FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Podcast 122: REVERSAL STORY, WEDDINGS, AND PREPARING OUR CHILDREN FOR THEIR FUTURE SPOUSES

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

Nancy Campbell: It’s such a privilege to come and be with you again today in your home. Today I have someone new to introduce to you, my friend Sherri Leiter. I met Sherri about 24 years ago. We have been very special friends all that time.

Sherri has been such a blessing to Above Rubies. She and her husband have supported Above Rubies and Sherri has put on a number of our Above Rubies retreats, two ladies’ retreats, and three family retreats. It’s all been such a blessing.

So Sherri, I want you to introduce yourself to the ladies and just tell us about how many children you have. They want to get to know you!

Sherri Leiter: Okay, well thank you for having me, Nancy. As she said, I’m Sherri Leiter. I have been married to David for almost 39 years. In December it will be thirty-nine years. We have eight living children; one little guy is with the Lord.

Actually, part of what we’re going to talk about today is we actually have two families. We have two children that are older, grown and married and have blessed us with eleven grandchildren. After that we waited quite a while, and we will get to that part of the story in a minute, but then we had six more blessings.

NC: Yes, that is so amazing. It was perhaps about that time that you were getting a change of heart about your family size. You just started off with the two children and then that’s when we met you. You just had these two little children, and you were quite happy with them for a while, and then tell me what happened.

SL: Well, we decided that David would go back to college and I would go college, I had never been to college. We were done with our family and so my husband had a vasectomy because we just decided well, we have our two perfect children, a boy and a girl, and we just needed to get on with life so I could have a career.

NC: Yes, so wow, what happened?

SL: Just shortly after David had his vasectomy, for lack of a better term, God got a hold of us. I was a one-day college drop out. I went to college and I was sitting there trying to take a test to get out of the Algebra one because I had not passed the entrance test because I had been out of school for eleven years.

I was trying to test out of that. It’s one of the few times I feel I’ve heard the audible voice of God say, “What are you doing here? You never even asked Me.”

So I went home and was kind of scared to tell David that I wanted to drop out of college. He actually received it very well because he had also gone back to college and realized it was not what he was supposed to do.

Through that whole thing, over the next several months, we started praying and God convicted us to start homeschooling our children. Then also, at that point He basically said to us the same thing about the vasectomy. He said, “You know, you had that done but you never even asked Me about what My thoughts were on that.”

We were immediately convicted that we had taken something that should have been God’s out of His hands and taken it into our own hands and so we got convicted.

 NC: I thought that David was not so sure at the beginning, was he?

SL: He was convicted that we shouldn’t have had the vasectomy but when it came to having the reversal, that’s where we differed. It became a four-year tug-of-war between the two of us.

MC: Wow, four years?

SL: Four years and what I learned from that is that you can’t be the Holy Spirit for your husband, which is what I tried to do for four years. I tried to tell him every reason why he needed to have the reversal.

Praise God for a very godly woman that came into my life. It wasn’t Nancy; I hadn’t really met her quite at this point. But this lady came into my life and just basically said, “You know, this isn’t anything about the reversal. This is about headship and you are not submitting to your husband. You need to let this go.”

I went home broken because I thought, “Oh my goodness, if I tell him, ‘Fine, no problem,’ he’s just going to say, ‘Okay great, we’re good, if God wants to override my vasectomy, He will.’”

So I went home, and he got home from work. I repented to him; told him I was sorry that I had not been submissive.

It was totally God. I had been praying a lot but his words to me were, “I’m glad you realized that because I was getting ready to tell you that.” He rolled over and went to sleep and I was a broken woman. I cried myself to sleep that night.

But miraculously, the next day while he was back at work, I was outside mowing the lawn. I was getting ready to put my two children to bed and I came in the house because God said, “You need to repent to your children because they have not seen you be the godly wife that you should be by submitting to your husband.”

I repented to my two children who at that time were about eleven and eight.

I was just done. I was done. I didn’t know what God was going to do now. There are no more children for me. I don’t know what I am going to do. I went to bed and my husband came in later because he was working a night shift and literally jumped on the bed and woke me up at four in the morning.

He said, “Do you still have the name of that doctor that does reversals?”

I’m like, “Yes, why?”

He said, “It was the weirdest thing. You’ve thrown every single thing at me that you could for why I should have a reversal but one thing.”

He said, “I was standing tonight at work just working and all of the sudden God just said, ‘You’re being selfish. The only reason you don’t want more children is because you’re thinking you want to retire, and you want to get a boat, and you want to do this, and you want to do that. I have so much more for you when I bless you with children.’”

The interesting thing is when I asked him what time did it happen, it happened at almost the exact moment that I repented to our children. Needless to say that within a month we had the reversal. We had the reversal, and our faith was really shaken though.

I conceived six months later but I lost that baby at eleven weeks. Then I conceived four months later and lost that baby at ten weeks.

Then came where it really got hard. I conceived again and carried that baby till thirty-four weeks, and he lived five hours and died in my arms, and our faith was shaken to the core.

NC: I remember, oh my, yes. I feel like crying even now.

SL: I know.

NC: I remember David coming to Colin and saying, “You know, we believe this is truth. We believe we should be open to God and have the womb open.” But he said, “I can’t do this. I can’t do this to Sherri. I mean, we’ve opened our lives and our womb to God and every baby that’s conceived is dying and now this baby was born and still died.”

SL: He was broken, and we were broken.

NC: I remember Colin encouraging him and just encouraging him even in the midst of such hardship and sorrow to keep trusting God because you don’t do things because it all works good. We do it because it’s obedience. I think that was the hardest counsel Colin had to give but he knew that was the right thing.

But the amazing thing was that David and Sherri, even in their sorrow and brokenness knew that yes, God can be trusted.

And so you kept trusting God, didn’t you?

SL: Yes, yes, we did.

NC: So then what happened?

SL: Well I conceived three months later and quite honestly was terrified. I didn’t even tell David that I thought I was pregnant. I just kind of ignored it because I guess I thought if I ignored it, I wasn’t pregnant, I guess. That was kind of my logic.

Anyway, finally my husband realized I was probably pregnant. Of course we did a pregnancy test, and I was pregnant. Immediately, I burst into tears. I will admit, I was a basket case because I was so fearful.

But praise God for Colin and Nancy. David called Colin and he said, “We are not going to do this. We are not going to live in fear. This is not what God would have us do.”

So he called Colin and Colin just spoke life and encouragement into him. Then he put Nancy on the phone and Nancy spoke encouragement and life into me.

I put Bible verses all over the house about not fearing and literally lived the rest of that pregnancy without a fear and was blessed with a beautiful baby girl, Sarah Colene, who was actually named after Nancy Colene.

She just got married, just a couple of weeks ago. She’s 22 years.

NC: Yes, yes, you’ve had two marriages (weddings) in how many weeks?

SL: No, just six days!

NC: Oh goodness me! Tell about that a bit later. Finish this story.

SL: We had Sarah and then we had Mary Beth just 13 months later. I will admit at that point that I was like, “Oh my goodness, God, I don’t know how much I can do!” I had three full-term pregnancies in two years, and I was really tired.

Literally, as soon as everyone left me after Mary Beth was born, I breathed this little, “Oh Lord, please, could You just close my womb, just for a little bit?”

As soon as I breathed that prayer, I was immediately repentant. I said, “God, I’m sorry. You are the great Physician. You know what my body can handle.”

After about year I was not pregnant and I was like, “Okay, what’s going on?”

I hosted one of the ladies retreats and had you pray over me for God to open my womb. Year two rolls around and I’m still not pregnant. I cried out, “God, I said I was sorry! I want another baby!”

That was when He finally just said, “Do you believe now that I open and close the womb?”

I was like, “I got it, God. I got it.”

So I let it go and then we were blessed with Anna. There’s almost exactly three years between Mary Beth and Anna. Then I conceived Kristen and I was 41 and that was a funny one because my oldest daughter, Amy, at this point was a midwife. She had delivered the one that’s now 18.

When I found out I was pregnant I told her and then when my husband came home, I told him. He’s like, “You can’t be, you’re forty-one.”

I said, “But I am!” and it took me about a half hour to convince him I was pregnant. He thought when I turned forty I guess I couldn’t get pregnant!

Anyway, I had Kristen and she’s such a joy. She’s 16 now. Then Josiah followed her, and I was just a month shy of 45 when I had him. I was blessed to have two children in my forties.

It’s wonderful, too, because we just had the two daughters get married and another one’s probably getting married Saturday and so we’re down to just two children in the home.

I don’t know how that happened so quickly, but it did.

NC: Oh Sherri, thank you for sharing that most beautiful story. I think reversal stories are just so wonderful. I did write a book many, many years ago and printed all these amazing stories of couples that had reversals from tubal ligations and vasectomies. You wrote your story in that book.

SL: Yes.

NC: But the years went by and I needed new stories. I haven’t reprinted and I am waiting to do a new book and I haven’t done it, though I must.

So actually, if you have a story of a reversal, well please, type it out and send it in to me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. because it’s time that I printed a whole fresh book of stories because they are all so wonderful!

Can you even contemplate what your life would be like without these extra children the Lord gave you?

SL: I cannot because apparently my children think they need to get married in groups because when Amy and Brad got married, they got married four months apart.

Josiah was one year when Brad got married and sixteen months when Amy got married.

My husband and I were coming home from the wedding. Josiah was still nursing. When we were coming home, I looked at him and I said, “Do you realize that if we had not had these other children we would be going home to an empty home right now?”

I can’t even comprehend that right now. I went right from having a nursing baby to having grandbabies.

Our house is always full. It’s the fun house because they’ve got aunts and uncles to come and play with. It’s just always fun at our house.

NC: Yes! You mentioned something there, the blessing of having aunts and uncles. That’s what family life is all about.

The sad part of that in these two child families is that they grow up and then they begin their families and who have they got to help and be part of their children growing up? But when there are all these younger sisters and brothers, it’s just so amazing!

I see that in our family now. The grandchildren are getting married but because they have big families there are all these younger sisters and brothers and they are the best babysitters in the whole world. They just adore their nieces and nephews. It just gives reprieve for the mothers, too, because they have all their family.

Then they do not have to pay babysitters and they’re not sure if they can trust them. No, they have family all around them. It’s just so wonderful and how God intends it to be.

But you were telling me earlier, Sherri. I was saying how I have printed all these amazing testimonies and I’ve often printed them in Above Rubies about reversals. Maybe I should say, I actually printed an article on Facebook awhile back and there were some women who wrote in and said, “Well, what is a reversal?” They actually hadn’t heard about a reversal.

So, what is a reversal? It’s when a doctor will seek to undo what was done through a vasectomy or a tubal ligation. It is such a blessing when it works. Sometimes it doesn’t, which is very sad.

But you were telling me earlier today how these days doctors are seeking to make sterilization so much more full proof that people can’t get reversals.

SL: Yes, I was reading an article on it. It’s been within the last year or so, that especially with the vasectomies, because it’s actually already hard to do tubal ligations because of the amount of the tube that they cut out.

That’s always been more difficult if a woman had a ligation to do a reversal because there’s just a certain amount of tube that the egg needs to go down for the proper amount of time before it’s ready to implant.

But with the vasectomy, it’s usually not that difficult. They are actually doing a new procedure where they are actually making a vasectomy almost impossible to be reversed. It’s just really important to know everything before you have this done.

We were amazed. After my husband had his vasectomy, he started having terrible testicular pain. When he went to the doctor, the doctor said, “Yeah, this is one of the common side effects.” He was never told that before he had the vasectomy.

Praise God after he had the reversal it went away.

But they don’t tell you your increased risk of prostate cancer with a vasectomy. They don’t tell you your increased risk of a hysterectomy with a tubal. Almost every woman I know that’s had a tubal ligation has ended up having to have a hysterectomy.

It’s just really important to do your homework because they don’t always tell you the full story of the complications.

They’re just like, “Oh this will keep you from ever having a child again” but they don’t tell you all the ramifications that come with that.

