PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 90: YOU ARE WRITING YOUR STORY AS YOU RAISE YOUR FAMILY

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

PODCAST 90: YOU ARE WRITING YOUR STORY AS YOU RAISE YOUR FAMILY

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello ladies, it is always great to be with you. Today I have sitting right next to me my dear friend, Heather Bryant. Heather has flown all the way from Washington State to be with us and to do this podcast with me.

We have talked about it for so long and at last we are doing it. I know you are going to be so blessed by Heather. She lives up, as I said, in Washington State right by Puget Sound. I think there is a big cliff right by your house and you look right over to Puget Sound.

Heather Bryant: Yes, it is so beautiful.

NC: You are just so spoiled!

HB: I am! My husband says that all the time.

NC: Yes. Heather is a beautiful mother of a few children.

HB: Just a few.

NC: Yes, just a few! She actually has fourteen children, but you wouldn’t know it if you were looking at her.

She is going to share just a few things of her mothering.

We should start about getting married first, because you get married first, don’t you?

HB: Yes, yes indeed!

NC: Any way, tell us, were you in love with your husband when you first started out.

HB: No! No, I really wasn’t. He just came into my life and he, on the whole, just really irritated me on so many levels. I didn’t find him physically attractive and he bugged me. In fact when he would leave my parent’s house, half the time I slammed the door behind him.

My mom said later on that she would just shake her head and think, “He’s the one.”

NC: So what changed your mind?

HB: Well, like I said, I really didn’t feel all the superficial things but there was that still small voice, literally, that I probably don’t listen to as often as I should.

But at that time it was loud enough, and I felt God almost physically turning me back toward Barry (my husband now) and almost saying, “That is the one I have chosen for you.”

I had a lot of admiration for him. I felt like he was completely different from any other guy I had ever met before. So with those kind of things in my head and then that feeling that God had chosen him for me I just went forward.

NC: And now, isn’t it nearly thirty years later?

HB: Yes and I adore him. He is like my best friend.

I don’t even know why I didn’t think he was good looking because he is quite handsome, and I feel bad for all the other women in the world whose husbands are not as handsome as mine.

NC: That is so wonderful and together Barry and Heather have been writing a beautiful story. I often think that this is what it is about raising a family. It’s writing a story.

I was thinking about that at Christmas time. Colin and I went over to Serene and Sam’s. I thought, “Do you know what I will do? I think I will write a limerick for everyone in the family.” So I wrote a little limerick for each of the children about their personality.

This is the simple little limerick I wrote for Serene:

“An incredible mother lives in this home

Who brings love and blessings and shalom.

She shines with glory

As she writes her story

With each precious child in her home.”

That’s, of course, a beautiful testimony of Serene but I was thinking about that with you, too, Heather. That’s what you have been doing, you have been writing this story.

Dear ladies, that’s what all of you are doing. You are writing your story. Each one of your stories is going to be different. Wouldn’t it be boring if they were all the same?

HB: Oh indeed.

NC: God is so unique! And every child that comes into the world that God orchestrates, and God just grows and creates in the womb is so different, each one is unique.

There is not one child that is born that is like any other that has ever been born or any other that ever will be born.

It’s like that with every family. Every family is unique.

Wow, it’s just as well that all of the families are not like us it would be hair-raising! We’re all different. We have our own sort of personality about our family.

I know you have that about your family, Heather.

Isn’t it great hearing about other families and their stories? Heather is going to tell us about some of her story today.

We have got to start out, of course, with your children and all of their names.

HB: Oh yes, I hope you wrote that down!

NC: I did! I wrote the names in case you forgot them!

HB: I know! I don’t remember birthdays very well at all.

NC: Well we won’t put that in.

So Rachel is their oldest and I know Rachel because Heather has been putting on and organizing Above Rubies retreats in Washington State for, I can’t even remember how many years!

HB: I think it’s been almost fourteen years because Mary was little, and she is over fourteen.

NC: Isn’t that amazing? I just love faithful women who put themselves to the task and never give up and here we are doing another one again this year!

HB: You know what I think, that’s what it is, you never give up. Things don’t always go sometimes how you plan but it’s showing up after they don’t always go as planned.

NC: That’s right. That’s what life is about, isn’t it? Faithfulness, never giving up, just the duties of life.

So ladies, we are having another ladies retreat in Washington State. We have it in Olympia.

HB: Yes, in Olympia at Black Lake Bible Camp.

NC: Do you know the date?

HB: I do but I can’t remember! It’s the last weekend in March.

