PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 65 – THE HEART OF A SHEPHERDESS

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Episode 65: The Heart of a Shepherdess

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

Nancy: Hello ladies. We are doing podcast 65 today. The last two podcasts, 63 and 64, I talked about sheep and goats; in fact, I talked about changing our vocabulary. So many of us call our children “kids,” but I challenged that word. I wonder if you have been able to stop the habit. Anybody? I wonder. I hope you've been trying because I do believe there  is power in the words that we speak. In fact, what do the sheep say, ladies? The sheep say, “A-a-a-a-a-m e-e-e-e n!”

Kate: “Baaaa.”

Nancy: Oh, you heard another sheep. I've got my sister with me today, Kate. Hi Kate. Welcome to our podcast. Say hi to everybody.

Kate: Hello everybody, wonderful to be here.

Nancy: Yes, this is my sister. Kate and I come from rather a small family, only three of us. I often say I was deprived. I was deprived of brothers and sisters, and I think my grandchildren were deprived of more cousins that they could have had.

Actually, I think in our culture today, we are used to smaller families, the two child families or even the three, and we think it's the normal, but actually, it is the abnormal. Isn't it amazing how we can get use to things that we think are normal? It's like us being sheep. I was talking to you about that in Podcast 63, of how sheep tend to go along with everything else around them because they are a flock. Sheep were created to be in a flock, so they do whatever other sheep are doing. We have to watch that and make sure, although we are sheep, God calls us His sheep, we can't get into the negatives of sheep.

One of the good things, of course, is that the sheep are always, mostly always, submissive to the shepherd, and that's why they say, “A-a-a-a-a-m e-e-e-e n!”

What do the goats do? They butt. If you've ever had a goat or looked after goats, you'll know how they love to butt heads. That's the goat mentality. Jesus says something, but their answer is not, “Yes Lord.” It's “But . . . but what about this? But . . .  that doesn't work in with my circumstances. But . . .  that doesn't really go along with what I want to do. But . . .  that's the opposite of what everybody else is doing.” Everything is but. That is the goat mentality.

We have to be careful. Who are we? The sheep or the goat? We are all still growing up together, but in the end times, the Bible says, He will separate the sheep from the goats. Let's seek to have that beautiful sheep mentality.

 Kate, it's great that you are here today because my sister Kate was actually a shepherdess, way up in the Caribou of Canada. In fact, that's one of the reasons we were so deprived. Not only growing up, we didn't have enough brother and sisters, but as we grew up, we all kind of disappeared from one another, didn't we? Our brother went off on the Anastasis with his wife and his family; that's with Youth with a Mission. He was involved doing the plumbing on the first ship, the Anastasis. They were away for so many years, and Kate went off and immigrated to Canada, and we went to the Philippine Islands. We were doing missionary work there. We were all over the world, and we hardly saw one another.

Kate: Not to mention our poor mum, who must have missed us terribly.

Nancy: Yes, she was deprived. Anyway, Kate is now living here in the States, which is so exciting, but our brother is still back in New Zealand. We don't see very much of him, and he's actually going through the same thing because his children are all over the world, and we get to enjoy them here. You listened to Melissa recently. Melissa is my brother's daughter, and she lives here. Anyway, Kate, when you went to Canada, you ended up in the Caribou with a flock of sheep. Tell us about it.

Kate: Where do you want me to start?

Nancy: I have no idea.

Kate: Ok, first of all, I should say that you have forgotten that we came from a country of sheep.

Nancy: Yes, that's true,

Kate: The sheep population outnumbered the human population. It was 60 million sheep I think to three million people, so we were raised very aware of sheep because my dad was in the sheep industry too. I was aware of sheep, I saw sheep, I knew sheep, but I had never worked with sheep, so when I went up to the Caribou, I had my own flock of sheep, and this was the first time I worked hands on with sheep which was a tremendous experience.

What I found was that, as I grew to work with them and get to know them, they pulled at my heartstrings. They really didn't have to do anything but be sheep, but they began to pull. Being a shepherdess, they began to pull at my heartstrings. Without my really being aware that they were doing that, they did that. Of course, the ewes that I had, began to have children, and these children became my babies. Some of them, because of one thing or another, some of them would be orphans because some mothers would reject their children, their babies, or the mother died in lamb birth, so I ended up with about twelve, a dozen, orphan lambs, and I named them all.

