FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 66 - ADOPTING FROM CHINA

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello ladies. I have my sister, Kate, with me again today, so that is going to be exciting!

Before we move on, I am going to read you another poem. I have been doing this from time to time lately and because we have been talking about sheep this is called, “Twas a Sheep, not a Lamb.”

Twas a sheep not a lamb that went astray
In the parable Jesus told.
Twas a grown sheep that wandered away
From the ninety and nine in the fold.

And out on the hilltop, and out in the cold,
Twas a sheep the Good Shepherd sought.
Back to the fold and back to the flock,
Twas a sheep that the Good Shepherd brought.

Now, why should the sheep be so carefully fed
And cared for even to-day?
Because there is danger if they go wrong,
They will lead the lambs astray.

The lambs will follow the sheep, you know,
Where’er they wander–where’er they go.
If the sheep goes wrong, it will not be long
Till the lambs are as wrong as they.

So still with the sheep we must earnestly plead,
For the sake of the lambs to-day.
If the lambs are lost, what a terrible cost
The sheep will have to pay!

-C. C. Miller

Now Kate, there was another story you’ve told me about your sheep. I think it was in the barn one night. Can you remember that story? I love it!

Kate Marchiniak: Yes, definitely. One of the things I used to love to do was to go out to the barn and sometimes just sit in the barn with them. Especially if it had been a hot day, they would come up round about noontime and just sit out and chew their cuds.

It was just a peaceful scene. I used to love to sit in the midst of it and watch them and be with them. It was so peaceful.

But there was this one day they were sitting in a circle and I was on the outside of the circle sitting with them. As they were chewing their cud there was this one ewe, and she was not one of the ones I had raised, and all of a sudden, she stood up and looked at me and walked straight over to me. She put her head on my lap and snuggled into my lap.

I was amazed because ewes, or sheep at all, do not do that. That was so unusual, it was not the norm. I felt that was a lesson that God was showing me. It absolutely thrilled my heart.

It was a lesson of trust I believe, as I think about it now. That ewe came over and put its head into my lap. It was a lesson of intimacy and how the Lord loves us to come and put our heads on His lap as a sign of trusting Him and leaving it all to Him, resting in Him, just resting on His lap. That absolutely thrills a shepherd’s heart.

As I said before, that was not a normal thing for that ewe to do that. But it was, I believe, an illustration of how it thrills the heart of the Shepherd if we as His flock will come and put our heads on His lap and rest in Him.

NC: That’s so beautiful, Kate. I can remember the first time we came to visit you when you were living up in the Caribou of British Columbia and up in your great big log house. The logs were so huge. It wasn’t a normal log house.

In fact I remember arriving there. It was a snowstorm and there was no way of getting up to your house up on the hill. I remember Barry coming down with the tractor, putting our car and trailer on the tractor and hauling us up.

From that time we were just about too scared to go out because it was too scary to go down your driveway or even get up it again.

It was Christmastime. We stayed home and I made homemade bread and soup every day and we just enjoyed the big fire going with the snow all around. You would be coming in with little lambs that had been born and we’d be cuddling them on the sofas. It was just such an amazing time.

 I remember that Christmas, we were all so poor at the time and nobody could afford presents, so we all wrote poems to each other and read them out. I still have those poems today; they were so amazing!

But anyway, ladies, we are going to talk about another different subject today. Kate, sadly, my dear sister Kate, she was never ever able to have children of her own. That was a huge loss because Kate is the most motherly person, as you can tell as you have been listening to her talk about her sheep and her lambs. They were like her little children and her little babies.

In fact, when Kate would come to my place, my dogs, I’ve had dogs from time to time, but they were all Kate’s little children. She was so motherly to every animal she could ever see.

But she always had this longing that she would adopt a baby from China. I think God put that in your heart, didn’t He?

KM: I’m sure.

NC: She longed and longed, but the years went by. It costs money to get a baby from China and she had no money. When they were living in Canada there was never any extra money to adopt this baby.

Eventually she came down to the States and you were 49 years of age and I remembered hearing that if you wanted to adopt a child from China, 50 years of age was the cut-off age.

I said, “Kate, you’ve got to do it!”

She said, “I can’t, we haven’t got a cent to our name.”

I said, “Just start!”

So you took a step of faith and started. Tell us how God was with you as you took that step of faith to start even with no money in your purse.

KM: Well I should say I have this box at home, a big box, and it has all the documents in, every document we had to fill out, to get a child from China.

I was thinking, “Oh my goodness!” It was such a process. Of course home studies were included, that was fine, but just paper after paper after paper that you had to fill out.

The process takes a long time. It was about a year and a half of filling out papers. It never seemed to stop. We always seemed to have another paper to fill out.

But as we went along and did the whole process, money came in. I forget where it even came from, whether it was from church or people!

NC: I think when it got to the biggest sum the church took a love offering. They were really a part of it.

KM: Yes, they were really a part of it. My friend, Susan, who came with us to China with us, she really paid a lump sum too. She’s become Promise’s godmother.

NC: It’s actually interesting, this friend of Kate’s, Susan, I should really tell you who she is, especially seeing she is Promise’s godmother.

Susan is the daughter of the great grandson of President Tyler (10th president of the United States)and he is still alive today. Can you believe that? That is unbelievable.

KM: And she is taking care of him full time.

NC: Yes, he’s now in his last days, the most wonderful, wonderful, godly gentleman.

President Tyler’s first wife died and then he married again. Lionel, Susan’s father, was at the end of the second marriage and that is how he can somehow still be alive today. It’s amazing.

KM: It’s really quite amazing.

I just noticed something in my little book here that I had filled out in terms of receiving help towards the adoption.