One thing I was talking with you about earlier was that so many women say, “Oh I got fixed” or “My husband got fixed.”

I really like to look at them and say, “They weren’t broken. You were working properly the way God created you. You actually got broken when you have a vasectomy or a tubal ligation.”

NC: Yes, yes, I don’t believe, dear mothers, that we can play around with the way God created our bodies without having adverse effects upon it. You can’t get away with it. We can’t get away with trying to change how God created us.

I love that Scripture that says: “All His ways are perfect.”

God’s ways are perfect. His creation is perfect. The way He created you as a woman, the way He created your husband as a man, His creation was absolutely perfect.

When we try to stop the workings of God or when we try to just change them, we’re going to have negative problems. That’s just what happens.

As you say, no one ever tells them that. In fact, you can go on to the internet and you can just look down and you’ll find all these sights that tell you that, “Oh yes, there’s no problems. You won’t have any problems at all.”

You have got to keep digging until you find out, oh wow, yes there are lots of problems.

We have met so many men just like your husband. I remember at one Above Rubies retreat there was a gentleman there. He was in absolute pain. He even got into a wheelchair after he got his vasectomy.

Colin said to him, “You can have it reversed.” He went and had a reversal, and he was just completely healed. He was t back to normal.

You know, just be careful. Now some people think, “Oh if we want to maybe have another child, we can have a reversal.” No, these days there is such antagonism against life that they are making it more and more difficult.

If we belong to God, we’re going to be open to life, aren’t’ we, because God is the Life Giver. He’s the One Who creates life. He loves life.

Satan is the life hater. He hates life and he does not have the power to give life. Oh yes, he comes against God and he tries to eliminate life because he hasn’t got that power. He can’t give life. He can only take it away and that’s what he specializes in doing.

So let’s be on the right side! Amen?

SL: Amen.

NC: So all these years you’ve enjoyed raising all these beautiful reversal children and now they’re getting married and of course, eventually, more grandchildren are going to come along.

Isn’t it just so exciting? God is so good. Do you want to say anything about the weddings?

SL: Well, they were a lot of fun. It was a whirlwind, though, because like I said there were two of them in six days.

The way that happened is our one daughter that’s twenty-two, her young man is in the military and we had to just kind of wait and see when he could get time off. They were able to get married over Labor Day weekend and our other daughter already had her wedding planned for September 11th.

It was a little crazy there, but it was wonderful. They were two beautiful weddings, two beautiful couples that love the Lord and are starting godly homes. So it was fun to see, hard to let our girls go, especially for Daddy, but it was still wonderful.

NC: It always is. There is never ever, I don’t think, a man that’s good enough for your daughter. I think that’s how every man feels.

I was talking with a couple just recently and they were telling me about a young man who was interested in one of their daughters. Yes, he had all these good points, yes, he was open to having children, yes, he even wanted to home school them.

But there were one or two other things, and he was in debt because he has college debt and so her husband wasn’t very happy about him marrying their daughter with debt.

I said to her, “Look— it’s rare that you’re going to get ten out of ten. Where can we get ten out of ten? We’re not perfect! None of us are perfect.”

Were we perfect when we got married? Help, no, but look at what God has done. I just believe we have to know and recognize when God brings a couple together.

We may not be able to tick off every thing for every ten points or a hundred points or however many you have but if the foundational things are there we need to just realize God created our young people to marry.

I do believe that we save them from so much heartache when they get married young, if God brings that one to them when they are young. It saves them from those rounds of girlfriends and boyfriends. It saves them from many heartaches, and it brings them into a beautiful safety.

They have one another and they grow together. It’s God and it’s beautiful and it’s how He designed it. I’m a great believer in it even if you don’t get ten out of ten!

It’s sad that there are also some families who, because they have been so grieved even at the dating scene in the church, which is so not right, but they’ve taken it to the other extreme that there is such perfection for the man that comes along that they have daughters in their late twenties and thirties and they’re not married!

Those precious daughters, all they’ve wanted to do, all those years, all of those beautiful, wonderful years of your twenties, your best years to embrace children, they’ve just been single.

How terrible. How boring. How unbiblical.

We’ve just got to see God more in getting married, I think, because I think marriage is so wonderful. I feel sorry for everybody who’s not married.

SL: I would have to say, too, that when I look back at David and myself when we were married, we were young. I was eighteen and he was twenty.

Basically what we had going for us, probably what my Dad liked, was that we both loved the Lord—and look where the Lord has brought us. That ultimately making sure both the young man and the young woman love the Lord with all of their hearts.

One thing I had to look at with my daughters is that I’m not going to be married to their spouses like they are. And so me trying to pick them out for them, yeah, I definitely believe parents need to have input if they’re seeing some major problems. But for the most part, if they love the Lord and they’re compatible with one another with the things that are there, they’re adults and we’ve got to let them make these decisions.

NC: Yes and this also brings me to something we thought we may talk about because you’ve always had a real concern about preparing your sons, and of course your daughters.

But your sons, even to prepare them for their wives to be good husbands, so I think we’ll chat about this today because I think that is very important.

I always believe when we are raising children, we’re not just looking after them from day to day and yes, we’re training them, no— we are ultimately training them to be a husband or a wife.

SL: Yes.

NC: Truly, when you are thinking about character training of your children, keep that in mind. You are preparing your daughters to one day be wives. You are preparing your sons to one day be husbands. This is powerful because how you prepare them can determine how their marriage will work and if they will establish a godly, loving marriage and then a godly home.

You know, it’s so determined on the way we raise them and the kind of attitudes that we raise them with because attitudes, our attitudes, affect our marriages so much.

What do you say, Sherri?

SL: Oh I couldn’t agree more. Little girls with their relationships with their daddy, young men need to be looking when they’re out in a group, they need to be looking how young women respond to their dads. They need to look at how they’re responding to their brothers because that’s ultimately probably about how they’re going to respond to their husband.

It’s the same in reverse, too.

I have more girls than boys and I’ve told my girls when we’re in a setting and you see a young man who you are kind of like, “Oh I kind of like this young man,” you start watching how he treats his mother and his sisters and how he treats the little children around him because that is going to tell just incredibly a lot how he is going to treat you.

We’ve been very blessed with our son-in-laws that they’ve respected their moms. Our one son-in-law doesn’t have any sisters and we were able to watch him in a church setting with the little girls that he would take out and swing on the swing.

It was so sweet, and he’s just been a wonderful father to the five daughters that God has blessed him with and his one son.

Those are important things to be looking at, is how they treat and respect their parents and their siblings.

NC: Of course that is another blessing when we allow the Lord to add to our family because the older children learn to be fathers and mothers through just loving on their younger siblings. It brings out that nurturing instinct in them and that fatherliness and that motherliness.

It’s just so sad to see so many young people today that have come from smaller families of one, two, or maybe three children. As they’ve grown up there are no younger siblings.

They’ve never been around younger children or little babies and they really feel clueless because they’ve never been opened up to that.

It’s not even natural. It’s not natural because that is how God intended, that they would grow up with younger siblings and babies coming along and so they are prepared for marriage.

I noticed, and I guess you noticed too (Sherri was also with us at our recent Above Rubies family camp down in Panama—with all the children and young people we had about 600 there, there were more young people I think than adults).

But wasn’t it glorious? I think my favorite part of the retreat was to look out and see young guys, you know, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen or twenty . . . often when you see young guys, and these guys are all beautiful, handsome young men, and you know, out in the world, how do you see young guys? You never see them hanging around babies. But you see these young guys holding onto little babies. Not even their own brothers and sisters, but any baby they see!

They’re taking that baby and they’re holding that baby for the mother. They love that baby. I mean, that’s God like. That is beautiful.

I tell you, I think that’s why I think Above Rubies family retreats are a great place for people to come because there you’re going to find young people with similar beliefs and understanding. A young girl can find a man who, yes, he loves babies! He’s open to children. He’s ready for family. Oh it’s so beautiful!

I just love it.

I think, too, you’re telling me about your weddings. We’ve got some weddings coming up, too. Next weekend we have one of Pearl’s sons getting married, Noble, and he’s getting married to Megan Harrison. In fact, Erin Harrison, the mother, and I were doing a talk show together. Then Erin began to foster and has adopted some very special needs children. We just got so busy we hadn’t been doing it. But this week we started again.

But any way, Erin’s daughter and Pearl’s son are going to be married. I look at them and they are a young couple. Actually they started their friendship at fifteen, but they waited until they were eighteen.

But do you know what? They are so mature! I like to call them “Ma and Pa” because they’re just so mature and beautiful in their relationship. They are just so relaxed and happy in their relationship. You just know, here’s a marriage that’s going to last forever.

Then we now have Serene’s daughter, Chalice, who suddenly, they grow up so quickly, and now she is engaged to a lovely young man, Trae Ruppel. They’re getting married the first weekend of December (now postponed because Trae’s mother is carrying a little baby in her womb that may need an operation about that time.)

I look at her young man, Trae. You were saying, “Look at a young man and see what his relationship is like with his parents.”

Well, he’s a young man who so respects his parents. He loves his mother. He loves his little siblings (because they’ve got older ones and little ones, too).

In fact, when he and Chalice started courting, this is how they courted: Trae would bring his little brother and sister over to our place and Chally would bring her little wee brother and sister. They just looked after the babies together. It was so gorgeous. They were always, and they still are, just looking after babies, their little younger siblings together.

What a beautiful way to prepare for marriage.

SL: Yes that’s beautiful.

NC: But any way, there are lots of other issues. Talk to me about one.

SL: Well I see mothers try to do everything for their children. My children have joked sometimes that they were slaves, but they weren’t.

My philosophy is: I start my children from the time they get their toys out . . . if they can get their toys out, they’re old enough to pick them up.

So we start training them to pick up their toys. And as they get a little older, they’re carrying a garbage can to dump the wastepaper basket.

My sons, I think I did this mostly because my oldest son, when he was about seven, was really talking heavily about going into the mission field.

I looked at him and said, “We don’t know if you’re going to marry or not. I hope you do, but we don’t know. God could send you out on the mission field by yourself, so you need to know some basic household things.”

I made sure he knew how to clean. I made sure he knew how to do basic cooking. I made sure he knew how to do basic mending. It has blessed his wife because there have been a few times where she’s been ill after a baby. A couple times she’s had mastitis really bad and he’s had to take care of her.

I’ve just been really adamant about that, that my boys know how to do those things. They can basically run a house. My daughter-in-law teases me that my son actually does it better than she does.

NC: You’ve trained him well, Sherri.

SL: Then my girls, kind of the same thing. My husband has taken them under his wing to make sure that they know basic things like they can check the air in their tires, they can change their oil, and they can mow the lawn. We’re just a team and we work together around household things.

My oldest daughter who’s married, she helps her husband mow the yard while he’s at work all day long. If she has time she goes out and mows the yard.

Just different things like that because it’s actually teaching them how to serve and that’s what marriage is all about. If we go into marriage going, “Ah if he does something for me, I’ll do something for him,” no— it’s what we can do for one another and just serving.

I like to teach my children to serve at home, but then of course, also serve others, and it just carries them through their life. One, it keeps you grateful and it also keeps you just serving others all the time. It’s just a really good lesson I think, especially as believers, but everybody can profit from it.

We all profit from Biblical principles whether we believe in God or not. For believers it’s how we show the love of Christ. He came to serve and so we need to be willing to serve.

NC: Amen, wow! You’ve been a great example there, Sherri.

But time is up, and I think I’m going to ask Sherri to come back next week and we’ll talk some more.

Let’s pray.

“Dear Father, We love the fact that we can come together as women and talk about the things that concern us, that are so much part of our lives. I pray for everyone listening today that You will bless them at whatever stage they are at with their little ones. Just minister to them and encourage them.