They began to know my voice because, of course, I was the one who fed them every day. I was the one who looked after them, and they began to know my voice, and I began to know them. I began to know their bleats. Sheep have different bleats, believe it or not.

Nancy: Isn't that amazing that you could tell the different bleats of your sheep. A shepherd often in the Middle East, in Biblical times, many times, a number of shepherds would get into one fold in the night, and they would all be there, but in the morning as they would go out, each shepherd could call his sheep, and the flocks would separate to the shepherd because the sheep knew the voice of their shepherd, but also, the shepherd knew the bleats of their sheep. Isn't that beautiful?

Kate: Oh yes. I mean, I didn't know all of them, but there were definitely the ones that I distinguished from the rest of the flock because I knew them so intimately. Every day, I would, of course, go in and feed them and every day I would take them down to pasture, and I'd call my lambs, and we would all run down the hill to this pasture, and I would sit in this pasture with them.

There was one ewe, one lamb, which became my ewe. She stands out from the flock because I got to know her so well. She was a bit different from the other sheep. She even smelled differently. She had a different smell. She was sort of fawny and had a little brown patch here and there, but I loved her, and I called her Mushrooms, and I called her Mushies for short.

Mushies was very much my ewe. When I stood in the middle of the field or sat in the middle of the field where they grazed, she was the one who always came and stood right beside me and actually leaned into me. If I moved, she would have fallen over because she leaned so hard into me. Actually, that delighted my heart as a shepherdess, that she so trusted me that she would lean right into me.

That is a lesson there because as we lean into our Shepherd, God, that delights His heart because it means we are beginning to trust Him more as we lean into Him. That's a lesson for me, to learn to lean into the Shepherd.

Anyhow, there was one day, as Mushies grew older and all the other lambs were growing too, and they began to have their own children. Of course, they were wonderful mothers. As sheep, a good mother sheep is very attentive to her young. They are there for them all the time, and they know the bleat of their children, and the lamb walks very closely to the mother. The mother sheep is always aware of where her lambs are.

Nancy: When you're out there walking amongst the sheep, I often noticed this back in New Zealand, you see the little lambs, they are always close by them.

Kate: Yes, very close.

Nancy: They stay close to the mother, and the mother stays close to them, and she won't go farther than earshot from them. That's the difference between the goats, who will leave their little kids and go off foraging. Not the sheep and the lambs.

Kate: One day, I heard a lot of bleating. The whole flock was bleating like crazy. A predator had come into the flock. As I looked down into the flock that was grazing down the hill, something was going on. As I looked, I saw this predator had picked up a lamb and was racing off. It was too late, but I picked up the nearest piece of wood or pole that I could find and ran screaming down the hill after this predator, .But it was too late, He got the lamb.

Nancy: What was it? A cougar?

Kate: No, it was a coyote. It was too late but that just broke my heart for the mother. They cry, they bleat, over their young.

Nancy: That was Mushies?

Kate: No, that was not Mushies. I had gone into town one day, and I came back to hear Mushies crying her heart out, bleating. She would not stop. Oh, by the way, I should go back a little bit. All the ewes, all my little lambs had grown and were having their own babies, and I was so pleased with them. They were great mothers. Mushies was the only one that never had a baby for about two years.

I thought, I don't know why she didn't conceive. Anyhow, it came to the time, it was about two years later than all the others that she conceived, and she had the most beautiful lamb of the flock. She was utterly the prettiest, most beautiful, and Mushies strutted around, so proud of this baby. In fact, when she had her, I couldn't find her for a day or two which was also worrying. She'd gone off and had it by herself and had hidden.

She came back with this beautiful baby, and I was so proud of her, and this lamb was beautiful. All was good. Anyhow, I went down to the town one morning to grocery shop, and I came back, and I heard the most terrible bleating and sorrowful bleating that I had ever heard, and it was Mushies.

I went into the paddock, and there she was crying and crying and crying, and I noticed that her little baby lamb was not with her, and I knew in my heart what had happened. She was crying. She walked right up to me, and she stamped her foot and cried and bleated and cried and stamped her foot and wouldn't stop. She was almost saying to me, “Where is my baby? What have you done with my baby?”

