PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 151: FOLLOWING YOUR BENT
FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 151: FOLLOWING YOUR BENT
Nancy Webster joins me today, sharing how each one of her eight children are “following their bent,” and using the gifts and talents that God uniquely gave to them. One of the greatest blessings for our children is for them to follow the bent that divinely belongs to them. And each one is different. You will enjoy this session.
Actually, we didn’t even plan on talking on the subject of “following your bent” but it just happened as we kept talking and so I believe it is what God wanted you to hear and I know you will be blessed.
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! I love being back with you every week. And today I have sitting beside me another Nancy! So today, our podcast is Nancy and Nancy. How do you like that?
Well, Nancy, it's so great to have you here. My husband and I have been in the States now for about 30 years. We came originally from New Zealand. We were ten years in Australia. Then we came here to this wonderful country of US of A. I met Nancy pretty well not long after we came, so we've known each other a long time.
Nancy is a wonderful wife and mother. I'm so thrilled to introduce her to you today. So Nancy, I'd like you to introduce yourself and just tell us about your family so they will feel as though they know you a little more.
Nancy W: OK. Well, first of all, I just told Nancy a second ago that I remember when she turned 60, and now I'm about to turn 62! Nancy said she's about to turn 80!
Nancy: Next month.
Nancy W: She was like my extra mom, I guess. And so influential. And we have eight children. And so influential in so many ways to help get me through that very hard journey! I'm still on it. So our oldest is 34 . . .
Nancy: Wow! I can remember coming to your home in Franklin, having a meal with you, and all the children . . .
Nancy W: Oh yeah. Meadow was a baby. She came with you all.
Nancy: You know, they were all so young then.
Nancy W: Yes, so he's married and in the military and just awesome. Flies helicopters. He's just awesome. They were all homeschooled. God taught them because I don't think I ever did a very good job! (laughter) It was big.
The first few, you know I had all the big plans. And then, little by little, it's like, “I am not Superwoman here!” But He did and they've all followed their bents and it's all turned out so cool.
Nancy: Just stop for a minute—because I love that phrase: “They have followed their bent.” That is so powerful, Nancy. And you know, it is true, yes, we are faithful to teach them godly principles, and God's ways, and everything we can. But ultimately, God has put within them that bent where they're meant to go. And I think that's the most wonderful thing of all when our children are following their bent.
Now sometimes children are pushed into things by their parents because that's the way they want them to go. And it may not be their bent. And I think when children find their bent, that's their God-given drive. That's the most wonderful thing. I believe if that happens, we've succeeded. You know?
Nancy W: Oh, I do too. As I tell younger mommies now who come ask me, “How did you do this homeschool thing with a ton of kids?” (I prefer the word children)! I'm like, “You can't.” (laughter) But if they will learn their four operations in math, be good at reading, you read aloud to them even when they know how to read already. I mean, my kids are all grown up, and if I'm reading a book . . .
Nancy: My children.
Nancy W: Oh, I'm not supposed to say “kids.” I'm sorry. (laughter) My lambs. My grown-up rams and ewes now. Anyway, they will still stop and listen. They love to be read to.
Nancy: Yes, and if they get a love for reading, they can learn anything they want in life.
Nancy W: And they know reading is fun. Learning is fun. They know how. When they've got something that they're interested in, they know how to pursue and figure it out.
So like my oldest, he was ten-and-a-half before he could read. And I thought, “Oh my goodness, I'm a failure, I've gone through six phonics programs!” And then we were in this little homeschool coop with this lady who had two boys and they were writing book reports in cursive. And here was my ten-and-a-half-year-old who couldn't even read!
But he was busy taking things apart, and inventing things, and playing with helicopters. And guess what? He’s a mechanical engineer who flies helicopters. So it all worked out.
Nancy: Isn't that amazing!
Nancy W: Actually, it was getting Popular Mechanics magazines. He was like, “I want to learn to read this!” And that finally helped him over that hump.
Nancy: That's right! See, that was his bent! That's where his interest was. I have a dear friend in New Zealand and she has a similar testimony. She thought, “Oh goodness, this child is dumb!” He just couldn't seem to learn to read. There was something wrong with his brain! And about 12 years of age, he was still not reading.
She said, “One day, he just sat down and started reading medical journals!”
Nancy W: Oh wow!