I put here, “After two showers, with approximately one hundred friends, they loaded us beyond measure with three carloads of clothes for Promise. Now I am sitting in the Chicago airport with Terre, Susan, and I, waiting for the next flight to Beijing.

Susan is traveling with us and she is a gift from the Lord, such a blessing. She has helped us immensely already. Terre has looked at the boarding pass every ten minutes.”

NC: But anyway, God was so good, and Kate just got in by the skin of her teeth according to her age and was able miraculously to adopt.

Some of you may be thinking about adoption and you think it is impossible. But if God is in it, nothing is impossible.

Kate and Terre had nothing and yet they ended up with Promise because God was good, and God provided, and He chose.

Kate prayed for years for this child. And this beautiful child was actually just abandoned, left in a cardboard box at a government agency. She just came out of a cardboard box. You didn’t get her till she was about two, wasn’t it?

KM: Two, yes. She was at a children’s welfare institute in Yu Yang until she was two.

NC: Tell us what it was like when you first saw her.

KM: Wow so anyhow we were taken to the hotel and Promise had come 13 hours on train with her caretakers from Yu Lin City. Her name was “Dang Yu” which means “the communist party” so we soon had to change it.

NC: Goodness, that is what it meant? The communist party?

KM: Yes. So she had come 13 hours that day and there was a whole group of us. Terre and I came down into this foyer.

Quite a few of the other mothers had gotten their babies who were younger, and they were holding them.

We were one of the last ones and here was little “Dang Yu,” or should I say, Promise Lili, which means “very pretty.” I gave her Lili as her second name.

As soon as I saw her, immediately I knew it was Promise. The director of the orphanage started to talk to Promise. He was quite gruff to her in telling her that she was to come to us.

Instead, she had never seen a foreigner in her life. She had never seen a redhead! So, two years old, she clung to this trolley and she screamed the house down and she wouldn’t stop screaming. She was holding a bag of chips and clinging to the trolley.

I thought. “What have we done?”

Eventually she became exhausted and I went over and picked her up. I took her and showed her the fish in the fish tanks. Then we took her up to our room and she peed all over me.

By that time she was so exhausted she kept gasping for breath and couldn’t stop. We bathed her and by this time she was totally exhausted. We put her in the cot in the hotel room. She was so exhausted she just fell asleep.

I don’t think I got any sleep that night because of what she had gone through. I kept thinking, “What have we done? Will it work?”

But the next morning I got up and she stared at me. I picked her up and I dressed her in this little outfit, a little hat and a little bag. She just thought this was wonderful. She held my hand and never let go.

In fact, the whole time I was there she would not leave me. She clung to me and would not let me go.

NC: You would have loved that.

KM: Yes. It was tiring, but she would not let me go.

That was wonderful because some stories are not like that. Some are that they do not have that intimacy and they have an attachment problem. But Promise was the opposite.

At first, of course, it was pretty terrible, but the next day she just clung to me and wouldn’t let go. She wouldn’t go to Terre until we got home. I was the one that she was attaching herself to and forming that intimacy, which was good, and which was right as her mother.

When we got home it was the same, she would not leave my side. She eventually came around to Terre and of course began to go to him.

It was a dream come true because I had waited so long. As she got a bit older, of course I homeschooled her. For a bit, I put her in Chinese lessons for two years. She never learned a thing because she wasn’t interested. All she was interested in was the American way of life and the appearance that she had.

NC: It’s been a most beautiful thing to behold.

KM: But can I say this, Nancy? One thing that I often think of, and I have actually wept over, is that because of the one child policy there has been a lot of suffering. That includes Promise’s biological mother.

I can’t even begin to know, I think I am going to begin to cry now, what she has gone through to give her child and leave her child outside a government agency in a cardboard box and to have to leave her there.

As a mother, I do not know the pain she must have gone through and must now even wonder where and how her daughter is doing.

One day I was sitting on the bed. I had a lot of papers on the bed and was trying to sort out stuff and I couldn’t find it. It was a story on how Promise was found.

Promise happened to pick it up and started reading it. She couldn’t read the rest. She had to put it down because it was too much for her to read and too much for her to take in.

She has never asked me since about her own mother. They cannot find her. They tried to find her but could not and most probably never will. But I know in the heart of God He knows where that mother is and I’m sure He grieved, and He has grieved over the mothers who have had to give up their babies.

NC: Yes, but God answered your prayer. Actually, I’m being very negative now, but in many ways, Kate, you were a bit of a cot-case before you had Promise.

KM: I beg your pardon?

NC: Because you were desperate for motherhood. I mean, you were born for it.

KM: I was functioning.

NC: Oh, I know, you were in so many areas, but in this area, there was that lack and that longing, and it affected your whole life and then when Promise came you blossomed.

I mean, you always had your amazing gifts and your outgoing personality, but there was this thing, and when Promise came you just blossomed. I mean, you were born for it.

We are born for motherhood, aren’t we? We’re just born for that pouring out of your life and that’s what Kate did. She was the most beautiful mother to Promise.

KM: Not perfect!

NC: Well, no mothers are perfect.

But you were just an amazing mother to watch over the years. Promise will be 17 this month and she has just grown into the most beautiful, beautiful girl.

KM: But now she tells me every time we go out in the car, she criticizes my driving.

NC: Well, that’s typical of that age.

But to watch the years go by and see their beautiful relationship and their closeness.

In fact, what you said, she held your hand and never let go, but how many years did she suck your arm?

KM: Yes, that’s right, she used to do that! She always wanted what she called “armie.” She sucked the inner part of my upper arm. That was her comfort.

NC: Because sucking is a comfort, she just needed that.

KM: She needed that, yes.

NC: That went on for years, didn’t it?

KM: Yes. And of course if that would be a biological parent, it would be the mother’s breast, but for me it was the inside of my arm.