“For those who have older ones, give them great wisdom and anointing as they are finishing off their training before they leave home. Lord, these years just go so quickly. We haven’t got time to just flitter them away because it’s just one blink of our eyes and our children are leaving the home. So we pray that You would help us to put every moment into training them for You. We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

 

Transcribed By Morgan Roth

 

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FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Podcast 121: More About the Vagus Nerve

My daughter, Pearl Barrett, joins me again today, as we talk more about the vagus nerve, the longest nerve in your body.  It is also called the Wanderer, as it wanders throughout your body to affect your brain, gut, heart, and lungs, etc. It also affects your whole attitude to life. Find out more today how activating this nerve can revolutionize your life.

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello again, ladies. We are so excited to be back with you. Pearl is with me again, because we couldn't tell you everything in the last session. I know you were so blessed. If you didn't hear it, you need to go back and hear the last podcast. You may even want to listen to it again.

We're talking about the vagus nerve, and how that, as we activate this nerve in our bodies, it can change our whole lives! It can change our marriage. It can change our family life. And we were talking about this in the last session, about our marriage, and also about our children.

It's so amazing, you know, how it's such a wonderful lifestyle, that in the home, it's the most wonderful place to turn on the vagus nerve. Because you know, you have a  husband to love, and you have children to love. You have all these little darling babies and toddlers around, who you just can't help loving. And you're squeezing and squishing and loving and cuddling, all day long. And that's all releasing the vagus nerve, isn't it? It's amazing.

Now I actually read a quote, which I thought was rather interesting, Pearlie.

Pearl Barrett: Before you do, Mum, we'll talk about what the vagus nerve is. For people who missed out, it's the longest nerve in your body. When it's activated, it is incredible, taking down inflammation in your body. It boosts your immune system.

It can heal and repair even organ damage, and basically every ailment. It can have a positive effect on headaches, depression, these sorts of things. So we want our vagus nerve stimulated, because it's the healer of our bodies. Scientists are just discovering this. So they're discovering ways we can turn it on.

Last session we talked about one of the hugest ways to stimulate the vagus nerve is love. Showing love to one another. It's incredible, but it turns it on. So that's what we talked about. Now we're just like, Part two.

NC: Yes, so amazing. But I read this quote from Jordan Fallis. She said, “What's interesting,” or he. I think it's a he. “What's interesting is that studies have even shown that vagal tone is passed on from mother to child. Mothers who are depressed, anxious, and angry during their pregnancy have lower vagal activity. Once they give birth to their child, the newborn also has low vagal activity, and low dopamine and serotonin levels.”

So that's very powerful and challenging, isn't it? That it doesn't start just now. IT STARTS IN PREGNANCY, right at the beginning, Once again, that also reveals the power of the baby growing, and being created by God in the womb. This is not some inanimate thing. It's a precious living child.

This child is affected by our emotions, our emotions of love and acceptance and joy. This pregnancy will bless our baby, even when it's born. But, you know, if the mother is anxious and fearful and depressed and so on, that's going to be very negative for her baby. That's something we need to really think about.

PB: It is, Mum. And depressed people are shown in studies to have lower vagal activity than others. That is actually associated with, this is interesting, Mum, with less active facial expressions. OK, so when you're depressed, you show less expressions on your face.

I understand, well, as someone's listening, “I have depression. I don't know how to get out of it. This is something that afflicts me.” Actually, there are things that we can do. The vagus nerve lifts depression.

You see, last session we talked about how love stimulates your vagus nerve. But love is a verb. Love is something you do. So they even say, scientists uncovered it, just the act of smiling . . . that facial expression actually does amazing things in your body. It lifts your spirits. Chemicals are released that actually can make you happier. It actually improves your health.

It's like the chicken and the egg thing. I have depression, so I'm not smiling. But what about smiling, and actually stimulating these things? We have to come back to these things.

NC: Yes, I believe so much in that, Pearlie. I love to encourage mothers to smile at your children. It's so easy to get a frown on your face, because children do so many crazy things. All day long, they're just kind of climbing the walls and being disobedient and doing this.

You've got this frown on your face, and you know, “Stop doing that!” You're trying to keep them all in control. Oh goodness me. And that doesn't help you, and it doesn't help your children.

But try SMILING.

You know, if you're just looking at your children, and maybe they're being good. You think, “Wow, goodness me, I can go and do something.” But just smile at them. Don't smile at them just because of a reason. Smile at them, just because you want to smile at them! Because it will, as you say, it activates this vagus nerve. How amazing!

I have found, even without knowing that in the past, that smiling is revolutionary. Because sometimes you can feel lousy, and you don't feel like smiling. And you feel the opposite. But you smile anyway. Your action changes your whole attitude. Your action changes your attitude.

Most people wait for a feeling to then do something. If you wait for feelings, you, half the time, you won't love. Half the time you won't smile. All these things you don't do because you feel like them. You do them because they're the right thing to do. As you do, you then get the feelings, and your attitude is changed!

PB: Yes! And you know, growing up, that's all you taught us. And I'm so thankful for it. Because I have felt many feelings of like . . .  I once did a personality test, and they called me, what does one . . . melancholy. That's not Christ's nature in me! That was just a nature from some sort of test.

When you actually put on the mind of Christ, His mind is not depressed, His mind is not gloomy. So when we put on something like that, and put off the other, that's what we need to do. No matter if we just think, “But I have depression, my nature is not to be all bubbly. I'm not just one of those cheery people.” But we can do these things.

NC: Absolutely! And that's another . . . I read the Scriptures this very morning! It comes back to the Word. It says: “Put off the old man with all its deeds, and put on the new man, which is Christ in you.“ and there it is!

OK, we get the science, but we don't even really need it, because it’s there in the Word, if we will only just do it! But you see, it is a doing. If you sit around, feeling just how you feel . . . No, you've actually got to put on. You’ve got to put on, don't you?

PB: OK, so that's Scripture. But just to watch how science backs it up again. This is incredible, Mum. It goes along with what you're saying. So they did a study, and they made a vagal turn. They measured how well the vagus was working. And people, there's ways to measure it. So very interesting. 

They got some people because they thought, well, meditating is good, you know. Meditating. We can meditate on Scriptures, but in secular terms, meditating is just considered calming your mind, slowing your breathing, those things.

So they have one group of people just calming themselves down and mediating. The other group of people, they told them to think positive emotions about other people in their lives. Or they told them to actually think thoughts of hope and joy.

So they measured these two groups of people. And, of course, you know what happened, right? The vagal turn, only the vagal turn in the people that were mediating, barely showed a response. The vagal turn in the people who were told to put on thoughts of hope and joy showed a remarkable response. Isn't that incredible, the way it backs up the Scriptures?

So I would say for anyone right now, maybe you are pregnant, maybe you aren't feeling thoughts of complete giddiness over it. Maybe your life is tough. Maybe you're not feeling like you have love for others right now. You don't feel it.

But what if you put on that? What if you just hold your belly right now and think thoughts of beautiful love toward that baby? Beautiful love towards your family. And you're passing on a higher vagal turn.

And you're doing what you're created for, which is to love. You were designed to love. We're going to talk about that later on, because that's my big thing, my big cliffhanger that I want to bring at the end.

But Mum, you were talking about smiling, right? And smiling is good. It turns on the vagal turn, turns it up. You get better, you get healthier. But what's better than that? It's like we talked about the firm handshake, or the strong hug.

LAUGHING. Laughing is another one. And it powerfully turns on your vagal nerve. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system and triggers the “tend and befriend”  response linked to the healthy turn in your vagus nerve.

Just ten minutes of laughter is sufficient to trigger mental and physical health benefits. Smiling does too, but to a lesser extent.

NC: Yes. OK. Now how do you get to laugh? Because it is true, and studies have been done, that show that children naturally laugh so much more than adults. The older . . . You know, as people get to adults, I think because they start to take on responsibility, and the cares and the burdens of raising a family, somehow you can often not laugh so much.

Well I have to confess, most probably you know, I laughed more when I was younger and . . . But I love to laugh. I do laugh, but I think, OK, let's get down to the nitty gritty. How do you get to laugh more?

PB: Well, I guess you allow yourself to laugh when you're with others that you love. And laughter is a form of loving, isn't it, dear ladies? You know, I laugh more than any other time . . . I laugh when I'm with my sons. My sons just make me laugh and laugh and laugh. I don't know, they're just so funny to me. But it's a decision in my head.

I always go around saying to Serene and others, “Oh my sons are just so funny!” I've decided they're funny, so when they're in the room, they're funnier than ever! It's a decision. They are naturally funny, but because I think they're funny, my body is wired to laugh whenever they're in the room!

Because it’s a thought that I have put about them. And going back to those thoughts in our heads, you know, the way we think about others. So that study showed that people had to think good thoughts about others in their lives.

That's been a huge thing for me in my marriage. There's this, I could think many ways about my husband, because in a way, I could think that he's a . . .  I'll give you a little story. I could think that he's a control freak.

Or the other side of it, I could think that he's so cute and caring. It's two different ways to look at it, right? He loves to go to the grocery store with me. He just likes being with me. So sometimes he'll go to the grocery store with me.

NC: Pearlie's husband really, he just wants to be with her every minute of his life. He just loves Pearlie.

PB: But it wasn't always like that, actually. He's always loved me, but he didn't need to be with me so much. That has developed over the years, and it's been a beautiful thing.

OK, so he'll go to the grocery story with me. I'm just the sort that throws everything in the cart. I just throw, I don't know what goes on the eggs, but it all makes it home fine, and I've never had a problem.

But my husband will go to the grocery store with me, and suddenly, he's like, “Don't do that! Pearl, what are you doing? Don't put that on the bread! You shuffle things around! Cold goes with cold, and eggs and bananas have to go in the front of the cart. And, what? You put the can over there?” And he starts getting looks on his face like, “What are you, an idiot?” Like in the middle of the grocery store! (Nancy laughing)

And at first, I'm like, “Why does he even want to come with me if he wants to boss me around?” I'm like, “Does he not think . . . does  he think I'm an idiot? I get the groceries home.” You know, all these thoughts in my head. People looking at him, he's almost getting red in the face! I'm like, “What a control freak!” You know? All these thoughts going into my head.

Then one day I thought, “He's coming here to be with you. He's so cute and caring! Isn't he funny? Oh my goodness, look at that man!” And so I just looked. (Instead, I used to give the silent treatment. By the time we're at the counter tops, paying for the groceries, I was so like, “Ohhhh, I'm not going to talk to him on the way home!”)

And I decided, I just looked up at him. One day he was doing his thing, and I said, “He's so cute! You're so cute, honey!” And I just started laughing about it. So he gave me this mischievous look, like he knew he was being sort of over the top. He just gave me this look, and we looked at each other over the grocery cart. And it's like we fell in love again!

And since then, I know he's going to be a control freak about the groceries. I let him do it. I just stand there. I laugh at him. I think he's cute. We go to the counter. We're like, cuddling. Everyone's like, “Well, how long have you been married?” I'm like “Oh, 26 years.”

But it's what I decide to think about him. He's either a control freak, or he's cute or caring. No, I love my cute and caring husband. He's not a control freak, he just wants to go to the grocery store with me.

So I'm turning my vagus nerve on. When I did this, I didn't know about the vagus nerve. But now I realize, OK, that helped my marriage.

So when our children are being crazy, we can think, “Oh, my children are out of control. I'm a bad mother. I just don't know how to do this! Look at them! They were born with a strong rebellious spirit, weren't they?”

Or we can think, “Aren't they hilarious? Oh my goodness, this is really great for me, that I get a strong-spirited child to train up! Man, God's going to use that child!” I have to certainly implement some discipline, but isn't this fun? “I'm so blessed to have that strong-spirited child!”

NC: Oh yes. It all really comes back to how we think, doesn't it? So we are programmed, well, God wants to program us to think positively, to think His thoughts.

I'm often challenged by that Scripture in Isaiah 55, where it says that “My thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways, saith the Lord. My ways are higher.” And often we're bringing, well, we don't even have God in our economy.

Or if we do, we're bringing him down to where we are, to our fearful and negative thoughts. But no, we've got to come up to where HE IS! I think this is all part of . . .

PB: Yeah, and another thing. We're talking about things other than love, to turn the vagus nerve on. Other things we talked about, good thoughts, thinking good thoughts, and laughter, and smiling, and a strong hug.