Nancy: You know. Many will just do it when they're ready, at their time.
Nancy W: Yes, that's so true. I've read this book that Debbie Pearl wrote about the brain development, oh gosh, I can't remember the name of it! But anyways, she's talking about, if you will just get them outside, and read to them, and do intellectual conversations around the dinner table, all this stuff is firing all these different neurons. It's so much better than just like . . .
Nancy: It is now. That's another thing you said. Those “intellectual discussions.” You see, they, I believe they begin to give incentive and develop brain power more than just sitting at a lesson. Intellectual discussions, and spiritual and biblical discussions too, are the most powerful things you can do.
Don't you love them? They're still my favorite thing in life! I mean . . .
Nancy W: Oh, yeah, oh yeah.
Nancy: To sit around the dinner table, and discuss, and debate, and talk is so incredible. And it's how we're meant to learn.
Nancy W: Yes. Oh yeah. Actually, when our first son was in, you call it boot camp, his basic training, they take everything away. But he could write letters home. He wrote and he said that the thing he missed the most was that we would get coffee and sit out on the deck for hours. And he especially, he and his dad, but all of us would talk, and everything. He said he really missed that. That was confirming, or affirming, I guess. That's what we'd been doing.
Nancy: So, next one.
Nancy W: OK, after him comes another boy, and that is, he is 30.
Nancy: You can say the name.
Nancy W: David. OK, the first one is Phillip, and this is David. David is married and has two little girls. He was like the most hyper kid, er, “child” in the world. We took him to Vanderbilt when he was seven. They had all this testing done, all this stuff, you know.
And he never, ever, ever finished one thing, but obviously was pretty brilliant, actually. Then we had testing confirmed that he was pretty brilliant. And God has opened doors for that boy. It's so cool. First he wanted to, of course, to support his family. He got married young. I think he was 22, or something like that. To Penny Raines' daughter, Georgia.
But anyway, God opened doors for him to have a friend teach him how to program computers. And now he works from home, in one of their bedrooms, and programs computers, and does very well.
I know, it's so fun, because I was getting a lot of pressure about, especially the boys going to college. And the older one did because he wanted to be a mechanical engineer, and that was where he knew he had to go through all that.
But David didn't. And he's doing way better than a lot of people with college degrees who are working at, you know . . .
Nancy: Once again, he's doing his bent.
Nancy W: He is. He's so good at it. He's so good. And he's a good daddy too.
And then we started up, oh goodness, are we going to get to have a girl. Because actually Phillip was two when we read The Way Home by Mary Pride.
Nancy: Oh yes!
Nancy W: And I was instantly convicted, like, “Oh, we're praying for this good blessing of health, and a good job, and the other provisions, and we don't want this blessing of children? I'd gone to Planned Parenthood. We had been married almost seven years before we had our first baby.
Nancy: Wow!
Nancy W: We were poor. My husband was in seminary. And we didn't know. We didn't know the agendas and all the stuff we were missing out on. So anyway, about the time he turned two, it took some, we really eventually had to get on our knees and say, “Here (you can have our fertility),” and that was really pivotal in our whole life. It was so pivotal.
Nancy: Because up to that point you hadn't planned to have any more than two.
Nancy W: We were going to have two, three years apart, like normal people. And I totally get why people do that because it's easier. You save so much money. A lot of things. But a lot of it is, I think, people just don't know. They just don't know.
And women are saved through childbearing. I think that's because God knew, for me, I'm not dumb, and I'm pretty capable. He knew that I would be probably too self-sufficient for my own good. So he made sure, end of the story here, that I would not ever be able to be self-sufficient at all! And I'm not.
Nancy: I wonder if any of you have read Mary Pride's book, The Way Home. And then she wrote another one, All the Way Home. I don't even think it's in print now.
Nancy W: Probably not.
Nancy: You can go to Amazon, or some other place and get it. There's still loads of copies around. It's worth the read.
Nancy W: It is. It really is. I remember one of the things in her book. I read stuff, and then I'd just get the gist remembered, and I'd forget all the details. But I remember, by then, we had friends and cousins who were a little bit older.
So they were having special birthday parties where you had to invite all of your friends and go to these expensive places. I mean, way fancier than a McDonald's birthday party. Laser tag, or jump zone, or whatever.