NC: Yes, the last weekend in March. Ladies, that’s coming up so quickly, but you can still get in. Don’t miss it! If you’ve never been before, make an effort to come. There is nothing like an Above Rubies retreat. You will be encouraged through the ministry but also through the wonderful fellowship.

HB: It is. I have friends at that retreat and that is where I go see them. We connect but just to be able to know that I will get to go see those ladies at that time. Some of my dearest friends I have met at the Above Rubies retreat.

NC: Even the children. This is not a family camp, but mothers bring their older daughters and they make wonderful friends, too.

In fact, I love people to come to our Above Rubies Ladies’ Retreats with three generations of grandmothers, the mothers, and the children. It’s great; it is just so wonderful!

So Heather is doing that again this year.

HB: Rachel, she leads worship at the retreat.

NC: Yes, Rachel is a beautiful girl. I knew her as a teen and now she is married with three little boys.

Then Luke, he is married with three little girls.

HB: Yes, I am Grandma six times over. Actually, I’m Mae Mae. That’s what I’m called, Mae Mae.

NC: Yes, everyone has their own special names they love to be called.

HB: I know, you’re Nana, right?

NC: Yes, I’m Nana or Nanny.

Then there is Bekah who is courting. I love courting.

HB: Yes, in Florida. She is not in Washington with us at this point.

NC: Yes, I was just counting up the other day, just in our family, and counted up six courting couples.

HB: Love is in the air around here, I’m not even kidding!

NC: It’s so wonderful!

Then Ruth is 21 and Simon is 20. Then Sam, he’s your tree-topper, isn’t he?

HB: Yes, he is 18 years old. He just applied for his business license and he’s got that all lined up and he’s been doing a few tree-topping jobs.

NC: Oh and we forgot to say what Luke does!

HB: He’s a bomb diffuser in the Air Force.

NC: That’s pretty exciting!

HB: Yes, I guess! He seems to like it. As a mother I’m like, “Did we have to pick that kind of a career?” But I guess to each his own.

NC: I think he’s already been in places with President Trump where he’s had to diffuse bombs if they are there.

HB: Yeah, yeah.

NC: Then Levi and Mary and they are with us here, too.

HB: Don’t forget Peter!

NC: Oh yes, we’ve got Peter, too. Then Hannah, she is with Jesus now, but we are going to talk about her later. This is one of the most precious things that Heather will talk about with you.

Then there is Chloe, Susie, and Jael, and Elisha or Ellie. She is three, isn’t she?

HB: Yes, I had her when I was 48.

NC: Wow, isn’t that wonderful? Forty-eight— you are blessed because there are many women who are still longing for another baby. I get emails from women that say, “Oh please pray for me for I am still longing for another baby.” They are in their forties, but no babies are coming. So you were really blessed.

HB: I really was and am. I still am.

NC: Oh, I know! You’ve hardly started!

HB: That’s what my husband says anyway.

NC: What does he say to you?

HB: He always wonders who else is in there. He looks at me and he says, “I wonder who else is in there?”

He’s very unusual for a man! He told me he would never get mad if I got pregnant.

In fact, I think when I got pregnant with Hannah, I called him, and I told him that I was pregnant ,and he was very happy. But then later he called me back and he goes, “I just want to thank you for being willing to have our children. I just know that you are older and it’s not easy. I realize that every time you do have a child you are basically giving up a part of yourself to grow this child and I see that, and I am really thankful for a woman like you.”

NC: Isn’t that beautiful?

HB: That was like the best. I was like crying! It was just so sweet.

NC: And with all these children you have been writing your story and building your home.

I was just reading again today that wonderful Scripture, Proverbs 14:1: “Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.”

Actually three times in Proverbs it talks about the wise woman building.

In Proverbs 9:1 says: “Wisdom hath builded her house . . ..” Do you notice the three words there? Wisdom, build, house.

Then again in Proverbs 14:1: “Every wise woman buildeth her house . . ..”

Proverbs 24:3: “Through wisdom is an house builded . . ..”

The three go together. It is a wise woman who builds and if we’re building, we’re wise, and what are we building? We’re building a home and a family.

That’s what it’s all about.

Sometimes I love to go to some old translations. I have here the Knox translation and I love it. It is an old one.

It says: “It is by woman’s wisdom a home thrives; a foolish wife pulls it down about her ears.”

The Moffat translation says: “Wisdom builds the house of life; frivolity pulls it down.”

And so that’s what you’ve been doing, isn’t it? But I’m sure you had struggles.

HB: Oh for sure. Sometimes I’m listening to you and I’m just like, “I’m not all there.” On the whole I try to build my home and I ask the Lord to help me every day. You know there are struggles.