Another thing, it backs up the Scriptures once again! It's just amazing. GRATITUDE. So gratitude turns on your vagus nerve. Isn't it amazing? The Bible tells us, how many times, to give thanks, give thanks with a grateful heart! So we'll be thankful. “Give thanks before Me,” which I forget sometimes.

But give thanks for everything, multiple times. We were designed in a certain way, and when we get out of that way, these things happen. I'm not saying you have a disease because you're not thankful. I'm not saying that at all. But I'm saying we can practice these things we were designed for!

We were designed to laugh. We were designed to give thanks. We were designed to love. And we forget them! When we live the way we were designed, and as the Bible tells us, well, the health wells up within us, because that's our design, Mum.

NC: Yes. And when you're giving thanks, you're usually smiling. You can't thank the Lord with a sad face, a depressed face! No! It changes even your face, even when your thanking someone else. You're thanking your husband for taking out the garbage. Whatever he's doing, you thank him.

Or you're thanking your children. A smile comes on your face. It does! It all just goes together. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, “In everything give thanks. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” It's personal—concerning you!

I remember a little story here. We had this family, a missionary family, they are originally from Rwanda, they came to visit us. Now they live nearby, very much part of our whole fellowship. But that was a few years ago. They came to visit, and they also popped over, (there's my word, “popped,” again!)

But they popped over to see Evangeline and Howard and the family. And they noticed something. Oh, and Nadia came and expressed it to me. She said, “I notice how their children are so thankful. When they say, “thank you,” they don't say, “Oh, thank you.” It's “Oh, THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH!'”

Actually at Christmas time, it's quite amazing to be among them when they're opening their presents. They'll open a little present from one of their siblings, and they'll go over and give them a hug, and say, “OH THANK YOU, SO, SOOOOOO MUCH!” I guess that sounds a bit over the top, but anyway, you can't really be over the top in thankfulness.

So anyway, they thought, “OK, we're going to do this.” And so they started to do it. I remember they had been staying with us for a few days, and it was time to go. We walked downstairs to wave them goodbye, as we do with everyone who comes to our home, even if they come for a meal. We live upstairs. Downstairs is where we have Above Rubies.

We don't just say, when it’s time to go, “OK, bye. It was great to have you.” No, we will always walk downstairs with our guests. We go out to the car. We wait for them all to get in, and that can take time, if they have six, seven, eight children, and they're getting them all in the car.

And then we will wave goodbye. I believe that's part of hospitality. But anyway, so they were all in their van. They were going to wave goodbye. And they all put their heads out the window and said, “THANK YOU SO, SOOOOOO MUCH!!” And they had great big smiles on their faces, and they were laughing because it was so fun to do it like that.

So it releases smiles. It releases fun, and it releases joy! It makes you over the top. But the more over the top you are, the more you're going to release that vagus nerve!

PB: I know! And you're right about the Johnsons, my sister Vange and her children. They're known for it. We take them off, we all pretend to be the Johnsons. We all say, “THANK YOU SO MUUUUCH!” Whenever her children would come for snacks in my house, I'd just give them a piece of dry bread or something, they all would go, “THANK YOU SO MUUUUUCH!”

But it's important. What is Vange doing instilling that in her children? She's creating health in them for life! My daughter, Meadow, now our little grandson Warren is learning to talk. I'm so proud of him because they've taught him “Thanks.”

Every time now, and we just watched him for a couple of days while they went away for their anniversary. He calls me “Prissy” because my second name is Priscilla, so that's my Nana name. He's like, “Tank you, Prissy!” And it melts my heart!

Everything you give him is “Tank you, Prissy,” or “Tank you, Grandpa.” It's real important that we do that with our children. I'm just so proud of that.

But here's another thing, Mum. We're going to get through them all SINGING.

NC: Oh yes!

PB: Singing and humming turns on the vagus nerve!

NC: I even read; can you believe it? Gargling! (laughter)

PB: Gargling does it! Isn't that interesting?

NC: I hate that sound of gargling! (Laughter)

PB: Gargling is really good for you. It actually tones the muscles in your neck and all of that. As you get older, all those muscles start to relax and lose their tone. We should gargle more. Yes, we should gargle more. It can stop snoring and it can stop a lot of things. You know, how a lot of people . . .

NC: Wow, That's a secret, ladies! Maybe you can tell your husband that one!

PB: Yes, thirty seconds, like after you brush your teeth. Just gargle some water. Gargle twice a day. I've started doing that.

NC: Wow, that's so interesting! Now, singing. Well, that's all right for you, Pearlie, because you're a beautiful singer. But you know what, you wouldn't believe it. I actually mothered Serene and Pearl who were signed by a record company. Before they were married, they went off on their singing careers. How they ever came to be signed by a record company, I don’t know, because they had a mother who used to sing to them out of tune! (Laughter)

PB: I know. You're hilarious! You're not a great singer, but I love your singing, Mum. I loved it all my life. It's so out of tune. I don't even know how you could try to be that out of tune, actually, if you tried. But it's so good. And it doesn't matter if you can sing. 

But guess what, you know how we talked about a hug, and a strong hug? Or a smile, and then there's a laugh. You know, a handshake and then a firm handshake. Does singing determine your vagus nerve? But guess what turns it on more? SINGING AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS!

Isn't that interesting? My whole life in church, Dad . . .

NC: You were brought up that way, because my husband, he's one of nine children. They were dairy farmers in New Zealand. The children all used to sing in the cowshed, as they milked the cows.

Neighbors a mile or more away could hear them! His family have always sung at the top, at the top of their voices! Isn't it wonderful? Oh, I think my favorite thing in life is to be in that family when they are singing hymns at the top of their voices, and all in harmony. It's unbelievable!

And that's something he's always instilled. Even at church, even to this day! “Come on everybody, sing with all your heart!” And he can't stand it . . .

PB: That's what I'll always remember of my dad. I mean, singing, even when I come here. We come to Dad and Mum's church. Sometimes we're a bit late, and I'm walking in when everybody is singing.

Who do I hear above the rest of the people? It's my dad! And he's like, at 10,000 times stronger than everybody else. It always brings a smile to my face. And my dad, he's 80, and he's always been in good health. He stimulates his vagus nerve. And then, always around the house, Dad was singing.

NC: I love it. You know, he does it a lot. I said to him, “You don't have to feel embarrassed to do this.” But he'll be preaching, and he'll start singing a song. I just say, “Do it more, because it's so beautiful!”

But you know, I was thinking about this singing business, Pearlie. You know, you see, everything that God has planned, the devil hates. And just think what's happening, now that there's this mandate in so many leftist states to stop singing in churches. Now where does that come from? It comes from the devil, because God wants us to SING AT THE TOP OF OUR VOICES. And not just personally but SING TOGETHER!

PB: Well, that's what studies say.

NC: Really! We know it already!

PB: Well, they said singing with a group of people...

NC: Yes! Yes!

PB: Actually, it’s the most profound way. And so that's what we're remembering, Dad with his brothers and sisters. But in church, when I come to church now, because I understand it, not just because God tells me to sing to Him all through the Scriptures.

“Sing to the Lord all ye earth, sing, sing, sing.”

But I'm taking it, I'm wearing the mantle of my dad, because I just sing. I don't care. People look at me, my kids look at me strange, like what's mom doing? I sing at the top of my lungs. I don't care if it sounds good anymore.

NC: It's you and Serene and Vange all singing at the top of your voices! (Laughter) Yes, but you know what, it's amazing.

I just read this over the weekend. First of all, I was so upset! I read how these groups of Christians from a church up in Moscow . . . Yes ladies, it's not in Moscow country, but in Moscow, Idaho, USA. They planned to have a Psalm sing outside somewhere. It was in the city.

And the police came along and arrested three of the organizers. They went to jail. All they were doing was just singing. They only sang three hymns. They weren't doing it for long. They just wanted to be able to sing. Anyway, so . . . Oh, I was very devastated to think that help, this is not . . . Are we already becoming a communist country?

But anyway, there was another picture, and what happened was, after they got arrested, they decided, “OK, we are not giving into this!” So they planned another Psalm sing for the next night. And hundreds and hundreds came out. You could hear them.

They were singing at the top of their voices. It was beautiful, but they had to too, because protesters came along. They had these terrible drums that were trying to drum them out. But no, you could hear them singing above that. It was so wonderful.

But you see, we're seeing this in our nation at the moment. It's so sad to think that that's stopping us from singing hymns together! Which is what God wants and He will bless us.

PB: It’s one of the things we were created to do! And another thing, Mum, because we've only got five minutes, help! And I've got to get to my big thing.  But I'm going to tell you something right now that's going to blow your mind.

OK, so they took two groups of women once again, women who were breastfeeding, and women who weren't currently breastfeeding. So guess which had the higher vagal turn? BREASTFEEDING stimulates the vagus nerve. Isn't that amazing?

NC: That is so exciting! Oh, all you mothers who are nursing your baby as you're listening! Don't you love hearing that? Oh, when you are doing what God created you to do, you're being so blessed!

PB: Yes, blessed! Isn't it a privilege? Isn't it wonderful?

NC: So you don't try and wean your baby! You know, so many people in our society today, “Oh, get your baby sleeping through the night. Just wean your baby at a certain time.” No! You let your baby wean when your baby is ready to wean.

See, baby needs to nurse throughout the night. Just think, every single time your baby comes to the breast again, your vagus nerve is being turned on to bless your body. It's like a vaccine against all diseases! You see, we don't need vaccines if we live the way God intended!

PB: It's all natural! It's all the natural God-design. And isn't that amazing? It comes back to love again. And that's what I want to end with. Breastfeeding is a form of love. It's pouring out our love to our child. No wonder it stimulates the vagus nerve! It's a given; you know. This was my download. I was thinking . . .

NC: I would think  it would be for the baby too. Yes!

PB: Oh, absolutely! But I was thinking about all these ways I could show more love in my family, yes, show my love to my husband, show love to people, strangers at the grocery store even! I just want to be like a love-crazy-woman! 

But then I was thinking about it. If giving and receiving love with others helps our health so immensely, but just think of what a love relationship with God does! I was thinking that. The Scriptures describe God as love itself. Love is a Person. He is the Author of this love, the ultimate Source of it!

John 4:7, 8, for greater clarity says: “For love is God. Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. But he who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” And all the science is trying to figure out, well, love does this, love does that. But without God, they'll never get it! You know? 

He's the Author of it. The Finisher of it. I started looking at all the Scriptures about love and we've all looked at them. But now I was looking at them in a new light. His love for us is so vast and true! John 3:16 says that “God so loved the world.” That's why He gave His Son.

We can bask in this love all night, and all day long, and that's what I decided to do. You know, when I wake up in the night, and you know, you have to go to the bathroom, or whatever you have to do, I just realize God loves me. He loves me! And I love Him! Just bask in this.

It's going to turn the vagus nerve on. It's not just we do this just because we want our vagus nerve turned on. But we're in this love relationship. It's constantly on tap. We are never without this love. It's constant.

The Word tells us that He loved us first (1 John 4:19).

His love is perfect (1 John 4:18).

His love casts out fear (1 John 4:18).

His love never ceases (that’s Lamentations 3:22).

It has been lavished upon us (1 John 3:1).

It is everlasting (Jeremiah 31:3).

It is great, Ephesians 2:4 tells us.

Nothing can separate us from it, Romans 8:38, 39 tells us.

It is being poured into our hearts (Romans 5:5).

It endures forever (Psalm 136:26).

It is unfailing.

It covers our sins (1 Peter 4:8).

It compels us (2 Corinthians 5:14).

He quiets us with His love (Zephaniah 3:17).

His banner over us is love (Song of Songs 2:4).

The earth is filled with His love  (Psalm 119:64).

When I realized these Scriptures, I was like, “I am the most blessed woman in the world!” When I think of this love, I'm in this love relationship with God, and it pours out to my loved ones. It pours out to the stranger on the street.

But it comes from Him. That just blew my mind, that if I dwell on that, that if I don't take it for granted, it’s also going to stimulate my health, because that's the way I was designed. I was designed to be in love with my Creator. Right?

