PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 70 – THE GLORY OF WOMANHOOD, PT 3

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Episode 70: The Glory of Womanhood (Part 3)

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello ladies. Today we are continuing our series, The Glory of Womanhood.

Our point today is:

No. 4: BREASTFEEDING IS YOUR GLORY

“I beg your pardon you,” say? Oh yes, it’s Bible ladies!

Remember our little ditty:

“Why don’t we live in our glory?

Because we have been told a different story.”

But when we get back to the Bible, we see what God calls glory.

Let’s look at this passage in Isaiah 66:10-13. This is a wonderful passage of the Bible, a passage that really helped me as a young mother. When I started my motherhood journey, I really had no clue what I was doing.

Even with breastfeeding it took me some time to really learn the art, and it really is an art, as it says in the Le Leche League book, The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding.

I think everything is an art, even everything we do as a woman in our home.

Homemaking is an art.

Birthing is an art; we learn it. The first time we birth a baby we have no clue what we’re doing. Even when we read books, we still don’t know until we experience it and then we gradually learn the art.

Breastfeeding is a very big art that we learn, and I didn’t know what I was doing. In fact, I started off scheduling my baby because that’s what the “old wives” told me and that’s what the “Plunket Nurse” told me, which we had down in New Zealand.

Oh goodness me, we had what we called the “Plunket Nurse.” She would come around every so often, maybe every week or so, and check how you were doing as a mother. She would weigh the baby and check up on you. They would always say you had to keep to this four-hourly schedule.

Of course it didn’t work, and I was just the most frustrated mother until I came upon this Scripture. Do you know that I have found the answer to everything in God’s Word? I still find the answer to everything I want in God’s Word.

In this passage it’s an allegory about Jerusalem. It relates Jerusalem to a nursing mother.

As we read, we see how God looks upon a nursing mother. It says: “Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her: That ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the ABUNDANCE OF HER GLORY . . ..”

There it is, ladies, that word glory again. This time it’s in the context of a nursing mother, of breastfeeding. It’s the word kabowd, glory.

So here we see that breastfeeding also is a glory. And what does it say— the ABUNDANCE of her glory. In the margin here in my Bible it says the “brightness” of her glory.

Actually, that word in the Hebrew is the word ziyz and it just means” the fullness, the abundance, the bountifulness.” Some other translations say that “you will milk out and be delighted from her abundant stores” or from “the fullness of her glory” or “from the fullness of her breasts.”

The Complete Jewish Bible says: “Drinking deeply and delighting in the overflow of her glory.”

I think sometimes when you first start nursing you know what that means: “the overflow of her glory.” You are just bursting out everywhere with milk! Milk is just flowing out everywhere and you have to use pads to absorb all this milk that’s flowing out—the overflow of her glory.

Do you notice what the Bible calls it? He calls it glory. In other translations:

“To be delighted with the full measure of her glory.” Isn’t that beautiful?

The Holman Translation, I better give you this one: “Drink deeply and delight yourselves from her GLORIOUS BREASTS.”

Now that is what the Bible calls a nursing mother. Her “glorious breasts” and when you think about it, ladies, they are glorious.

When you think how God created this whole design so beautifully. The baby comes forth from the mother and immediately she can put her baby to the breast. These beautiful, glorious breasts that are filled with milk and filled with nourishment.

God created this and so it is His glory. Yes, His glory. He causes the milk to just continually be there. It just comes the more the baby sucks. Of course we know that the more the baby sucks, the more milk the breast makes. It’s just a glorious design that God has planned.

Once again, it’s glory. Therefore we have to begin to think of it like glory. Maybe some of you are nursing mothers. You’re nursing your baby right now as you are listening.

Dear lovely, nursing mother, YOU ARE IN  YOUR GLORY! God says it. He created this beautiful plan. As your baby nurses from your breast, you’re doing a glorious thing.