NC: Yes, yes, so beautiful. Now to just see her growing up in the ways of God, it’s been such a beautiful thing.

KM: But there is still a lot of praying to do over her.

NC: Yes, that’s for every child, isn’t’ it?

KM: But I also want to say, if any of you are considering adopting, go ahead because it is fulfilling. I just want to encourage you now if some of you are hesitating and have had it on your heart. I think it’s God that puts it on your heart, so go ahead with it.

NC: Yes, and we know that there are many who are adopted that often do have attachment disorders. That’s really a great miracle that Promise never really had that.

KM: Yes, it was just that first moment.

NC: Yes, but that was only a day. It’s as though she was born from your womb.

KM: Oh yes.

NC: It’s so beautiful. I think maybe one of the reasons for that is you not only prayed, but you interceded for years and years and years.

You had shared with our mum your vision for this baby from China and I can remember for years mum praying for this baby.

KM: I think mum’s prayers play a huge part in Promise’s life and her destiny.

NC: And the way she has been so attached to you. I don’t think I have ever seen an adoption where the mother and child have been so absolutely and emotionally attached.

I think you’re right too—prayer is powerful.

Also the prayers of those who are now passed. That reminds me, Kate, how just this last weekend our dear Aunty Mavis passed away.  She was 97 years of age and she was the last one of our parent’s generation. There are none left.

Our father came from a family of five boys and they all married and raised their children. They all prayed for the coming generations.

Our mum and dad prayed for us—they prayed for their children.

I know Aunty Mavis, she is the last living one, she prayed for her children and grandchildren.

But thinking about that, it’s a huge responsibility. When Aunty Mavis passed away a week ago, I felt that it was an incredible changing of the guards, a passing of the baton.

Although, for both you and I, prayer is a huge thing in our lives, and we already pray for our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and the coming generations but I just bring it to you as a challenge to you today.

When grandparents or parents pass on, you are now the one who is left. If you don’t pray for your children, there’s no one else to pray. If you’re not praying, can you expect anyone else getting down on their knees crying out to God for your children?

No, it’s you! You love them more than anyone else. You have a heart for them more than anyone else. God gives to you that privilege and power to pray for them.

So we are now the generation praying for the next generation. But when we pass on, it will be the next generation. And may every generation keep on praying.

That makes me think of another thing about you, Kate. There are lots of things we haven’t talked about, but one of them is that Kate is a praying woman.

In fact, not only does she spend hours with the Lord personally and has always been an intercessor, but God gave her a vision ten years ago. He gave her a vision to pray in the Franklin Square of Franklin, Tennessee.

Now Franklin is really the next town down from Nashville. It’s a beautiful town, known as one of the best towns in the whole USA.

KM: It’s a historic town.

NC: There was a revival there that once happened there from E. M. Bounds who wrote “The Power of Prayer.” Kate felt that it was time to intercede again for Franklin and so every Friday at lunchtime from 12:30 -1:00 pm, she goes down to that Square and anyone else who will come with her.

How many do you have coming with you?

KM: There are only a few, about four of us at a time now. But that’s okay it doesn’t matter.

NC: I think that revival usually comes through the little group, the remnant that are praying.

I’ve read about the New Hebrides revival and how that came through two women who were praying.

KM: I will say that there’s one lady who comes called Star and she’s in her eighties now and she keeps coming. She walks slowly down there, and she’s been coming faithfully, even in the heat. I’m amazed. She’s such an encouragement.

I had lost count that it was ten years, but how I found out that it had been ten years, a friend of mine, Laura Beth, came to the Square and she never comes. But this day she came.

She walked onto the Square with her little boy and she said, “Kate, this is the 10^th year anniversary of you being here.”

I said, “It is?” because I had never kept track. But I felt like it was God Who had kept track and it was like He had said, “Happy anniversary” for being there.

NC: Yes, and so you will be there until revival hits Franklin!

KM: Yes, I’ll just be there until I can’t be there!

NC: I remember one day you calling me and you said, “There’s nobody here. I’m the only one. God is convicting me to get down on my knees.”

You usually just pray standing up, don’t you? So I said, “Well do it!” so you did it, didn’t you?

KM: Yes, I must say it was a quick kneel, but I did it because you are exposed there.

NC: Yes, it’s right in the center of the Square, cars roaring all around you.

KM: It’s very much exposed. But I did kneel, and I have knelt several times there. I haven’t knelt there for a long, long, long, long time there.

NC: Maybe it’s time to do it again, Kate.

KM: Well, I don’t know.

NC: I believe that all of us in this hour should be praying for revival. I believe we are in great need of a revival in this nation.

KM: Oh yes, and talking about revival, this past Friday when we were out there, Star said, “I have something to tell you.”

She goes to a non denominational church and she said that one of the pastors shared that his daughter, and this is not like his daughter to say this at all, but his daughter out of the blue said to him, “Dad, God just told me that revival is coming for the youth.”

NC:  How wonderful!

KM: I thought, “Wow! How encouraging.” Because of course, for Promise I’m looking for revival for her and all her friends. So this was so exciting to hear for me.

NC: That really encourages me too.

KM: And it was not like his daughter to say any of that.

NC: One of the greatest burdens I have is for the youth of this nation. Especially the youth in our colleges today who are being totally brainwashed and just completely propagandized by socialism and humanism and feminism.

KM: And transgenderism. Do you know this? I just found out that they are paying huge money to take off the breasts of young women who want to be boys.

NC: That is beyond it. We are living in a scary age, worse than Sodom and Gomorrah. We are living in an age and a land of child sacrifice.

We look back and we read the Bible of how God came in judgment when they sacrificed their children to Molech.