NC: Man! And yes, perfect love casts out fear. I think, you know, we are seeing this in our nation today. We're seeing what has happened through this virus, and how it's brought fear, which has come through our fake media, and so on. They have been wanting to put fear in people's heart.

This comes from the enemy. We have to see where things come from. Love is of God. For God is love, and perfect love casts out fear.

Dear precious ones, listening today, embrace God. Those words of fear that are coming through in our nation, coming through our fake media, coming through people who don't know God . . Don't receive them! Realize that all this fearmongering comes from the enemy. As Pearl has been saying, the releasing, the activating of this happens firstly in our homes. This intense loving of our husbands, these strong loves and hugs to our husband, to our children . . . it begins in the home.

Pearlie was saying how she just wants to go out and wherever she goes, reveal this love! You see, that's another thing, where you see the enemy at work, where he is seeking to stop that. Instead of the revelation of the people of God going out to the supermarket when we go to get our groceries, and here and there. Going out, smiling, just smiling to people, and giving those words of encouragement and touch and, even with people we don't know, this is how we're meant to do life.

Instead, we're all masked up. And you know, that's from the enemy. That is from the enemy. I was just reading this morning. Romans 8. Romans 8, and it is, where is it? Romans 8:19. “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.” You know, the world is groaning, waiting to see the revelation. That word “manifestation” in the Greek actually means “the unveiling, the uncovering, the disclosure” of the sons of God.

Now as we are moving more and more toward the end time. We don't know how long it will be, or if there is still much time, we don't know. But it's moving toward the end. And the more and more it's moving, the more there is that necessity for the revelation, the unveiling, the uncovering of the sons of God.

And that's going to happen through revealing His love and His smiles, and His truth, and everything of Who He is. You know, we can't do it when we're masked up. That is from the devil. I believe that we are meant to be uncovered. We cannot even reveal. We cannot manifest. We cannot do it unless we are uncovered and unveiled, because it's through our face that we smile. We love. We reach out. We cannot do it with covered faces.

And so we need to realize where we are in this nation at the moment. OK, this comes back to the home. Ultimately, this is going to change your whole home atmosphere. But you see, what's in the home, it goes out. We take it out. We take it out with unveiled faces to look at people, and love them, and smile at them, and bring out the revelation of the image of God to them.

That's why we're here on this earth! Aren't we? Say something at the end, and then we'll pray!

PB: Oh, no, I'm inspired. It's so true. I understand people in health care situations. They have to . . .

NC: We're not talking about that.

PB: We are talking about going out about our daily lives. Yeah. I say, great, Mum.

NC: Oh, lovely ladies. I know you've been blessed. I just trust that you can open up your heart and every part of your being. Just say, “Oh, I'm going to live how God intended to me! I'm just going to love tangibly and touching with my hands, and with my eyes, and with my mouth, and with my smiles, and with every part of my being! My husband, my children, and everyone I meet, wherever I go!” Oh, may the Lord help us!

PRAYER:

“Father, we thank You, Lord, that it's amazing, Lord, that science begins to teach us what You have already shown in Your Word. The way we are created to live, the way You created our bodies, Lord, right from the very beginning. Pregnancy, how, Lord, even our attitudes as we're pregnant will affect, Lord, our little baby as it is born.

And then nursing the baby at the breast, and how this is releasing this activation of this nerve. Lord, we thank You. How beautiful, Lord! Oh God, help every mother to understand these things, these beautiful things that You designed. Lord, that they will be able to embrace them with all their hearts, and not try to stop them, but just enjoy them as long as they can.

And Lord, to just move them to a whole new realm with their husbands, and with their children, and in their home life, Lord. And teach us more day by day, Father, of the way You intend us to live. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.”

Transcribed by Darlene Norris.

 

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 120: HERE IT IS— YOUR DISEASE-BUSTING, ANTI-AGING MIRACLE PILL!
But it’s actually not a pill!

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello ladies!

Well today is a very special day because I have my lovely daughter Pearl with me. Wow, I feel so privileged to get Pearlie because as you know, Pearl and Serene do the THM poddy.

They not only do that every week, but they do their “UnShow,” another poddy. I sort of think half the time they must be poddied out. Anyway in the middle of all her business Pearlie said she would come and be with us today. We have a most interesting subject to talk about, so just hang on for a minute.

Before I get talking you must say, “Hello!”

Pearl Barrett: Oh yes, hello, hello everybody, great to be here! And we only do the UnShow once a month, Mum, so I’m not too poddied out.

NC: That’s so good.

Anyway, before we get on to this most interesting subject, I would like to ask you something: Did you get to either go or did you get to see online THE RETURN, which was on Saturday in Washington D.C. with Jonathan Cahn?

It was the National and Global Day of Repentance and Prayer. We didn’t get to go but we did watch it online and we were able to listen to Jonathan Cahn’s prophetic message to the nation. It was so powerful. It was God speaking to America.

I want to encourage you that if you didn’t get to see it or hear it please check it out. You can go to YouTube and just check out Jonathan Cahn’s Return National Day of Prayer and Repentance.

If possible, listen or watch it and gather your whole family around because what happened on Saturday and the message that he gave was to everyone in the whole nation.

It’s now a scary time really. We really have to respond and if there is a response in this nation of repentance and turning back to God, I believe we will see a great revival. But if we don’t take any notice and there’s not a returning back, a returning back to God to pursuing God, to righteousness, to life, to family, to everything that is on the heart of God we can only expect His judgment and calamity.

So it is a scary time. It’s really over to us as a nation and I believe everyone needs to take part. I just encourage you to make sure you don’t miss out on listening if you did miss it.

We were having our family devotions this morning. It’s amazing because so many of the Scriptures just spoke to us again. One of them was Isaiah 63:18 and it says: “The people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while . . ..”

That’s talking about the land. God gave the land of Israel to them as an everlasting possession. But they didn’t hold it for long because of their sin.

It goes on to say: “ . . . our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary.”

Everything that was of God got trodden down and then they got vomited out of the land because of their sin and yet it was theirs by divine mandate.

Even for us today, I believe that God planned for America to be this city set on a hill, a light to the nations even as Israel is a light to the nations. But we really, as the people of God, wow, I don’t think we’re where God wants us to be. We’re pretty pathetic and I believe there needs to be such a turning back.

I think of Nehemiah. This verse always gets to me because we’re even experiencing it a little now and if we allow things to go on as they are, we could yet experience this fully.

It says here in Nehemiah 9:36, 37: “Behold, we are servants this day, and for the land that thou gavest unto our fathers to eat the fruit thereof and the good thereof, behold, we are servants in it.”

Isn’t that terrible? To be servants in a land that belongs to YOU?

Wow, we are free people in this US of A but if we do not return back to God, we may not always be a free people.

It goes on to say: “And it yieldeth much increase unto the kings whom thou hast set over us because of our sins: also they have dominion over our bodies, and over our cattle, at their pleasure, and we are in great distress.”

Wow. That’s so powerful. They even had dominion over their bodies. We have now all this great “excitement” about a vaccine coming for this current virus. They want to make that mandatory.

I hope that you are writing and calling your governor and writing to the president. Write to every person you can think of to plead with them that they do not make this mandatory because that’s having dominion over our bodies.

We know that Bill Gates, who is the instigator of all this, his whole plan is to de-populate the earth. Of course he can do that through vaccinations. Some people will get away with it but there are many people to whom it will be such a detrimental thing to their bodies.

I believe, I am a great believer in freedom, and I do not believe that we should ever have to have people who take dominion over our bodies and tell us what to do and what we should have to do with our bodies. But that is a judgment that comes when we are in sin and this land is in sin.

We have laws that allow babies to be aborted right up until birth. We have laws that allow same sex marriage. We have laws that allow people to change the whole way that God created them. These are such abominations, and we have to turn and repent from them, that God will heal our land and we will live in freedom and they will not have dominion over our bodies.

Anyway, I’m sure you feel just like I do at this time. Make sure that you don’t miss out and you get to hear that message. In fact, there were things happening all day: Prayer and words for the nation, the whole day. You can listen to that.

Now, we still haven’t got on to our question yet, to our interesting subject, but I must get Pearlie to talk about what’s happening this week in your family, Pearlie.

PB: Oh yes, we have a wedding! So my Noble, he is my second to last, he’s my fourth, he’s getting married to a beautiful girl called Megan.

We’re just so excited because we love her so much. They’re actually going to live on our land. There’s a little barn with an apartment on top of the barn.

NC: The Poddy.

PB: Yes, it’s actually our poddy cabin. They’re going to live there for the meantime until they get established. But they’re a beautiful couple. They’ve been with one another, courting for about three years. They were young.

NC: Yes, they started courting at fifteen. But they have somehow lasted till they were eighteen years of age to get married.

You think, “Oh goodness me, they’re so young!” But you know what? I always call them “Old Ma and Pa” because they’re just so mature and beautiful in their relationship.

They’re not really like many young people. They’ve got maturity about them, haven’t they?

PB: Yes, they do. It’s just been amazing to see because I’m not a mother who is really into young dating or anything. When they first looked at one another, they had this look in their eyes like, “Wow” and we all could tell something was happening.

We thought, “This is too young. Fifteen! They’re not ready to be married. We’re only about courting or dating if you’re going to marry someone. What do we do?”

It was on both sides of the family. Megan’s mom, Erin, who is a friend of the family, she’s like, “What do we do?”

We sort of allowed this to go slowly at first and they were sort of just special friends and that developed into more. We’ve watched it and it’s been really beautiful. I’ve been amazed and I’ve been so thankful to God. I’m just so thankful that He’s brought my son such an amazing, amazing girl.

Sometimes you think to yourself, “Well our children are only going to start dating when they’re eighteen” or “Only at this time.” Things happen that are not predictable sometimes, and I think if we pray through it and we just allow God to lead us, beautiful things can happen. Sometimes it’s just not the way we think they’re going to happen.

NC: I see that it is a beautiful safety. I mean, instead of just kind of going off and doing all their young people things, it’s brought stability to both of them. I think it doesn’t happen to everyone. Some don’t meet that one that God has for them until they’re older.

But when they do meet young and you recognize that God has brought them and when God brings them together, often it’s just the greatest blessing. I see that in how a lot of our grandchildren have married young, but they’ve all been ready for marriage. They’ve been ready to take on the responsibility for marriage, to embrace family, and to provide.

If they have that maturity, they are ready to marry.

But anyway, we’ve got the wedding on Sunday, haven’t we?

PB: Yes, we have. One thing about that, both of my sons have married early at eighteen, but then I have another son who will (maybe) be getting married next year at twenty-one, so he’s a little older.

But it still seems young! We were never all about, “You get married young, children! “We were never all about that but once they find their person we were about, “Well it doesn’t matter the age so much.”

NC: No, the age doesn’t matter.

PB: But I look at my sons and before they found their partners in life, they were young boys, they were teenagers, they were great guys. But we’re all about that if they want to get serious about someone, they need to have marriage in mind because what’s the use of it?

Watching them mature into men, who knew they would have to look after a family, has been incredible because that was the thing that took them from boy to man. It was the idea that, “I’m going to be a husband, I’m going to be a father. Okay, let’s get my act together here.”

NC: Yes, absolutely. We have watched those three boys, Bowen and Noble and Rocklyn, actually change from boys to men overnight.

I remember Bowen was still in school, and then all of a sudden, he saw this beautiful girl, Kahoru, and in about six months he grew up to be a man.

Wow, it was just unbelievable! I think its marriage that matures a man, or preparing for marriage, because every one of them said, “You’re not getting married until you can provide.” So they had to get involved and they’ve all got amazing jobs.

Rocklyn is now in real estate. In fact, his future father-in-law said, “You’re not marrying my daughter until you make good money.” So he’s really got into it!

Noble was working with Trim Healthy Mama but now he’s taking on a whole sawmill at eighteen! Isn’t that amazing?

NC: Yes, along with his cousin, Cedar, that’s Serene’s son.  That’s exciting for them.