And she said, because that cost a whole lot of money. And she said, “You know, a Betty Crocker cake mix,” which I wouldn't use anymore. But you get the gist of this here. And some streamers and pin the tail on the donkey just do fine for a party. And the simpler and cheaper, and she just started opening my eyes that they don't have to have everything fancy. Evangeline's like the queen of . . .
Nancy: Oh, yes.
Nancy W: Oh, she is, and creativity, and look at how her children have turned out. So after David, then we had our first girl, because I was kind of scared, “Oh no, we're not going to even get a girl,” because I really wanted a girl.
Hahahaha, The joke was on me. We have Anna, and Anna is about to turn 30. She has two little girls and is hoping for more. She lives close by and she's taken everything that I started out to introduce her to, all my healthy cooking and handwork. She raised sheep and spun and wove and all of those things.
Nancy: She's just taken you.
Nancy W: She's taken everything that I introduced her to and then really run with it. So I go to her for advice.
Nancy: It's like with my girls. I gave them the love of food, and cooking, and creating, and that realm, but now I go to them for ideas.
Nancy W: I know, I know because they . . .
Nancy: They go on further from you, and that's what it's meant to be, isn't it? Generations going on more and more.
Nancy W: And it's so fun to get together sometimes and make sourdough English muffins, or whatever we do together. And then after Anna came Julie, 21 months later.
Also, with spacing, because of us saying here, “God . . . .” First, we helped a little bit. Phillip and David are two years and nine months to the day apart. And Anna was due exactly two years after David, but she came a few days early. So basically, they're two years apart.
Then came Julie. And they actually are closer, 21 months apart. Julie was drawing pictures from day one, and singing from day one, even though she was a teeny little thing. Now she's a graphic artist and she's putting her way through college. She decided actually to go to college when she was 26, 25 maybe. And she's putting her way through college. She's an opera singer. I mean she has such an amazing voice.
Nancy: Really? I didn't know that!
Nancy W: We just went to her junior recital, and it's like, “She's got a gorgeous voice! It's so cool.” She wore, for her dress she wore, it was the bridesmaid's dress for our wedding which was in 1987. And she's getting all these compliments. She's like, “Oh yeah, it was my aunt's bridesmaid's dress in my mom's wedding!”
So again, that bent thing, the art, and the music for her.
Nancy: Isn't that amazing? She's doing her bent!
Nancy W: And she's putting her way through school as did our oldest son because we never had the money to do it. So she prepaid it a whole lot. And it's hard for her.
And then, so we had two boys, and two girls, the perfect family. You're supposed to stop, right? And then we had our twins. And you remember them, Rachel and Grace. They just turned 25 a couple of months ago. Grace has Down Syndrome, and Rachel doesn't, so I say Grace came with a helper. And she did. She adores Rachel.
And I cried, of course, because my picture of how the ultimate to me is to get married and have babies. And likely, that's probably not in the picture for her in the same way. She's an awesome aunt.
Her sister Rachel, her twin sister, lives with Julie and has a job and is probably getting close to . . . A serious relationship seems to be developing. Which is her goal, she wants to do that. And she plays on the piano.
She bought her brother's little keyboard that he had outgrown for $25. And I was like, “I wonder why.” She was eight. It has the little lights on the keyboard when it played the Charlie Brown song, and she learned it! And then little things were, well, she's so musical, and to have . . . It's amazing, but we couldn't afford to ever do piano lessons.
Again, that's one of the reasons my parents were horrified that we were having so many kids - children! I'm sorry. Because then we couldn't give them all those advantages, you know? Well, again, God opened doors for Rachel. A lot of it is she used her own, “I'm going to learn this and do this,” and gifting.
Nancy: But then they have to do better when they have to do it themselves.
Nancy W: And they do because they really appreciate it, and they want it. So she could play way before she could ever read music. But God opened doors for her to have lessons with the keyboarder for this musician, I think he's probably your age. I think he's still singing, Neil Sedaka, if you ever heard of him.
But he's toured the whole world, and he's real famous. I'm so out of it, I wouldn't know his music if I heard it! But anyway, this guy, he's up in Franklin, and he has been his keyboardist for years and years, and so talented himself, and composes.
God put them together. We met at a house concert at somebody's house, and now she can transpose, compose, I mean, yeah.
Nancy: That's so incredible!
Nancy W: She just got my mom's grand piano, so it's stuffed into their little teeny apartment, but she was determined to fit it in there when my mom passed away.
