PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 71 – THE GLORY OF WOMANHOOD (PT 4)
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.”