyard.

Love, Nancy

Merry Christmas!! Here is Nancy's TOP POST #7:

LITTLE MOMMIES IN TRAINING. These two little girls carried their "babies" in the slings all weekend at the Above Rubies Tennessee retreat.

I watched them tend to these babies as though they were their very real babies. It was beautiful to behold.

Nancy

TOP POST #8 from Nancy:

Are you walking in the flesh or the spirit? Which ever one you feed the most will rise up and rule!

You feed the flesh when you give into your feelings of anger and frustration. Starve the flesh! Instead (although opposite to how you feel) feed the spirit. Bite your tongue and say a kind word instead of a critical one. Express thankful words instead of complaining ones.

The Holy Spirit lives within you to enable you. Live the new life which is in you, not the old life of the flesh.

Nancy

TOP POST #9 from Nancy!

Zechariah 11:17 says, "Woe to the worthless shepherd who leaves the flock!"

Wow! God intends us as shepherd mothers to stay with the little flocks He gives us. He doesn't give us our children to give them to someone else to care for while we "do our thing!" He gives us the responsibility to tenderly care for them and watch over them. It is not only a charge from God but an awesome privilege.

Love, Nancy

Are you ready for the TOP 10 of 2011?

Here is Nancy's TOP POST #10:

People do dumb things. They say the wrong thing. They say things about us or to us that hurt us. The more I live the more I realize that life is not perfect! It doesn't go the way we want! So what do we do?

We acknowledge that life is not perfect and rejoice anyway! We bless those who hurt us. Instead of getting upset, we laugh. We keep plodding on, trusting in the Lord, and smiling in the face of trials.

NANCY