But we’ve got a subject and I’m anxious to get on to that.

PB: Before that I’ve got to say something else! My mother she’s like really revving me up to talk about the wedding because if you don’t know my Mum, Nancy, she really loves weddings more than any other person in the world.

Mum just came over to my house the other day, we’re just like a little stone’s throw away. She came over and just sat there and wanted to talk about the wedding and I’m like, “I love weddings and I love that they’re getting married but I’m just not as much of a wedding person as you.”

Every time I would try to change the subject Mum would bring it back to the wedding!

NC: Oh yes because I think they’re the most wonderful days! Oh I just love weddings!

But I think God loves weddings, too. Actually in the Word of God we read that when God’s blessing is upon a nation it says that there will be” the voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, and the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride” (Jeremiah 33:11)/

It’s all celebration and joy! That’s the voice of the Bible’s description of weddings!

Then that same word is used in the context of judgment. It says that when God’s judgment is upon the land that there will no more be heard the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride and the voice of joy and gladness (Jeremiah 7:34; 16:9; and 25:10).

That’s the thing that God uses to say that there is judgment upon the land. That’s pretty powerful, isn’t it?

We see God loves to come into weddings. But what I wanted to say is, how in the world, Pearlie, did you manage to get the most beautiful daughters-in-law in the whole of the world? Well two, you have got Kahoru, and then Megan gets married on Sunday, and then next year Rocky is getting married to Mary Beth. But how they are all so, how can you describe them, absolutely beautiful?

PB: Yes, they are all physically beautiful girls, all three of them. You just stare at them and you’re like, “Wow, oh my goodness.”

But really, they are. If we go out as a family and we bring everybody, people will actually comment and mention like, “How did you get all these beautiful girls?” But really, it’s their hearts. None of them even realize they’re beautiful, I think.

They’re beautiful, beautiful. Every day my husband and I pinch ourselves and we say, “We’re so blessed. We’re just so blessed!”

Any way, we’re going to get on this subject mother! I know you want to talk about weddings!

NC: Yes but anyway, back to this subject. Actually, you know what we’re going to talk about? We’re going to talk about one of the nerves in our body. It’s actually the longest nerve in our body. Do you know what it is? Does anybody know what the longest nerve in your body is?

Okay, tell them, Pearlie!

PB: Okay, so it starts with “V.” Vagus. It’s your Vagus nerve. But actually, Mum, it’s more like a muscle than a nerve because the more you use it, the stronger it becomes.

The reason we want to talk about it today is because of what, when it activates, and when I say activates, who is doing the activating of it? You.

You can hack this Vagus nerve and you want to have it on. You want to turn your Vagus nerve on. You want what’s called “Higher Vagul Turn” in the scientific world.

I’m not a doctor or anything, I’m a researcher and I love this stuff but it’s really going to impact your life in huge ways as it has mine, understanding about this nerve in your body, which as Mum has said is the longest nerve.

Think of it as a big power line going from your brain to your gut. It’s constantly passing information between the two. When activated, and Mum I’ll swing it back to you because I can really talk.

NC: Yes but isn’t there another name for it? Isn’t it called the Wanderer nerve because it wanders all through your body to all of the parts? That’s why it’s so important.

PB: Yes. Now when it is activated, here’s why you want to activate it because it regulates all aspects of your body, including your heartbeat, your blood pressure, digestion, endocrine function. That’s all your hormones, your immune defense, even the health and length of your telmerones.

Do you know what those are, Mummy?

NC: No, say that word again.

PB: Telmerones.

NC: The what?

PB: Yes, it’s telmerones.

NC: Tell me how you spell it.

PB: Um, it’s T-E-L-M-E-R-O-N-E-S.

NC: That’s a new word for me so I’m going to find out!

PB: Well you’re going to love it, Mum, because these are the cells that determine how swiftly or slowly you age.

NC: Oh I like that!

PB: Because you’re almost eighty so you’ve got another fifty years of course! These are your long-life cells. These determine how long your body will live.

NC: Oh boy, I’m getting into this one.

PB: Okay! Also, inflammation is huge. When your Vagus nerve is activated it SHUTS DOWN ALL THE INFLAMMATION. It may not completely but it is the thing that pulls down inflammation in your body. Also chronic inflammation and organ damage, there is just a massive amount of studies on the Vagus nerve right now.

Science is doing a study that shows it even reverses organ damage in your body, which is unheard of because organs are hard to reverse when there’s damage to them.

NC: Well this is interesting because you must be really activating it.

Pearlie popped over yesterday, well that’s what we say— “Popped over.” She didn’t actually pop! But we always say, “I’m popping over to see you!” or, “Someone just popped over!”

But anyway, Pearlie popped over. Colin and I were going for a walk and we were walking away after talking to Pearl.

My husband said to me, “You know, Pearl just looks so much younger than she even did when she was young!”

PB: Oh I don’t know about that, Mum. But I’m about to turn fifty in February so I’ll take it.

Anyway, so let’s talk more about how do we activate this nerve? But another thing it does— it turns on the parasympathetic nervous system and you probably know what that is, right Mummy?

NC: No—that shows my ignorance!

PB: I’m asking you all these questions like you better know! This is crucial to every aspect of your life. It’s the system in your body that makes your whole body go, “Ahh.” It’s called rest and digest.

NC: I love that.

PB: Yes you do.

NC: I like that. I often do that.

PB: Yes, rest and digest rather than the “Gur” the other system in your body. It’s there for a reason but it’s either fight or flight. You know, something is happening, and you have to pull your children out of a fire or whatever.

So many people have that on constantly whereas your parasympathetic nervous system makes you digest your food and makes you relax. Your Vagus nerve turns that on, too, which is huge.

Dr. Jeffery Rediger in his ground-breaking book Cured has this to say about the Vagus nerve: “The more you use it the better you get at using it and the more health benefits you reap.”

So how do we activate this nerve?

NC: That’s the thing: How do we activate it so we can get these blessings?

PB: Well science has just recently discovered what this nerve does so right now they are in the quest to be like, “Whose going to be the first big doctor that comes out with the “Here’s how you activate your vagus nerve, take this pill.”

They’re trying to medicalize it and do all that. They’re also doing studies on electro stimulation where they use electricity and all sorts of things because studies have shown that it can help arthritis, colitis, epilepsy, congestive heart failure, chromes disease, headaches, depression, and the list goes on and on.

So there’s a race to find out what activates it.

But you don’t have to involve yourself in a clinical trial. You don’t have to do any of these things.

NC: No, we want to get down to tintacks here in the home.

PB: There are other much, actually really affective ways, of YOU turning your Vagus nerve on. I want to talk about the biggest one soon but there are some things that you can do before I’m going to talk about the biggest thing.

Just learn to SLOW YOUR BREATHING. If you’re realizing that you’re breathing fast, that turns your Vagus nerve off, so just slow it.

It’s actually your breath out. I didn’t realize that. You tend to think, “Breath in, I need to learn to relax.” It’s actually that breath out for five seconds, which actually turns it on much more affectively than the breath in.

Slow it and then concentrate on the breath out.

DISPELLING STRESSFUL THOUGHTS AND FOCUSING ON POSITIVE ONES can do it, too, which I’m going to focus on more.

There are different things, but I want to talk about the biggest one that they’ve discovered.

In his book, Dr. Jeffery says, “When you experience feelings of LOVE and connecting, that plays a song for your Vagus nerve.”

We’re not even talking about like falling in love with someone here, although that can help your Vagus nerve. But it’s the small moments of love that you cultivate throughout the day with your husband, with your children, maybe even a friend, maybe even someone you don’t know.

You’re out in the grocery store and you give a kind smile or a kind word. That stimulates your Vagus nerve.

You don’t have to go around saying, “Oh I love you!” to everybody.

That’s good, right, but it’s these micro moments they’ve discovered constantly throughout the day, making more of them than you usually do and focusing in on them. Actually thinking about, “Oh I love my child. Let me show that moment of love to my child.”

Your husband walks in the door, “Oh let me show him how much I love him right now. Let me express it.”

They’ve actually found that a LONG HUG OR A STRONG HUG, not a light hug, stimulates your Vagus nerve.

And so it stimulates yours and it stimulates your husband’s. It stimulates yours and it stimulates your child’s.

They even say a FIRM HANDSHAKE will do it with a stranger. It’s none of this light mamsy pamsy. You know how we always grew up and you taught my brothers especially and us, “Never shake like a little fish. Shake firmly.”

But there’s science to that!

NC: Isn’t it amazing because you know, have you shaken the hand of someone that’s all limp and they give you this limp handshake? You feel like vomiting, don’t you?

It just shows you a lot of things are just natural. We will naturally do what is right.

But I love that, Pearlie. I love it. You know, because I was just thinking as you were speaking, that you say science is revealing this, but do you know what? The Bible reveals it.

If you go back to Titus 2 in that passage where it tells the older women to teach the younger women, there are two things amongst the others. One is that wives are to love their husbands. But do you know what the word for “love your husband” is?

PB: No.

NC: There are different Greek words for love. There is eros, which is sexual love. Then there is agape, which is God’s love, which you know we love even when we don’t feel like loving.

But the word that is used for loving your husband is philandros and it’s from that philio word meaning: “Affectionate love.” So the Bible right there tells us, “Okay older mums, tell the young women they’ve got to be affectionate, showing it to their husbands.”

You don’t just think, “Oh I love my husband.” When I look at my husband, I look at him and I think, “Oh I just love this guy.” I can just look at him and I’m just in love. But that’s not enough. He most probably doesn’t see me staring at him in love. But I have to SHOW it.

When I show it (and I like it that it’s not just a little hug, it’s a strong hug). Wow, that’s cool. I’ll just get a bit stronger.

PB: Yes and you know that’s something that we develop. I didn’t know about the Vagus nerve back in the years when my husband and I developed this. But I thought, “I’m not going to walk past him in the house without hugging him” and we do.

NC: I love that, too. Now did you know? Have I ever told you this story?

Before we were married a dear old gentleman came up to my husband. He walked on two canes. This man told my husband, “I have never passed my wife in the house without stopping to give her a hug.” That was the advice that he passed on to us.

I have to confess, I haven’t done that every time I passed my husband. In fact, in the early days, you’re so busy with babies and life and overwhelmingness and I needed to be reminded.

This is good we are talking about these things. We are reminding you of what is meant to be normal and natural. I guess you come to understand things more as you go on. But you know, now that is the thing that we plan to do. You always miss every now and then, but you try not to miss so that when you see them, you’re going to connect.

PB: Yes, it becomes habit. Then when we walk past each other and we don’t hug, we turn around quickly and look at each other like, “What just happened?”

Then we’ll go back and hug.

But as you say, life happens. Sometimes there are busy days and you’re rushing around the bedroom to the laundry. Don’t feel down on yourself but do cultivate that because, like you said Mum, the Scriptures have always been there. Science just catches up.

I’m a researcher of science, for health specifically. The more I research science, the more the Bible just backs it up day after day after day after day.

NC: Yes because not only is the word, “Love your husbands” a very tangible affectionate feeling of touchy love but also, it’s the same with your children.

The word for “love your children” is also the basis of the philio word, which is affectionate, tangible, hands on love.

The Bible is amazing!

PB: Yes. And you know what children love the most, right? When they’re squished in the middle of a hug between you and your husband. I mean, that is like the best. So you can still keep it up if you are holding your child. Children just love it. They giggle.

It’s so good for their vagul tone.

We’ve got five minutes left, Mum, on this one.

NC: You need to come back next session! You’ve got to!

PB: We’re just scratching the surface.

NC: Okay yes, next session but carry on!

PB: All right. So essentially, we are created for love. God is love, right? Essentially love is your disease busting, anti-aging, total health miracle pill.

It already was biblically, but now it is scientifically. It is your disease busting, anti-aging, total health miracle pill.

NC: You’re allowed to say that again because this is amazing! This is life changing. This is going to change everything that happens in your home. If you get this, this is going to change the relationship you have with your husband. Wow, he’s going to be bombed out of his brain!