I began to talk with her. I knew what had happened, and I began to try to console her. I knew a predator had come and taken her, the baby. My heart was grieved for Mushies who had waited so long to have this baby lamb, and she would not stop crying. I was grieved. She was suffering as a mom. She cried continually for a long, long time.

Nancy: Amazing, isn't it, how alike they are to humans?

Kate: I know. Exactly, they are very much. I think Mushies was almost human. Time went on, but Mushies was never the same. She developed a constriction on her throat and every time she would eat hay, her throat would constrict. It got so bad that one day... I think a vet looked at her, but he couldn't see anything wrong, but every time she ate, she would constrict.

One morning, it was a beautiful, fresh morning, and I had gone off and come back, and I had her in a pen by then. This was about a year after I think. I knew that something was going to happen and sure enough, I came back and there was Mushies, and she was choking, and I couldn't do a thing. She eventually choked to death. My heart went out to her because she was my favorite ewe, and she had lost her young and never conceived again after that. My Mushies died. My heart was grieved over that because I loved her as a shepherdess, and I knew she had suffered losing her little one, and she had also suffered physically.

Nancy: Yes, that's a beautiful story, Kate, of your heart as a shepherdess. I believe that we, as mothers, are the shepherdesses of our flock and shepherding is so close to the heart of God. He is our Shepherd, that's who He is, and He wants us to be shepherds of our little flocks, and He wants us to shepherd them like He shepherds.

Did you know that shepherding and everything about sheep is in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation? All the great things of the Bible start in Genesis and end in Revelation. The first reference to shepherding in the Bible is in Genesis chapter four, right at the beginning when Adam and Eve first began their family. It says: “And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain and said I have gotten a man from the Lord.” Eve knew where her baby came from. He came from the Lord. It's God who gives babies. Every little baby you have, and God gives you, is from the Lord. Isn't that amazing? “She again bore his brother Abel, and Abel was a keeper of sheep.”

Kate: Was he? I didn't know that.

Nancy: Yes, a keeper of sheep. There it is. Right at the very beginning. Actually, that wasn't the very first profession that is mentioned in the Bible. Do you know what the first one is?

The first one is a gardener. The very first profession that is spoke about in the Bible is the gardener. Who was the first gardener? God Himself. That's amazing, isn't it? We read right at the very beginning, Genesis 2:8: “And the Lord God planted a garden.”

Don't you love that? Who planted the garden? God. God put His hands into the soil which He created and planted the garden. God loves the soil; He loves to plant. He is a Gardener. The first home was the Garden of Eden, and He puts a man into the garden, and He said, “Now, I want you to look after this garden. I want you to dress it and work it and plant it and weed it and harvest it, and I want you to guard it.”

That was the very first profession that God gave, and the second one that we read about is shepherding, the keeping of sheep. Then we go right over to Revelation. Now, we are in the eternal realm. John 7:17 is talking about the eternal realm where one day we will be with Christ. It says: “And the lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them.” Now, that word feed is the word that is used for tending sheep because feeding is very much part of shepherding. One of the biggest things that a shepherd does is lead his sheep to feed. Is that what you had to do, Kate?

Kate: Yes, to fresh pasture.

Nancy: Yes, the shepherd, that's what he does. He makes sure that the sheep are feeding on food, green grass, good pasture, and he leads them to it. Darling ladies, as shepherds of your flock, you lead your children to pasture. That's what shepherding is. That's what God does. He does it now, and He's going to continue to do it in the eternal realm. It says: “The lamb who is in the midst of the throne shall feed them and shall lead them unto living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”

He continues to shepherd us, even in eternity. He will never stop shepherding. Isn't that glorious? That's so beautiful. Dear ladies, remember, keep shepherding and keep leading your precious flock to good pasture. We have to be responsible to do this. It's a sad thing I see happening in families today, where both fathers and mothers are getting busier and busier and are involved in this and involved in that and because they are busy, they leave their children to entertain themselves.

When you leave your children to entertain themselves, you are letting them find their own pasture, and that's what the goats do.

That's another difference between the goats and the sheep. The shepherd leads his sheep to pasture, and they follow him. The goats, oh goodness me, you can't lead them to pasture. They go and eat what they want. They eat what they want, and they can eat anything but not the sheep. We've got to lead them.

