PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 154: THE BLESSINGS OF HOMESCHOOLING
FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 154 – THE BLESSINGS OF HOMESCHOOLING
Christina Friedman from Minnesota joins me today. Christina is the mother of 11 children, half of whom have grown and having their own children. Christina shares how she was enabled to mother and homeschool all the children God gave them, while suffering with PCOS and Lyme's disease. In the midst of pain and feeling sick every day, she determined to enjoy her family without complaining, and is now reaping the rewards of her life work.
And you’ll be amazed at the miracle story of how they found her daughter, Kerry’s brain coming down through her nose!
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies. I have sitting next to me another wonderful mother. Oh, there are so many wonderful mothers around. I love introducing them to you. This is Christina Friedman, all the way from Minnesota. Now I got to know Christina through her lovely daughter who came to be an Above Rubies helper. We had Kerry with us for a couple of months, and then her sister Rainna, as well.
Oh, it was such a joy to have them with us, these two beautiful girls. But they are two of 11 children. You are blessed to have 11 children, Christina?
Christina: Very, very, very blessed!
Nancy: And yet, you told me that they didn't believe you would ever be able to have children.
Christina: Before I was married, they told me I had a condition called PCOS, and they said that it would be next to impossible for me to have children.
Nancy: Yes, wow. And yet, here you are with 11 children! How many years did you have to wait before the Lord blessed you with a child?
Christina: I think we waited about five minutes after we got married before the Lord blessed us with a child!
Nancy: (laughter) Isn't that amazing! They couldn't have children and they waited five minutes! And God blessed them on their honeymoon! Isn't that just so amazing? And He blessed you with 11 children and you still have this problem, don't you?
Christina: Yes, I do. They said that I would have all these different side effects from having PCOS. I had every single one of them, except infertility. I'm ever so grateful for our beautiful family.
Nancy: How did you get on with your pregnancies and births with this?
Christina: I had great pregnancies. No complaints as far as long labors. I had one, Rainna, the Above Rubies helper, born in a van on the highway. Just really, no complaints with pregnancies.
Nancy: God was so good to you, wasn't He? Well, we better just introduce your family. Maybe you'd like to just go down the list and tell us quickly their names and what they're doing.
Christina: I would love to tell you. Our first son is Nick. He is 30 years old and married. They're pregnant with their third child. He's a police officer in Rapid City, South Dakota.
Our second child is Tatiana (Tanna). She actually is a neighbor to you.
Nancy: Yes, isn't that amazing? I mean, we didn't know your family and yet she ended up marrying one of the guys who is a family friend of ours. And now they live just up the road from us. Isn't that amazing?
Christina: It's very, very special. Her husband used to come help you pack the magazine.
Nancy: Yes, when he was a young boy. Isn't that amazing?
Christina: Then our third child is Teddy. He is married, and they have one new little baby. He's serving in the Army in Colorado Springs. There's about a year left of that. They're looking forward to more children and coming back to live close to family.
Our fourth child is married, and she's a student at Penn State. She was just offered a master's program full ride scholarship for architecture. So we're excited about that.
Our fifth child is a student at the university near our home. He manages a bank near our house.
Nancy: What was his name again?
Christina: Parker. Hi, Parker!
Nancy: Parker. That's a good name. They're all doing well.
Christina: Yes, I'm very proud of them. Our sixth child is a girl named Adair, who is married. Brand new married, and they have their first baby, a homebirth and they came back to have it at our house. So it was such a blessing to be there and to watch her become a new mother, right in the house. It was awesome.
Nancy: Beautiful!
Christina: Our next is Kerry.
Nancy: Now Kerry, she is the one who came to be an Above Rubies helper. I just have to tell you about Kerry. I never ever in the whole time she was with us, I don't think I ever saw her without a smile on her face. She's just the most beautiful, happy soul, always smiling and always optimistic. Just the most glorious demeanor.
She is also so talented. The most amazing painter. Sometimes in the evening, she'd go to her room, and she'd think, “Well, I'll do a painting.” And she'd come out in the morning with this glorious painting which I now have on my wall. I don't know how many paintings she did while she was here. She is such an amazing girl.
Christina: Well, thank you.
Nancy: Oh, you want to tell a story about Kerry. because when she was here, she told me this story. I could hardly believe it. I mean, I look at Kerry. There's not a thing wrong with her. She's beautiful and you cannot believe this story. You'd better tell it, Christina.