In fact, the minute he walks through the door, just look out! Then every time you pass him, he’s just going to get undone with you.

Then your children, you’re just going to overflow them. It’s just going to change your home and your life and everybody you meet when you go out!

So Pearl, say it again!

PB: Okay, LOVE IS YOUR DISEASE-BUSTING, ANTI-AGING, TOTAL HEALTH MIRACLE PILL! -

Now, I want to get to the end of my sentence, Mummy. It sounds like we’re selling snake oil or something, like it’s too good to be true, but it’s not according to discoveries and science. It’s spot on.

And once again it backs up the Scriptures.

But of course we need to get more skilled in this love practice—it’s a skill. We can’t just say, “Oh today I’m going to love, and all my ailments are going to go away.”

It’s a skill like a master. You begin like an apprentice and you work your way up. These things we practice, and we practice them until they’re perfect.

Just like we should eat wisely and move our bodies in order to prevent and heal illness, loving others more consciously and more often, and do the same thing.  In fact, it can even be more affective.

In his book Cured, Dr. Jeffery says that if you can rearrange your life (and that’s REARRANGE IT. We’re going to be undone here and we’re going to build it back up) to more frequently experience these higher states of love. This is what he says and he’s a doctor. You can inoculate yourself against chronic fight or flight response.

NC: Praise the Lord! We don’t even need vaccines!

PB: That’s what he says! As surely as you could get vaccinated against tuberculosis, it’s like your natural vaccination.

NC: Okay ladies! We just don’t need vaccines! We’ve just got it if we get this!

PB: Barbara Fredrickson, she’s a Ph.D., she studied the vagus nerve and how emotions impact our health for over two decades.

In an article titled “The Science of Love” she puts it this way and I don’t know if she’s a Christian or not but she’s just a secular scientist: “Just as your body was designed to extract oxygen from the earth’s atmosphere and nutrients from the foods you ingest, your body was designed to love.

“Love, like taking a deep breath or eating an orange when you’re depleted and thirsty not only feels great, but it also is life giving and indispensible source of energy. It’s sustenance and it’s health. In describing love like this, I’m not just taking poetic license but I’m drawing on science.

“New science that illuminates for the first time how love and the absence of love fundamentally alters the biochemicals in which your body is steeped. They in turn alter the very ways your DNA get’s expressed in your cells.”

NC: Amen, this is so good, but everything goes back to the Bible, doesn’t it?

Even just Proverbs 16:24: “Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.”

You know, even the words we speak, words that are positive, words that are loving words, affirming words, and uplifting words, sweet words— oh, they are all affecting your Vagus nerve, aren’t they?

Anyway, look I know Pearl has got so much to say!

PB: I know, we’re going to come back, but I want to do the cliffhanger. You know, we’ve probably said it’s probably a big Wow for me understanding this. It might be a big Wow for you realizing that “What? I can use love to stimulate my Vagus nerve?”

That was huge but then I got this download and we’re going to talk about it next session. Its mind blowing.

NC: We’ll keep it for our next session! You’ve got to come back for our next session next week because I know already you are hanging on.

Let’s just pray:

“Father, We thank You so much, Lord, for all that You show us. We thank You, Lord, that the very foundation of what we’re talking about is in Your Word and it’s who we are. It’s how You created us to be. Lord, if we are walking with You it’s really how we will naturally want to walk.

“Lord we pray that You would set us free from all of our bondages and hang-ups that hold us back and help us to learn to walk more freely in love, loving our husbands, loving our children, and having that spirit of love wherever we go. In the name of Jesus. Amen.”

 

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 119 - WE ARE GATEKEEPERS OF OUR HOMES, PART 3

We must be strong and courageous as we guard the gates of our homes. As mothers, we are both the Lion and the Lamb. And we need God with us!

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello ladies. We continue our series; We Are the Gatekeepers of Our Homes. And we are up to point number three today, and that is, we must be alert if we are going to guard our homes.

No. 3. GATEKEEPERS MUST BE ALERT

1 Chronicles 9:19 says that the gatekeepers were responsible for guarding the entering into the sanctuary. They guarded the door. A guard cannot go to sleep on duty. Actually, that reminds me of Phinehas. It tells us the story of Phineas in verse 20, the very next verse.

Phinehas had lived back from when this was written. Phinehas was the leader of the gatekeepers in the earlier times. At one time, the Israelites got tempted to go and worship Baal with the Midianites and the Lord's anger rose up against them. He commanded that the ringleaders of this to be executed.

Now as this judgment was being issued, one of the Israelite men brazenly brought a Midianite woman into his tent. But Phinehas was a gatekeeper. He was watching, and he noticed this happening. But he didn't only notice it. He took action. He immediately, the Bible says, jumped up, took a spear, rushed after the man into his tent, and thrust him through with the spear. He was an alert gatekeeper.

God really honored him for that. The Bible says that because Phinehas not only looked, but he took action. God said to him, “Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace, and it shall be to him and his descendants after him. The covenant of a perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God, and made atonement for the people of Israel.” That Scripture is back in Numbers 25:10-15.

So, gatekeepers, keep alert! Of course, you can't . . . you've got to go to sleep . . . you have to have your nightly sleep. But it's being alert in our spirit, isn't it? Because we watch, not only with our physical eyes, but our spiritual eyes.

No. 4. GATEKEEPERS MUST HAVE GOD WITH THEM

We must have God with us. In 1 Chronicles 9: 20, as I was talking about Phinehas, it says in that Scripture that “Phinehas, son of Eleazer, had been their leader, and the LORD was with him.”

That's a beautiful thing to have on your resume, ladies! God is with you. We certainly need Him with us, don't we? I mean, help. We can feel so helpless ourselves. We need God's anointing. We need His wisdom.

But as you pray each day, and as you bring your children before the Lord each day, and pray over them, God will show you things that you wouldn't even think about, if you weren't praying for them. He will give you wisdom about these things, too.

The wonderful thing is if you can pray with your husband for your children. Do you pray with your husband each day? That's one of the most powerful things that you can do in your marriage, you know.

The Bible says in Matthew 18:19, it says there: “That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father, which is in heaven.”

What a wonderful promise to take hold of! “If two of you,” now that's husband and wife. You can get together with another person, but I believe the most powerful unity is the husband and wife together, because that's the first unity that God ever put together, a husband and a wife. He put them together in such unity that the word back there in Genesis 2:24 means that they are glued together. Glued, glued, glued.

Did you know that you, as a married couple, are one? You are glued together as one. And God makes you one flesh. But also one spirit, one soul, to have one purpose and one vision. Also to have unity in prayer, so it is a powerful thing when a husband and wife pray together and pray for their children.

That's perhaps one of the most powerful things you can do as a gatekeeper. So you are praying for them. As you do, God will be with you and give you His wisdom, and His understanding, and His anointing.

I love Zechariah 4:6: “'Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit,' says the Lord of Hosts.” I am constantly praying that prayer because I realize I have no wisdom, no strength, of myself. I have nothing. It's only by His Spirit.

“Oh God, come by Your Holy Spirit! Come, by Your Spirit, because I have no might of my own.”

As we pray for His Spirit to come, He will be with us. Amen.

No. 5. GATEKEEPERS MUST BE STRONG AND COURAGEOUS

We must be very strong and courageous. Now the gatekeepers in the Temple, and back in the Tabernacle, they were not little wimps. Did you know that on their resume they had to have strength? Yes, they had to be strong men.

Now this is the description that the Bible gives in 1 Chronicles 26:6-9. It describes them as “mighty men, men of valor, strong men, able men, for strength.” Shall we look a little more closely at those words? Because, remember, I have shared with you so many times that, when we look up a word in the Hebrew or the Greek, then we get a whole another string of words to help us understand that one word.

So the words “mighty men, strong men,” is the Hebrew word gibbor. And it means “powerful, warrior, champion, strong man, valiant, even a giant.” Yes, so they had to be warriors. They had to be men of strength, of valor.

Now the Hebrew word here (1 Chronicles 26:6-9) is chayil. It means “the force of an army, valiant, strong, courageous.” It's usually used in the context of an army going out to battle. The interesting thing is, ladies, that this word, chayil, although it's used of “mighty men, strong men, valiant men” and we read this word a lot in 1 Chronicles Chapter 12, where it gives all the descriptions of David's mighty men.

But this word chayil, did you know that it's also used of women? Yes! In Proverbs 31:10, it says: “Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.” The word “virtuous” is chayil! It's interesting, isn't it, that the translators of the Bible, when they're talking about men, they use words such as “mighty,” “valiant,” and so on.

But when it comes to the woman, they, I don't think they felt so free to use those words, and so they used the word “virtuous.” But it is the exact Hebrew word, chayil. “Who can find a valiant, courageous, strong woman? For her price is far above rubies.”

Now it is true, the Bible tells that the woman, that she is physically weaker than the man. God has made the man, created the man to have more brute strength than a woman, although we can also be strong, and we can become stronger.

I believe that when we get married, and we have babies, and we're carrying babies around, and they get heavier and heavier and heavier . . . we do become stronger. Have you noticed that you are stronger since you've had babies than before? Yes! Your arms get strong.

You're kneading bread, and you're doing housework, and vacuuming floors, and scrubbing floors, and you get strong. Yes! A woman in the home is, can be strong physically, even if she's not as strong as her husband. She can still be strong physically.

But I believe we are meant to be strong inwardly, strong in the truth of God's Word. Women who know the truth, strong in our convictions, and strong in guarding our homes. Yes, we're not little wimps. We are women of strength. That's who we've got to be when we are guarding our homes, guarding the gates, guarding what's going on.

Oh my, sometimes, yes, you've got to face up your children with something. It's come into the home, and my, you know that before peace, you're going to have a big storm. Sometimes you don't want the storm, and you might just want to gloss over it.

But that's not being a gatekeeper. We cannot let anything unclean come into our homes without dealing with it. Even if we have to have the big war, we're going to have that first. I mean, war always comes before peace! To just let things just glide over, they only become worse.

So “valor” was the word, chayil.

 “Strong” men, the word chayil again.

“Able” men, the word chayil again. Three times we get that word for “strength.”

Here's another one: koach, meaning “to be firm, vigorous, powerful, and to have ability.” So you can see that these gatekeepers, they weren't little wimpy weak men. They were strong men, physically and spiritually.

I remember the story in 2 Chronicles 26:16-20. Or you can read the whole chapter. It's about Uzziah, King Uzziah.  He grew very mighty as a king. The Lord blessed him. He took over cities, and he grew in wealth and might.

The sad part about it is, when he became strong, he became very prideful. And he even went into the sanctuary, into the Temple, to burn incense. The Bible had strictly told the priests that no one was to ever burn incense at the altar, except the priests. They were given that job. The king, that was not what he was meant to do.

So when the high priest, Azariah, saw him going in, wow, he went up to him, and when the other priests around saw what was happening, they went in after him too! The Bible says that 81. . . can you imagine it? Because it was the high priest, and then 80 others, “fourscore priests,” all valiant priests it says, not little wimpy ones.

We often think of priests, “Oh priests, they're just, you know, burning incense, and lighting candles . . . “No! They, the priests, and the gatekeepers, all had to be strong. In fact, the priests who were doing all the sacrifices, they were killing beasts, and cutting up beasts . . . man, they were strong people.

So these men, gatekeepers and priests, who went into, who were at the Temple, they were strong men. They really had to be strong too, to protect the Temple. Did you know, ladies, that the Temple was filled with gold? And amazing treasures. They kept them in the Temple. Did you know that even the Holy of Holies, where God resided in His Shekinah glory was filled with gold. You see, there was the outer court, and then the Holy Place, and then the Holy of Holies. In that Holy of Holies, it was complete gold. Floor, roof, sides, and the Ark of the Covenant and the cherubim, everything was gold. The Living Bible says, bringing the measurements, well, the weight, up to our modern day, it says there were 23 tons of gold in that Holy Place!