NC: That’s life.

HB: Yeah.

NC: Even having your children, did you have perfect pregnancies every time?

HB: No. I’ve been pregnant twenty times and have had fourteen live births. I’ve had a couple of really bad miscarriages that I ended up in the hospital with a DNC and a blood transfusion.

NC: And still you never gave up.

HB: No I didn’t.

NC: God was with you and kept you and He was faithful.

HB: Yeah. It was not easy. It was not easy, and it isn’t easy. Even as your children are growing, they’re making more and more decisions on their own.

You can’t just line up all the children in a row and tell them exactly what to do and they’re going to go do that thing exactly how you tell them.

NC: I know, I often thought it would have been just nice if I could have had robots!

HB: Oh I know, wouldn’t it?

NC: But they’re not robots!

HB: And just changing. When your children start growing up and becoming more independent but then you still have little children at home, it can get really confusing.

But you just plug on. Some days I just go, “I’m starting over today” and it’s all right.

NC: That’s right, that’s life—plodding on.

HB: And just giving yourself a break. Giving yourself, grace. Having your heart set on doing the right thing but we are human, we will make mistakes but just give your self grace.

NC: Yes—and plodding on. I think it is a powerful thing—plodding on. As the Bible says, when a righteous man falls, he gets up again. He can fall seven times and get up again (Psalm 37:34, 35; Proverbs 24;16; and Micah 7:8).

HB: It’s when you don’t get up that that’s the problem. Just get up!

NC: It’s like a little baby when they’re starting to walk. They walk along, they fall, but they never stay down.

They get up and that’s the secret, I believe, of life. We all face struggles and challenges in different ways and sometimes I feel like jolly well getting up and getting out of this place, but we can’t. We have to get up again and face the fray.

We don’t do it on our own, but we face it with God, and He enables us. And here you are, you’re still alive today!

HB: Yes, here I am! Who knew?

NC: What was your best and what was your worse birth?

HB: Levi was my best birth. I remember I was in labor and I knew I was. I had my husband call my midwife. I had just seen her the day before and I was barely dilated but she had stripped my membranes. The next day I felt something going on and I remember having a contraction and I said to my husband, “Call the midwife.”

He said, “Are you sure?”

I looked at him and I’m like, “CALL HER” and he said, “Okay!” because I was having a contraction that I just knew.

She came and she told me later she didn’t think anything was going on because I literally was not even dilated.

I said, “Well I just had a contraction.” I was lying in my bed and I said, “They were five minutes apart” and it had been great.

You can be in labor for quite a while when your contractions are five minutes apart, so we started talking. But about two and a half minutes into our little chat I started having a contraction and my water broke.

She goes, “Oh, something IS happening.”

So I just kind of labored for probably about an hour more. Then all of the sudden my water broke again, and I pushed once and boom— there he was.

In fact I knew my best friend was around the area and I called her and said, “Hey I just had my baby! Come on over!”

She goes, “What?”

I mean I don’t think the placenta had even come out. I was fine. I remember thinking, “Is this it? This was wonderful!”

I think Mary’s was a long birth.

NC: She was the next one after Levi?

HB: Yes, and it changed. I’ve had them all over the board!

NC: I know, this is the thing with childbirth. Sometimes, you know, maybe some of you precious mothers have been through very, very challenging childbirths and you think, “Wow, oh my, how could I ever do that again?”

But please, be encouraged, because every birth is different. Even if one birth is a difficult one, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be like that next time. It can be just so amazing!

HB: Yes, in fact I remember the first birth, with Peter, which was before Levi, that I actually prayed and asked God. I actually had three things that I had asked Him. I remember reading this book about the man who started Royal Concern and he used to pray about everything.

His wife wrote a book and she said that there were actual knee prints in front of his bed because he had prayed and never asked for anything. I remember thinking that the only reason he does that is because of his faith.

I thought, “Well I just normally go into childbirth and just beg God for mercy.” I remembered you always say, “The Lord has mercy on those who give suck.” It’s basically saying that the Lord has mercy on mothers.

Anyway, I decided that there were three things that really stressed me out about birth and one of them was laboring through the night.

Once it passed twelve o’clock, I just wanted to go to bed! I wanted to be done. So that was one of the things that prior to Peter’s birth I asked for. I said, “Lord, could my birth be done before midnight?”

The second one was I did not want to push for a long time. I was just asking. He didn’t have to answer. I can’t remember the third one because those were the two really big things.

I’ll tell you, that was my first time that I did not have to push for a long time. I would have to push for a long time, for hours. I literally pushed, I remember, three times and he was born at 11:30 in the evening.