Christina: Well, I'd be glad to. Kerry is our miracle child. She's our seventh baby and when she was born, I looked at her, and I thought she didn't look right. So I asked my husband, “Does she look like there's something wrong?” He said, “No, she's absolutely beautiful.”
I asked our midwives and they looked her over. They said, “Well, she's gorgeous. She's your most beautiful baby. And then my mom, who's a pediatric intensive care nurse, came and I said, “Does she look OK?” And yes, she did.
The next day I just didn't have any peace about how she looked. So I took her to a doctor friend of ours who's a pediatric intensive care doctor and asked if he thought she looked OK. He looked her over from head toe, and he said, “She's just fine.”
So we went about our business for the next few years, and everywhere we went, people would say, “You have the most beautiful baby. She's gorgeous.” When she was 16 months old, I was holding our brand-new baby and using a bulb to clean out his nose. She said, “Mama, do me, do me.” She wanted me to use the bulb syringe on her.
I said, “Oh, no. That's icky.” So she brought me an otoscope. We had one around to look into babies' ears. She said, “Do me,” and she put it up her nose. So just to humor her, I looked up her nose with the otoscope, and I saw something very, very strange.
I didn't know what to think. So all of our children were gone with my husband at a church event. When they came back, I looked up all of their noses. The older six children’s noses, and everything looked fine in their nose. I looked up my husband's nose with the otoscope, and my mom's, and nobody had that.
I thought, “Well, it must be a sinus. There must be something wrong with her sinus.” My husband said, “I think that's her brain.” I said, “No. No.”
So I took her to the pediatrician. And he said, “Well, whatever it is, it doesn't look good. Go to this ear, nose, and throat doctor.” So we took her in there, and he looked, and he said, “Just a minute.” He brought in two more doctors to look, and they talked over our heads.
They said, “Well, we have some bad news. It's either cancer, and if it's cancer, there's nothing we can do. There's nothing we can do. It's too far gone. Or it might be her brain. It might be something called an encephalocele. It might be her brain.”
So it turned out, praise God, that it was encephalocele, which is not a great thing to have either, but they did an MRI and a CAT scan, and discovered that, yes, in fact, she had a hole in her skull where her brain was leaking through her nasal cavity.
Nancy: And it came right down into her nose.
Christina: Yes.
Nancy: That is unbelievable.
Christina: They told us that most people who have this, it happens most often in Thailand or Taiwan. It's kind of common. Not common-common, but it happens a lot there. Children don't live very long with this birth defect.
But she was 18 months by the time that we got into all these doctors. They couldn't believe that she hadn't had meningitis, or been very very sick, or died, from having her brain infected. Then they told us spinal fluid was leaking out of her nose. She had a little runny nose all the time, and it was actually spinal fluid. So she probably had a headache all the time. They had to do a major, major surgery where they . . .
Nancy: She said she felt always happy.
Christina: Always happy, always happy. Chatty. We would know nothing was wrong. Never fussy, and actually beautiful. The worry that I had was from the Lord, alerting me that something was wrong.
They took off her face. They cut from ear to ear over the top of her head and pulled that down, the skin of her face, and then they cut her skull off, and then they amputated a handful of brain. Then they made a paste out of the inside of her skull, and then they blocked up the hole with this paste. Then they put titanium plates in, and humpty-dumptied her back together again.
Nancy: How long was this operation?
Christina: It was six hours. Six hours. And they told us a whole list of things that could go wrong. A whole list. She'll need blood transfusions. She’ll probably have fever from the surgery. And she did not have one. I mean, it was not fun for her, I know the recovery was not fun. But it was not a major, nothing bad happened to her from that.
Nancy: I mean, just look at her today. You'd never know she'd had that operation. You'd never know there had been anything wrong with her brain. She's just so intelligent and amazing.
Christina: I always joked, because the side of the brain they amputated, I think it's the side with emotions on it. I said, “I think they took out the crabbiness,” because she's never crabby. Never. Always so cheerful. She's such a blessing. Such a miracle.
Nancy: Isn't it amazing? God can do such wonderful things. Oh, yes. Well, just keep going down the list.
Christina: OK. So that's Kerry. And then we have an 18-year-old son named Noah who's graduating this year. Then we have Rainna who's 16 and Alyssa who's 15. And then our youngest. We did have a sibling child after Alyssa and before Johnny. So there's a three-year gap. Alyssa's 15, and Johnny's 11, almost 12. We're just enjoying all of them.