I think perhaps this is one of the most challenging times of parenthood. So many of our precious children, even young children, even little wee children, and teens, are spending too much time on their electronic devices. They are not always feeding on good pasture. They are just finding their own stuff. No, the responsibility of shepherds and shepherdesses is to lead our children to good pasture. We are to lead them to where they are to feed.

We've got to feed them, body, soul and spirit. We've got to feed them good food. That's another thing. When mothers are too busy, they let them grab some fast food, grab some junk, children get to start living on junk. Whereas, we are responsible to lead them and provide for them the good food, wholesome, good for their bodies, but also their minds, and their souls, and their spirits, always leading them, always directing them to good food because that's one of the biggest things about shepherding.

Now, when you were shepherding, Kate, what were the biggest things that you had to do as a shepherdess? The most important. What took most of your time as a shepherdess for your little sheep?

Kate: Making sure they are safe for one thing, and also making sure they have green pasture. For me, it was definitely a priority for me that they were safe.

Nancy: How did you keep them safe? Because you were in Canada, up in the Caribou where you had predators.

Kate: I couldn't always be there, watching them 24/7.

Nancy: You had a dog, didn't you?

Kate: Yes, we had a dog, but I can’t remember his name. He was a big dog, and he was supposed to watch the sheep, but he was more of a hindrance than a help. We had to have him on the line in the end because he would take off and do his own thing.

Nancy: He was a naughty dog.

Kate: Yes, he was a naughty dog.

Nancy: Actually, this is why we have so many sheep in New Zealand. Did you know, ladies, that in New Zealand, the country we come from down in the bottom of the world, there are no predators. Isn't that amazing? We have no predators. We don't even have a snake in the whole country. That was a new thing for you, going to Canada, wasn't it, having to face the predators of your sheep?

Kate: Yes, in fact, unless the sheep at night were safe in the barn and every one of them was there, I had to check to make sure everyone had come in. I could never sleep if there was one missing. I remember one night going out with a torch looking for a lost sheep that was not in the barn. You couldn't sleep. if one was missing.

The Bible says that the Lord went out to look.

“There were ninety and nine that safely lay

   In the shelter of the fold,

But one was out in the hills away

   Far off from the gates of gold.

That is exactly what a shepherd does. If they are not in the fold, they will go looking for one sheep because the shepherd doesn't rest until he knows that all the sheep are in the fold at night. We lost sheep that had gone astray. They had walked off out of the paddock into unsafe areas and had been taken.

Nancy: That's another thing, as you say, is keeping your children safe. Now, that's not only physically. That's safe mentally and spiritually as well. This is why I believe we do have to have much wisdom from the Lord. With all the electronic devices our children have today and how much time we are going to allow them to spend on them, and what they can look at, because there is so much that is not safe there.

Our children can not only be lost physically but lost spiritually. Shepherding is huge, isn't it? Huge, to keep our children safe and keep them fed. We are not just talking physically, but spiritually and mentally, in every way. That is a huge task. It does take 24/7 to do that.

It's been good to have you again today, Kate, just to talk again a little bit more about this beautiful role of shepherding that is so close to the heart of God. I've often done quite a bit of study about shepherding in the Word of God, and as I looked at the different Scriptures and also the different meanings of the Hebrew and Greek words that are used, these are all the different things that I found that are part of shepherding. I'd like to read them to you. You can embrace them and imbibe them as you listen to me. Make them part of your shepherding the little flock that God has given you or perhaps the bigger flock that God has given you.

Shepherding in the Word of God means:

Befriending with an intimate relationship. That Hebrew word, Ra'ah is that first word that is used when it says: “And Abel was a keeper of sheep.” It's the word Ra'ah. This is the same word, ladies where it says: “The Lord is my Shepherd.” It's the same word. One of the meanings of that word is to be a friend. Isn't that beautiful, Kate? To be a friend. You became friends with your sheep. They weren't just some animals. That's the amazing thing about sheep. You know sheep are different. In fact, God chose to call us His sheep out of every other animal He made in the world. I mean, why didn't He call us His zebras or His lions? No, He called us His sheep, and as the great Shepherd, He wants to have  an intimate relationship with us. That's also part of shepherding our sheep.