Nancy: And so even she is following her bent!
Nancy W: So she's following her bent!
Nancy: I just love this story!
Nancy W: Isn't that so fun? And so then Grace . . .
Nancy: Oh, just a minute. Lovely young mums, if you are listening, to be encouraged. I know that sometimes when you're homeschooling, and oh goodness, you feel like tearing your hair out, and you're wondering if you're making it, and are you really getting through? And are you getting any knowledge through? What's going to happen to these children?
Well, be encouraged. Those of us here, we've been there, but now we're looking back. And you look back and you see how God was in it. We just have to be faithful. I think faithful to teach the basics. Faithful to teach them of God's ways and His Word and pray for them. And give them opportunities and pray that God will take them into their destiny. And He will. He's faithful.
He created them for this specific purpose. He created them with a bent, and if we are in prayer and faithful, God will, He will take our children into their bent, and it's so exciting. I mean, look, you're telling this glorious testimony, and I look at my children, and I could not have ever dreamed in a million years of the things that they are doing today.
I mean, some of my children are doing things that are so out there, and so beyond. I mean, my brain couldn't have thought them up. But you see, God was watching over them and God was taking them into their bent, just as he did for your children. So be encouraged, young mums! It's so exciting!
Nancy W: Our house is a wreck. Our house is always a wreck because I'm super creative and always have projects going. And then I had all of them doing creative stuff too. We made baskets. I would read aloud. We'd do historical fiction for our history and I would read and read and read, all afternoon.
The girls would either be knitting, crocheting, or making baskets. Well, baskets are messy, and the reeds go spring! And they go flying across the room. And we had strung all over the room all these dyed reeds and everything. And then of course, all the wool.
And we had to run out because some sheep or goat had gotten out of the fence when we did all of our homesteading stuff. Anyway, I thought at our house, I just couldn't stay on top of it. And we couldn't do all the good school curriculum that I had bought. I gave away thousands of dollars’ worth of it.
It was all good, it was just too much. And yet, here's the end of “I feel like a failure.”
Nancy: You could have, “OK, we've got to get through this curriculum. And you've got to do every lesson. And maybe they wouldn't be doing their bent today. See, this is the thing. Those curriculums are great and wonderful, and the people who have put them together, that was perfect for their family. And then they've made it available to you, and often it's a great start.
But we don't have to be, “OK, we've got to do it exactly like this.” It can get us going, get us started, but we've always got to be open to the bent, to the destiny, to what God has created our child to do. And often, it's different to anything we had ever done, but it's exciting, isn't it?
Nancy W: Oh, full of adventures! Full of adventures. Yes. And Greg and I so often will sit there because we've never, we've always struggled money-wise. But part of the reason is we're feeding a lot of people! But we feel so rich. We always, every time we're all together, we're going get together with everybody tomorrow. Is tomorrow . . . No, on Saturday.
Every time we get back in bed at night, we're like, “We're so rich, we're so rich.” We can take our children to Heaven with us. And all this other stuff that we work for, or try to clean or organize, or we're gorgeous and nice, and it makes life nice, but it's not worth giving up having the good family life.
Nancy: The richness. It is, I think family life are the riches of this world. And we are going to take them into glory with us as you said. I was thinking, the other day, when we see Him, we are going to be like Him, the Bible says.
And if we're going to be like Him, I mean, we know that we're going to know one another in heaven. But if we're going to be like Him, Who knows all things, I think we'll even know people, even who we haven't met. We will know them, and oh, we'll have fellowship with them. Do you know, fellowship, and fellowship begins in the family, doesn't it?
I think this is very important. You can grow up in a family where they don't really talk, and fellowship, and discuss, and debate. I mean, and you're missing out. But fellowship begins in the home, but it reaches out into the church. Fellowship, I mean the Bible talks so much about having fellowship with one another.
Fellowship is very close to the heart of God. It's in the heart of God. In the triune God there is fellowship. It begins in God. Everything that we have on earth begins with God. It begins with the heavenly. As in Heaven so on earth, the Bible says (Luke 11:2). And so, I believe the heavenly things of earth we'll take into Heaven.
I think of it in the way God orchestrated everything. He started with marriage and family. And then His chosen race, the Israeli people. And how, back in the Bible days, there in the wilderness, they were all in specific places. They just didn't live wherever they wanted. There was the family, and then the extended family, and that tribe. Each tribe was in a certain place and had their own flag.