NC: Wow, so every time the Lord answered your prayers! How wonderful!

HB: Well I wouldn’t say I prayed every single time but that one I did pray.

NC: Well, no, but those times that you did pray. Then it makes you think, you have not because you ask not. You think, “Why didn’t I ask the other times?”

HB: I even do that now. I’ve had some pretty big things happen in my life where I have literally laid it down at the feet of Jesus and I’ve just left it there. I never took it back and I’m thankful I did.

But then after that happens life goes on. There are times that later on I look back and I think, “Why didn’t I pray about this? Why didn’t I pray and ask the Lord to help me? Why did I pick it up and take it and start doing it on my own?”

NC: Yes, yes. Then you had precious little Hannah. Tell us about that. She went to be with the Lord at about 14 months, didn’t she?

HB: Yeah, she was 14 months old.

NC: Tell us what happened there.

HB: Well my oldest daughter, Rachel, she accidentally ran her over with our car and she basically died pretty quickly after that. So it was two of my daughters were affected highly at that moment.

NC: So she was just backing out, was she?

HB: Yes, yes.

NC: Yes, that’s something that happens quite often, doesn’t it?

I know the mothers around here have that fear because we have so many teens now with cars and then so many little wee ones.

They’re all saying, “Okay, you must not even drive your car before you go around the back and look around and look around again.”

HB: Oh yeah, it’s something that people just in everyday life kind of forget.

It was very devastating. Not in a permanent way but it was terrible. You just sit there and go, “If I had only walked around the car. If I had only checked.”

NC: Oh I know, but who does ever check? Unless you have that constant reminder, it’s just not something you do. That’s something we try to do around here now because of the teens driving and the little wee ones at the same time.

Didn’t that happen about three months after it had happened with Steven Curtis Chapman?

HB: It did, and I remember my daughter came to me when we had heard that and she said, “If that ever happened to me, I would die.”

And it was three weeks later it happened to her.

NC: Oh yes.

When it happened what did she do? Were you there?

HB: I was there. I was across the street. We were getting ready for Vacation Bible School and our house is a field away from our church.

My son came and he’s like, “Mom, something really bad has happened. It’s Hannah.”

I go, “Well what happened?”

He goes, “Just come.”

I go, “WHAT HAPPENED?”

He goes, “Rachel ran her over.”

I’m like, “Oh my lands.”

I arrive in our yard and all my nieces and nephews are there because we were all getting ready for Vacation Bible School and all my children were there. There were ten including Hannah.

It was chaos. It was absolutely chaos. There were children crying everywhere. I couldn’t find Rachel. She had just panicked and ran off.

My daughter Ruth had called 911 and they had told her not to touch the baby, so she was just bent over her, kneeling down on her knees over Hannah’s body, crying.

You could tell she was out of it. She would breath every now and then. It was terrible.

I remember walking and trying to find Rachel. My neighbor had come over and was doing CPR on Hannah.

I remember just walking by our kitchen window and I said, “Oh God, I won’t be mad, and I won’t even question, but You have to help me take care of my children.”

Because all of a sudden you have all these children and they all hurt different and they process different and I knew there was no way I would be able to do that on my own. I couldn’t do it and I needed His help. There was nothing I could do about Hannah.

In fact there was something inside me that I knew she would not make it. There was a little abrasion on her forehead, so she didn’t look horrible. Actually I was very thankful for that.

But I knew she wouldn’t make it. So my focus was on my children who were alive, especially my three older children, Rachel, Luke (who had brought Hannah outside), and Bekah, who was supposed to be watching Hannah, but she was inside making lunch.

I mean it was all normal things. Luke brought her out to play. She was a baby that was super laid back. She had just kind of started walking and crawling. She was a late bloomer in that.

NC: So she was barely walking?

HB: Well she was on a sled. They had been pulling her around and she crawled behind the car. It just doesn’t take that much time for things to go bad.

Anyway, I got to tell you. Do you want me to tell you the story about the police officer who was the first to arrive on the scene? It was kind of an interesting story.

NC: Yes.

HB: This happened in June and in December I was doing errands and I was in a vehicle that was not our family car. It was our commuter car. I guess the tabs had expired on it, so I got pulled over by a police officer.

They ask for your license, proof of insurance, and your registration for your car, so I give it to him. He was taking a little while because they’re going back, and I don’t know what all he was doing.

I am sitting there, and I look in the rearview mirror and he’s kind of digging around in his car and I thought, “What is he doing?”

As he was doing all this I prayed to the Lord and said, “It would be different if I was speeding; but I wasn’t speeding, I didn’t know about the tabs. Could You please make it so that the policeman couldn’t give me a ticket?”