Nancy: So wonderful. That's amazing. So how old were you when little Johnny came along?
Christina: I was 43.
Nancy: Then that was it. The Lord didn't give you anymore.
Christina: No, that was it.
Nancy: And He blessed you with 11 children.
Christina: 11 children. And six grandchildren, with two on the way. I forgot to mention Tatiana has two children, and she's pregnant with her third.
Nancy: And there'll be many, many more to come!
Christina: I hope so! We're praying for that.
Nancy: Oh, yes, absolutely! just so wonderful. Now, Christina is here because she has just been down to Florida to the Above Rubies Family Retreat, which we have all just come back from. Laguna Beach, Panama City. Oh, it was the most wonderful retreat. Families came from all the nation, even as far as Canada.
I think the beautiful beach lured them. We had about 800 people there. Although the main retreat was over the weekend, Friday to Sunday, this retreat has become so popular now, that we make it from Wednesday to Wednesday, so people can come and have a few days relaxing before and after the retreat. Actually the whole retreat, there's something happening every moment isn't there?
Christina: Every minute.
Nancy: Every minute! It's just unbelievable! Everybody comes with all their families. We have babies and little children. All the young people, and oh, I think the young people . . . I think that's one of the most glorious things about the retreat, that the young people can meet so many other wonderful young people who are kindred spirits.
You're so happy for your children to be hanging out with them. It's just so great, isn't it? Oh, tell me, how did you feel about it? Here, I'm just saying it was wonderful, but how did you like it?
Christina: We loved it. My husband was, we're from Minnesota. My husband was not . . .
Nancy: Your husband's Steve.
Christina: Yes. And he was not able to come because this is his busy time at work. So the five youngest who still live at home, and me, got in the car. We said, “We're just going to go!” I could not imagine as I was driving down there, thinking of 800 people, feeding them. There were some gracious, gracious men who took over the kitchen, and brought us wonderful, healthy meals.
I thought, “How could they do that? And then, 800 people. The chapel, and all these activities that we got the itinerary for, all this, could it be that organized?” And it was. And it was beautiful.
Nancy: Well, we had Allison and Daniel Hartman are the ones who had the vision for putting on this retreat. Allison, I guess, she's just a pro at organizing, isn't she? She just kept that thing ticking from morning to night!
Christina: We were busy from morning till night. I brought a stack of books to read on the beach. I read maybe four pages, because even on the beach, there were so many people to talk to. Nancy's right about the kindred spirits of the children. It was just so neat to see the teenagers, the youth.
They just . . . because in the world there are not as many people like them, and that they can relate to, the homeschooling, and the ideas of living for Christ, and they just thrive there.
Nancy: And there was so much for them, with volleyball competitions, which were pretty fierce and amazing. Basketball competitions and so much getting together and doing so many things. And then in the evenings after the meetings, they had improv, there was a lot of that with the young people. Even dancing, just lovely dancing. Beautiful, oh, it was just so great.
And also the Lord came, and He moved. Just moved upon everybody by His Spirit. It was life-changing for so many, wasn't it?
Christina: It was very life-changing, and yes, the Lord was amazing. Nancy's right, it's just the way you could see the Lord working. The worship, just the love between the people.
Nancy: Yes, yes, worship was just glorious. Of course, it's an annual retreat. Oh, I know you'd love to be part of it. You can come from anywhere in the States. There's only one problem. It's going to be fitting the people in who still want to come, because I think everybody at the retreat was already booking for next year!
If you're interested, you will see Allison Hartman's contact in the new magazine, which if you haven't got yet, you will be getting pretty soon. It may be in your letterbox now. You will see that information there. I would encourage you to look into booking now for next year, for next April, because, wow, I think it's going to be booked up pretty quickly.
And Christina, I am amazed! You drove, without your husband, all the way from Minnesota down to Florida. You are amazing!
Christina: I've become a practiced driver, because I have a son in Rapid City, South Dakota, a son in Colorado Springs, Pennsylvania, and Tatiana in Nashville. That's what I do. That's what I always say, “That's what I do!” It's what I have to do if I want to see everybody!
Nancy: (laughter) Was telling me you're getting back home, and then, a couple of weeks later, you're starting off on another road trip that just about takes you round the whole of the USA.