I think that in Heaven, we're still going to be in families, in extended familes. God's not going to rip us away from family, that was so precious on earth, because it's so precious to Him. And I believe we'll take that into eternity. Yes!
Nancy W: Yes, that's exciting. It's all so comforting, that with everything being all uncertain, kind of creepy. You know, you can get really creeped out. But to know that in the blink of an eye, and this is all like our training ground anyway, for what's going to be forever.
Nancy: It is.
Nancy W: It's comforting, that's for sure.
Nancy: Anyway, this is so fun. I'm just, you're introducing your family, and it's, wow! It's just about taking a session! But it's so good! Keep going!
Nancy W: OK. So let's see, so Grace with Down Syndrome, April's twin, I call her my right-hand woman. She is truly my right-hand woman and she's my friend. And we do everything together.
Nancy: Isn't that beautiful?
Nancy W: I taught Grace; you know those little spool knitters? They've got four or five things in this little spool thingie that comes out . . . I'm talking with my hands, even though it doesn't show up on here.
Then we moved into a Knifty Knitter, which is a little bit bigger. And they've got all these different looms, and they sell them at crafts stores. And she learned how to make one style of scarf when she was about 12, I guess. She made bunches of them, and then people would give her yarn.
So she made a bunch, and then it kinda, I thought, well, so I started advertising them. I'd take pictures of Grace with all of her scarves, and I would advertise them. Back then I was on Facebook. I've gotten off since then. But that was one way.
We would also have the little booth at the Down Syndrome Association's fundraiser thing. And so Grace has just, she says that's her business. And Greg made her a little business card. She makes scarves! And they're gorgeous! They really are!
Nancy: And she still sells them?
Nancy W: She's still making scarves. Yeah. But sometimes, if I can get my act together, see I have all these ideas, but real life is like, there's not much time. I still think it would be so cool to help her to have some sort of an organic bath and body products little business, because her stuff comes with a story. I also, this goes into the health side just a little bit...
Nancy: Let us just introduce this, as we're going through this time . . .
Nancy: You have always been interested, well you've got more interested and interested in health. And then recently you have studied to become, say the exact words . . .
Nancy W: I know, it's a mouthful. I just actually, tomorrow is the graduation ceremony, online of course. And it is to be a “Licensed Functional Nutrition Practitioner.” And it's through the Functional Nutrition Alliance.
Nancy: Congratulations!
Nancy W: Thank you! It's really cool. My bent, if you want to jump off kids, er, children for a minute, is in high school, we had Miss Brandon. She had the jars of the rice and the beans and stuff, like you, that impressed me early on. I was really drawn to that.
Mama’s cooking--it was tasty, but it was Betty Crocker. It was that generation. And she introduced me, Mrs. Brewer, she introduced me to Prevention Magazine, which . . .
Nancy: Yes, I remember that magazine.
Nancy W: Back then, that was probably the only health magazine. Now I've looked at one recently in a doctor's office, and I was like, “I don't think so.”
Nancy: It's gone beyond that.
Nancy W: Oh, goodness yes But at the time, I remember Daddy took me to a health foods store. Again, that was nice of him to encourage my interest. I walked in, and, of course, I was totally overwhelmed. I was probably 15, or something like that.
Nancy: You know, just popping in there, doesn't it show you your bent is there, when you're young? You know, Serene, right from a little child, she was on health. I mean it was just there. And do you know her favorite thing in the whole of the world would be to go to a health shop? She would say, “Mum, just drop me off at the health shop.”
And she would sit there and she would just read books. And read them. She has never, ever in her life, not because I said, “You must not eat that,” she's never put into her mouth, in her whole life, how old is she now, 44?, one bad thing, one grain of sugar. She just couldn't! It was just who she was!
Nancy W: She knew, she knew. She knew earlier than I knew, how horrible it is for you. Yeah. My friends were reading Glamor and Teen magazine in high school, and I was reading health magazines!
Nancy: Yes! Yes!
Nancy W: And it continued. But I didn't have that background that Serene did, so I've eaten nearly every piece of junk they sold in the store. (laughter) But now, even though I've been eating better and better and better for the last 30 something years, those early indiscretions, or whatever you want to say, it was ignorance, still haunt me in things that I still struggle with in the physical side. So it matters. It matters what we feed to our children!