I know sometimes when I was nursing my baby, that’s when you sit down and put your feet up. Then you look around and, oh goodness me, that’s when you see dirty windows, you see cobwebs, and you see things you don’t see when you are looking after your little ones, getting meals, and managing the home.

Oh, but you’ve got to forget. Those dirty windows will still be there in years to come. Those cobwebs, oh well, what are they? I’m nursing my babies.

As the little poem says, “Babies don’t keep.” Oh no, you won’t be nursing this little baby forever. The time goes so quickly.

In fact, can I encourage you who are nursing babies? Just nurse them. Nurse your baby whenever your baby wants you. Whenever your baby makes a little cry, just put it to the breast.

You don’t have to think, “Well, my baby only fed about twenty minutes ago.”

No! Putting a baby to the breast is far more than just feeding a baby. Ladies, this is full mothering. Forget about just giving your baby some food. IT’S FAR MORE THAN THAT!

We see this as we read: “That ye may suck, and be satisfied.” Oh, when you’re nursing your baby, you’re satisfying your baby, you are consoling your baby, and you’re comforting your baby. You are just totally ministering in, not only to the physical of your baby, but to the emotional and every part of your baby. It is a full mothering.

That’s the beauty of breastfeeding and as you do that you’ll be nursing frequently. In fact, that is why God created the baby with a sucking instinct so that your baby wants to suck all the time and that drives you crazy!

Oh goodness me, why does this baby want to suck all the time? So what do you do, you just get a pacifier and plonk it in its mouth!

But lovely ladies, did you know that a pacifier is the mother’s substitute? Yes, you are letting the baby suck on the pacifier instead of sucking on the breast.

You miss out on two things. Firstly, of course, the more the baby sucks at the breast the more milk you will make so you will never ever run out of milk.

Secondly, the more the baby nurses at the breast the more prolactin you produce which makes you more motherly. It’s a beautiful cycle of motherliness. The more you nurse, the more motherly you become.

Of course, when you nurse you have both prolactin and oxytocin, both just glorious, glorious hormones. Both are stress-free hormones.

The more your baby nurses at the breast and sucks at the breast, the more oxytocin you’ll release, the more prolactin you’ll release, and the more stress-free you will be and the more calmness, love and relaxedness will come over you as you nurse your baby.

So don’t hold back from nursing. Make the most of your nursing season. Don’t inhibit it. Often women think, “Oh, well, I better get my baby sleeping through the night.”

No, don’t do that, especially a young baby. Of course as they get older you will encourage and teach them to sleep through the night.

But when they are young, they need that nursing. A breastfeeding baby has to nurse through the night. If you don’t, and here is another blessing, because the more your baby sucks at the breast, the more it holds back ovulation, so you won’t conceive.

Now if you are making your baby sleep through the night and you are giving it a pacifier, well, you are most probably going to get your period back very quickly and you lose that beautiful blessing of natural contraception which you have when you are nursing your baby.

Do you see God’s glorious design? It is just so beautiful. So just let your baby nurse and let your baby nurse until your baby is ready to wean.

Don’t be trying to stop the nursing process because this is who you are, a nursing mother.

When we go over to the New Testament, we see a passage in Matthew chapter 19. The Pharisees are coming to Jesus to try and trap Him as they often were. They asked Him about divorce.

Jesus replied with these words: “Don’t you know that He which made them in the beginning made them male and female?”

Now the word He used for female there was a different word than what is usually used in the New Testament for women which is gune and it means “woman, wife.”

But this time He used the Greek word thelus coming from the root word thele, which means “to suckle a babe at the breast.” The noun is “a suckling mother.”

The word comes from a word that means “nipple.” So when Jesus spoke those words He said, “Don’t you know that He who made them in the beginning made them male and female.” He made them suckling mother.

Mother, you are a suckling mother and as you have babies and suckle them, you are in your glory. It’s who God created you to be. It’s such a blessing, not only to your baby, but also to you.