But here millions of babies have been sacrificed just to convenience and it’s just taken as normal. I believe we should be crying out to God.

Let’s be praying. Are you praying every day with your family, morning and evening? Gather some people in your home and have a prayer meeting,

We have a prayer meeting here every Wednesday night. We have been doing that in this home since about just after the 2000 mark. We just keep praying and crying out for revival and will not stop until we see it.

How I cry out, please pray with us too, that God will raise up young men and women who will be truth speakers who will come and speak the truth to our young people who are totally deceived today.

They are deceived. I just saw on the news, one of these Democratic guys whose hoping to be president, they call him Bozo or something. But any way he’s up there saying he believes in abortion right up until the day the baby is born. Then you see all these young people around him cheering and clapping their hands.

Dear ladies, can you believe we live in a land where the young people in our land would cheer about a baby being murdered?

Oh we have to cry out to God. Let’s cry for revival. Let’s not just carry on our normal days without just doing something like praying together as a family or getting involved in a prayer meeting.

If you don’t know where to get involved in one, just have one in your home and invite a few friends and pray and cry out for revival. Let’s pray for the revival among the youth.

Yes, God is doing great things among many of our youth, but the majority out there in that secular world are totally deceived and they’re the ones who are getting at the age or they’re at the age now when they can vote. They have the vote. They can vote in socialism. They can vote in Islam.

And now it has just happened that there are four Islamic Democrats who have put forth a bill to embrace Islam as this great religion in our nation.

I mean, are we standing up against these things? Are we praying against them? If we don’t, they are just going to completely encroach upon us.

So let’s, dear mothers, be mothers of prayer, couples of prayer, families of prayer and people of prayer crying out for revival.

“Dear Father, We pray that You will save us from carrying on in our lives, acting so normally as though nothing is happening and everything is great when, Lord God, we have the youth of our nation being indoctrinated in socialism, lies, and deception and as Kate said, transgenderism. This is beyond it.

“Oh God, they are being completely duped. Lord God, save us.

“We pray You would bring revival. Bring the mighty move of Your Holy Spirit. Raise up, Lord, people anointed of the Holy Ghost who will speak Your truth in these places.

“God, we are crying out for revival, crying out for our young people. Lord God, oh God, they’re mutilating their bodies because of deception. We cry out to You, Father, for how much longer can this go on?

“We ask that You will raise up prayer warriors all over this nation. We cry out to You to bring this mighty move of Your Spirit in the name of Jesus. Amen.”

 

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Episode 65: The Heart of a Shepherdess

Rocky: Welcome to the podcast, FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy: Hello ladies. We are doing podcast 65 today. The last two podcasts, 63 and 64, I talked about sheep and goats; in fact, I talked about changing our vocabulary. So many of us call our children “kids,” but I challenged that word. I wonder if you have been able to stop the habit. Anybody? I wonder. I hope you've been trying because I do believe there  is power in the words that we speak. In fact, what do the sheep say, ladies? The sheep say, “A-a-a-a-a-m e-e-e-e n!”

Kate: “Baaaa.”

Nancy: Oh, you heard another sheep. I've got my sister with me today, Kate. Hi Kate. Welcome to our podcast. Say hi to everybody.

Kate: Hello everybody, wonderful to be here.

Nancy: Yes, this is my sister. Kate and I come from rather a small family, only three of us. I often say I was deprived. I was deprived of brothers and sisters, and I think my grandchildren were deprived of more cousins that they could have had.

Actually, I think in our culture today, we are used to smaller families, the two child families or even the three, and we think it's the normal, but actually, it is the abnormal. Isn't it amazing how we can get use to things that we think are normal? It's like us being sheep. I was talking to you about that in Podcast 63, of how sheep tend to go along with everything else around them because they are a flock. Sheep were created to be in a flock, so they do whatever other sheep are doing. We have to watch that and make sure, although we are sheep, God calls us His sheep, we can't get into the negatives of sheep.

One of the good things, of course, is that the sheep are always, mostly always, submissive to the shepherd, and that's why they say, “A-a-a-a-a-m e-e-e-e n!”

What do the goats do? They butt. If you've ever had a goat or looked after goats, you'll know how they love to butt heads. That's the goat mentality. Jesus says something, but their answer is not, “Yes Lord.” It's “But . . . but what about this? But . . .  that doesn't work in with my circumstances. But . . .  that doesn't really go along with what I want to do. But . . .  that's the opposite of what everybody else is doing.” Everything is but. That is the goat mentality.

We have to be careful. Who are we? The sheep or the goat? We are all still growing up together, but in the end times, the Bible says, He will separate the sheep from the goats. Let's seek to have that beautiful sheep mentality.

 Kate, it's great that you are here today because my sister Kate was actually a shepherdess, way up in the Caribou of Canada. In fact, that's one of the reasons we were so deprived. Not only growing up, we didn't have enough brother and sisters, but as we grew up, we all kind of disappeared from one another, didn't we? Our brother went off on the Anastasis with his wife and his family; that's with Youth with a Mission. He was involved doing the plumbing on the first ship, the Anastasis. They were away for so many years, and Kate went off and immigrated to Canada, and we went to the Philippine Islands. We were doing missionary work there. We were all over the world, and we hardly saw one another.

Kate: Not to mention our poor mum, who must have missed us terribly.

Nancy: Yes, she was deprived. Anyway, Kate is now living here in the States, which is so exciting, but our brother is still back in New Zealand. We don't see very much of him, and he's actually going through the same thing because his children are all over the world, and we get to enjoy them here. You listened to Melissa recently. Melissa is my brother's daughter, and she lives here. Anyway, Kate, when you went to Canada, you ended up in the Caribou with a flock of sheep. Tell us about it.

Kate: Where do you want me to start?