Nancy: It does. Yes, yes.
Nancy W: Even on the hard days, at least make scrambled eggs instead of high-fructose corn syrup peanut butter and jelly!
Nancy: Those cardboard box cereals, I mean that is really, perhaps the most common breakfast recipe for most families across the USA. Just get out the cereal package. And look at it. You can't even believe it.
Nancy W: Extruded grains are so horrible.
Nancy: It's not even, it doesn't even look like the original!
Nancy W: Even the Kashi brand, the health food brand, even they have extruded, not properly processed grains.
Nancy: It's not. And I always say to people, “You might as well eat the cardboard!” I mean, really! You're going to get as much out of the cardboard.
Nancy W: They put so much sugar on a lot of it that makes it palatable.
Nancy: I just delight in making an original raw, not raw, because I will cook it, but an original breakfast.
Nancy W: Yes, from scratch, from scratch.
Nancy: Oh, so wonderful! Beautiful steel-cut oats, whatever. It's so good.
Nancy W: I know. I just have that domestic little thing. Like sometimes if I can, I've canned a bunch of meat, because we didn't have room in our freezer. Plus our freezers have let us down so many times.
Nancy: I know, that's terrible, isn't it?
Nancy W: Ohhhh! And then when it pings, if anyone's listening who cans, will understand that ping, that means it's sealed right.
Nancy: I love it.
Nancy W: And then, and usually I'm exhausted, I look at all those jars, those gorgeous jars that I have on the counter still. And it's just the most satisfying feeling. Or you make a beautiful meal, or whatever. It's so, it’s a domestic thing, I guess, and I love it!
OK, so let's see, Grace, oh yeah. This is why we got off onto health. I heard that people with Down Syndrome, if you can help them to eat healthy and stay trim before adolescence, and let them go into adolescence being that way, that they've got a great chance to continue that way. Because before Down, a lot of time, since they put on . . . they have thyroid issues.
But a lot of it, I think a lot of times, parents’ kind of feel sorry for them a little bit, maybe, and let them indulge in stuff that's really awful for them. A lot of them, they do have a health disadvantage. But they are little sinners, just like the rest of us. So they need to be trained and treated just like . . .
But here's the other thing. I had all these therapies. The therapy people came to our house. So we have six children nine and under with Down Syndrome.
Nancy: You mean, you didn't have six, you had one with Down Syndrome.
Nancy W: Right. And then the twins. So we had four therapists a week come to the house. I was so mortified, because, our house looked, of course, I was like, it was good to get anything out. We ate cereal then, and I got stressed all the time, and I wound up depressed.
My hormones got all messed up, so they put me on antidepressants. It was nutritional, and situational. It was very exhausting. But I think if I'd had the nutrition, it would have supported. Anyway, we did get her through there.
Nancy: Did you find all those therapies helped?
Nancy W: No. So they would come. I'm glad you asked. They would come, and they would say, “Oh, you've done such a great job!” No, I didn't do anything that they told me, because I just couldn't practice. But the brothers and the sisters would put her in a blanket, and roll her around, and stuff things in her face.
I tell all the people who now I talk to who have a child with Down, especially new mommies who were feeling all worried like I was. The best gift that you can give to your child with Down is siblings, and letting them play rough with them, and all of that kind of stuff, because it's so stimulating to them.
Nancy: It's therapy!
Nancy W: Muscle strengthening. So that ended up being the best therapy of all! Anyway, I know we need to move on. So from her, then we had Lily. And Lily was born with dislocated hips, so her first year she spent in a cast with her legs spread apart like a frog. It was horrible.
Then she had heart issues and had to have surgery when she was seven. She does not have Down Syndrome, but she is on the autism spectrum. And she's definitely been, and still is, our most challenging child.
Underneath the hard behavior is this super-sweet, very gifted. She started writing poetry. She can draw. But she's why God knew I needed icing on the cake to stay on my knees. I will say that, yeah. And we are still praying to know how it's all going to come. Because we are getting older, and she and Grace will probably live with us. Just a continued prayer, to know.
The Bible says He'll give us wisdom, and so far, it seems like it's working out. So as we, He will, and towards that. So that's where we're at with Lily.