You are both blessed beyond measure. So just keep going as long as you can.

Maybe there are older mothers listening today. I’m sure that secretly, like me, you wish you could have another baby to nurse because it is such a beautiful experience.

It is what the Bible says: glory. So embrace it, dear ladies, it’s your glory.

I can think of some other Scriptures here. We can go to Genesis 21:7. This is Sarah speaking and she’s talking about motherhood and thinking “How amazing that I am blessed to be a mother after waiting all these years.” She never thought that it would happen, but here she has this precious child. 

But how does she describe it? She says: “Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah should have given children suck . . .”

That is how she described being a mother: suckling a baby. That is a beautiful description of motherhood.

We also see that of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1:23. It tells us that when Samuel was born that she stayed home from going to the temple and she abode in her home and “gave her son suck until she weaned him.”

So it just explains it clearly. She gave her child suck. That’s what it’s all about. It’s such a beautiful thing.

The Word of God is so amazing because, in Isaiah 66, it is talking about Jerusalem, it relates to Jerusalem, but because it’s describing her as a nursing mother, I think the whole preeminence of the passage is the beautiful description of a nursing mother.

We should continue it because we stopped at verse 11. “ . . . And be delighted with the abundance of her glory [her glorious breasts]. For thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river . . ..”

And how true that is, that when you nurse your babe, oxytocin flows, and that calmness and peace comes all over you.

You can be in a state of tension, and oh goodness me, the children can be screaming, and everything is going wrong. The baby is screaming and oh, what do you do? You pick the baby up and you put your baby to the breast and oh, the milk let’s down and that feeling of peace comes over you.

Sometimes you just nod off to sleep. God gives this blessing to the nursing mother so she can get up again and she is refreshed and can cope again. This peace comes over her like a flowing stream.

“ . . .And the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream: then shall ye suck [and keep on sucking!], ye shall be borne upon her sides [so you’re still sucking as your baby gets older], and be dandled upon her knees . . . “

You’re still nursing your baby as he’s getting older. He may be a little toddler now. Some babies may want to wean at a year or so, but many babies want to keep nursing two years to three years, some even four years. Some go beyond that.

But you never see a child nursing when they’re older. They always wean when they’re ready. It’s a beautiful thing to be attentive to when they’re ready to wean.

I remember when Pearl weaned. I nursed her for about three and three-quarter years. I remember sort of thinking, “Okay, she’s been nursing all this time. She’s had enough, I think I’m going to put a stop to this.”

Of course you’re not nursing them like a little baby. When they’re getting that age it’s just those special little times when they need you. They’ve hurt themselves or they’re just going to bed. In fact, nobody even needs to know that you’re doing it because they do not need constant nursing like a baby.

But I remember thinking, that’s enough, and then I noticed she had some adverse little reactions, behavior problems. Then I realized, no she wasn’t quite ready.

I think when you’re mothering, and each new baby comes along you just relax more and you’re more attentive to their very inner needs.

So when Serene came I nursed her till she was four. I think she was very ready to wean at that time. Some babies and some toddlers and some little ones are ready before others.

I’ve known many mothers who have tandem nursed and they are still nursing when their baby is born. They continue nursing their first baby and their second baby weans before their first baby. It’s just the difference on the inner needs of their child. Here they are, dandling on your knees and you’re still nursing!

“ . . .As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”

And so we see that. But then, we also see this in a spiritual light. We see how it can also be related to Christ Who is our fullness and to Whom we can come and find all our needs met in Him.

God Himself is El Shaddai. We could look at these Scriptures, these words, in this passage:

“That ye may suck and be satisfied.” That’s total satiation and plenty.

“With the breasts.” That word breast is Shad in the Hebrew. Shad is the root word of El Shaddai, which is one of the names of God. El meaning “God is the Mighty One.” Shaddai is a picture of God as “The breasted One.”