Nancy: I have no idea.

Kate: Ok, first of all, I should say that you have forgotten that we came from a country of sheep.

Nancy: Yes, that's true,

Kate: The sheep population outnumbered the human population. It was 60 million sheep I think to three million people, so we were raised very aware of sheep because my dad was in the sheep industry too. I was aware of sheep, I saw sheep, I knew sheep, but I had never worked with sheep, so when I went up to the Caribou, I had my own flock of sheep, and this was the first time I worked hands on with sheep which was a tremendous experience.

What I found was that, as I grew to work with them and get to know them, they pulled at my heartstrings. They really didn't have to do anything but be sheep, but they began to pull. Being a shepherdess, they began to pull at my heartstrings. Without my really being aware that they were doing that, they did that. Of course, the ewes that I had, began to have children, and these children became my babies. Some of them, because of one thing or another, some of them would be orphans because some mothers would reject their children, their babies, or the mother died in lamb birth, so I ended up with about twelve, a dozen, orphan lambs, and I named them all.

They began to know my voice because, of course, I was the one who fed them every day. I was the one who looked after them, and they began to know my voice, and I began to know them. I began to know their bleats. Sheep have different bleats, believe it or not.

Nancy: Isn't that amazing that you could tell the different bleats of your sheep. A shepherd often in the Middle East, in Biblical times, many times, a number of shepherds would get into one fold in the night, and they would all be there, but in the morning as they would go out, each shepherd could call his sheep, and the flocks would separate to the shepherd because the sheep knew the voice of their shepherd, but also, the shepherd knew the bleats of their sheep. Isn't that beautiful?

Kate: Oh yes. I mean, I didn't know all of them, but there were definitely the ones that I distinguished from the rest of the flock because I knew them so intimately. Every day, I would, of course, go in and feed them and every day I would take them down to pasture, and I'd call my lambs, and we would all run down the hill to this pasture, and I would sit in this pasture with them.

There was one ewe, one lamb, which became my ewe. She stands out from the flock because I got to know her so well. She was a bit different from the other sheep. She even smelled differently. She had a different smell. She was sort of fawny and had a little brown patch here and there, but I loved her, and I called her Mushrooms, and I called her Mushies for short.

Mushies was very much my ewe. When I stood in the middle of the field or sat in the middle of the field where they grazed, she was the one who always came and stood right beside me and actually leaned into me. If I moved, she would have fallen over because she leaned so hard into me. Actually, that delighted my heart as a shepherdess, that she so trusted me that she would lean right into me.

That is a lesson there because as we lean into our Shepherd, God, that delights His heart because it means we are beginning to trust Him more as we lean into Him. That's a lesson for me, to learn to lean into the Shepherd.

Anyhow, there was one day, as Mushies grew older and all the other lambs were growing too, and they began to have their own children. Of course, they were wonderful mothers. As sheep, a good mother sheep is very attentive to her young. They are there for them all the time, and they know the bleat of their children, and the lamb walks very closely to the mother. The mother sheep is always aware of where her lambs are.

Nancy: When you're out there walking amongst the sheep, I often noticed this back in New Zealand, you see the little lambs, they are always close by them.

Kate: Yes, very close.

Nancy: They stay close to the mother, and the mother stays close to them, and she won't go farther than earshot from them. That's the difference between the goats, who will leave their little kids and go off foraging. Not the sheep and the lambs.

Kate: One day, I heard a lot of bleating. The whole flock was bleating like crazy. A predator had come into the flock. As I looked down into the flock that was grazing down the hill, something was going on. As I looked, I saw this predator had picked up a lamb and was racing off. It was too late, but I picked up the nearest piece of wood or pole that I could find and ran screaming down the hill after this predator, .But it was too late, He got the lamb.

Nancy: What was it? A cougar?

Kate: No, it was a coyote. It was too late but that just broke my heart for the mother. They cry, they bleat, over their young.

Nancy: That was Mushies?

Kate: No, that was not Mushies. I had gone into town one day, and I came back to hear Mushies crying her heart out, bleating. She would not stop. Oh, by the way, I should go back a little bit. All the ewes, all my little lambs had grown and were having their own babies, and I was so pleased with them. They were great mothers. Mushies was the only one that never had a baby for about two years.

I thought, I don't know why she didn't conceive. Anyhow, it came to the time, it was about two years later than all the others that she conceived, and she had the most beautiful lamb of the flock. She was utterly the prettiest, most beautiful, and Mushies strutted around, so proud of this baby. In fact, when she had her, I couldn't find her for a day or two which was also worrying. She'd gone off and had it by herself and had hidden.

She came back with this beautiful baby, and I was so proud of her, and this lamb was beautiful. All was good. Anyhow, I went down to the town one morning to grocery shop, and I came back, and I heard the most terrible bleating and sorrowful bleating that I had ever heard, and it was Mushies.

I went into the paddock, and there she was crying and crying and crying, and I noticed that her little baby lamb was not with her, and I knew in my heart what had happened. She was crying. She walked right up to me, and she stamped her foot and cried and bleated and cried and stamped her foot and wouldn't stop. She was almost saying to me, “Where is my baby? What have you done with my baby?”

I began to talk with her. I knew what had happened, and I began to try to console her. I knew a predator had come and taken her, the baby. My heart was grieved for Mushies who had waited so long to have this baby lamb, and she would not stop crying. I was grieved. She was suffering as a mom. She cried continually for a long, long time.

Nancy: Amazing, isn't it, how alike they are to humans?

Kate: I know. Exactly, they are very much. I think Mushies was almost human. Time went on, but Mushies was never the same. She developed a constriction on her throat and every time she would eat hay, her throat would constrict. It got so bad that one day... I think a vet looked at her, but he couldn't see anything wrong, but every time she ate, she would constrict.