Binding and bandaging them up when they are hurting and broken,

Bravely fighting off their enemies. That must have been quite scary going out on your own.

Kate: Well, you're not even thinking of that as a shepherd. Suddenly, something takes over you because you are not thinking of yourself; you are thinking of the sheep.

Nancy: Yes . . .  

Bringing back the straying and wandering ones, carrying the lambs close to your heart.

Kate: That was a joy to carry a lamb very close to your heart. One thing I loved and a lot of them would do this, they would suck my ear, and they were so cute when they did that.

Nancy: Did they? That is so beautiful.

Encouraging the weary

Eliminating fear in the dark and anxious times

Feeding

Gathering in your arms and to your heart

Gently leading

Guarding and watching over your flock

Guiding your flock on the right track

Healing the sickly

Increasing the flock. Now, that's always part of a shepherd's heart. He doesn't ever want to diminish his flock. He wants to increase it. I was saying at the beginning that Kate and I come from this little family and how you even grow up thinking that's normal, but of course, it's actually abnormal. God loves a family.

The Bible says He makes families like a flock (Psalm 107:41-43). It's hard to imagine a flock of 1.8 sheep, which is the average number of children per family in the States or maybe 1.9. Even a flock of two, you don't have a flock of two! You have a flock; it's more than the one, two, three. That's God's heart for shepherding. That should be in our heart too as we shepherd the flock.

I think of when God sent His on into the world. Today, many people would think, “Oh my, when God chooses a family for His son, who has just come from the glory of heaven, surely He will choose a home in a two-child family where they both can have their own bedroom, and they have enough for all the material things they could ever dream of and enough to go to college and all they can have. Their parents can dote on them because there is just two of them.”

Is that what God chose? No. We don't exactly know how many were in Jesus' family, but we do know there were at least seven because the Bible tells us that. They were talking about his family, and they say, “Isn't this Jesus and his brothers?” They name the four brothers and his sisters. They didn't say how many sisters, but there had to be a minimum of two which would have made seven in the family. But there could have been three or four or five sisters. He could have been in a family of ten or more. That's what God chose for His son.

Keeping them safe

Leading them to lush and rich pastures

Nourishing

Persevering until you find the lost one

Preparing a table for them

Protecting them

Providing for them

Rescuing them when they turn to the bypaths

Restoring, renewing, reviving, and refreshing

Ruling with your wisdom and discretion. That is another important part of shepherding is ruling. We see that in the Hebrew word. You don't become a victim to your children as a shepherd is not a victim to his sheep. He is the ruler, the one who leads and directs them.

Sacrificing and laying down your life for your flock

Saving your flock

Searching and seeking for the lost ones

Strengthening the weak ones, and

Tenderly folding them. That's what you did every night, wasn't it?

Kate: Yes

Nancy: That's just a picture of what we see in the Word of God about shepherding our flocks. Be encouraged today, dear shepherdesses.

Now Kate, I always close in prayer. Would you like to pray today for all the moms as they shepherd their flocks?

Kate: “Lord, we lift up mothers today and such a role they have. {I'm even challenged this morning listening to you (Nancy) because it's so easy to get so busy in life and let things slide.}

“Lord, I pray, God, that we would begin to listen to Your voice as shepherds, that we begin to listen to Your voice and be aware of our lambs and be aware of our sheep and their needs and their desires but also how to guide them and to direct them. I pray that You would give the sheep that You have given to these women listening ears to their shepherd, their mother. That they would have listening ears and begin to not only listen but take heed to what their mother is saying, and they would begin to understand the loving heart of their mother.

“Lord, we pray, God, that You would encourage these mothers today. Give them great encouragement, that they would not only have great encouragement, but they would have vision and revelation of what they are doing on the earth in raising these children and all the hard work that goes into that. Lord, bless them abundantly.

“I know that You have a great reward for them laid and stored up for them in heaven. I pray, God, that on the days where they struggle and feel discouraged, that they would begin to realize, that they would see beyond the moment to the vision that You have and the revelation that You have for what they are doing and what they are putting in the earth to go out into the earth. Lord, bless them abundantly, we ask in Your name, Amen.”