Christina: Yes, we're leaving May 14, and we'll be gone for almost a month, trying to see as many children and friends in the US that we can.
Nancy: And you'll be driving all the way! And then you'll get home, and you're going out to South Dakota to see another child!
Christina: Yes. Yes.
Nancy: Wow. I just call her the driving mother. You do better than me. I tend to go to sleep when I drive, so I wouldn't be as good as you.
Christina: I'm never tired driving. I don't know why. My children all say, “Mom, aren't you tired?” Not driving, not driving.
Nancy: It's amazing. You're so wonderful.
Christina: Get in my zone.
Nancy: Yes. So anyway, you've told us about your family. Well, let's just get behind the scenes, and what it's really like in your four walls. You've homeschooled all your children.
Christina: Yes. Before we got married, we went to speak to my husband's pastor to do our premarital counseling. And the pastor introduced himself. He said “Hi, I'm Jerry Hickles. I have two children, and we homeschool, but I'm sure you hate that.”
I said, “What do you do? And why would I hate it?” He said, “Well, you're an elementary school . . . ” I was a public-school teacher. He said, “Well, because you're a public-school teacher, I'm sure you hate the idea of homeschooling.” It was 1989, and I said, “Well, I've never heard of homeschooling. What is that and tell me more.”
So I sat, and I grabbed a piece of paper off of his desk, and I took notes. We talked about homeschooling for our whole hour that we were supposed to be talking about our marriage. Then it was time for us to leave, and he said, “Well, you'll have to make another appointment to talk about the wedding because you used all the time talking about homeschooling.”
We walked out of the church, and I said to Steve, “We're going to homeschool our children. We're going to homeschool our children.” He said, “We don't have any children and we're not married! If you don't talk about the wedding, we're not going to be able to get married!” (laughter)
And so from the day that our oldest was born, we had a lifestyle of learning. Books all over, and educational toys and games. That's how we started.
Nancy: Yes, how wonderful. And you were a schoolteacher.
Christina: Yes.
Nancy: So when you began your homeschooling, did you bring that kind of thing into your home, or did you change it into more of a lifestyle?
Christina: We have a lifestyle of learning. We do have a school room so I can keep all of our things together. It was nice when we had a bunch of little children. We had school tables and stuff where I could meet with small groups of children, or big groups of children, but we . . . we have a lifestyle of learning, where we could bring our learning on the road. We tried to travel through all of our children's growing up. We had an RV, and we tried to see the whole United States with them again and again.
Nancy: That's great learning as well, isn't it?
Christina: Yes, yes. We're very big into reading and books.
Nancy: Yes, and from what you're telling me, they're all becoming so successful in their lives. So you prepared them well.
Christina: I was very grateful when my son who graduated from college, he graduated with a Biblical studies degree and a business degree. He got his first job, and I was ever so happy that it was like a real job, in a real place. It was, I was just so happy that it worked!
Nancy: That's wonderful. And you just seem as happy.
Christina: Again and again.
Nancy: Oh yes, that is so wonderful. I think, so many of you who are listening, you are homeschooling. You know, some may not be, and wondering about it. But I believe it's such a beautiful thing, especially in this day and age, where really, I mean our schools are becoming more and more places for indoctrination of everything that's against God.
They're bringing in transgenderism, right from kindergarten and all this pressure of alternative lifestyles. I don't believe this is the place where we can send our children if we really want them to grow in the ways of the Lord. I'm thinking of Psalm 1, which you all know, but it's so good to read it again.
OK, let's just read it again to encourage ourselves. I love this: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law doth he meditate day and night.”
I mean, how can our children be blessed if you send them to sit under the counsel of the ungodly? I mean, we still have some faithful Christian teachers among the public school, but they don't have freedom to share their beliefs, or the truth. They are curtailed.
But most are not, and they are brainwashing, training, indoctrinating our children against everything that is of God and His Word. So why would we send children to sit under that ungodly counsel? Or to stand in the way of sinners. I mean, all the peers that your children will get.
It's such a sad thing. So many Christian children will walk away from the Lord. It's not because of their parents, but it's often because of their peers. I think peers, especially as children get to teenage years, they are so powerful. If your children get in with the wrong company, that's it.
So we don't want to send them into that wrong company. That's why I love having these Above Rubies retreats. I do ladies' ones, but I love the family ones. I love it when families bring all their children, all their unmarried children, because I have a little dream.