One morning, it was a beautiful, fresh morning, and I had gone off and come back, and I had her in a pen by then. This was about a year after I think. I knew that something was going to happen and sure enough, I came back and there was Mushies, and she was choking, and I couldn't do a thing. She eventually choked to death. My heart went out to her because she was my favorite ewe, and she had lost her young and never conceived again after that. My Mushies died. My heart was grieved over that because I loved her as a shepherdess, and I knew she had suffered losing her little one, and she had also suffered physically.

Nancy: Yes, that's a beautiful story, Kate, of your heart as a shepherdess. I believe that we, as mothers, are the shepherdesses of our flock and shepherding is so close to the heart of God. He is our Shepherd, that's who He is, and He wants us to be shepherds of our little flocks, and He wants us to shepherd them like He shepherds.

Did you know that shepherding and everything about sheep is in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation? All the great things of the Bible start in Genesis and end in Revelation. The first reference to shepherding in the Bible is in Genesis chapter four, right at the beginning when Adam and Eve first began their family. It says: “And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain and said I have gotten a man from the Lord.” Eve knew where her baby came from. He came from the Lord. It's God who gives babies. Every little baby you have, and God gives you, is from the Lord. Isn't that amazing? “She again bore his brother Abel, and Abel was a keeper of sheep.”

Kate: Was he? I didn't know that.

Nancy: Yes, a keeper of sheep. There it is. Right at the very beginning. Actually, that wasn't the very first profession that is mentioned in the Bible. Do you know what the first one is?

The first one is a gardener. The very first profession that is spoke about in the Bible is the gardener. Who was the first gardener? God Himself. That's amazing, isn't it? We read right at the very beginning, Genesis 2:8: “And the Lord God planted a garden.”

Don't you love that? Who planted the garden? God. God put His hands into the soil which He created and planted the garden. God loves the soil; He loves to plant. He is a Gardener. The first home was the Garden of Eden, and He puts a man into the garden, and He said, “Now, I want you to look after this garden. I want you to dress it and work it and plant it and weed it and harvest it, and I want you to guard it.”

That was the very first profession that God gave, and the second one that we read about is shepherding, the keeping of sheep. Then we go right over to Revelation. Now, we are in the eternal realm. John 7:17 is talking about the eternal realm where one day we will be with Christ. It says: “And the lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them.” Now, that word feed is the word that is used for tending sheep because feeding is very much part of shepherding. One of the biggest things that a shepherd does is lead his sheep to feed. Is that what you had to do, Kate?

Kate: Yes, to fresh pasture.

Nancy: Yes, the shepherd, that's what he does. He makes sure that the sheep are feeding on food, green grass, good pasture, and he leads them to it. Darling ladies, as shepherds of your flock, you lead your children to pasture. That's what shepherding is. That's what God does. He does it now, and He's going to continue to do it in the eternal realm. It says: “The lamb who is in the midst of the throne shall feed them and shall lead them unto living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”

He continues to shepherd us, even in eternity. He will never stop shepherding. Isn't that glorious? That's so beautiful. Dear ladies, remember, keep shepherding and keep leading your precious flock to good pasture. We have to be responsible to do this. It's a sad thing I see happening in families today, where both fathers and mothers are getting busier and busier and are involved in this and involved in that and because they are busy, they leave their children to entertain themselves.

When you leave your children to entertain themselves, you are letting them find their own pasture, and that's what the goats do.

That's another difference between the goats and the sheep. The shepherd leads his sheep to pasture, and they follow him. The goats, oh goodness me, you can't lead them to pasture. They go and eat what they want. They eat what they want, and they can eat anything but not the sheep. We've got to lead them.

I think perhaps this is one of the most challenging times of parenthood. So many of our precious children, even young children, even little wee children, and teens, are spending too much time on their electronic devices. They are not always feeding on good pasture. They are just finding their own stuff. No, the responsibility of shepherds and shepherdesses is to lead our children to good pasture. We are to lead them to where they are to feed.

We've got to feed them, body, soul and spirit. We've got to feed them good food. That's another thing. When mothers are too busy, they let them grab some fast food, grab some junk, children get to start living on junk. Whereas, we are responsible to lead them and provide for them the good food, wholesome, good for their bodies, but also their minds, and their souls, and their spirits, always leading them, always directing them to good food because that's one of the biggest things about shepherding.

Now, when you were shepherding, Kate, what were the biggest things that you had to do as a shepherdess? The most important. What took most of your time as a shepherdess for your little sheep?

Kate: Making sure they are safe for one thing, and also making sure they have green pasture. For me, it was definitely a priority for me that they were safe.

Nancy: How did you keep them safe? Because you were in Canada, up in the Caribou where you had predators.

Kate: I couldn't always be there, watching them 24/7.

Nancy: You had a dog, didn't you?

Kate: Yes, we had a dog, but I can’t remember his name. He was a big dog, and he was supposed to watch the sheep, but he was more of a hindrance than a help. We had to have him on the line in the end because he would take off and do his own thing.

Nancy: He was a naughty dog.

Kate: Yes, he was a naughty dog.

Nancy: Actually, this is why we have so many sheep in New Zealand. Did you know, ladies, that in New Zealand, the country we come from down in the bottom of the world, there are no predators. Isn't that amazing? We have no predators. We don't even have a snake in the whole country. That was a new thing for you, going to Canada, wasn't it, having to face the predators of your sheep?

Kate: Yes, in fact, unless the sheep at night were safe in the barn and every one of them was there, I had to check to make sure everyone had come in. I could never sleep if there was one missing. I remember one night going out with a torch looking for a lost sheep that was not in the barn. You couldn't sleep. if one was missing.