It was Christmastime and we were trying to buy presents for our children, and we have a whole bunch of them, so I was just like, “Please!”

It probably would have been about over three hundred dollars for me to make it right. I had gotten my husband a container of candy to put in his stocking at Christmas. I got so nervous I opened it and just started eating it while I was waiting for the police officer to give me a ticket because my tabs had expired!

Anyway, he eventually comes up and I said, “Is everything okay?”

He said, “Well I lost your driver’s license.”

I said, “Well I gave it to you.”

He said, “I know you did.”

So he had me pull up into this gas station and he has every door open and his trunk open. He’s like digging around in his patrol car.

He comes up to me and he gives me back my registration and proof of insurance and he goes, “Well, I cannot find your driver’s license and so I cannot give you a ticket. I have been doing this for over 20 years and this has never happened to me.”

I go, “Well I know what happened?”

He goes, “What?”

I said, “I prayed that you can’t give me a ticket and God answered my prayer!”

He said, “Well I’m a praying man myself. It worked!”

So fast-forward to June when the accident happened. Just before that I was at our local pizza place getting cards for our junior helpers for our Vacation Bible School because we reward them at the end of the time and there was the police officer.

In the meantime I had shared with a friend of mine who was a teacher at the high school that he had worked as a police officer to watch over the young people. I had told her what had happened and so she had gone and talked to him about it.

He had vacillated between police officer and a pastor. He had come and asked if he could come to our church and preach in that time, but it never worked out.

So anyway, I went up to him at the pizza place and I said, “Hey, do you remember me?”

He looks at me for a second and he goes, “Driver’s license!”

NC: Did he ever find it?

HB: He did. He went to the mechanic at the police station and had to take out his front seat and the driver’s license had fallen into a little crack between the front seat and the consul.

NC: Well it was God answering your prayers!

HB: Yep, yep. So we were able to, at the pizza place, just chat as a Christian brother and sister and remember and laugh and stuff.

Anyway, he was the first police officer to show up on the scene. When something like that happens, you’re scared, and you don’t know what’s going to happen.

NC: So it was someone familiar to you.

HB: Yes, yes. Just before I left to the hospital, News helicopters were flying over so we had brought all the children in my house.

I remember my friend and I were about ready to leave to the hospital. They had brought all of the children in; all of my children were inside.

Officer Johnson had come up to me and he said, “My heart is just broken. Is there anything that I can do?” I mean, he had tears in his eyes.

I said, “Could you just go into my children.” I go, “As a father, as police officer, as a Christian, you can say whatever you want to them. I just want them to know that it was an accident.”

I didn’t know how Rachel’s brothers and sisters would respond to her. It was just such a blessing to have John Johnson, the police officer, just be there. I knew he was a Christian; I knew he wanted to help in that way and just to send him in before I left was so comforting.

Later on I was told by one of his colleagues who had found out that he was the one who had shown up first, he said to me, “You had the best.”

Literally when I talked to someone about the doctor who took care of Hannah, the lady I talked to said to me, “You had the best.”

I kept over and over hearing that and I believe it, and do you know what? It was the most comforting thing to know that we had the best even though the worst did happen.

In these hardest moments I just felt so cared for and loved and I knew that He loved all of us. He even loved Hannah.

In fact, I know that Hannah is more alive than you and I right now. She’s at the feet of Jesus! What could be better than that?

NC: So wonderful.

Well, our time is gone but I think we’ve got to talk again.

HB: Yes.

NC: I think we’ll come back next podcast because there are many more things that Heather will share about this. I know it’s going to be especially encouraging to those of you who have had miscarriages, those of you who have had stillbirths, those of you who have lost little ones, and even those of you who have lost bigger ones.

Let’s pray now.

“Father, We are just thinking today of so many precious mothers whose hearts, Lord God, some of which are still aching. They don’t even know how to get rid of this burden.

“But Lord, we pray that You would come to them today. Come and bring Your comfort again. Let them know that their precious loved one is with You. This is the comfort that we have. We have an eternal hope.

“We thank You, Lord, we thank You that we look forward to the eternal realm, which is the real world and where we will celebrate life with all those who have gone before.

“I pray that You will bless them and comfort them and strengthen them this day, in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.”

Come back next week because you are going to hear more from Heather, and I know you are going to be so blessed and encouraged and strengthened.

P.S. You can email Heather at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The Olympia retreat was postponed because of COVID-19 SHUTDOWN. However, keep checking the webpage, www.aboverubies.org for the new date which should be posted soon.