I'll tell you my secret. I just long that at these retreats, there will be couples who find the one that God has for them, because what greater place, where they're amongst kindred spirits in a beautiful environment? People who believe the same way. Such a beautiful place.
So God has to do it, of course. You don't make it happen, but it's an environment where it can happen. Colin and I, we met at a family camp, so I think, “Oh, that's a good place for people to meet!”
Christina: It's a very good place.
Nancy: Yes, it's great to have places where our godly young people can meet one another. I was thinking, too, I was just reading again this morning in Samuel, about Samuel. He grew up, actually in the Temple. You remember how Hannah promised her firstborn to the Lord. She took him to Eli the priest.
Samuel grew up in the Temple which was the house of God. But now, our homes are temples. We don't have a temple back in Jerusalem. When Samuel went to the temple, it was actually in Shiloh. We don't have temples today, but we have homes. And our homes are God's temples.
A temple is a place for the Presence of God. In fact, God says that our very lives, our bodies are His temples. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?” So we now have become God's temple. That's an amazing thing, isn't it?
In fact, the real Greek word there is naos. It literally means that we are the Holy of Holies for God. That is where God dwells, in all His shekinah glory. But now, He wants to dwell in all of us, and, I believe, our homes.
I read this about Samuel. It says how the Lord blessed Hannah. Actually, it doesn't say that. I'd better get the right word! Verse 21 in chapter two: “And the Lord visited Hannah.” That's a powerful thing, isn't it? I love that word! And it says: “And the Lord visited Hannah so that she conceived and bare three sons and two daughters.”
That was after Samuel. So after she gave birth to Samuel, the Lord visited her again, and gave her five more children. How did she get those children? A visitation from God. Isn't that incredible?
Did you know, precious ladies, that when you conceive, you actually have a visitation of God? It's only God who can give conception. And God visits us. Isn't that incredible?
Christina: Amazing.
Nancy: I just love it! And so, He visited Hannah. And then it goes on to say: “And the child Samuel grew before the Lord.” Now whenever you read those words in the Bible, “before the Lord,” that's in the King James version, it literally means, “in the presence of the Lord.”
A couple of other translations. I wrote them down. The New Living Translation says: “Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord.”
In Youngs' Translation, which is very literal, because it's the Youngs who did the Youngs' Concordance, it says in that translation: “He groweth up with Jehovah.”
Isn't that amazing? That makes me think of homeschooling families. Instead of putting out your children out there to all the unbelief, and the faith-losing which it is, and the deceptions, and everything that is going to turn them away from God. Instead, we are to grow them in the presence of the Lord. Isn't that amazing?
Don't you think, Christina, that perhaps that's the greatest thing you can do, is we're raising our children. Yes, we're teaching them everything that we can to prepare them for life. But we do need to prepare them for the Lord.
Christina: That is such a privilege, to be able to facilitate that in our home. We started when the children were very young, reading children's Bibles. We found a very good Bible, the Catherine Vos Children's Story Bible. Every year we read it from cover to cover. During our school day, we read a chapter or two a day. We were able to pray every day, for our family and our friends and our country and our nation and our world.
We found a great series called the YWAM Christian Heroes Books. They're about missionaries. I don't know, there are maybe 50 of them. There are lots. We have almost all of them. I have never counted how many there are. We cannot put them down. We re-read them, about one book every couple of weeks. Then we cycle through, because the older children are gone, and our youngest haven't heard them.
I always have them take little notes on what we can remember about them. Mainly how they served and how that can help us serve. Our family is very much into service. They all love to help out at church and in our community. We're able to do that, because we're home, and we have more time to do those things.
Also, I try to read with every child. I meet with them once a week, and we do our own special devotions with each individual child. And then pray with them for their own specific needs. If we weren’t home, we wouldn't be able to do like Deuteronomy 6: 7: “Walk with your child and spend all day teaching.” That's my translation.
But we would not be able to do that if they were in school. My husband was at a Sunday school one day and that's what they were teaching. But everybody in the class had their children in public school. My husband, we were good friends with all these people, and he said, “How can you win? Are you walking with your child, telling them of the Lord? When do you have time? Because when I get home from work,” this is Steve talking, “When I get home from work, I don't have all that much time. And if we added sports, and the children in school all day away from us, how do you have time?”
And everyone just kind of stood and looked in the room like, “Oh. He might be right there.” So we feel very blessed that God led us down that path that I had never heard of in 1989!
Nancy: And you are reaping all the blessings of it today with your older children, and now your younger children. I got to meet them all at the retreat, apart from Kerry and Rainna that I had already met. All such beautiful children loving the Lord.
Christina: They really do.
Nancy: Just so glorious. Let me give you one more Scripture as we're coming to a close. This Scripture always challenges me. In Micah chapter two, verse nine. It's amazing you know, ladies, how we can read about motherhood, right throughout the Bible, even in minor prophets. And it says here: “The women of my people have ye cast out from their pleasant houses.”
Or some translations say: “The homes they love,” “their delightful homes” “their cherished homes,” “and from their children have you taken away my glory forever.”
OK, let's have a look at that last one in some other translations.
The Living Translation says: “And You have forever stripped their children of all that God would give them.”
The Amplified Version really challenges me: “You take away my splendor and blessing forever by putting them (that's your children) among pagans, away from Me.” Wow. Can't be much plainer, can it?
And that's just a picture of sending our children off to public schools, putting them out there among pagans, teachers who are scornful of Christianity, of the Bible, of prayer, of everything we hold dear. And their peers who are scornful of God. And you're putting them among pagans, away from you, taking them out of the home where “they will live in My Presence, and grow in My Presence.”
That's what God's heart is in raising our children. He gives us these children, and then He gives us a home. The home is where He wants this to happen. He gives us this home that we can fill with the Presence of God to grow our children in His ways. Amen?
Christina: Amen.
Nancy: What would you like to share with the ladies at the end of this, Christina?
Christina: I would just like to encourage you that it feels so good to get to the end of homeschooling, to see that your children are living for Christ, and they have a good work ethic. They want to provide for their families, and my girls want to take care of their children. It's such a blessing to me that the hard work paid off.
And I know that when you have brand-new babies, and seven other little children running around your house, all at one time, and you have piles of laundry, and all those things, it may seem easier to send your children to school, or you might not enjoy those times as much.
But I made up my mind when I had our oldest two children, I would always be joyful and not complain. Not complain about not getting any sleep. Not that I wasn't tired, but I just wasn't going to complain. I wasn't going to complain about the laundry, or the stress of trying to make it all happen. I was just going to enjoy it and try to be an example to others. Now that my youngest is 11, and he's going into sixth grade next year, things are winding down. I'm so blessed.
Nancy: Amen. And Christina, you did all that with PCOS, with what are all the side affects you had? Had you been challenged right throughout your homeschooling?
Christina: Well, actually, worse than PCOS. When our 18-year-old, when I was pregnant with him, I got very, very sick. I ended up with Lyme Disease and food poisoning from a restaurant. That's another long story. I was pregnant, and people, my sister-in-law and my cousin, were all pregnant at this restaurant. They lost their babies with this food poisoning.
Our 18-year-old is living and healthy. It all hit me at once. I got Lyme Disease, and this serious food poisoning. It shut down my liver, and I was very, very sick after he was born. I never got better. We've done all sorts of treatments for Lyme. I never really feel better from any of it.
So now I have MS from that, very very weak. The doctors call it MS, but I know right where it started. It doesn't really matter what it is. So I haven't felt good for years and years and years. The struggle is real. You know, the struggle is real.
Nancy: Christina has raised 11 children, homeschooled them all, and given herself to this without complaining, with suffering all these things at the same time. The Lord blessed you.
Christina: The beautiful part about it is when you homeschool, you can homeschool from your bed if you need to. You can homeschool from the couch. You can do it. It's been wonderful.
Nancy: Yes, with the Lord, you can do anything.
Christina: Yes, you can.
Let’s pray:
“Dear Father, we thank You for Your faithfulness, Your faithfulness to Christina and Steve, Lord. You have blessed them with all these wonderful children who are all impacting the world today. You have enabled her.
“I thank You, Lord, for every precious mother listening. Oh, Lord God, I pray that You will pour out Your strength, Lord, in a new refreshing upon them today. Even now Lord, if they're feeling weak and overwhelmed, refresh them with Your Presence. Put Your arms around them, Lord God. Let them know that You are with them, and You will not let them go.
“Lord, I thank You that You are the God Who is able. And You make us able to do that which You give to us. We thank You. In Jesus's Name, Amen.”
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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