The Bible says that the Lord went out to look.

“There were ninety and nine that safely lay

   In the shelter of the fold,

But one was out in the hills away

   Far off from the gates of gold.

That is exactly what a shepherd does. If they are not in the fold, they will go looking for one sheep because the shepherd doesn't rest until he knows that all the sheep are in the fold at night. We lost sheep that had gone astray. They had walked off out of the paddock into unsafe areas and had been taken.

Nancy: That's another thing, as you say, is keeping your children safe. Now, that's not only physically. That's safe mentally and spiritually as well. This is why I believe we do have to have much wisdom from the Lord. With all the electronic devices our children have today and how much time we are going to allow them to spend on them, and what they can look at, because there is so much that is not safe there.

Our children can not only be lost physically but lost spiritually. Shepherding is huge, isn't it? Huge, to keep our children safe and keep them fed. We are not just talking physically, but spiritually and mentally, in every way. That is a huge task. It does take 24/7 to do that.

It's been good to have you again today, Kate, just to talk again a little bit more about this beautiful role of shepherding that is so close to the heart of God. I've often done quite a bit of study about shepherding in the Word of God, and as I looked at the different Scriptures and also the different meanings of the Hebrew and Greek words that are used, these are all the different things that I found that are part of shepherding. I'd like to read them to you. You can embrace them and imbibe them as you listen to me. Make them part of your shepherding the little flock that God has given you or perhaps the bigger flock that God has given you.

Shepherding in the Word of God means:

Befriending with an intimate relationship. That Hebrew word, Ra'ah is that first word that is used when it says: “And Abel was a keeper of sheep.” It's the word Ra'ah. This is the same word, ladies where it says: “The Lord is my Shepherd.” It's the same word. One of the meanings of that word is to be a friend. Isn't that beautiful, Kate? To be a friend. You became friends with your sheep. They weren't just some animals. That's the amazing thing about sheep. You know sheep are different. In fact, God chose to call us His sheep out of every other animal He made in the world. I mean, why didn't He call us His zebras or His lions? No, He called us His sheep, and as the great Shepherd, He wants to have  an intimate relationship with us. That's also part of shepherding our sheep.

Binding and bandaging them up when they are hurting and broken,

Bravely fighting off their enemies. That must have been quite scary going out on your own.

Kate: Well, you're not even thinking of that as a shepherd. Suddenly, something takes over you because you are not thinking of yourself; you are thinking of the sheep.

Nancy: Yes . . .  

Bringing back the straying and wandering ones, carrying the lambs close to your heart.

Kate: That was a joy to carry a lamb very close to your heart. One thing I loved and a lot of them would do this, they would suck my ear, and they were so cute when they did that.

Nancy: Did they? That is so beautiful.

Encouraging the weary

Eliminating fear in the dark and anxious times

Feeding

Gathering in your arms and to your heart

Gently leading

Guarding and watching over your flock

Guiding your flock on the right track

Healing the sickly

Increasing the flock. Now, that's always part of a shepherd's heart. He doesn't ever want to diminish his flock. He wants to increase it. I was saying at the beginning that Kate and I come from this little family and how you even grow up thinking that's normal, but of course, it's actually abnormal. God loves a family.

The Bible says He makes families like a flock (Psalm 107:41-43). It's hard to imagine a flock of 1.8 sheep, which is the average number of children per family in the States or maybe 1.9. Even a flock of two, you don't have a flock of two! You have a flock; it's more than the one, two, three. That's God's heart for shepherding. That should be in our heart too as we shepherd the flock.

I think of when God sent His on into the world. Today, many people would think, “Oh my, when God chooses a family for His son, who has just come from the glory of heaven, surely He will choose a home in a two-child family where they both can have their own bedroom, and they have enough for all the material things they could ever dream of and enough to go to college and all they can have. Their parents can dote on them because there is just two of them.”

Is that what God chose? No. We don't exactly know how many were in Jesus' family, but we do know there were at least seven because the Bible tells us that. They were talking about his family, and they say, “Isn't this Jesus and his brothers?” They name the four brothers and his sisters. They didn't say how many sisters, but there had to be a minimum of two which would have made seven in the family. But there could have been three or four or five sisters. He could have been in a family of ten or more. That's what God chose for His son.

Keeping them safe

Leading them to lush and rich pastures

Nourishing

Persevering until you find the lost one

Preparing a table for them

Protecting them

Providing for them

Rescuing them when they turn to the bypaths

Restoring, renewing, reviving, and refreshing

Ruling with your wisdom and discretion. That is another important part of shepherding is ruling. We see that in the Hebrew word. You don't become a victim to your children as a shepherd is not a victim to his sheep. He is the ruler, the one who leads and directs them.

Sacrificing and laying down your life for your flock

Saving your flock

Searching and seeking for the lost ones

Strengthening the weak ones, and

Tenderly folding them. That's what you did every night, wasn't it?

Kate: Yes

Nancy: That's just a picture of what we see in the Word of God about shepherding our flocks. Be encouraged today, dear shepherdesses.

Now Kate, I always close in prayer. Would you like to pray today for all the moms as they shepherd their flocks?

Kate: “Lord, we lift up mothers today and such a role they have. {I'm even challenged this morning listening to you (Nancy) because it's so easy to get so busy in life and let things slide.}

“Lord, I pray, God, that we would begin to listen to Your voice as shepherds, that we begin to listen to Your voice and be aware of our lambs and be aware of our sheep and their needs and their desires but also how to guide them and to direct them. I pray that You would give the sheep that You have given to these women listening ears to their shepherd, their mother. That they would have listening ears and begin to not only listen but take heed to what their mother is saying, and they would begin to understand the loving heart of their mother.