And then our last one, I was 42. I remember, I was pretty pregnant, and we came to an Above Rubies retreat when I was pregnant. At that point, oh, well I was. And then we went to another one after he was born.
When I was going to have him at home, I had gotten off on the whole all-raw jag, and thought I was feeding my baby well. While he was growing, I was eating a sweet potato and salad, and I wasn't getting the protein and the healthy fats that I needed. Meanwhile, I was the one who did the sugar. I had never kicked that. I know, it's really terrible. It's sad, actually.
And also, our very first child was a c-section. All the others had been v-bacs, including the twins, and even the second twin came out breech, by the way.
Nancy: When I had my twins, the second was breech. There's usually one breech. (Actually, the first twin was breech, just remembered)!
Nancy W: Well, that's kind of nice, because the first one can pave the way. I hate it when people have children, twins, and the first one comes out, and then after, the c-section. So it's sad. But, oh gosh, where was I?
Nancy: You were just telling me about number eight.
Nancy W: Yes. We're doing a home birth, and we had, of course . . . Number four was our first home birth. And then the twins were number five and six. But we thought they were just number five, until three weeks before they were born, full-term. So we quickly switched and went to the midwife's back-up doctor.
Then number seven was a home birth, and then number eight was to be a home birth. And I had gotten to ten and pushed for two hours. The others, by then, they were just popping out. It was like God told me; it feels like I heard a voice. I don't think probably I really did, but I was just at such total peace. because I'd vowed I'd never get another c-section. And he said, “You need to go to the hospital.”
After like two hours here. Later Greg and the midwife came over. They pretty much confirmed we need to go. Of course, it's the middle of the night. We live 30 minutes from the little dinky town, and so we obliterate a possum as I'm panting, trying not to . . . Because I'd already been at ten and pushing for two hours.
We get to the hospital. Of course, in the nighttime, the only OB had gone home for the night. We had to wake him up. The nurses were like, “You can push this baby out!” The midwife went, “No, something's not right. I've delivered a bunch of her babies now.”
Long story short, my uterus ruptured. It would have happened had I been at a hospital too. It's just this awful thing and I didn't know. I thought I was just going to get a c-section when they clamped that oxygen over my mouth finally after the doctor got there.
When I woke up, there's a nurse in my face. “Don't you ever get pregnant again!” And they had been able to stop the bleeding without taking my uterus. Sometimes they have to do that in that situation. But it totally wiped me down for a year. I was so anemic.
It was a boy, Andrew, which God knew we were going to need a boy on the end for his muscles. It's so awesome. And he helps us chop wood and do all these cool things.
Nancy: And what's he doing today?
Nancy W: He works at Chick-Fil-A, and everybody loves him. He's just super friendly, and everybody loves him. So that's what he's doing at the moment. He's nineteen, and he had a little oxygen deprivation, so he has a lot of learning challenges. We're getting there with him. I think he's going to be really good, as long as solid people mentor him. He's a good kid.
Nancy: Wow! Well, we have come to the end of this session, and we've just introduced your family! But I believe just God was directing us. It was just beautiful how we could see how God has . . . your children have gone in the bent that God has for them.
You mentioned as we went along, that you've had very, very challenging times. It hasn't always been easy. But as you look back now, what would you say, Nancy?
Nancy W: Oh, we'd do it all over again! We would. We would. Yes.
Nancy: Every one of those children are your riches, aren't they?
Nancy W: For sure. We really do. We feel rich.
Nancy: Yes. Amen! Well, we're going to have to do another session together and get onto some other things that we want to talk about now that they all know about your family. So we'll close this session, ladies, and we're going to do another session with Nancy.
“Father, we thank You that You are a family God. You are the One Who designed family. We thank You that Your hand is upon each one of our children. Lord God, we thank You that we can put them into Your care, and Lord, know that You love them, even more than we love them.
“And we thank You. Father. We pray for every mother listening today. Older mothers, middling mothers, and young mothers. Encourage them, Father. Oh God, just fill them with Your joy. Let them, Oh God, receive that joy of knowing they're in Your perfect will. And Lord, that they are preparing children for the destiny that You planned for them and preparing them for eternity.
“We thank You, Father, that You have written a book about each one of our children, even before they were born. So we just praise You today, and thank You Lord, that we can talk about family together. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.”
Nancy W: Amen.
Blessings from Nancy Campbell * www.aboverubies.org * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.