Much of the rest of the Temple was covered in gold. The treasures were kept in the Temple. So they could have thieves trying to come in. These gatekeepers, they had to be watching carefully. Also, they had to be strong enough, and courageous enough, to attack any attacker. I mean, there could be more than one person coming to try and get in that door. They had to be able to push them back. They had to be able to bounce them out. Maybe we should even call them bouncers!

When we were Down Under, in fact we were born and raised in New Zealand, then, when we were raising our children, we moved to Australia. We moved to the Gold Coast of Australia. We pioneered a church there on the Gold Coast which is a very beautiful place. Sun, surf, and sand—Surfer's paradise. We lived right near the beach. Our church was right near the beach. It was a beautiful place.

But one of the very first converts to come into our church there was this big black guy. He was of island and aboriginal descent, but he was a big guy. We got to love this guy. In his early days, he'd been a bouncer before he was converted. When he was converted, he still didn't know how to do anything else, but bounce. And, wow! He knew how to bounce!

In other words, he would go to a nightclub where he was working each night, for he would always work at night. He was there to be the gatekeeper. Or they would call him “The Bouncer,” because if anyone tried to come in without paying, or who shouldn't come in, he would “bounce” them out!

Or, of course, there were often drunken fights, and all kinds of things going on in these nightclubs, and he could bounce out anyone who was playing up. And he was so tough! One bounce from him, and a person would go flying out that door!

The amazing thing is, he would come to Colin and me before he went to work. He would say, “OK, Friar and Mum, time to pray!” He would ask us to pray over him as he went out to bounce people out of the nightclub!

But we're still friends with this man today. He became a preacher of the Gospel and has continued to serve the Lord now for over 30 years or more. The last time we were back in Australia, he drove about 27 hours to come up and see us again. It was so wonderful to visit with him.

After he was converted, his name was Brian, he would call himself “Brian Israel Thunderbolt Booker.” Then he would say, “God love ya, God bless ya, Jesus love ya, and I love ya!” Then he would give us a big hug, and we'd feel as though all our ribs were cracking. But what a wonderful blessing he is.

So that's what a bouncer is. These gatekeepers, they had to be like bouncers, bouncing anything out of that, that would come near that Temple, to attack.

So we also, we have got to be bouncers in our homes, too. Bouncing out anything that is unclean, that is evil, that is going to spoil the holiness of our homes. Because ultimately, we talked about it last session, we are making a holy place for God on this earth. Isn't that amazing? Yes, so let's seek to keep our homes holy,

1 Peter 5:8-9 says: “Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom RESIST steadfast in the faith . . . ”

James 4:7 says, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. RESIST the devil, and he will flee from you.”

“Resist” is the opposite of “tolerating.” Dear mothers, we live in an age of tolerance. We live in a church of tolerance. So much is tolerated today that God calls an abomination.

TWO OPPOSITES

But we are to be strong and valiant and courageous enough to resist evil, and to bounce it out of our homes. We as mothers, dear ladies, we are really kind of quite unique because we have two opposite things working in us. That's not wrong, because we see two opposite things, even in Christ Himself.

Do you remember when John was looking into heaven in Revelation? We'll go to it, shall we? Revelation chapter five. And John said: “And I saw in the right hand of Him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the book and to loose the seals thereof?' And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon.”

And John says, “And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open  and to read the book, neither to look thereon. And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not:” Don't weep, John. “Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.”

But when he looked, did he see a Lion? No, he saw a Lamb. A Lamb that had been slain from the foundation of the world. So John saw in Christ both the Lion and the Lamb.

We too, mothers, we have within us two different things. Yet it is so great. We have this beautiful, soft, nurturing anointing that God gives us as mothers. We are nurturing in the image of God. We are showing what God-nurture is like.

But we also have this lion-like spirit, which will rise up to come against anyone who would come to attack our children. Or the enemy that would come to infiltrate our homes. And so we have both these virtues in us as mothers. They are part of every mother. We need both. So we embrace that beautiful gentle nurturing, but we also embrace that watchdog-like spirit.

We see that also when a mother is nursing her baby. God is so good! When a mother is nursing her baby, she has two hormones, oxytocin and prolactin, both beautiful hormones.

Oxytocin is that beautiful, calming, blissful, love hormone. It just makes you feel so calm and peaceful. Every time the milk lets down, that oxytocin is working. It causes mothers to just feel relaxed, and sometimes even sleepy. You'll often go to sleep while you're nursing your baby.

But you also have prolactin. Prolactin is a very motherly hormone too. That's why it's so wonderful. When we nurse a baby, God gives us all the hormones we need, to even make us more motherly. In fact, they  have found, with studies, that the more a mother nurses her baby, the more motherly she becomes. nod they have done studies in the wild, to find that an animal that is nursing its young, it will fight to death any other animal that comes near  her young one. Because of the prolactin, that strong protective hormone.

They have injected it into roosters. It will cause a rooster to become all clucky, and just hover over the little chicks, because it's a protecting hormone. We have that in us as mothers, to protect our baby. And as they get older, we still continue that protecting anointing. We have to be strong for that, don't we?

No. 6. GATEKEEPERS MUST BE WISE

All right. So we're up to number six. We must be wise. 1 Chronicles 26:14 talks about Zechariah the gatekeeper who was recorded as a wise counselor. He was a gatekeeper, but he had on his resume “a wise counselor.” We certainly need that too, don't we?

As we're watching over the gates of our homes, we need God's wisdom, His counsel. There's so much humanistic wisdom around. We have to find in the midst of lots of human wisdom, we've got to find God's wisdom.

We find that in His Word, of course. That’s why we need to keep in the Word of God, because it's that which keeps us, keeps us from deception, keeps us knowing what is the wise thing to do.

No. 7. GATEKEEPERS MUST GUARD ON ALL SIDES AND ALL NIGHT

We must guard on all sides and all through the night. 1 Chronicles 9:24 says the gatekeepers were on all four sides, east, west, north, and south. So you don't only guard a little part of your home. We must guard every part of our home, inside, outside, and on every side, watching every area.

Some of the gatekeepers spent all night around the House of God, to guard it. It had to be guarded day and night. Of course, we've got to get our sleep at night, but just as we check all our windows and lights before going to bed, so we always check the whereabouts of every member of our family to know where they are, what they're doing, what time they will be home.

As our children get older, often the great task of guarding can be even more needed. When our children are little, we're just physically guarding them, and watching them. As they get older, we're often more guarding their minds, and their souls, and their spirits.

I think I told you about that Scripture that I used when I was raising our children. 1 Thessalonians 5:23, where Paul prays: “I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” So we're praying for that end. We must guard, that was guarding on all sides.

No. 8. GATEKEEPERS MUST WATCH OVER WHAT COMES IN AND GOES OUT

All right, we must watch over what comes in, and what goes out. Ezekiel 44:14 tells us about those who were “keepers of the charge of the house for all the service thereof, and for all that shall be done therein.”

In 1 Chronicles 9:28, it says that there were certain gatekeepers who were in charge of the utensils that were used in worship. They would count them when they brought them in, and they would count them when they took them out. So we have to be guardians over even the things in our home. Isn't that amazing? The Bible is so practical, isn't it?

No. 9. GATEKEEPERS MUST WATCH OVER ALL THINGS

We must watch over all the things, even the furniture, utensils, pots and pans and bowls, and even all the food! Wow!

1 Chronicles 9:29 says there were other gatekeepers, who were put in charge of the furnishings, and all the utensils of the sanctuary, as well as the flour, and the wine, and the oil, and the incense, and the spices.

Did you know that everything in your home is significant? And God put everything that's in your home in your charge, to watch over it, because God loves to guard things. And He wants us to be a guardian over our things, even our furniture.

OK, maybe you've got some very posh furniture. Maybe like us, you just got it from Goodwill, or second-hand from someone. But whatever furniture we have, we do watch over it. We should guard the things that God gives to us.

Well, we don't kind of treat them as gods, goodness me. We let them be used. But we don't allow our children to disrespect them, because we're teaching children how to respect not only their own property, but other people's property.

So I never allowed our children to jump on their beds and jump on the sofas, using them as trampolines. No, get a trampoline for your children! Children love to jump! Of course they do! But get a trampoline, so they can get all their jumping done, out on that. Because if you jump on beds, and jump on sofas, it's going to ruin them.

And if you allow your children to do it, will they do it when they go to someone else's house? Well, I've had children do it in my home. Not my own children, but other people's children. So I've had to tell them, “No, we don't do that in our home.” So really, they should have learnt that in their own homes.

I don't allow our children to, well, when they were growing up, of course and even now, when the grandchildren come, I don't allow them to eat their food in the bedrooms and places like that. No, we eat at the breakfast table, at the dining table, in the kitchen. We keep food, as much as possible, to the kitchen, because it saves so much cleaning up. If you have little children taking food everywhere in the house, goodness me, the house becomes filled with crumbs and bits of stuff and dirt. Oh, goodness me, no! You will save yourself so much time by keeping it all to where you eat.

A home has certain places. You have bedrooms to sleep and relax. It has a kitchen and dining room to eat. So, we use the right rooms for the right things.

We watch over our food supplies. Yes, they had to even guard over that. They had to check when they were running out. They had to make sure they had enough. And so should we.

It's a good idea, you know, to even order a lot of your food in bulk, rather than running to the store every time you need something. That wastes gas, and every time you go, you see something else, and you buy more than you need.

I have found that the less that I go to the shop, well the less I buy! I think I've got enough stuff in this house without buying any more. Really, we usually have too much stuff, don't we? We have to even guard stuff we're bringing into our homes, that we don't fill them with stuff. So we just look after the stuff we do have.

But with food, it is good, often, to buy more in bulk, so you're not running out all the time, and not running out of stuff. Oh goodness me, I haven't got that. Can't make that, because I don't have this, and so on. We guard and watch over those things.

No. 10. GATEKEEPERS MUST BE ALTAR GUARDERS

All right, last point, quickly. Number 10. Oh yes, that's a big one. Oooooh. Number 10. We must be altar guardians. In Ezekiel 40:46, talking about Ezekiel's temple, it talks about the keepers, the gatekeepers who were in charge of the altar: “These are the sons of Zadok among the sons of Levi, who come near to the Lord to minister unto Him.”

We also, dear ladies, need to be guarders over the altar in our home. Now they were talking about a literal altar there that they had to attend to. They had the brazen altar where they did the sacrifices. They had the altar of incense where they lit the incense which speaks of the prayers of the saints.

Now we don't have a literal altar today, but it is important as family, to create an altar in our homes, a time, a place, where we gather together as a family. Around the table is a wonderful place to do that. But at a time, when, every day, morning and evening, we meet together.

We meet as a family to hear God speak to us, to call upon Him as we pray. So, it's like an altar, because the altars were where they met with God. God said: “There will I meet with you and speak with you face to face.” Yes, an altar is where we meet with God. It's so important that we establish this in our homes.

Then we have to guard over it, because . . . have you found, ladies, so many things will come up in our lives to stop us having that altar? Have you found that? Oh, life is just filled with interruptions and filled with things you've got to do. Things in our lives get so busy. Then we've got . . . help! We haven't even got time to have our altar!

Oh, no! The altar is the most important thing. We have to make them happen. When we meet, we gather our family. We do everything in our power to do this, to gather our families together every morning, every evening, to meet with the Lord.

We must guard over it. Unless you guard over it, it will fall by the wayside. You have to make it happen. You have to be a guardian over it, just like those gatekeepers. They had to be even keepers over the altar.

So, dear ladies, our time has gone.

“We thank You, Father, so much for all the wonderful things you show us in Your Word. We pray that You will help us to be strong and courageous and anointed wives, gatekeepers of our homes.

“I pray for every mother, that You will bless her in her home. Lord God, give her sharp spiritual eyes to see what is happening in the lives of her children. Lord, I pray that You will help them, even as husband and wife, to pray together over their children every day. And You will raise them up to be mighty gatekeepers of their homes. That they will establish on this earth, in the midst of a deceived and wicked generation, that they will establish holy homes for You on this earth. In the Name of Jesus, Amen”

 

Transcribed by Darlene Norris.