Oh ladies, I can never get over that, can you? God is pictured as “the Breasted One.” He takes on the name of Shad, which is the name for breast. But He is the all-encompassing breasted One. The One in Whom we can find all our needs. The God Who is enough.

Just as a little babe comes to the breast and can find enough, there is always enough at the breast. If the baby is nursing constantly, there is always enough at the breast.

We can come to God as the One Who is Enough and we can find in Him all that we need. In Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. We find all our satisfaction and all our source in Him.

We can’t really find it in anyone else, even as wives in our husbands. Sometimes wives can look to their husbands to meet their every need. No, a husband can never ever meet your every need.

Oh yes, there are certain needs that he can meet, but there are inner needs that you can’t find totally met from your husband. You have Christ. You have God. He is the God Who is enough. He is “The Breasted One.” The One in Whom you can find everything you need. He is your source. Go to Him. You will find your solace and consolation as it says here, your consolations, you’ll milk out, you’ll suck. But do you know what? We don’t find our all in Christ if we just think, “Oh, well, yes, Christ is all in all.”

No, it’s only as we suck from Him. The little babe is not satisfied until the babe sucks. Then it is comforted at the breast, it is made full at the breast.

It’s as we come to Christ. Think of Him as “The Breasted One” where you come to suck from Him and from His Word. Do you really do that? Have you ever done that?

Have you ever really come and sucked from Him? Milked from Him? Just opened your mouth of faith to suck from Him, learn from Him, and spend time in His Word and in His presence and in meditating on Him?

This is sucking from Him and it is only as we do that that we are filled, satisfied, satiated, and consoled.

Even those who are going through tragedy, loved ones passing, and these very dark experiences in life, can I encourage you? Perhaps you are facing something like this now, come in and suck from your Beloved One now. From God Himself, from “the Breasted One, who is enough.

As you truly milk from Him, you will be consoled and comforted because all consolation and all comfort is in Him.

You will be delighted, not only just with a little bit. No, God is not stingy. He is abundant. Amen?

Let’s move on to our next one. It’s up to number five.

What is our next glory, ladies? Are you really getting it? Are you really going to start living in who you are, in the glory? Amen?

All right.

No. 5: PREPARING AND RAISING OUR CHILDREN TO PRESENT TO CHRIST IS GLORY.  

I’m going to read you a Scripture from 1 Thessalonians, chapter 2:19, 20. This is Paul writing to the Thessalonian Christians. They are his babes in Christ. He looks upon them and actually says in this book that he is like a nursing mother to them.

It says here in these verses: “ For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? For ye are our glory and joy.”

Now Paul was the one who had brought them to faith and now he is nurturing them in the faith. He has a father’s and a mother’s heart. He’s not just nurturing them for this life, but he’s nurturing them for eternity because he knows that one day he’s going to present them all before the Father.

He’s brought them into His Kingdom and how is he going to present them? Are they still going to be little babes, struggling with all their problems? Or are they going to be mature in Christ? Are they going to be his crown of rejoicing? Are they going to be his glory? And that’s the word he uses.

I think, lovely ladies, of how Paul was this man and yes, he was doing this with his babes in Christ. But we have our own flesh and blood. Surely this longing that Paul had will be even more upon us as mothers that we are preparing and training our children, not just for now, not just for their careers, not just for their future life in this world (which we are doing, of course, but the ultimate is for eternity.

For each one of our children is an eternal soul. We are ultimately preparing for the eternal realm and this is such a challenge.

One day when we stand before the Lord, which we will, and we will present our children before Him, which we will, will they be our glory and our joy?

Oh, precious mothers, there’s no greater glory than to be preparing our children to present them as our glory before the Lord. We see it in the whole fullness, okay?

God told us as we started this series that He created us with His glory upon us as a female.

Then He talks about motherhood, which is our glory.

The home where we raise our children is our glory.

Nursing a baby at the breast is our glory.