“Lord, we pray, God, that You would encourage these mothers today. Give them great encouragement, that they would not only have great encouragement, but they would have vision and revelation of what they are doing on the earth in raising these children and all the hard work that goes into that. Lord, bless them abundantly.

“I know that You have a great reward for them laid and stored up for them in heaven. I pray, God, that on the days where they struggle and feel discouraged, that they would begin to realize, that they would see beyond the moment to the vision that You have and the revelation that You have for what they are doing and what they are putting in the earth to go out into the earth. Lord, bless them abundantly, we ask in Your name, Amen.”

 

 

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Episode 64: WHAT NAMES DO YOU LIKE TO CALL YOUR CHILDREN?

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello precious ladies. Last week I talked to you about you possibly, or hopefully, eradicating the word “kids” from your vocabulary. I wonder if you have tried to do it this past week. I hope so, because really, there are better names to call your children.

You say, “Well I am so used to calling them kids, what on earth do I call them?”

You can call them children. That’s a lovely word.

If we go back to the Hebrew, the most common word for children in the Bible is the word ben.  You are familiar with that word. You hear names such as Ben-Yehuda, Ben-Yohannan and so on. It just means “son of so-and-so.”

This word comes from the root word banah, which means “to build.”

That’s a word that’s spoken to us as mothers. In Proverbs 14:1 it says: “Every wise woman buildeth her house . . ..”

The word is banah and from the word banah comes the word ben, meaning children. The word for children literally means “the builder of the family name.”

I like that. I think that’s a wonderful meaning.

So when we’re saying, “Children, let’s go” it’s a more powerful thing to say than, “Okay kids, let’s go” because you are speaking that wonderful word, “The builder of the family name” into your children.

You can sit down with your children and say, “Children, I’m sorry I’ve been calling you kids. I just realized that’s not the right word. Kids belong to the goat company and they’re not the company that God is bringing into the eternal realm. “I want us as a family to be part of that company, so I’m changing my vocabulary. When I call you children, that means ‘the builder of the family name.’

“Children, every one of you are helping to build our family. You’re helping to build the honor of our family name.  Not only now, but in generations to come. I want you to know, children, you are very important in our family. We are all together building.”

They realize themselves that they are part of the building. They do not want to do anything that will bring destruction to the family and spoil the family name. No! They are part of building the family name.

This is the most common Hebrew word for children, but there are many others.

I wrote a chapter on all the names that God calls children in my book, The Power of Motherhood. I hope you have this book and if you don’t, I’d love for you to get it because this is a book for every mother.

It goes into the Bible to see what God says about you as a mother. Not what the world says, but what God says. It is filled with Scripture. You will be amazed at how much God says to you as a mother.

But in the chapter I talk about all the names that God calls children. God has such a love for children that I found 50 different Hebrew words in the Bible for children. Then I found 26 Greek words in the New Testament for children.  They add up to about 4,000 words.

As I realized this I was amazed. We know some of the very, very important doctrines of the faith. We expect our pastors and preachers to talk about them. We think of grace. The word grace, is used 39 times (although, including the New Testament it’s 170 times in the Bible).

Now love, oh love, is such a preeminent theme in the Bible. But it’s only used 131 times in the Old Testament and 310 altogether, including the New.

What about prayer? The word pray is used 240 times in the Old Testament and only 68 in the New Testament, yet we know what a powerful doctrine it is.

And yet, the Hebrew word for children and all the other words God uses for children add up to thousands! I thought, “Wow. How often do we hear a message on Sunday morning about having children or the blessing of children? Or how to train children?”

How often do you hear a message about children and yet these words, the words for children, there are thousands more than there are for some of the most predominant themes that are preached about in our churches.

Do you think we are a little bit imbalanced in our churches? I think it’s time that we heard more about children, raising children, training children, and having children, don’t you, because God speaks about it a lot more than they do in churches.

We can call our children “children,” that’s wonderful. But there are amazing words that God calls our children.

He calls them our GIFTS. In Psalm 127:3 in The Message Bible it says: “Don’t you see that children are God’s best gift? the fruit of the womb his generous legacy?”

In many other Scriptures it talks about our children being gifts, not only gifts to us, but gifts to the world.

Do you remember what it said of Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1:5? “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.”

That word “ordained” is a word meaning “to give.” God said, “I brought you into the world as a gift to the nations.”

But dear ladies, every child that God gives us is a gift to us, but every child is also a gift to the world. God gives this child—a new child, a unique child, a precious child that there’s never been anyone like them in the world before and there will never be anyone like them in the world again. Isn’t that incredible?

This child, full of unique, special, and amazing gifts, He’s given to the world to bring forth these gifts and to bless the world.

So your children are gifts. You can remind them: “You are a gift to Daddy and Mummy. You are a gift to the world. You are a gift to your brothers and sisters. They have another friend for life and there will never be anyone as precious as another brother or sister. Brothers and sisters are closer than anyone else on earth, apart from husband and wife.”

Secondly, God calls our children BLESSINGS. I remember a dear friend of mine; in fact her name is Heather. For those of you who live in New Zealand, you will know precious Evan and Heather Jones who look after Above Rubies in New Zealand.

Heather is now a grandmother, like me, but Heather and her sister, Val, and I were raising our children together in the early days in New Zealand.

When Heather’s children were little, they were quite a challenge. They needed lots of help. Oh goodness me, I can remember times when she was so overwhelmed and she would call her children her “little brats.” And they were brats!

Well, many children can be brats. Sometimes they would come to my home and, oh goodness me, I would think they were brats, too.

But, one day God spoke to Heather. He said, “Heather, what are you calling My children? They’re not just your children. I gave them to you, they’re My children and they’re not brats. They are blessings.”

She really heard God speak to her and Heather listened to the Lord. