LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 324: How Do You Keep It All Together? Part 2

Courtney joins me again today as she shares more of her family life. We came to the conclusion that we are either conditioned and programmed by the advertising of this world, or we are the advertisers of God’s ways to the world. Which side are we on?

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Here we are again together. I have Courtney with me again, because I think we’ve got more to say together today. But before Courtney and I get going again, I forgot to tell you something last week that’s so very important.

Do you remember a while back, I did two podcasts with Rebecca Lavrenz. Those podcasts, if you want to listen to them again, were numbers 301 and 302. Rebecca shared how she was one of the January 6^th people, who that day actually walked into the Capitol. But Rebecca had gone that day to stand up for our nation as a patriot.

While she was there, an amazing thing happened. Just in front of her eyes, she couldn’t believe it, the doors were opened from the inside. They could never be opened from the outside. They were welcomed in by the Capitol police. She saw people going in, being welcomed in, so she thought, “Wow! This is amazing! I might as well go in too!” She went in, and she walked around. She was there about ten minutes or so and walked out.

But as they have done to all these January 6^th people who went into the Capitol that day, she was arrested by the FBI. Eventually she went for her court case. We did the podcasts while she was on her way up to Washington DC to do that court case. She was found guilty. She was made to be guilty of all these things that were not true.

Then she had to go back for sentencing. That was in August. She has just now received her sentence. Actually, it was so great that she was out here in the east and is now on her back to Colorado. She was able to stay with us the night on her way back.

How was she sentenced? Well, praise the Lord, God was so good. She did not receive a prison sentence, praise the Lord, as so many J6 prisoners are in prison. There are some who are there for 22 years for having gone into the Capitol, but the sentence upon Rebecca is house arrest. She is on probation now for a year, but on house arrest for six months.

She’s on her way back to Colorado. When she gets there, she will not be allowed out of her house for six months. She is not even allowed on the Internet. They are very, very scared of her voice, because in the last few months, the Lord has opened up so many doors for her on so many talk shows and so many amazing opportunities. She has been out there, sharing all over the nation. God has given her a great voice.

You can go to her daily email too, which is so amazing. I did every day. But now, she is not allowed on the Internet. They’ve shut her voice down with house arrest. They are shutting her from even doing her daily newsletter to everyone. But praise the Lord, her family has risen up. There are four grown children. They are now going to take it on.

She was also fined $103,000. That was a lot for just a misdemeanor of only walking into the Capitol. Not being violent, not destroying anything, not doing anything at all. But I thought I’d update you with what was happening to Rebecca. She’s a great-grandmother. Pray for her, as she’s now being hidden away. But she believes that the Lord will still get this message out as her children take up her daily newsletter. I think she will be doing a lot of writing while she is on house arrest.

But isn’t it amazing? We’re here in a nation that’s supposed to be the freest nation on earth and yet, here they are, trying to stop her voice, which is, of course, the First Amendment of our Constitution. We have the right to speak! She’s being shut down from that.

We are really coming under communist rule, unless we wake up, unless we vote this coming election. Oh, dear precious mothers, I pray that you will vote, that you will vote for Trump. We cannot have Kamala and Walz, who is perhaps one of the most liberal democrats you could ever find. Their whole premise, really, is communism, extreme socialism.

If we want freedom in this country, we must vote for Trump. I hope that if you have children who are 18 and older, that you’ll encourage them to vote too, because I know it’s going to be a fight again. And they’re going to try to steal this election again. We have to pray, don’t we? 

Here we are again, and I have Courtney with me. Oh, I must tell you some more things about Courtney. Actually, you can follow her. I said in the last session that she’s also breeding dogs. She has a Facebook page called, now what’s it called? “Nashville Poodles and Doodles.” I like that, because I do love poodles and doodles.

Just recently, our little poodle passed away some months back. I was looking for another dog, and my sister found this doodle, a golden doodle, and I got it! Courtney said if she had known I was looking, she would have given me one of her amazing dogs! Oh, goodness me, because this dog has been quite a challenge. He’s a golden doodle, but he's quite a strong golden doodle. He pinches everybody’s shoes and takes everybody’s shoes. It’s time I trained him well.

But you may like to look it up. She has just done a video of how she trains her ten new puppies. She trained ten puppies all at once to sit in only two days! Wow! That is amazing! You can see it on that Facebook page.

Courtney: At the top they can see that video. It’s amazing to me, actually. It’s the first time we’ve done this with our puppies, and I’m just amazed at how easy they were to train.

Nancy: Yes! And I could have just got a trained puppy! [laughter]

Courtney: Well, they don’t come fully trained! We can’t advertise that for me. But they are very smart and easy to train.

Nancy: Oh, yes! And actually, you’ve still got some puppies.

Courtney: I do. We’ve still got four puppies. If you’re interested in a beautiful, amazing, Bernedoodle puppy, and you can’t afford the topnotch prices people are charging. Our puppies are much cheaper than the mainstream puppies, but they have all the beautiful, glorious Bernedoodle lines. They’re very smart puppies, very good with families.

Nancy: I would just love to get another dog if Colin would let me! Oh wow!

Courtney: [laughter] We’re still pulling for chickens for you first, before you get the second dog!

Nancy: I’m still waiting, after over 60 years of marriage, to get chickens!

Courtney: One morning you’re going to wake up and they’ll be right out there! And no one will know.

Nancy: He doesn’t like chickens hanging around the door and he hasn’t yet let me have chickens! Oh boy. One day.

Anyway, another thing that Courtney does, she has an Etsy. You call it what?

Courtney: It’s “Morning and Evening 24.”

Nancy: Yes! And, she has quite a few things there. But one thing is so amazing. Tell us about it, Courtney.

Courtney: OK, so this is an idea that the Lord gave me this summer. We make Scripture stuffed animals. That is where we take a sound bite, and we put a Scripture in it, and we put it inside of a little stuffed animal. Children love to memorize things. They love the little toy phones that have all the songs, and counting, and alphabet songs.

I would never speak favorably towards those songs, because if they were going to memorize anything, I wanted them to memorize Scripture. That was a priority in our home. We’re godly people. That was the first thing you’re going to memorize. I was a little dogmatic about things like that.

We put the Scripture on that sound bite, put it inside of a stuffed animal, and sew it up. The children love it. They can click that button over and over and over again. They’re becoming infatuated with God’s Word. They memorize very quickly.

And you can change that sound bite and put another Scripture on it. Or you can put a hymn on it, anything, a quote that you wanted your children to memorize. It’s such an amazing toy. It came straight from the Lord. It’s genius.

Nancy: Then you gave one to Solly for her birthday.

Courtney: Solly just turned three. I bought her a big stuffed bear, and I put the sound bite in her ear. Even before I sewed it in there, she was playing with the sound bite, and she just started clicking it, clicking it, clicking it. I wanted her to memorize Psalm 121. That’s one of our favorites as a family. I did the first two verses on it. “I will lift up my eyes to the hills.”

As she’s playing it, after maybe five or ten times she started to memorize it, and started naturally muttering it. I told her, “Go practice and memorize this.” She just naturally did it. She wanted to say what the bear was saying.

Not only Solly, but her sisters are learning, we’re all learning the verse. But she’s learning, because she’s clicking that thing all day long. When she has it memorized, I’ll put the next verses on there. You can change it from inside the bear.

Those are available on our Etsy shop. Or you could even do it! But if you’re inclined, you can order those little sound bites on Amazon and put them in your own stuffy. Or you can send your stuffy to us, and we will sew it in.

Nancy: That’s right. You will do them according to what people want, won’t you?

Courtney: Yes, they’re fully personalized. You can pick your Scripture that you want loaded on there. You can pick whether you want it to be a little toddler girl thing, or little toddler boy. We’ve done where we’ve recorded our children’s voices.

We also have an A-Z Scripture CD in our Etsy shop that is a lullaby. It has a beautiful piano in the background. It’s our children reciting Scriptures for bedtime, or naptime, or quiet time. Just put that in there. If you have a night where you haven’t all gathered together, that was kind of our key, putting on the Scripture CD, and our children would go to sleep, with Momma and Daddy’s voice playing the Scriptures.

Nancy: That’s so beautiful. And I’m just thinking, what a lovely idea, too, for baby showers! Because many times, when I’m looking, and you get the baby shower invitation, you can look up all the things that you can buy. A lot of them are just a bit boring. I love buying different things. I’ve never been a conformist in any way.

Courtney: We’re all thankful for that! [laughter]

Nancy: I think that wow, I might just come to you for some of these gifts!

Courtney: The Word works! My husband, whenever we have a lot of distance in our family, everybody’s bickering, he notices that we have not been in the Word enough. So, he’ll play the Bible throughout the day. He’ll put it on.

Also, when there’s a sickness that we’re not cutting, personally he’ll have his little thing in his ear, just playing Scripture all night long. He’s not a big . . . He won’t rush to give the children their little natural remedies like I expect him to. But he will turn on the Bible next to their bed. He says, “The Word works!”

He wakes up often when he does that, and he’ll have dreams where he’s preaching or reciting Scripture, because the Word is getting in you. It’s getting in you, and it’s working. That’s just another tool that we have. The children are sitting in their room to play. Turn on that Bible verse CD, and they sing.

Nancy: And they all love to go to bed with a cuddly. And then to have the Scripture into their ears, well, that’s so beautiful. So, check that out!

We finished off last session talking about this lady who served the Lord in India, and how God showed her that the greatest way to get answers was to wait, and to listen. I’ve been so challenged reading the miracles that happened. But you have found this too, haven’t you, Courtney, in your own life?

Courtney: Yes. God’s wisdom works. He’s so good. He created family and the idea of children, and mama and daddy. When I would have my littles at Walmart as they got older, people would be just amazed. “Wow! How do you do it? How are your children so well-behaved? How are they calm? How are they obedient?”

The world does not have the answers to these things. Almost always, even the puppy video, “Wow! You can train a dog?? Like that?” People want to know; how did you do it? What are you doing? Just seeing that video. I’m not really an expert. People start asking me, “Give me your tips for training my new puppy!”

But God’s wisdom works. He’s so good. I’ve had so many times in my motherhood where I’ve come to a wall of something I don’t know the answers for. Sometimes it’s simple. Maybe you want to get to church on time, and it just eludes you all the time. Or it can be complicated, to dealing with your relationships with your sons who are becoming men, and how to navigate this thing.

God is so pleased that you ask, if you lack wisdom, which we all lack. The whole world is lacking wisdom. To ask, and He will give the answer. Every time I have asked the Lord for wisdom in a specific area, He answers, almost immediately. I’ll read an article in a magazine, or I’ll pick up a book.

Just recently, it was a courtship thing. Nancy had given away books, and my husband came home. Our children are getting to that age, and my husband grabbed that book off the table. It was just the book that we needed at that moment. It was perfect. Just the wisdom of God. He knows the answers for everything we face, even finding matching socks! He knows the answer. “What will work for my family? How can I order my house?” He’s just so wise.

Nancy: As you’re talking about that, I love the Scripture that Mike read on Sunday about wisdom in Proverbs chapter two. Do you remember? It was so amazing. Let me turn to it. Proverbs 2:1: “My son, if,” and he brought out that there were three “ifs” here. “If thou wilt receive My words, and hide My commandments with thee;” (his translation of the Bible says, “and treasure.” I love that). “Treasure My commandments with thee, so that thou incline thine ear.” That’s listening, isn’t it? It’s easy to come to the Lord and say, “Oh please, help me do this, yada, yada, yada.” It’s learning to listen.

“Incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; yea, if (there it is again),“If thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.” Yes, that’s what we need so much. “For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of His mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.” Amen.

The Lord will speak to each one of you differently, because every home, every family is unique. God will give you wisdom according to what fits your family. Of course, it will be Bible-based, but it will fit for you. Amen?

Well, another thing that we got onto at the end of last session was how you’re dressing your girls femininely. I love to see that. They always come looking so beautiful, like these gorgeous little girls. Whereas today, you don’t often see that. You go to the shops to get clothes for your children, and mainly they’re just jeans and tops, right from the time your children are tiny little toddlers. That’s how you’re starting to dress them.

I think, “Wow, if mothers are dressing their children this way, from the time they’re toddlers, they are going to grow up realizing, well, this is the way you dress.” They don’t think of any other way. That’s how they dress.

Like you were saying, when you go back to your hometown, to be in a dress, you feel as though you're some weird person from out of another planet! You find it a bit weird. Now, isn’t that incredible, that you can feel that you're from some other planet, just because you're wearing a dress?

Courtney: Yes, it’s telling about our culture right now. Yeah.

Nancy: It’s so amazing. But it really is culture. As you were saying when we were talking about this, it’s advertising. All the advertising we see, and it’s the culture that we are living in, which is not a godly culture. But if you just let children do, like I find, one of the favorite things that my little grandchildren, and my children used to love to do is a dress-up box.

I still have it here, although my grandchildren are all grown now. The box is still there, and I notice little Solly (you’ve got a Solly, and I’ve got a granddaughter Solly). Every Sunday Solly comes to me. “Nana, can I dress up now?” I’ll say, “Just wait until after we’ve eaten.” And she can’t wait! “OK, can I dress up now?” And they love to go and dress up.

How do they dress up? As a princess. As a bride. It’s the way they want to dress up. They want to be a fairy, they want to be a princess, they want to be a queen. That’s who they want to be. It’s totally instinctive. Every little girl is like that.

But then, by the time they get to teenagers, well, they want jeans and tops and cool, da ya dah. How do they change? It was culture, and outside advertising that is training them that way. It’s not really instinctive in what God has really put in them. But tell me how you’ve changed, and how and what you're thinking about it in your family.

Courtney: I have changed. You’ve heard some of my story two podcasts ago. I have changed a lot over the years. Nancy’s been a big part of that. She’s reminded me, really, to hang onto biblical womanhood, and what it looks like.

I first started to wear dresses more often. We would never even wear dresses to church. When I met Rob, I think I wore shorts and a tee shirt everywhere I went because I didn’t want to draw attention to anything. I just wanted to love the Lord with all my heart. That was the period I was in.

At some point, Rob noticed how all the leadership were dressing this way. He said, “You know, we’re representing the kingdom of God. Maybe we should start taking it up a notch, ladies.” Our culture and our leadership team even shifted, and we started trying to dress better. We put on jeans. That was a shift.

So, you don’t want to judge another person by the way they dress, because you never know. I say this to my children often. “You don’t know what their modesty is. You don’t know. That bathing suit that person’s wearing may be the way they’re honoring the Lord today, because we’re all on our journey.”

Nancy: Exactly.

Courtney: A big change. I went from a bikini to a one-piece to shorts over the top of the one-piece. It’s evolved over the years. God’s been so good. But sometimes it’s more of a process than we would like.

Nancy: Oh, yes! It is. I do believe it.

Courtney: My good friend Danielle that I’ve talked about a lot would wear dresses in her home. Again, she just came from a worldly situation. But she shared with me, not that it was the way you had to dress, but she looked so feminine wearing a dress. And she loved wearing a dress. That inspired me and made me want to dress more femininely.

My go-to was always my jeans and my tee shirts, because that’s comfortable. I was used to it. How many years of training in those things? Of course, my mother always wanted me to dress more femininely, but I was quite tomboyish. I have to admit I wore a tuxedo to my mother’s wedding when she married my stepdad. I was eight years old. (Nancy’s face is priceless right now!)

I was eight years old, and the deal was, she could put my hair in a dreaded French braid if I could wear a tuxedo. I don’t know what she was thinking, Mom, if you're out there. But she allowed me to wear a tuxedo with my brothers! If it would have been the culture now, I’d probably be in a different place maybe. Anyway, I didn’t want to be a boy. I just wanted to dress the way my brothers dressed.

It’s been a journey. Here I am. I love to wear dresses. But my go-to, even this year, was just jeans and a tee shirt. I was comfortable with it, and they were the easiest clothes hanging in that family closet that I could pull off the hangers. I was sharing with Nancy that I’ve filled my closet with simple skirts that I can throw together because I have three little girls. They’re seven, five, and three.

They love to see me dressed in a dress. “Oh, Mommy, you look so beautiful!” Solly says, “You’re my princess, Mommy!” It’s like a glory to them. They hold it in their heart like, “Oooh.” It makes the little girls sigh. That’s enough for me to want to wear a dress, just hearing them.

Nancy: Isn’t it amazing, it’s those little girls who are not yet tainted with the world? They are showing what it’s really meant to be like.

Courtney: They inspire me.

Nancy: And they all want to be princesses. That’s why we have, today we have Breezy’s Ball. Breezy will be 15 this coming ball, but we started when she was four. Breezy used to always be dancing around, always in a beautiful princess dress. Oh, she just wanted to be a princess, and one day marry a prince, even at four.

So, Serene said, “OK, let’s have a ball for Breezy’s four-year-old birthday.” It was just a family party and everybody in the family came. She said, “I want you all to dress like princesses, and the men to dress like princes.” So, everybody did. In fact, it was one of the best, best, best balls we ever had. Everybody dressed up. It was so amazing.

Courtney: I remember seeing it in the magazine.

Nancy: But then, it was so great, we carried on. We don’t have a ball for anybody else, but it’s still Breezy’s Ball every year. It started with that, that longing of a little girl to be a princess. But today, society and culture and advertising just take that edge away. They don’t think they’ll fit in, being like that.

Courtney: True. It’s a choice for me. I have to choose, because I actually prefer jeans. It’s an easy go-to, and I feel comfortable. This is what I’ve always fallen back on. But I choose. I want to look feminine. I told my children, even our culture, even our secular culture, they notice a feminine woman. She stands out in the crowd.

Any man thinks that’s beautiful and pretty, a woman in a dress. It’s just glorious. Not that we’re dressing for the men of the world; I’m just saying there’s a distinction. They like a feminine woman. Every man wants a feminine woman.

Nancy: But you say, well you’ll wear your holey jeans out to milk your cow.

Courtney: Yes. Yes, I do. I save them for that. That’s what they’re good for, the holey jeans. It is funny. I’ve had people say, “Oh, advertising doesn’t affect what I wear.” No, you are deceived. Advertising affects all of us. We can’t get away from it.

Every time we go to shop at the grocery store, everyone that’s there is advertising. Everyone. We are advertising. We don’t realize it, but we are advertising for the world what we value also. Now I’m preaching to myself, right?

It matters what we wear. It really does. Just like they influence us. We’re seeing men, and there are stores I won’t take my children in, because I don’t want them exposed to that advertising. Because advertisers know how many times we need to see something in order to purchase it, and to replicate it.

We need to be on guard. There are places I don’t go. I might crow on this, but I don’t go to the mall. It’s a conviction I have. I don’t go anymore. The last time I went, I had to have my children look away at every turn. I passed just awful obscenity. I said it’s not somewhere I go. I don’t want that advertising for myself. I won’t go alone, because I don’t want that advertising. I don’t want them to determine in my heart passively what is beautiful and feminine.

BLASPHEMING OR ADVERTISING GOD’S PLANS

Nancy: I think what you said is so powerful, about advertising. We, as you say, we are an advertisement every single time we go out. That’s why I think we should, because God created male and female, and made such distinction between the two. I’m such a great believer that we should be as feminine as we possible can. If we really want to glorify God, we will!

Men should be masculine. We can’t stand to see a wimpy man. It makes you vomit. It’s absolutely vomitous. How is it we’ve gotten so used to women looking like men, and dressing like men? It’s unbelievable, really. It’s just a slow, slow, gradual thing of culture. But the thing is, to go out, and be an advertisement.

That word “advertisement” is very interesting, because if we go back to Titus 2, and we all know that Scripture where the older women are to teach the younger women, and to teach them how to love their husbands, and love their children, and be keepers at home. It says at the very end of that, wow! Very powerful words! “That the Word of God be not blasphemed.” Very powerful.

I think some women don’t like those words, but it says if we do not live that lifestyle, we are blaspheming the Word of God. The J. B.  Phillips translation turns it around and gives the translation in the opposite. It says: “That if we do these things, we will be a good advertisement for the Christian faith.” Isn’t that great?

Help! When you think of it that way, we’re either blaspheming, or we’re being a good advertisement for the Christian faith. I think if we really, truly honor God, we will want to glorify Him in honoring the way He made us.

If we’re female, let’s be female. Let’s dress female. Let’s be proud to go out into society wearing a dress, even, as you say, when you go back to your own hometown, you look like a freak. But you’ll still look beautiful. How is society going to change? Only if more and more women become feminine, and dress femininely again.

We haven’t been lately, but a few years ago, Colin and I would go into a church in the city, a beautiful church with young people worshipping. Oh, we just loved it there. Just loved their heart for God and their worship. And yet every young person there is dressed in jeans and tops, just how all the teenagers are today. But you know their heart. They’re just full of love for God. Nobody’s ever told them any different. It’s the culture. They don’t know another thing.

And yet, at the place, on more than one occasion, I had these young people, they don’t even know me, come up to me and say, “Oh, you look so beautiful!” Goodness me, I know I’m not. Here I am, this old lady in her 80’s. Help! They’re saying, “Oh, you look so beautiful!” And I realized, it’s just because I’m looking different. I had a three-quarter length or longer kind of dress on. It’s beautiful.

Everybody else is in jeans and tops. Something is instinctive. They know that’s beautiful. And it’s arresting, yes. But if everybody began to do it, that advertisement . . .  advertising is powerful, isn’t it? So, we are advertising. We are either advertising who God created us to be, or we are pulling people away from it.

I believe it, and forgive me, ladies. I think I’ve shared this with you before. It’s a pretty powerful statement, but I do believe that we, as women, are the beginning instigators of where we are in this transgender society today, because there came a time in the course of our history where women began to wear pants and be like the men.

It began with a woman who decided she was not going to be confined to home and family and the role of a woman. She would get out there where the men are and dress like a man. It was totally so obnoxious to people, just like you want to vomit when you see a man dressed like a woman. But they did not give in. They continued, and so it became more and more part of society.

Now even the Christian church dresses like the world. It’s like the late Mr. Schaeffer said. Francis Schaeffer has now passed away, but he said, “Tell me what the world is saying today, and I’ll tell you what the church is saying seven years down the line.” Isn’t it sad that the church can be so influenced by the world? The world’s advertising, while we, the people of God, should be the advertisers for God’s way.

Back to you. You’ve got a teenage daughter too. She always dresses so lovely.

Courtney: Lovely and feminine. She inspires me.

Nancy: She’s beautiful, like her mother.

Courtney: There’s tension there sometimes though, because I have tension in my own heart with how I dress. So, there’s naturally going to be tension like that, but we can encourage each other. I can say, “Oh, I’d love you to look more feminine for this event.” She’s happy to go, “Oh! OK.” And she’ll run and put a dress on.

Then I see her in the kitchen, cooking in her glorious dress. I say, “Auden, what are you doing? But you look so lovely!” We can inspire each other like that. But for my littles, I just don’t buy them jeans. They have to go. If they have just their tights on, I say, “Go cover yourself, and get a dress on.” That’s what they know to do.

Nancy: So, it’s becoming a habit of their lives. It’s just the way it is. Yes, they’ll continue like that. But it is a choice. It’s a choice, actually. “How much am I willing to go God’s way?” For many, of course, it’s like, “Oh, goodness me! What are you talking about?” Because that’s all they’re used to. But we have to have those who wake us up to the Word of God. I keep getting woken up.

I know we’ve got to finish this thing, but oh, down at the retreat. We’ve just come back from the Above Rubies Family Retreat down in Laguna Beach, Panama City. I was sharing in one message there about that Scripture in 1 Timothy 2:9. It’s a Scripture. If you read it in the King James, oh, goodness me! It has these old-fashioned words. Here it is: “In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety.” Goodness me! Most people don’t even know what those words are!

Courtney: We should do a podcast on “shamefacedness” because it’s not in our vocabulary anymore.

Nancy: It’s not even in the vocabulary! I had to look them up, and say, “What do they really mean?” Well, “sobriety,” actually it’s also mentioned at the end of this chapter. Two times it’s mentioned to women, but what does it mean? It just means “self-control, habitual self-restraint.”

It’s actually talking first of self-government, learning how to rule your own spirit. What does that Scripture in Proverbs 16:32 say? “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.” Great Scripture, ladies, to get all your children to memorize.

If we know how to rule our spirits, and not let our minds get carried away with all these crazy thoughts, and our self-pity thoughts, and our “poor me” thoughts, and all these terrible thoughts we don’t know how to rule them in. Well, we haven’t got sobriety. We haven’t got self-control if we don’t know how to rule our passions. It’s learning how to have that self-control, rule our spirit, because then we know how to rule our family!

But the amazing thing is, this “shamefacedness,” which we can, oh, yes, that’s just for ladies. No! That same word is written to men! (CHECK BELOW!). Yes, it’s written to men who would be pastors and bishops. It says that they will be of “good behavior.” Same word. So, it’s a word that actually means the whole way of life. Somehow, within you, you will not do that, because you know the consequences. That’s sort of the meaning of the word.

But then, it says, OK, that we are to be “dressed and adorn ourselves with modest apparel.” The word “apparel” there, oh, goodness me. When I looked it up, whoo. Now I’ve got another challenge in my life. So, I won’t tell you what it means, because boy, I get a bit radical. But when you get down to finding out what a word really means, you end up having to change your ways.

The trouble is, most can read the Bible, but they don’t even know what the Word’s about, or what it really means. You don’t have to face it. Actually, down at the retreat, I said to the ladies, “I’m not going to tell you what it is. If you want to know, come and ask me.”

Well, only two people came and asked me! For me, I’d be asking. I love to find out things. Anyway, I thought, “OK, I won’t tell you either. If you really want to know, email me, OK? And I’ll tell you exactly the full meaning of that Greek word. That’s if you want to be challenged.”

All right. Let’s pray, shall we?

“Lord God, we come to You, full of thanks and joy, Lord, that You are the One Who teaches us. You teach us little by little, “precept upon precept, line upon line.” Lord, we couldn’t take it all at once. We just take it little by little, because we’re so far away from, Lord, Your original ways and plans.

“But we pray that You’ll bring us back to Your ways, that we can live Your ways, Lord, in joy, and freedom, and blessing, and glory, because, Lord, You haven’t called us into legality. You’ve called us into freedom, but freedom to walk Your ways in the midst of a crooked generation. Lord God, we have freedom, not to conform to the ways of this world, but to conform to Your ways.

“We pray that You’ll help us to be mothers and daughters who live this way. I pray Your blessing, Lord, upon every mother and daughter listening this morning. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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DON’T FORGET TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THESE PODCASTS AND TRANSCRIPTS.

“LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell, Above Rubies”

DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF.

IT IS ENCOURAGING FOR ALL WIVES AND MOTHERS.

UPDATE ON THE WORD SHAMEFACEDNESS VERSUS MODEST.

Sorry, I was speaking from memory and the word shamefacedness has a different meaning which I will give to you. The word that means “of good behavior” is the word “modest.”

The word modest is not only written to women but also to men. It is the Greek word “kosmios” and is also used in 1 Timothy 3:2 speaking of a man who aspires to be a bishop or elder. He must be a man “of good behavior.” The same word as modest in 1 Peter 2:9.

The word means “modesty, not only of dress, but of demeanor, deportment, manner, in fact our whole manner of life. It also means well-ordered, well-behaved, appropriate, suitable, orderly.”

The meaning of “shamefacedness” is the Greek word “aidos” and means:

Modesty, bashfulness, respect, reference,

A sense of shame which precedes and prevents the shameful act,

Restraint from an unworthy act,

Reflects upon the consequences and shame of an act,

The word should really be “shamefastness.”

 

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 323: How Do You Keep It All Together?

Courtney Kelly joins me again today to answer a question. A group of us mothers were fellowshipping together after church when one asked Courtney, “How do you have it all together? You have ten children, and yet you arrive on time, and you all look perfect!” Well, we all got into a big discussion with lots of debate. It was such fun that I thought I should get Courtney to come and answer this question on the podcast. 

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! I’m excited to be with you again today. I have Courtney Kelly with me again today. We didn’t even plan this. Last week you heard Courtney’s story of what God has done in her life and in her family. We thought, “Well, that’s it.”

But we were sharing at fellowship meal after church last Sunday, and that’s, I think, one of the greatest things about our church fellowship here on the Hilltop. That is, we don’t just have a meeting, and everybody goes off. No, we have fellowship meal afterwards, where we actually fellowship. It is so wonderful! We get to talk about so many different things, the things of life, and the nitty-gritties. It’s amazing.

It seems the men gravitate to their tables, and somehow us women gravitate to our tables. We get talking about all kinds of things. In fact, I noticed that Sunday, we were getting so raucous so carried away with what we were talking about. We were just about screaming and yelling at one another. The men were looking, wondering what was happening!

But, oh, it’s just so sad if you miss out on fellowship meals. Some churches do have it. Not every church does. Of course, we’ve been in different churches over the years, and we’ve always tried to establish a fellowship meal. But at some, we haven’t had that. Instead, we would have hospitality. If we hadn’t been having fellowship meal afterwards, we would always invite people back to our home. Often, we’d have 30 or 40 people come back to our home.

Once again, it was fellowship, a meal that is part of church life. I’m thinking now of the example of the early church in Acts 2. Let me take you to it so that we can see it for real. But this is the example of the early church. This is what they did. It says here in Acts 2:42: “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.”

There were four things that were the testimony, the criterion, the example of the early church. Firstly, of course, it was the teaching, the apostles’ doctrine. It’s so important that we know doctrine, and we walk in doctrine. But yet, fellowship, that is such an important part of our gathering together.

And breaking of bread; well, that was fellowship too. That wasn’t talking about communion, because the breaking of bread, yes, they would often have communion with that, or a love feast. Many times, it was in homes and hospitality. “Breaking bread from house to house.” They would fellowship with one another.

“And in prayers.”

Fellowship is a big part of the gathering of ourselves together. Many churches don’t have that, so they’ve only got one part of what they’re meant to be doing. They come, they go to church to worship, get a good message to keep them going for the week, and they go home. That’s it. Help!

We are meant to be fellowshipping. We’re meant to be having hospitality, breaking bread in one another’s home with each other, and getting together to pray together. Wow! We need the whole church.

There was a time when Colin and I were part of the Foursquare Gospel. When we went to the Philippine Islands as missionaries in our early married life, we became part of the Foursquare Church in the Philippine Islands. It was called the Foursquare Church, but I believe this Scripture, really, is the foursquare gospel, because that’s how they operated in the early church.

Anyway, Sunday, we were sitting around our table, talking together. Nadia, one of the ladies in our fellowship (I have done a podcast earlier with Nadia). Some of you may know her. She is the mother of seven wonderful children. She is now a single mother. She wasn’t when we met her. Sadly, this has come to pass, but she also has the incredible responsibility of her youngest daughter, Gracie, who was born with a very rare disease, so rare they didn’t think she would live very long.

But then, not only did she face that (Gracie’s disease is that one side of the body is normal, but the other side grows these big tumors). Then Gracie also, at about four years of age, was diagnosed with terminal stage four cancer. So, Nadia has been coping with that, and in and out of hospital for the last two years or so. Still, we just keep praying for Gracie, for she lives day by day by our prayers and the healing power of God.

We were all there, and Nadia said to Courtney, “Courtney, how do you have it all together? You come to church with your ten children, and you look like a smashing model, and all your children look so ‘got together.’ How on earth do you do it?” Well, that’s what started our conversation at the table. As we were talking, I thought, “Oh, wow, we’ve got to do a podcast on this because everybody wants to know how to keep it all together, don’t we?”

Courtney: We do! I do, also! [laughter]

Nancy: Well, here is Courtney. She has ten children as you heard last week. Her youngest is Zion, who’s only one. Actually, Courtney, I realized you homestead. You are homesteading down there, just a few miles down the road from us. And you’re homeschooling, and milking cows, and you’ve got chickens, and you’re breeding dogs. Help! What else do you do? And your life is so busy. But then comes Sunday, and you look as though you have nothing to do all week! [laughter] Tell us how you do that.

Courtney: I thank you for the compliments, but I have to tell you that Nadia often embarrasses me with these pointed questions that portray me, maybe not as I feel that I am. I appreciate it, but I come with a lot of humility to this because I don’t have it all together. Probably anything that I say today came through maybe some of you listening, because I read articles. The Lord really searched me in my younger days with my family. Hopefully it’s a blessing to all of you as we share some of the practicalities.

Nancy: Well, I think they’ve come out of . . . I remember you were saying last week that when you were young, even before you were married, you would look at some big families, and think, “Oh, help! I wouldn’t want to live like that!” So, you set standards for yourself of how you wanted it to be. And somehow, you've been able to make some of them work.

Courtney: Yes, God’s been so faithful. When I had young children, and our family was growing quickly, as we had five under five years old, we would all go out together. As we really did commit ourselves to the Lord to have as many children as He would give us, my personality said, “OK, how are we going to make this work? Because if we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it well.”

So, when I would become pregnant with another baby, I’d think, “How am I going to go grocery shopping with three children?” I would plan this out in my head. Where are they going to sit in the buggy? Where are they going to stand? How are we going to still do life, because I didn’t want to quit everything.

Nancy: I love that, the fact that you were thinking about it. I think so many, we just went to the market, not thinking how we were going to do it. But you thought how you were going to do it.

Courtney: Yes, because I wanted to still be able to go to the store with my family. I still wanted to be able to go to people’s homes. If we’re going to do this, what is it going to look like? What’s going to have to happen? I tell this to people.

Obviously, if you’re going all in, your life is not going to be the same as if you only had one child, or two children. There is a revolutionary thing that happens, where we let things go, and we think on other things. But it works. God’s wisdom works.

Some people say, “Oh, how would you ever do that, with that many children?” Well, we don’t stop at the mall. We don’t buy everything brand new. That’s the choice that we made. But you can make it work. It doesn’t have to be so hard.

We would go to the store. Walmart was like our little mission field when the children were young because I had two under two years old. I got so much attention because I had these two children that looked the same age but looked total opposites.

People would stop me all the time, commenting on my family. Then when I was pregnant, they’d say, “Wow! Your hands are full!” In our hometown, the overall picture I got was that children were despised, and that they were a burden to the system. There was a lot of welfare, and a lot of what were on rough side there. I knew that was the perception of the people going into the store.

I wanted, everywhere I went, even as a teenager, I wanted my words to represent Christ. I wanted everything, “Lord, make my smile preach the gospel! Make everything in me shine Your glory.” If I had children, I would want my family to be that. I knew that everywhere we went, we spread a fragrance. I knew people were watching because they stopped me so often.

The world is watching, and I want to present them with something that’s beautiful, and something desirable; that children don’t have to be a burden. We stood out like sore thumbs in our town. It was about 15,000 people, a small town. We stood out like sore thumbs because there was a lot of depression, and people didn’t really take care of their children very much. There was always yelling at the store, and it was stressful. The children didn’t look taken care of. It was hard to see that, but I wanted to bring hope. I wanted people to notice, not so they could be discouraged, but so they could see that God’s ways are good.

As we had more children, I had so much more opportunity. “Lord, what is my message now? What can I say in this one-liner, so that ten different people who are going to ask me today, ‘How do you do it?’” My message started evolving. I felt this cheesy thing, “Oh, God gets the glory!” I would say these things, and say, “Oh, that just doesn’t fit, Lord!” [laughter]

“What better thing can I say?” I started being able to say, “God’s wisdom is so good. He’s the one who had the idea of children, and He knows how to raise them. When we can do it His way, it’s so precious. We love our children.” Make my smile

So that kind of got the ball rolling in our arena. I think I had to deal with pride over the years, with that too. This is my disclaimer, is that it’s not about making people want to be like us, oh, because we’re so good, and we have it all together.

There was a point in this Walmart visit where I would be trying to convince someone of my own wretchedness, because they’d say, “Oh, my goodness! I’ll bet you're the most patient person in the world!” And I’d say, “No, I’m really not!” “I’m sure you have everything together, and you must be a saint!” “Listen to me, ma’am,” I’d say. “Anything good that you see in me is because of Christ in me. I am just wretched in and of myself, believe me.”

I depended on God daily, because I was aware of who I was. It wasn’t that I wanted to put on airs, that I had it all together, because I don’t. I don’t. I raise my voice with my children. I don’t always look like a million bucks. I want to have humility in that too. But I want to do what I can to represent what I believe, that I am a child of God, and that we are children of the kingdom.

It’s not about wearing expensive things. It’s not about keeping up with somebody else. It's about doing what we can do to present ourselves to the world, that we are like an epistle, written for all men to see. We don’t always have a chance to say something, but our very presence does speak.

Nancy: Absolutely! OK, so now, getting back to Nadia. She mainly sees you when you come to church, and you’re all looking great. How do you make that work, with ten children? To all get there, and you're pretty much on time.

Courtney: We start early.

Nancy: Yes! And that’s amazing. They’ve actually got shoes and socks on, and shirts. The girls just look glorious, beautifully dressed. And their hair’s all beautiful. How do you do it? We want to know. How does it happen?

Courtney: OK, it doesn’t all look the same every week. Some weeks I plan, and it’s amazing! Everything’s just in order. But it’s not always like that. Sometimes we’re rushing, and I think yesterday, we were half an hour late. I was telling myself, just because you said that, that I’m late! Half an hour late yesterday.

But there are so many practical things. I try to Sabbath on Saturday, so Friday’s my big day. I hit my laundry hard, starting in the morning. I want all that laundry done, because I know I’m not going to do any laundry for a couple of days. So, the first thing is all clean laundry, which is so practical, right?

That seems silly, but laundry was something that I used to see people with piles of laundry in the basement. I said, “I don’t ever want to do that!” Well, I ate crow. We were talking about needing to say, “We don’t want to be prideful, and not judge anybody else, how their children dress, or their piles of laundry, or their socks, or any other thing.”

I was very aware, when I walked into my beautiful family closet, with shelves lining the walls, and I had a mound covering the whole floor! In that instant, no, it was very serious to me. I felt that I had received a judgment that I had passed on people when I saw their piles of laundry. It was such a simple lesson, but I took it with severity, because it was when I started in my motherhood to say, “Oh, God, forgive me, and help me not to judge other moms.”

Because this is laundry. This is not my child turning away from the Lord, or my child not going to church anymore, or any myriads of things that we judge in others. That’s my other little practical thought I’ll throw out there. “Oh God, forgive us.” Catch those judgments quickly. Because this is about wanting to honor the Lord. It’s not about setting ourselves higher than somebody else.

But anyway, the pile of laundry. When I was younger, the pile of laundry started overwhelming me! It was always such a big deal. My friend Danielle, who we talked about last week, she saw me in that struggle, and she said, “I will not have that struggle!” And she’s always kept up on her laundry. She’s done really good.

Laundry’s no longer a big thing for me. It’s so funny now, when I look back. I have way more laundry now than I’ve ever had, and it’s just not an issue. Just do a little bit every day, catch up on Friday, hang it up, and it’s done. We have clean laundry!

The other thing is that I started at some point for the boys, we had dress clothes that were black, and we had dress clothes that were brown. I wanted everybody to have the same stuff, so we decided to do khaki pants. We do brown shoes, and then they wear dress shirts. So, they know. The expectations have been laid over the years. They know we’re going somewhere nice. They’ll ask, “What do I wear?” to go over to dinner at someone’s house.

They know what it means to dress nicely. They have to wear their dress shoes. They have to put on a pair of khaki pants, and a nice shirt. There will be no tee shirts. We have firm rules that they know, so on Sunday morning, I’m not fighting with ten different children on ten different wardrobe issues. Because issues arise, but we can really eliminate a lot of it with just the basics.

Nancy: You made a stand of what you expect them to wear, and they know that’s what they dress for on Sunday. Do you have it all there, ready for them?

Courtney: It’s basically they get their own stuff. My five-year-old dresses herself on Sunday mornings. Solly just turned three. She can climb up and pick out her dress. She knows to pick out a dress, and she picks out a pair of bloomers. She can do that. We pull together, but everybody has their thing. It’s not a big issue.

I try to throw away things that I don’t want them to wear. If it has holes in it, it goes in the trash, because inevitably, they’re going to wear it. If you look at the picture Nancy shared last week, you will see a skirt that got passed up. I said, “There’s that holey skirt that I didn’t throw away! I should have thrown it away,” because you just never know when the permanent picture will be centered!” [laughter]

Nancy: Oh, yes, but wasn’t that a delightful picture, where they were going to be outside?

Courtney: No holes! But there are still things you can do to show respect for the event that somebody else held. Maybe you’re going to be playing outside, but you don’t need to have dirty clothes on. You don’t need to have holey clothes on. You maybe could match. There are ways to do this.

I also say that we buy basically nothing new. Most of our lives we buy everything thrift, everything yard sale. Early on, I was exposed to yard sale deals, and I was blown away at the amazing things I could buy for my children at yard sales. Almost everything is second-hand and thrifted. Goodwill is my go-to for everything else.

Nancy: How do you manage for them all to have matching socks on Sunday!

Courtney: [laughter] It’s funny, but matching socks can elude us. It’s such a silly thing. But they make mismatched socks. I personally prefer socks to match. So, when the socks come out of the laundry, right now we’re in transition in our family.

A GREAT IDEA – THE FAMILY CLOSET

We have a family closet. That was something I learned from a magazine years ago. We have a family closet. Everybody’s stuff is hung up in one room. We do not do dresser drawers. We do not do shelving anymore. We hang it. I’ve been wanting to try it for years, and we’re doing it, and I love it!

Nancy: So, you have one whole room, just for the clothes?

Courtney: One whole room, and as a matter of fact, we just moved into a fifteen hundred square foot house. A boy’s room, a girl’s room that’s relatively tight, and then one room, a whole room, that has to be the family closet. I’m not putting children in that room. I’ve done that. That’s becoming a logistical blessing. That’s what it is.

It was a very over-sized closet in terms of the family closet. It’s right off the hallway now. Everybody’s laundry is in there. I don’t even allow them to keep laundry in their rooms, because we would fold it, put it in the drawers. They would have to dig through it to get it, and it would be all over the room. It was always a sight. Now it all goes into one room. Everything is hung, and everyone has one bin for their underwear. They put their socks in there, or their tights, things like that. Everything is easy.

Nancy: They go to their bin, get their stuff, get their pants, and then take it from the hangers, and go to their rooms.

Courtney: There’s shelving along the floor, and all their dress shoes are in there. Overhead are boxes with other seasonal clothes and other extra clothes that can’t fit hanging. I keep organized so that it’s all right there.

Nancy: Wonderful! That’s so great! Because the children, I guess, do they do the laundry too?

Courtney: Yes, it just depends. We do jurisdictions, so it rotates. Right now, I do a lot of the laundry. Arden helps with a lot of the laundry. The little girls are seven, five, and three, so Hadassah and Remeny, the seven- and five-year-olds, they can switch the loads, and they’ll go hang it up.

Nancy: That’s so lovely! So, they can get identical socks, because you have a bin, don’t you?

Courtney: Yes, right now, I have three five-gallon buckets that used to be my food buckets. Like I said, we’re in transition. Two are for matched socks. The matched socks, whose ever they are, they just go in those buckets. Then there’s a third one for mismatched, because we always have mismatched, but you don’t want to throw them away yet.

Nancy: No! Because you’ll find the other one!

Courtney: Yes, so every now and then, that’s a chore for one of the little ones. “Go dump the socks and do the matching.” Because I was saying that as our children have gotten older, there are so many. When they were younger, I just stuck with one kind of sock. “You have this kind of sock, and also a funny secret, so don’t tell anyone else, OK?”

My children have worn the same kind of underwear throughout their lives. For instance, I don’t want to give away any particulars, but for instance, maybe your eight-year-old started wearing striped Fruit of the Loom when he was two. He can wear striped Fruit of the Loom his whole life. And then maybe your other daughter can wear polka dotted. So, the whole time, I know all their undies apart.

But socks have not gone that way. When they were younger, I could remember, but now there are so many different kinds that they all go in the bucket. Everybody knows all the socks are in there. You dig for a moment and find one of yours, because you have ten pairs or more. And then we’re good to go. Socks are a non-issue.

And you have to wear socks. They know they would not go out without socks. They taught little children how to fold these. You hear the funny stories of your children showing up to church without socks. We have done that. We’ve been there. We get to the grocery store, and maybe they don’t have shoes because we didn’t do a quick check before we left. That happens to us.

But overall, they know the rules. You have to have shoes and socks on. You have to be dressed a certain way, or you're not coming. So, fix your hair. That was another thing. We talked about the meals, about coming to the meal table. You have to wear your shirt to the meal table. It has to be on. It’s just a small thing, but it’s the way we show respect for the person who made the meal, and to honor the occasion. It brings it up a notch.

Nancy: Oh, it does. I love that.

Courtney: “Go fix your hair!” I like their hair to be longer cut, and if it’s not taken care of, it’s all over the place, and I’ll just give them a look. They jump up, and they run, and they fix their hair really quick and come back.

Nancy: I think that is so true. The value that you put upon the table, and the expectation you have for your children will determine how they are at the table. It even determines their behavior. If you allow your children, when you say “Suppertime! Come!” And they just come how they are. They haven’t washed their hands, done their hair, or they’re just dirty. They come like that.

They are not realizing, “Oh, this is special. We’re coming to the family table! We come in a way that is going to honor the table.” You establish that with your children, don’t you? So, they know now that’s how they come. At suppertime, the boys make sure they have a clean shirt on. Yes, that’s so great.

Courtney: It’s a small thing, because some of their lives, we unschool. We do a lot of things loosely. We do a lot of things very tightly also, but there are so many loose things that it’s nice to have those things that pull your family together.

We were talking about respect being lost. In almost every area of our lives, there are very few ways for us to show respect now. You almost have to create them for your family. You have to bring them back or create your own. What is it that you want respected in your family? Maybe it’s your Bible time. Or maybe it’s when you go out in public. You can form opportunities for your children so that your children know how to show respect.

They will grow up doing that, and they’ll do it with their children. “We always came to the table with our clothes on. We always did our hair.” And hopefully it’s something that they’ll continue to perpetuate, and they’ll have their own things that they’ll add in there. “Wow, we were pretty loose, Mom, when we did this and that,” so add to it.

Nancy: I think that’s so wonderful. In fact, the more we can bring respect and reverence and honor to the way our children behave, the better in this society which is so lost. I’ve always found that the meal table is the place where you don’t just come as you are. You bring it up a notch, as you said.

I remember reading about John McCain. He’s now passed on. He was going for president at one stage but didn’t get it. He wrote this book about his time in Viet Nam, and about his forefathers, his parents and his grandparents who were great patriots. But he said his parents always came to the meal table—his father in a suit, and his mother in an evening gown.

Courtney: Wow!

Nancy: That was really up a notch! But it shows that the honor way back there that they put on the family meal table.

Courtney: Yes. And wouldn’t we feel weird serving peanut butter and jelly to someone in their evening gown or a suit? You would have to bring your whole meal up a notch.

Nancy: Oh, absolutely! But now people hardly even sit at the table, let alone know how to!

Courtney: You taught me that. You taught me that so much.

Nancy: That’s so wonderful.

Courtney: I feel that we almost, as a mom, we love ourselves by creating order in our homes, around everything we do. Order is so valuable to us. Anywhere we can have order is really going to love on us more too. It’s good to love on our family, but if you let your children eat all day and come to the table, and leave the table, that’s so chaotic.

When that happens in my home, I’m not enjoying my meal. I’m not enjoying my children. It’s very chaotic. “Come back to the table! Stop carrying that around! Are you finished? You’re not done. Finish your food!” And there’s just constant chaos, and they’re hungry an hour later. It affects the whole day.

Nancy: It does. And you know, I think that Scripture, I often think of it. Isaiah 9:7: “Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon His kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever.” You see there that God ordered His kingdom. He doesn’t have a chaotic kingdom. It’s an ordered kingdom.

We’ve been called into His kingdom. I think we just read that Scripture this morning at our family devotions. We’ve been called into His kingdom. Let me look it up, because it is so amazing.

1 Thessalonians 2:12: “That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto His kingdom and glory.” So, we’ve just read how God orders His kingdom, and now we read that God has called us into that kingdom, a kingdom that is ordered.

This is a kingdom we’ve been called into. A kingdom belongs to a king. We’ve been called into this kingdom. We’ve become royalty. We’re no longer commoners, amazingly. In Christ, we’re called into this incredible ordered kingdom. It also says, “And unto glory.”

Wow! If we think about it, that should have an effect upon our lives and our family life, and how we’re ordering our little kingdom. Because our family is another little kingdom, part of God’s kingdom. We’re meant to do it the way He does His kingdom and orders it. That is so cool.

Anyway, what were some of the other things that we . . . I remember Nadia saying to you that not only do you look put together yourself, but you always look so beautiful, so feminine, and so lovely. It’s so beautiful to see your girls. You dress them so femininely and so beautifully. It’s so wonderful.

She was also asking how do you get them to look like that? But I think you’ve really been sharing that. But maybe I should ask . . . wow, we’re getting to the end of our time, aren’t we? Maybe we could have another session and ask a few more questions.

Courtney: OK.

Nancy: I think we’ll do that. We’ll close this one now, and we’ll do another one.

Courtney: Can I say something really quickly? That would be that this is something on my heart as we were coming over. Sometimes these things can feel overwhelming to a mom. I don’t know the different situations of the people listening, but you hear all these views, and the things that you need to add, and it can feel so overwhelming. But my heart in coming was that everyone wouldn’t hear just Nancy and Above Rubies and Courtney, but this is from the Lord, because His heart for our family is so valuable.

Motherhood is so under attack. It’s so powerful. It affects everything. It affects the family, the generations, our nation, our world, the kingdom of God forever. The enemy will do everything he can to cut off truth. We want to always be open to what truths the Lord is speaking to us. Maybe it doesn’t look the same, but “God, how do I apply this? Is there an area that You want to minister to me?”

But it’ll never be a burden. God’s ways aren’t burdensome. They’re a blessing, and there’s truth to be had, so we don’t want to cut it off. I’ve been in that place, where I cut off truth because of offense, and because the enemy’s voice saying, “Oh, yeah, there’s another thing to ask.” Just hear the voice of the Lord speaking to you and your family.

Nancy: Yes, amen! I love that, love that. Actually, I was just given a book over the weekend. It’s the story of this dear woman who went out to India to serve the Lord, but how she learned to serve the Lord. It tells how she learned to wait, to stop, and to listen. She’d been so busy serving the Lord, and so busy preaching, and so busy telling everybody what to do and how to get saved, and nothing was happening. Just nothing.

And then, this visiting minister came. Someone came to him with a problem. He said, “OK, well, let’s just wait and hear what God will say to us.” So, he waited, and he taught the person there to wait. “And we’re just going to listen to God speak.” And then God began to speak. This person was miraculously, incredibly saved from this terrible life, and they got convicted, and repented. It was all so amazing.

This woman began to see, “Wow! Is this how it’s meant to work?” And she began to live like this. The book tells the stories and the miracles that happened out of just doing this. Every time there was a problem and every time there was a need, “OK, let’s just come together, and we’re going to wait.” They wait in silence before the Lord, and they listen. And then God would begin to speak, and He’d show them the answers! It was amazing!

I haven’t quite finished it, but every story is so miraculous! I’ve just been amazed! That carries over to what you have said. It’s not doing what someone else does. It’s doing what God wants us to do and listening to His voice. I remember reading that Scripture, how God gave the whole plan of the temple to David by the Spirit, by the Holy Spirit. David listened to the Holy Spirit.

I think that’s what we, as mothers, have to do. Help! We don’t know what to do, we don’t know how to do just the practical things, even just the ordering of our homes, and we don’t know what to do in certain different things. We need to get with the Lord and wait and listen until He speaks, and He’ll show us.

Courtney: He will speak.

Nancy: Yes! I love it!

“Lord, as we close this session, we ask that You help us to listen to You more, Lord God. Listen to You in Your Word, as we read Your Word, but to listen, Lord, even as we wait on You. So often we’re so full of words, and Lord, we’re asking You for this, and that, and everything. But Lord, teach us how to listen so we can truly hear Your voice showing us what You want us to do. We ask that You’ll help us all in this. Lord, we want to know more and more of Your ways, in each circumstance. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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DON’T FORGET TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THESE PODCASTS AND TRANSCRIPTS.

“LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell, Above Rubies”

DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF.

IT IS ENCOURAGING FOR ALL WIVES AND MOTHERS.

 

 

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 322: Courtney’s Story

Courtney Kelly joins us today to tell her story. Every mother’s story is so unique. Growing up, her mother owned a bar. How did Courtney end up raising ten children for God’s kingdom?

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Great to be with you again. This morning, I have another visitor coming to this podcast with me. Her name is Courtney Kelly. Courtney and her husband, Rob and family, have come to be with us here on the Hilltop. They’ve been here about a year now, haven’t you, Courtney?

Courtney: Yes.

Nancy: Yay! So great to have you with us!

Courtney: Thank you! Thank you for having me on.

Nancy: Oh, you're welcome. Courtney and her husband are blessed with ten amazing, wonderful children. In fact, little Zion was born after you got here. He’s the most gorgeous little baby, just such a good little baby. I can never get over how good he is! He’s so amazing.

But anyway, why don’t you tell us about all your other children? Just quickly go from top to bottom. The ladies love to hear the names you choose for your children. That’s why, in Above Rubies, I always put all the names of the children, because people love to see the names. In fact, I know that many have used names that they found in Above Rubies, even the names of some of our children!

Courtney: I love reading the names in Above Rubies and I’m always looking for new names when I read it. My oldest is Elias Lee and he is 17. My second boy is Addison Brennan and he’s 16. My daughter is Auden Alaney, and she is 14, almost 15. Then it goes down to Arden, my third boy. Arden is 10, and then Josiah Afford. Down to Addley. Hadassah Grace is our second girl. Then we had three girls in a row. Hadassah Grace, Remeny Rain, and Solly Joy. Then down to our sixth boy, Zion River. That’s ten!

Nancy: Oh, so wonderful! And I love all those names.

Courtney: Thank you!

Nancy: So beautiful! It’s lovely to see their family growing up here. They’re all growing up in the Lord. These young children, from the teens, right down to little Zion, are always at the prayer meetings. I love to hear her children pray. Even some of your young boys! They pray like older men! It’s amazing! Oh!

Courtney: They impress me. And surprise me. They prayed for Netanyahu.

Nancy: No one was trying to coach him along. He just comes out with these most amazing prayers. Then watching your little darlings just worship the Lord with their hands raised! It’s coming from their own hearts. It’s so amazing! You are so blessed. The hand of the Lord is upon your family.

And I look at Auden. She’s only 14 and so mature, so grown-up. I was thinking of my own granddaughter Breezy. My sister Kate called this morning, and she is sort of laid up with a very bad leg and back.

She said, “Oh, Breezy came over this morning and she brought me a cup of coffee. And she prayed for me.” I thought, “How wonderful! Young people usually don’t think of anybody else. But she’s so mature too, like Auden. All these beautiful young people are growing up so mature in the Lord. It’s so beautiful to see.

So, Courtney, you arrived, sort of on our doorstep, unexpectedly! [laughter] You didn’t even plan to come here, did you?

Courtney: No. No.

Nancy: Isn’t that amazing?

Courtney: I did not plan to come here. As a matter of fact, when we were in Alaska, we looked at real estate in Primm Springs. There was nothing. On Zillow there’s all these little dots all over the place, but Primm Springs, there was nothing. “We’re never going there!”

Nancy: I know! So many people want to come to Primm Springs and want to come near the Hilltop. They can’t find any land and you found some.

Courtney: It was the Lord and His timing. That’s all I can say, because it was out of our provision and out of our sight.

Nancy: Yes, and they live just down the road from us! It’s amazing. But tell us where you started and where you lived until you got here.

Courtney: How far back do you want me to go? Where do you want me to start?

Nancy: When you married.

Courtney: Just the journey of coming here?

Nancy: Tell us where you lived.

Courtney: We started out in Ohio. I was actually born in New Mexico, but we lived in Ohio since I was young. My husband lived in Ohio, so we both grew up there. Then we moved to Oklahoma to go to Bible school. My husband had gone before we were married, but then we went together. Then we went back to Ohio to join back in with the ministry that we had grown up in, in our teen years.

Then we were traveling. One summer, we were trying to break free of the nine-to-five job, and do road-schooling, and go on a big adventure. So, we did that. We packed into a little pop-up camper that cost us $1,000 and we hit the road. We started traveling. It was when we were out west that my husband thought he could breathe. He was so excited! He said, “We’re going to move west!” It was not on the agenda at all. He was Mr. Steady, and I thought we would stay forever.

We did move. We went home and sold everything and bought another camper that we retrofitted for our family. We moved to Alaska, sight unseen. Had never been there and never thought we would ever go to Alaska, but looking back, it felt like the Spirit of the Lord was driving us. The things that we were able to leave behind, our amazing families, and all our possessions, precious possessions that we left, the grace of the Lord was on us to do that.

And when we showed up the Lord had a place for us there, just like He provided here. There was this little community nestled in the middle of the wilderness, a Christian community that was desperate for young families to come in. They were all older, in their 80’s, and they welcomed us in with open arms. We lived there for a number of years.

Sometimes I feel like it’s the Scripture about the Spirit of the Lord. You don’t know where it’s going. The Lord has led us. It hasn’t made sense, but we tried to always be open to the door the Lord was leading and be able to drop anything. We haven’t had a lot of things tying us down, so the Lord has really done that. But it’s been very difficult also. It’s not all hunky dory. But God’s in charge.

Nancy: That’s great. Let’s now hear your story. Why don’t you start now, from when you were young, listening, and what God has done in your life.

Courtney: OK, just a little bit of background. My husband and I have been married for almost 19 years. We have ten children. Our oldest is 17, and we homeschool our children. We’ve homeschooled them since the beginning. But none of these things were ever on our plans, or our agendas. It’s something the Lord did in us.

My husband was raised in the church. They were Methodists. He went to a private Christian school growing up all through his growing-up years. Went off to Bible school and prepared to be a minister.

I was on the opposite side. I was not raised in the Lord. My granddad had turned away from the Lord. The whole family really fell apart and there was mental illness, and suicide, and immorality. The family just went to pieces.

Nancy: Just picking up there, Courtney. Isn’t that amazing? The decisions that we make as parents, how they affect the coming generations. You said your grandfather turned away from the Lord, and then it just went down. I see that in our own family. My father was one of five brothers. His father had an incredible conversion and came to know the Lord. His parents raised him for the Lord. Then they all married, and were having children, and were all growing up together.

Then the sad thing happened. The oldest brother, because of an offence; someone said something to him, and I wouldn’t have a clue what it was. But he got offended and he left the church. He never went back. Well, that line of the family still doesn’t go near a church. That’s about four or five generations.

I can remember my father going to his brother and saying, “Oh, but what about your children? What about their salvation?” He said, “Oh, when they’re old enough, I’ll take them to an evangelistic meeting, and they can decide for themselves.” Well, he never did. And those children never walked with the Lord, nor the grandchildren, nor the next generation. Isn’t it powerful, the decisions we make? They’re not just for us, certainly. They affect coming generations, don’t they?

Courtney: They do.

Nancy: But anyway, carry on!

Courtney: Well, I was just thinking the other day how I can look at my grandfather, and how the family fell apart. I think, “Lord, somewhere in my line, probably, there was someone who followed the Lord, and it’s the reason that I came back.

Nancy: And kept praying!

Courtney: Because it was the generations before that the Lord sees. It would be interesting if we knew who our greats and our great-greats were, their heart for the Lord, or their opposite, because we can know so much about ourselves.

OK, so my mom, at that time, she was really young. She ended up marrying really young. She was 15 when she got married. She never came to the Lord, but when she was younger, she had experience in the presence of the Lord because she had a relative who took her to prayer meetings in the Jesus movement. She remembers falling asleep on the floor in the prayer meetings and feeling the presence of God.

So, she had a longing for the Lord through all these years, but she just never came, she never came all the way. She never was born again. She raised us. She did her best as a mom in that situation. She left my dad when I was two-and-a-half and my brothers were about four, six, and eight. She left and moved in with an old boyfriend.

Our life was very typical of someone in a downtown area who had divorced and doesn’t have a lot, and lives in darkness, really. The Lord was drawing her all these years, but she didn’t really come until I was 11. I was 11 when she came back to the Lord.

Nancy: Didn’t she own a bar? You were kind of raised in a bar?

Courtney: She didn’t marry. She lived with that man, and they moved to East Liverpool, Ohio, and they bought a bar. I guess I was probably four at that time. So, from the time I was four, up until eight, yeah, we owned a bar. I spent my days there in the bar. My brothers were in school.

But during that time, the funny thing is that I was being homeschooled because she had known a Christian woman in her past who used Rod and Staff curriculum, all the way in New Mexico. That impacted her, and she thought, “I want to give my children a good foundation before they go to school.” So, she homeschooled us.

Nancy: I can’t imagine Rod and Staff curriculum being used in a bar! [laughter]

Courtney: In a bar! And I thank God for that curriculum because my mom didn’t, we didn’t grow up reading the Bible. There was never a family devotion. I share this with my children. “Do you realize what you have and how much light and sunshine there is?” Because this was not any part, any hint. We had never even heard of these things.

But I thank God for that curriculum because it’s all Scripture. It’s completely Scripture. All your reading, all your writing, everything is Scripture. So, we did have a little bit of foundation in those early years in the Lord.

My mom wanted out of that life, so even before she came to the Lord, she wanted out of the bars. She sold the bar to my stepdad. She ended up marrying the man she sold the bar to, so they kept it a while longer. Changed the name and did some turnaround. But it wasn’t until I was 11.

There was a woman who she had met through the business where she worked, which was bringing her the gospel regularly, and was hounding her. I mean hounding her. This woman’s name is Kay Price. I’d like to honor her. She just passed away recently. But this woman hounded my mom, hounded her at her work. She’d tell her, “Roberta, you've got to come back to the Lord. You’ve got to come back to the Lord.”

My mom, her belief at that time was that she could never return because she held onto the Scripture in a bad sense. She held onto the Scripture that said those who have tasted of the goodness of God can never return. She said, “I can never come back because I’ve done so much bad in my life. I can never come back.”

But finally, after Kay had annoyed her so much that she didn’t even like Kay anymore. She really couldn’t stand her. Finally, Kay was able to break through to her by the Spirit of the Lord! It really broke through.

Nancy: Is that amazing? The tenacity in never giving up!

Courtney: Yes! Yes! And this woman wasn’t an evangelist. I actually called Kay. I hunted her down about a year and a half ago on Facebook. I found Kay lived down the road in East Liverpool, maybe 15 minutes from where we lived.

I was able to talk to her. This woman became one of the most precious people in the whole world to me, because Kay, and I wanted to be able to tell her. I felt this urgency of, “I’ve got to find Kay before she’s gone, because I want her to know this side of heaven what she did for my family.”

When my mom came to the Lord, she came to the Lord, and He redeemed her. We went from darkness, I mean darkness, darkness, drinking, and parties, to total light. I’m so thankful for this woman, and to be able to say, “Kay, our whole lives, and generations to come, all these children, this life that we’ve been given. We owe so much to you because you were willing to hound my mother and not take no for an answer.”

One of my pet peeves is that people say, “If you shared the gospel properly, or in the right way, people would receive it. If you're sharing it, and they’re rejecting it, you must be doing something wrong.”

I’d like to set the record straight that I am so thankful that Kay hounded my mom in a way that she didn’t like, and it was uncomfortable, and annoying. Even my mom was rejecting the truth, but the bottom line is that the Lord was after her, and the truth is that we need to share. It’s God’s responsibility to do the rest. We just share. I’m so thankful for Kay.

Nancy: Oh, that’s a beautiful testimony.

Courtney: She’s such a beautiful woman to me. So, my mom came to the Lord. I was 11. She started going to church regularly and then she put us all in Christian school. Thank God, she put us all in Christian school. Then it wasn’t for a couple of years (even though I was in the church, and I was on the worship team, I was getting involved), but I didn’t come to the Lord for two years. But I just thank God.

My testimony is to say that God redeems. He plucks out of darkness, and He sets on a Rock, against what we deserve and anything that we’ve earned. But when we came to the Lord, we came solely because we came to the Lord in a mainstream church where having families wasn’t really encouraged. Homeschooling certainly wasn’t encouraged. We didn’t really know other people who were homeschooling. Around that time, when we had two little tots, was the time . . .

Nancy: Oh, but you should tell us how you met Rob! Oh, you can’t leave that part out!

Courtney: [laughing] That should be a separate podcast! I met Rob when I was sent to the Christian school. He was in the Christian school. He was a senior and I was in seventh grade. We saw each other because it was a small school. We ate lunches together, we did chapel together, and sports were combined. Things like that. We were around each other, but of course, at a distance.

I was a perfect heathen, and he remembers me as being such. But he graduated and went off to Rhema Bible School. I stayed, and I was born again in that school. Rob and his parents had left the Methodist church when they were filled with the Spirit. They had started a new fellowship.

The church grew and became a really beautiful outreach to the city’s youth. Sunday morning services may have had 20 people in it, but the Thursday night outreach to the teenagers would have 70 to 120 kids coming.

My mom was very reluctant to let me go because on the street, on Thursday nights, it looked like the outside of a club! Gothic kids, you know. It was somewhere my mom really didn’t want me going. But there was a boy in school. He was a senior, and he was delivered from drugs and alcohol. He would say, “It’s Fire tonight! It’s Fire tonight! Everybody’s got it!” He’d go down the hall. “You’ve got to come to Fire!” That was the name of the ministry, was “Fire.”  Fire Youth Ministry.

Finally, my mom let me go, and it was there that I experienced the presence of the Lord and was baptized in the Holy Spirit and jumped into the leadership program. It was a really intensive discipleship program that really taught me how infinite God is, and how to truly draw near to the Lord and be close to Him, something that I hadn’t been taught yet. The nitty-gritty of having a morning devotion, and growing in the Lord, and having Him change you. So, I thank God for that ministry too. Just totally transformed my life. The Lord was so faithful to give me that.

So, while I served in the ministry and the Lord really matured me, kind of quickly, Rob was looking for a wife in Oklahoma at the Bible school. He had this dream he would meet someone at Bible school. It’s a great place to meet someone your age, probably.

But when he would come back, we would see each other. We’d serve in the ministry, so my life went from attraction when I was 13 to being interested in him as a husband. It came over the years. By the time I was 16, Rob and I were good friends, serving in the ministry together. I had my strict list of things I was looking for in a husband, and they were very mature things, like he had to be undignified enough to dance but humble enough to bow. This was truly something on my list! [laughter]

The Lord was faithful, because everything on my list was slowly being crossed off. I was lost in love. I would love to find the list now to see what other ridiculous things were on there. But it was what the Lord really used to show me that “This is the man for you.” I didn’t have parents necessarily who were guiding me in that. The Lord really fathered me so much in my youth to make good decisions. He was faithful.

Rob and I were married when I was 17 and he was 23. We’ve been married for almost 19 years this month—Nineteen years!

Nancy: So, tell us, how you began your family. Did you plan? What did you do about children? Were you planning to have ten? Or that was not even on your radar?

Courtney: No, it wasn’t. I came from a family that had two older brothers. My husband came from a family where he had two older sisters and a younger brother. We never talked about it, just to be honest. We did have premarital counseling, but we never talked about any of the things that maybe you would think you would talk about.

But now I see the hand of the Lord in that, because I see that we haven’t really done anything that we assumed in our own minds that we would do. The Lord was faithful anyway. We thought we’d have three or four children. Rob assumed we would send them to private Christian school.

I wanted to be a missionary. Rob wanted to be a pastor. Our first two children came very quickly. I had Elias when I was 19 and the next year I had Addison. Then my vision became, “Well, they’re coming really close together.” After I had Auden, I became pregnant with Arden, and I thought, “I’m going to have my children very quickly! Have three or four, raise them up fast, move them out of the house so I can go on the mission field.”

That seemed like a great plan to me, but it was during that time that the Lord started giving me the vision. Like everyone else, I had seen the Duggars on TV. That planted a vision in my heart. I had also come across a family that was a beautiful homeschool family that had their house ordered so amazingly. That put a vision in my heart for what . . .

Nancy: You were telling me the other day, how you weren’t happy about having many children because you thought many parents didn’t know how to keep the house clean. You couldn’t stand all that.

Courtney: Yes, I thought that to have a big family, everything would fall apart and be messy. You wouldn’t have enough money, and your children would be ragamuffins, and your home would smell bad. My experience was that, any families that were bigger, that was my experience as a young person, and I thought I did not want anything to do with this.

So, I went to babysit for a beautiful family in our church who happens to be an Above Rubies family, but I didn’t know that at the time. I think they had six children, which seemed like a lot to me. Their home was so clean and organized, and their children were so well-behaved, and they were so sweet. I remember seeing the chore chart on the fridge, and it seemed like God spoke to me, or gave me this vision. If your children help in the house, then there isn’t so much work, and things can be nice and be orderly.

It was like the Lord connected it all for me and gave me this picture. It really started transforming my picture of what life could be like. At the same time, I started receiving Above Rubies magazine. I saw the Duggars on TV, and my vision completely changed. I thought, “If we can have godly children, why wouldn’t we have as many as we can?”

Nancy: And raise all these missionaries! Not just you be a missionary, but all these children as missionaries!

Courtney: Right! Perhaps I would never be a missionary, as I thought, but maybe my children would be. And maybe one of my generations.

Nancy: Every mother is a missionary. In fact, when you think about it, what did Jesus (who came ultimately to die for our sins, to pay the price of our sins), His whole mission, while He was ministering on earth, was making disciples. That’s what He did. He trained disciples. He chose 12 young men. They were only young men. Sometimes we think, “Oh, the disciples were older men.” No, they were just young teenagers. He chose them and He trained them.

That’s what every mother is doing. You’re doing the same ministry as Jesus! Isn’t that incredible? Jesus trained those disciples who went on, after He went back to heaven, to turn the world upside down. Really, we have the most incredible mission, the most incredible task in the whole world, to train disciples.

As you said, the more you have, the more impact you have for God, because the more disciples you are training, the more missionaries you are training, and the more of God’s love and His truth and the image of Who He is goes out into the world through our children. It's incredible, isn’t it?

Courtney: So true. Something my husband and I loved to do, and we used to do when we had young ones, we would serve in the summer camp in our church. All those children would come in, and we’d share the gospel with them. It was something that we loved. It was near and dear to us. So, our boys, this summer, went and served in Missouri at a camp, sharing the gospel.

That was so precious, because that’s something we would normally do, but we have our family now. It’s not as much in our ability to do that, but here we are, we’re at home discipling our children. Our two sons in Missouri, they’re serving too. Two of them giving their full attention to the ministry there while we’re here. The other one goes here, and the other one going here, and this is just the beginning, right?

Nancy: Oh, absolutely.

Courtney: It’s got to be amazing, to be you, and to see your arrows all over the place that you shot out. It is a multiplication. One of the things that I realized is that so many things I thought I would have to give up as a young person when I was starting to have children. I thought so much would have to die in me, and I would have to say good-bye to so many things. I DON’T THINK I’VE HAD TO SAY GOOD-BYE TO ANYTHING

Anything that was of value, but I remember thinking, “Well, we’ll never get invited over to supper anymore. No one will have a big family over to dinner. There will be too many of us. We’ll never get to go out to eat.” They’re just lies, really, lies is what they are. “You’ll never get to travel.” Or “You’ll never have alone time with your husband.” Or “Your house will never be clean again.” All these things. They’re just not true.

Nancy: No, no. I know it’s just the lies of the enemy. The devil is a liar, and because he hates God, he hates motherhood because God is the One Who instituted motherhood. He’s lying to women. He’s constantly calling lies into our minds. Even you lovely moms who, even though you love motherhood, the devi’s still going to come along and try to put these little lies into your mind. These little subtle things, but don’t listen to him.

That’s why you need the podcast, because you need to come every week and be encouraged in the Word, and in the testimonies of other women, to know you're walking in the perfect will of God, and you're doing the greatest career that you could ever do as a woman. Amen.

Courtney: I’ll agree. When we started having children, we still didn’t have a vision for having our full trust in the Lord though, either. We had three, and then we had four. I think we had five under five. They came along quickly. It was a lot, and my husband was saying, “OK, let’s slow down!”

In the meantime, the Lord was moving in my heart so much, just to trust Him with our family size. That was interesting to figure that out. But over the years, the Lord has really moved on my husband and changed his heart too. Everything that I’ve read and that the Lord’s showing me, I’m always pouring out to him, because he works, and he’s busy. As the Lord’s showing me things, I’m sharing, and he’s coming on softly, just like it came on softly with me.

Over the years, finally, I think we have had six when we decided that we were going to fully trust the Lord, and stop preventing our children. And let go of the fear, “Oh, you're going to have 19!” I thought, “Well, why would that be so bad first of all?”

But then, as I got bold enough to ask women, older women, “Did you trust the Lord? And how many did you have?” It was amazing to hear the testimonies of people who fully trusted the Lord, and had three, or had four. The Lord knows, and He sees, and He knows our lives and what His plan is for us, and the arrows He would give to us.

I started researching, “Well, a quiver full. How big is a quiver, Lord?” The thing that came back to me was “Well, people have different size quivers.” I thought, “How can that be?” You don’t go out with just one arrow in there.

But we have to leave some of our dogmatism behind and realize that the heart of it is to be willing, and to say, “God, I want whatever you have for me, beyond what the culture is saying, or what my body is saying, or the situation that’s present.” Because so many reasons that we limit our family for are temporary. They’re financial. It’s contained in a moment.

They’re emotional stress or anxiety, so many things. Even in a home situation, where your house is too small, or your car is too small. Many of these things, God changes the situation. I have never wanted to base my decisions on those things because they change so quickly.

We’re talking about eternity. Our children aren’t just for this life. They’re not just for when our home can be filled when we’re old. They’re for the kingdom of God, and He wants His kingdom FULL. That’s the vision. If we can just pass all these other things. It’s not about eating out or traveling the world. Even if we had to give up everything. I said that if I had to live in a tent so I could stay home with my children, I would do that, because . . .

Nancy: That’s so interesting.

Courtney: And I have! [laughter]

Nancy: You have lived in a tent!

Courtney: Not for a long time!

Nancy: It’s so funny, because I haven’t really met anyone else who said those exact words. But that’s exactly what I used to say when I was raising our children. With everything that was in me, I could not even bear to think that I could put my children aside and go out and do something else. I would live in a tent, rather than give up my children! I never had to, though. It’s amazing, isn’t it? God is so faithful.

And what did David say? “I have been young, and I have been old, but I have never seen the righteous begging bread” (Psalm 37:25). It’s so true. God is so faithful. I love that Scripture in Deuteronomy 28. That’s the blessing chapter. It’s wonderful to read all the blessings, but the interesting thing is that it’s also the cursing chapter, because it has all the curses as well. There are more curses than blessings.

But the blessings are so wonderful. It says that if we walk in the ways of the Lord, He will bless us. The first thing that He mentions is “And I will bless the fruit of your womb.” That is the first blessing. Then it goes on to say, “I will bless your cattle, and your sheep, and your store.” Everything around you, meaning your business and your provision.

You’ll notice that that comes after the blessing of the womb. God says, “I’ll bless your womb, AND I’ll bless you with all these other things.” That is what God does. When He blesses us, He blesses our womb, and we bring forth another child, well, then He blesses us to provide for that child.

I get so many testimonies of women saying, “You know, we had our sixth baby. We were wondering how we were going to survive. But God did this amazing thing, and my husband got a raise.” Or another testimony; “Well, the Lord just miraculously provided this big van for us!” It goes on and on and on. It’s always some great provision that happens with every new child. Have you found that too?

Courtney: Yes. Maybe not with every child. I haven’t sat down to prove it, but I realized that we were younger when we had Elias and Addison. They were just little tots, and I remember going to a food pantry because we had nothing in the house.

I look at us now, and I think, “Nothing has really changed financially for us.” Rob still works a job. He hasn’t gotten some big raise or amazing promotion, but we feed all these children, and we have a storehouse of food. The Lord has provided through the years. It doesn’t mean that you don’t go without. There are people who have one child who go without, and people with no children who go without.

Nancy: Paul said, “I know how to abound, but I know how to be abased.” And we go through those times. But I’m amazed that there are many families who will say, “We cannot, we cannot manage unless we have two incomes.”

But it’s only because they’re thinking that way, because I look at all these families who the Lord is blessing them. They have six, seven, eight, nine, or ten children, even as you have. And their husband doesn’t have some great incredible career. He’s just a very ordinary working man, just making ends meet. But you're eating and God is providing. You don’t have to have extras to enjoy life, do you? You just have to have what we need! Just food and clothing, really.

Courtney: A home that’s nice. [laughter]

Nancy: That’s so great. Who wants things, really? Your children are riches, aren’t they? If we had a fire or something, what are we going to save? We’re going to make sure every child is safe. We don’t even care if we lose everything else.

Another thing you were telling me about, how when you were first married, you met this Above Rubies lady. She sent you the magazine, didn’t she?

Courtney: Yes, the family that I watched their children in their home . . .

Nancy: Is that the lady?

Courtney: She passed the magazine to my best friend, who was a new friend in the Lord. We had just started our family. She was starting hers, and she had just come completely out of the world radically in her salvation. She was starting her walk of faith, and we were getting together every Tuesday.

This lady, I’ll say her name; Paula Ricardi, if you’re listening. She passed the magazine to Danielle, and Danielle started sharing these stories with me every Tuesday. She started sharing stories from the magazine, and they were amazing, with what life could be like. The stories that she would share about people’s children helping to run the home and taking care of everything while the mama had the baby. The mother actually takes a nap while her little ones are awake! We were amazed!

These stories were like nothing we had ever heard of, nothing we had ever seen. It was like coming to a foreign country for us. We were so excited to hear the possibilities of what life could be like for us. It really gave us a vision for our lives. It was so powerful.

Nancy: That’s so wonderful! So great. I see our time is coming to an end. But, Courtney, maybe you could just share with the ladies. Now you have teenagers, and you have little middlings, down to little baby Zion. Just tell us, what is your biggest passion you have for your children as you’re raising them.

Courtney: Oh, my. My biggest heart is to see them follow the Lord. My prayer is always, “God, may their hearts be after You. May they be for Your praise, and may they be for Your glory. May they be ready for Your kingdom.” One of the biggest things we need is God’s wisdom. We need His wisdom for everything.

I think this is the issue with money, and all of these things, is that God is the ultimate Father. The family was His idea. So much of the time, we’re relying on our own wisdom, and the wisdom that the world’s given us. But God has wisdom for how to do things His way. We need it, and we need to ask for it daily. “God, I need Your wisdom for today. I don’t know how to raise teenagers. I don’t know how to be married for 20 years. I don’t know how to homeschool. I don’t know how to do all the things that I need to do.”

We need wisdom, and we need our children to have wisdom from God. They’ve got to be seeking the Lord. They have to be seeking the Lord for themselves. They have to be in the Word. That’s the big thing. They need their Bible time in the morning. From the time they’re toddlers until they’re 100. When you’re a toddler, you read your picture Bible. It starts young.

But I’ve had the blessing of seeing my older ones. It’s something that’s so ingrained in them. My sons get their Bibles open while they’re eating their breakfast. I never have to say a word. It’s something they do, and they take an hour in the Word, daily. I’m so thankful that I forced, I forced that.

People would say, “Oh, you don’t want to force it. They’ll spit it out.” Well, no, it’s something that we decided is going to be a priority in our family. We homeschool, and we do all kinds of other things very loosely, but this is going to be something foundational in our lives. I thank God for that. This is wisdom.

Nancy: And you're seeing the fruit of that in their lives. It’s so beautiful. Thank you, Courtney, for sharing.

Courtney: Thank you so much for having me on. It’s such an honor.

Nancy: Let’s pray.

“Dear Father, we thank You so much for the way You work in our lives. Every single one of us has a testimony of Your work in our lives, and leading us, and showing us Your ways. Oh, that is one of the most wonderful things, to learn of Your ways.

“I pray for every mother listening today, that You will encourage them, that You will come to them today, and show them something new that You want them to do in their home, some new idea, some new thing to strengthen their marriage, to strengthen their home life.

“Because, Lord, that’s what it’s all about. We as the mothers are the anchors of the home. As we are building our homes, help us, oh God, to never get stagnant, never get in a rut, but always be seeking You for new ways to bless our husbands, bless our families. We ask this in the precious Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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DON’T FORGET TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THESE PODCASTS AND TRANSCRIPTS.

“LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell, Above Rubies”

DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF.

IT IS ENCOURAGING FOR ALL WIVES AND MOTHERS.

 

 

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 321: Your Past Does Not Define You, Part 2

Pam Fields continues her story. Although coming from a home of confusion and evil practices, God has brought Pam into a large place, enjoying her marriage, family, and ministry. She is proof that your past does not define who God made you to be.

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Pam Fields is with me again today. She’s going to finish up her story of telling you things behind the scenes. Anyway Pam, you mentioned to me about how when you were a little girl, you found it very hard to sleep, obviously because of the things that were going on in your home. But what did you do?

Pam: Well, it was the most amazing thing, in retrospect, how God was looking after me and drawing me to Himself. You mentioned earlier, in the last episode, the nearness of God. When I was little, and I could not sleep, for some reason I went out to the bookshelf. There was a black King James Bible. I took it back to my bedroom and I lay on top of it, and I fell asleep.

It worked every time. I wasn’t opening it. I wasn’t reading it. I didn’t understand the words inside of it, but somehow, just sleeping with my arms wrapped around the Bible, the Word of God, gave me peace. I was able to sleep amidst all of the stuff.

Nancy: Amen! Yes, that Word is alive and active. Praise the Lord! Now later on in your life, you actually met someone who lived in that house you lived in for so many years. That one they had the police raid on. That opened up someone interesting information to you, didn’t it?

Pam: Yeah. We still lived in Oregon. I saw that they were going to be bulldozing that property, that house, to make way for a shopping center. That couple that lived in that house at that time had a garage sale. I thought, “Well, I never set foot in that house again as a child. Before it’s gone, I should go look.”

So, I went to this garage sale and started talking to the young couple that lived there. It turned out that he’d grown up in the house. There were a couple of owners after us. I said, “You know, I grew up in this house.” They said, “Were there weird things that happened there?” I said, “Oh yes. There was a lot of weird things that went on in this house.”

They said, “Did the demons live here then?” I was shocked. I said, “I know there were demons here in this house.” I didn’t know as a child when I lived there, that’s what they were.” But I said, “Yes. It was very much a house where things like that went on.”

This was a young, Christian homeschooling family, I found out, by what they were selling at the garage sale. They said they had had several missionaries come that had been out of the country, places where maybe people see this a little more often and recognize it. They said they had walked in the house, these missionaries, and just jumped back. They said, “Do you see that? Do you know the presence that is in this house?”

The couple said, “Yes, we know it’s here. It’s always been here. We pray for the Lord’s protection on our family.” I told them that I know as a child my siblings had broken up a few walls and hidden a few little treasures in the wall, so maybe someday someone could find them if we ever moved out. Knowing the place was going to be bulldozed, this young man said, “Well, tonight when you leave, I’m getting out the sledgehammer.” Sure enough, he did find some of our treasures that we left.

My mom went to the garage sale the next day, just to see that house one last time. She brought home those treasures from the garage sale. She said, “Pam, this was yours. I thought you might want it.” As soon as my mom left the house, that went in the trash outside. It never entered my house. I wanted to be on guard.

Nancy: Yes. The amazing thing to me is how did those people live there, knowing that this demonic activity is there? You would have thought that they would have brought in some elders and prayed over the house and cast out those demonic spirits. I couldn’t live there, knowing that was happening.

Pam: Yeah, I think maybe we sometimes aren’t knowledgeable of how to fight the enemy in that way.

Nancy: Yes, I just couldn’t live under that at all. In fact, doesn’t it show you that if you're moving into a new house, that you maybe have bought from someone (we often don’t know what has gone on in houses, do we?) I think that every home that people buy that people have lived in before, unless they’ve known the people, if they haven’t known who lived there, they do need to pray over the house. Go into every room and pray over it. Bring in folk from the church to pray with them.

I do believe it’s very important that we do that, because especially, there are all kinds of things going on in homes. You want your home to be completely free of any enemy activity and filled with the presence of God. That amazes me that they actually even survived it. I’m so glad to hear it was bulldozed down!

Pam: I know! And it affirmed for me things that, as a child, you get further away from the situation, and you wonder, “Did that really happen? Was that my memory or did I make that up?” Some of the conversations I was able to have with them (we’re friends on Facebook now) affirmed that these things did happen. But God is greater, and He has redeemed my life. I say that He has lifted me up out of a miry pit and set my feet on solid ground, so I praise God for that.

Nancy: Yes, I love that Scripture in Psalm 40:1-3. Such a wonderful testimony. “I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, (wow, an horrible pit) out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.” Amen.

That’s your testimony, isn’t it? OK, that’s your testimony, Pam, but what’s the testimony of your siblings? How did that delusional lifestyle affect them?

Pam: Well, it’s still playing out. The things that happened to us, and around us in our childhood still affect our lives. My sister is a lesbian. She is currently divorced from her wife. They had some children through donors, so they have a few. That’s part of her story. That’s probably the part that I can tell, right?

Then my brother is younger than me. He has always dealt with a lot of mental illness, and, I think, demonic oppression. I think I was the one who was pulling my hands back from that Ouija board in those early days. The Lord somehow prompted me to step away and to be fearful from that. I don’t know that that was the case for my siblings.

My brother battled a lot of mental health issues. I didn’t find out until well into my adult years that my dad was bipolar. My brother struggled with some of that as well. We can have a conversation of, is it only a spiritual issue? Is it a physiological issue? I don’t know. But I know that there was a place where the enemy was able to take a foothold. Our home was not protected.

You have that study guide about Nehemiah and the walls of your home and protecting the walls of our home. (GATEKEEPERS OF THE HOME). We are the ones who set that standard and allow things in, or don’t allow things in. I see that that security was breached in our childhood. I am thankful that the Lord had His hand on my life, but my sister has her own set of struggles. She’s, though ill, an ordained minister, which is an interesting . . .

Nancy: Yes. Tell about what your father did. An ordained minister but walking in unrighteousness.

Pam: Correct. Correct. And my brother continued to be tormented and be a tormentor, actually. He lived with my mom for decades, I think. At least 15, 20 years after my dad passed away at the young age of 54. Recently, my brother finally took his own life. So, this is the legacy. But again, I’m thankful.

Nancy: And here you are, in the middle of this, coming forth triumphant, and walking in the ways of the Lord. It’s just amazing. But I think you were soft toward the Lord, and as He wooed you, you responded, didn’t you?

Pam: Yes.

Nancy: Yes, because you could have easily gone that other way, like your siblings. They responded to the other side. You responded to the Lord.

Pam: Absolutely. You know, we hear a lot of people talk about church hurt, and all the things that churches have done wrong, that believers have done wrong. But I am one of those people who, when I started going to church at the age of 15, my youth pastor and all of the youth leaders, the youth pastor’s wife, they all took me in. Not physically. I didn’t live with them, but they breathed life into me.

They taught me the Word of God. They taught me about prayer. They created a community around me that filled my emotional needs and gave me security. They kept pointing me to Jesus. I see that as something that started then. It has really continued for the rest of my life. I have been supported by people who love the Lord, and who continually point me towards Him, and teach me about Him.

When I was a young mom, I thought, “I don’t know how to do this mom thing! I know the results that I want are different than what I experienced, but I don’t know how to do it.” Then I got that Above Rubies magazine and found The Power of Motherhood. I can’t say that I did everything perfectly, right? We’re all learning. We’re all under refinement. I’m still under refinement. But I see how the Lord has placed people and His Word in my life, to teach me along the way.

Nancy: Yes. And I’m sure the fact that because you were in that environment, you met a godly young man and married him. What a blessing that is too, because you married into a godly family, and that was a wonderful support to you too, wasn’t it?

Pam: Absolutely. Absolutely. Even when we met, I thought, “How can he marry me? Does he not know? He doesn’t know what I came from, and who I am.” I think at that point, I didn’t even know, really, who I was, or what I came from. I just knew that I was different. The girl from the other side of the tracks.

But yet, his family welcomed me and accepted me. I learned so many, many things. Even basic practical things which we, as mamas, it’s helpful to have someone teach us how to can. A little bit about gardening. What to do when the little one’s having a temper tantrum. I’ve learned so much from my husband’s family, and then the resources that you put out, and that I’ve found along the way.

Nancy: Yes, yes, absolutely. And The Power of Motherhood is still going, praise the Lord! I revamped it a few years ago. I’m sure you’ve already got it, but if you haven’t, I think it’s a manual that every mother needs, just to help them along the way, and encourage them that what they’re doing is God’s plan, that they’re in the perfect will of God.

The fact you were able, from the beginning . . .  I don’t think you set out to have as many children as you have, but God revealed that truth to you along the way too. Motherhood, as I was saying in our last session, it is a powerful thing; that motherhood is sozo. It saves us. We are saved through the embracing of children, and mothering, and nurturing them.

We’re saved, not just physically, because, yes, it’s amazing how even pregnancy can save you physically. Many people have been saved from many physical ailments through pregnancy. But we are saved emotionally from deception. I think that’s one of the biggest things. We’re saved from deception.

When you think of the road you could have gone down, but instead you embraced motherhood, and it forced you into that kingdom of truth and God’s kingdom. Because God’s kingdom is a kingdom of the blessing of children.

When you think of what Jesus said when the people were bringing the little children to Jesus, and the disciples, a young disciple said “Oh, goodness me! Jesus is too busy for all these little children hanging around Him!” But Jesus was very irate! He said, “Don’t you stop bringing those children! Let the little children come unto Me, for of such is the kingdom of God.”

Yes, we want to be in the kingdom, we want to serve in the kingdom, we want to live in the kingdom. Well, children are part of His kingdom. Very much. So, as you were embracing children, you were saved from deception. Of course, you continued walking and moving in truth. You were always searching for truth. You were always one who wanted to find the truth.

Pam: I think that’s the nature of the parenting cycle and the years where we’re in seasons. We’re like, “OK, what do I need to learn now? What do I need to learn now?” I just want to speak to the mama who is new in her faith, and says, “I don’t have the tools to teach my children this. I wasn’t raised in it. I don’t know what to do.”

It’s OK. I wasn’t either. I started picking up those little children’s Bible story books and doing children’s (I didn’t let on that I have no idea what I’m telling you). I would read it, in faith that the Lord was teaching them and me. We started doing family worship as our children got a little older and they learned so much.

Really now, even, they have so much greater knowledge of the Word than I do, because they’ve had it thrown into them from their youth. Sometimes my knees knock a little bit. “I don’t really know what to say. I don’t really have that much Bible knowledge. My children have more knowledge than I do.” But the Lord, He has been so good to teach me, and to disciple me along the way. His nearness, His presence is with me.

Nancy: Yes, I think that’s a wonderful thing. We can change the whole direction of generations. This is so powerful! You have changed the generation where you grew up. It was going one way, but you have, as you have embraced the Lord, embraced His truth, and walked in obedience to it, you have changed that.

And your children, your generation, are now going a different way. They’re going God’s way. It’s so powerful, and it’s not just for now. But it’s the next generation, and you've now got grandchildren. And you’re beginning . . . there’s going to many, many more to come. Wow! That’s another generation! And you’ll most probably live, like I am now, into the next generation of great-grandchildren. It’s amazing how you can see generations in your own lifetime, isn’t it?

Pam: And we can’t expect perfection, right? But while I was raising my (and I’m still raising children), my youngest is 11. But in those early days, I would think, “I can’t be the perfect mother. My mother-in-law was the perfect mother. Nancy’s the perfect mother, and there are so many people who have it all right. They came from such good situations. I just can’t do it.”

I would go, “No, I’m going to be faithful to what God has called me, and what He’s showing me. I’m going to trust Him for the results. I’m going to keep sowing into my children what He is teaching me.” I just pray that the Lord will move in that and that I will be a better mother than my mother. Then my daughter will be a better mother than I am. That we keep thinking generationally, to pour into them, and then allow the Lord to create an overflow for the next generation and the next.

Nancy: I guess you can look at Emma and see what a beautiful mother she is. She’s not having to start from where you started. She’s starting from, oh, such a greater level, isn’t she?

Pam: Right. Right. And so, if we can give our children that, what a gift.

Nancy: Yes, yes. So amazing. I think that the power of generations is so important. In fact, I think if we’re mothering, we have to think generationally. Sometimes, dear mothers, oh goodness me, you wonder how you're going to get through just this day! But it’s only for a day. Just a day in the life of generations. We’ve got to see the bigger picture and that you are mothering not just for today.

Oh goodness me, you're going to fail. We all fail. I can remember times when raising our children thinking, “Oh, what a failure! Oh!” But you can’t think like that, because what does the Bible say? “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be cast down.” (Psalm 37:23)

The thing is, as we’re walking in the steps of the Lord, we’re still going to fall. We’re still going to fail. But we won’t be cast down because He will lift us up! “Come on! Keep going! There’s a bigger picture! Yes, you’re not just mothering for today! Wow! There’s a new generation! You are building into a new generation. You are building God’s truth into them and His ways! That’s a new generation, and they’re going to carry it on to their generation!”

It’s so powerful. We, as mothers, have such power. That’s why I called that book The Power of Motherhood. Yes, motherhood is not insignificant. It is powerful and the devil knows it. That’s why he tries to eradicate it, tries to do away with it, tries to woo women out of the home, because if he can get women out of the home, he is destroying motherhood, because MOTHERHOOD AND THE HOME ARE SYNONYMOUS TERMS. Motherhood happens in the home. That’s where it happens.

If we are truly mothering, we’ll be in the home because that’s what God planned. He provided the home right back in the beginning. God created the home. In fact, He didn’t even create the woman until He had created the home, so it was ready for her. She woke up to life in the very sphere where God wanted her to be, in the home, and mothering children, and mothering generations to come! Amen!

Pam: The enemy tries a lot of ways to assail us. and quiet us, and to make us ineffective. I chatted with a gal on my podcast, and she talked about that verse, that we’ll overcome by the power of His blood and the word of our testimony (Revelation 12:11).

I know I’m not the only one who has come from a difficult circumstance. I think we need to remember to not live in that same place, and not try to hide it under the carpet; but to really share and declare what God has done in our lives. When we acknowledge what He’s done, and the power to change our lives and the lives of those around us, it sets the enemy back a little bit instead of him setting us back.

Nancy: You were saying before, you don’t define your life by your past. No, you define it who you are in Christ now. “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27) When He is in us, He is in us with everything that He is. That’s our victory. That’s our deliverance, isn’t it?

Pam: That was something very practical you taught me at one of these retreats, a decade ago, maybe more. I was so frustrated. I had so much anxiety and was so impatient. Now I can see that it was probably a result of so much that I was going through, subconsciously, from my childhood.

But you stood there at a retreat, and you said, “Does Christ live in you?” I said, “Well, yes.” And you said, “Then you rely on His patience. You don’t have to be patient! You ask Him to fill you with His patience.” I remember standing there dumbfounded, thinking, “I can do that? I can do that?” Nancy, you tell us that’s what we’re supposed to do, right? He lives in us.

Nancy: Amen! Exactly. And actually, that very revelation revolutionized my own life as a mother. I started off as a mother, well, young, and kind of immature. I lived by my feelings. You can feel great some days, and other days bad. You’re a failure, and you're hopeless, and you're no good.

But no, we do not live our lives by our feelings, but by the truth of the Word of God. And that revelation came from a Scripture in Philemon 1:6: “That the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.” So, every good thing that’s in Jesus is in me if Christ dwells in me. Therefore, I have no excuse.

As you’re saying, help, if we’re just starting to get impatient and mad with everything that’s going on, and ready to blow our tops, well, we can do one of two things. One, just give into those emotions or, “Oh, Christ lives in me, He is all long-suffering. He is patient. Wow! So, thank You Lord. Thank You for Your patience. Thank You that I’m the most patient woman in my city because you live in me!”

Yes, and every need that we have, whatever it is . . . you know, we’re in depression and self-pity but Christ does not dwell in self-pity. No, He lives in joy. And I have joy if Christ is in me, so I can live in joy. Yes, we choose to live in the truth rather than in the flesh.

I found that revolutionary and I began to live that way. But you still fall, until it gradually becomes the habit of your life. Yes.

2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” That’s the Word of the Lord! That’s truth! So, we stand on it, don’t we?

Pam: That is what I remember learning very early in my faith walk. And then just being reminded of that over and over. That’s the way it was. It’s not the way it has to be. The Lord has new stories for us. He changes our lives and transforms us. We need to step into that and listen to Him and follow that. I find that He has ministered to me through books, through podcasts, through people, in person and online.

I look back, and I see this amazing past, that there’s been all these stops along the way. It makes me giddy, where I’m just like, “Go, God! I see it now! I see what You did. I see how You had Your hand on my life. You protected me and guided me. Yeah, there may have been some bad things that happened. The circumstances weren’t great, but I see Your sovereignty in what You’ve done. I give You glory for what You have done in my life and to lead me into this place that I am now.”

Nancy: Yes, yes. I was just thinking, yesterday, when we were talking with Wes. That’s our oldest son. He was sharing something very traumatic that he had to go through in his life. I remember him saying that he would never have not gone through it because it’s made him what he is today. He couldn’t be the man that he is today unless he had to go through those things.

Pam: As Nancy Leigh DeMoss Wolgemuth says, I don’t know the exact words, something like, “Anything that forces me to lean into God more, that’s a blessing!” That is something that we need to learn, to depend on the Lord, and to lean into Him. I saw that in my childhood. I was in circumstances where all I could do was to reach out to Him. So, I’m so thankful.

Nancy: Yes, yes. I also believe that if you have . . . Maybe you’ve been listening to Pam these last two sessions. Maybe you have come from, not the same circumstances, but also difficult circumstances or childhood in other areas, or maybe even the same area, even suffered abuse, which you didn’t mention. You did suffer abuse also from the hands of your father. Pam has been through that. She didn’t even mention that.

I think when you come to Christ, I believe when you’ve come from something traumatic, you can’t be a fence sitter. You’ve got to go all the way with God. I remember, when I was back in New Zealand, I met this woman. I found out she was living in the gay lifestyle. I continued to pursue and talk to her. She wondrously was converted. Wondrously converted.

A few months ago, I was talking with her on the phone again in New Zealand. This happened years ago, and she is still walking with the Lord today. But after her incredible conversion, she shared with me. She said, “Nancy, I can never be on the fence. I have to go all the way with God.” She had to do a 180 turnaround. She came to such a place of victory.

I can remember her sharing with me, “Nancy, I have now such victory that I am not even tempted in my mind.” But that was because she chose God with all her heart. I just want to say that today, because if you are going to sit on the fence, or on the border, you’ll never have full victory. We only have full victory when we go all the way with God.

It brings me back to that principle back in Exodus, yes, because we get so many of the principles of our Christian life back in Genesis and Exodus. This was when the children of Israel were coming out of Egypt. God was doing mighty, wonderful things. But He had told Moses, “OK, when you come out of Egypt, you’ve got to bring those children of Israel out of Egypt and come a three-day journey into the wilderness.”

We see, if you go back, and look and read about that, you will find that Pharoah is a type of Satan who tempts us. Pharoah did everything in his power to keep the Israelites in Egypt. He used compromises. There were four compromises that he used to get Moses to keep the children of Israel in Egypt. “Oh, well, you can just sacrifice to the Lord, but only the men go. Leave the children.” “No,” said Moses. We are going with all our families.”

Then Pharoah said, “Well, don’t go too far away. You can go and do it but just on the border. Just over the border.” “No,” says Moses, “God has told us, a three-day gap.” So, he went on for those four compromises. But the big thing that came out was it had to be the three-day gap, the three-day journey. That’s a long way out of Egypt, when you are walking for three days with all these millions of people. That is the type.

When we come out of the old life, the old kingdom, we come into this new kingdom. We do not stay on the border. We have to come right into this kingdom. We get a three-day journey away from the border. If you can take that, if we do that with every decision in life, everything in life, we’re going to have a three-day gap, a three-day border away from the kingdom of darkness, away from Egypt, which is a type of the flesh, and of the kingdom of darkness.

Today, so many Christians want to just say, “Oh, yes. We’re born again.” But they are so close to the world, so close to the border. They will never live in victory. You do not live in victory unless you make the gap.

Pam: Go all in. No turning back.

Nancy: Amen. Absolutely. You did that and you came into victory. Now you're living this victorious, beautiful life. Amen.

As we close, I want to remind you again that Pam has her own podcast, “The Mom Next Door,” where she interviews women who have gone through all kinds of things in their lives, that they’ve come through with the Lord and have seen great, wonderful blessings. You’ll love that podcast. Then what else do you have? Tell them all your other things.

Pam: I’m on Instagram, as you are, Nancy. My Instagram handle is @TendingFields. We’re all tending the fields of our homes, our marriages, our families, our finances, ministry, all those. We want to tend our fields right well.

Nancy: What a great name, “Tending Fields,” because your last name is Fields. You’re tending to your fields first, and now as an older mother, you are tending to many other fields and blessing them.

Pam: Yes, and I want to invite all of us to tend our fields well, with the strength that God gives us. I’m on Instagram with that name, and then I also have a Facebook page, a Facebook group called “Tending Fields.” We enjoy the community there in that group, where we can pray for each other, chat about some of the practical aspects of life and motherhood. It’s a great place to be, so maybe you ladies can join me over there.

Nancy: So, you can check those things out. And, Pam, why don’t you pray today as we close?

Pam: “Lord Jesus, I do thank You for this opportunity to share. Your Word tells us to tell our testimony, to share it to the next generation of the things that You have done, Lord. Each one of us has a testimony. Each one of us has transformation in our lives. Lord, I pray for boldness, for each one of us to go share what You have done.

“And Lord, for women who are struggling, and feeling like they’re in the pits right now, Lord, I pray that You would direct their minds to You. That You would bring Scripture to their hearts and minister to them in their time of need, and sometimes desperation. We know that You can do this. You have the power to change lives, to transform them, Lord, whatever their situation is right now. I ask that You intervene, and You uphold them, and You protect them, and You lead them into victory.

“So, Lord, I pray for them today, and that they would step into it, where You have called them. And I thank You for the faithfulness of this ministry of Above Rubies and the Campbells. I thank You that You have blessed their ministry. I pray that You continue to do that. Thank You, Lord, for this time, and this podcast, and that Your Word is going out. We praise You for that. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”

Nancy: Amen!

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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DON’T FORGET TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THESE PODCASTS AND TRANSCRIPTS.

“LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell, Above Rubies”

DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF.

IT IS ENCOURAGING FOR ALL WIVES AND MOTHERS.

THE POWER OF MOTHERHOOD

What the Bible Says About You as a Mother

By Nancy Campbell

I believe that one of the greatest challenges of young mothers today is that they are isolated. They are all on their own as they stay home to care for their precious children. I believe that every mother needs the support of older mothers, sisters, and friends around them. They need one another for friendship and fellowship. It lightens the load of motherhood. When raising our children in New Zealand I always conducted a Ladies’ Bible Study in my home and the fellowship, togetherness, and hospitality strengthened us all in our great role of parenting.

We shared our hearts, our failures, and our victories together. We opened our homes in hospitality to one another. We enjoyed luncheons together. Picnics together. We planned all kinds of functions with our babies and all our children running around. Even if it was chaos, we were happy because we weren’t doing it on our own.

I only wished that I had the book, THE POWER OF MOTHERHOOD back then! In the end, I had to write it myself! But now it is available for you. I believe every mother needs this manual which tells you what God says about you as a mother, not what society tells you! You will be encouraged, uplifted, and inspired to new heights of motherhood. It is a great foundation for a mother’s Bible study group from which you can discuss together all the questions about motherhood.

           

There are questions at the end of each chapter (which you can use personally in your own study) but are geared for mother’s groups. And it is much more fun to get together and discuss.

Of course, you will love this book PERSONALLY as well.

Retail price: $18.95.

P.S. If you are planning to use it as a Bible Study for ladies and need multiple copies, call the office at 931 729 9861. You can receive 40 percent discount if purchasing 10 or more copies. 

ANOTHER BIBLE STUDY MANUAL WHICH YOU CAN USE FOR LADIES’ BIBLE STUDY GROUPS

This is such a great study for mothers (which you can also enjoy personally or as a mothers’ Bible study course).

 

GATE-KEEPERS OF THE HOME

How to Guard Your Home

By Nancy Campbell

Learn how to guard your home from the temptations of the devil who is always looking for a way to creep into our homes.

This book comes from Nehemiah, chapter 3 where Nehemiah restored and built up the gates and walls of Jerusalem. There were 12 gates in Jerusalem at that time and each one was called a specific name. The names of these gates relate to our homes today and we discover how to strengthen and build up the bars and gates of our homes. We are the watchwomen of the home.

Retails at $14.95.