As we’ve been faithful to do all these things and raise our children in the home and prepare them for this life, then one day we are going to present them as our glory.

This glory, this was our glory on earth, preparing these children for the eternal Kingdom. This is the ultimate, isn’t that amazing?

I can read you some other Scriptures here. Let’s read Philippians 4:1: “Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved.” This time he’s writing to the Philippian believers and once again he’s calling them his joy and his crown and of course his glory.

We go again to 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, this time to verses 7, 8 and we see Paul’s attitude towards these believers who were his glory: “But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children. So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us.”

Just think of that compassion and longing he had for these believers, the same that we should have for our children, that we’re ready to give our own souls for them they are so dear to us.

Verse 9: “For ye remember, brethren, our labor and travail: for laboring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you . . ..”

There is Paul, because this is his whole vision to bring these believers before the Lord on that day when we meet Him face to face. He labors day and night. Sometimes we complain because we have to get up in the night. But here’s a guy and he’s prepared to be laboring night and day for these souls. This is the heart, also, that we should have.

Also, of course, by our example, that’s one of the ways. Paul spoke of this many, many times. This speaks to us as mothers, ladies.

First Corinthians 4:15: “For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.”

So he was not only the one who brought them to faith, but he was a father to them, to raise them in the faith, just as we are a mother to our children.

He goes on to say: “Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me.”

This is the biggest way I think in which we train our children, isn’t it mothers? By our example, by just saying to children, “Just follow me. I’ll show you the way to go.”

We’re like the shepherd. What does the Middle Eastern shepherd do? He goes in front of his flock. He goes ahead of his flock and they follow him.

Our children are going to follow our lifestyle. In fact they are going to see how much our Christianity really works in our life because they watch us all day long. They are going to see how much God really is paramount in our lives.

Do we put aside time every day as a family to spend time with God? Do we gather the family to listen to the Word and pray together each day, hopefully every morning and every evening? That is just such a little token of our day to give to God.

If we’re not doing this, our children see, “Oh well, really, all the things that Mum’s involved in, going here and there, and all the things they do are really far more important than God.”

We go over to chapter 11:1: “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.”

Next, we’ll go over to Philippians 3:17: “Brethren, be followers together of me . . ..”

And Philippians 4:9: “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen [not just heard, but seen] in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.”

Also 1 Thessalonians 1:6: “And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost.”

They became followers of Paul and of the Lord. Our children will become followers of the Lord as they see the example in following us.

Just one more, 1 Thessalonians chapter 3, verse 9: “For what thanks can we render to God again for you, for all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before our God.”

Isn’t that beautiful? That was the way Paul thought about his young believers and this should be our attitude to our children.

Oh, the joy, all the joy we joy before the Lord! Yes, this is our greatest joy!

Our children are our joy, our crown of rejoicing, our crown of boasting, our hope and, ultimately, our glory when we stand before the Lord.

Oh, wait on, one more Scripture I have to give you, 1 Thessalonians 5:23. This Scripture is one Scripture that I took hold of as I was raising my children. I made it my vision.

It’s great to have a vision. We may not make it, but we work towards it. This was my longing. It’s a prayer: “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Once again, lovely ladies, we are mothering not just for now. We are mothering for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, when we will stand before Him and we will present our children before Him.

Will we be able to present them whole? W-H-O-L-E: whole in body, soul, and spirit.

You see how mothering is not just caring for their physical needs. It’s not just feeding and clothing and housing them. It’s ministering to their souls. Ministering to their spirits, that they would grow up whole and that we can present them whole before the Father.

The next verse says: “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it

God is faithful to help you, dear mother!

“Oh, I thank You, dear Father, again, for Your precious Word. Thank You that You are the faithful God. You are faithful to help us in this greatest career You have given us as mothers.

“Thank You Lord, for showing us that our highest calling is to raise our children for eternity. For one day we will present them before You and this will be our glory.

“Help us to live in our glory in the name of Jesus. Amen.”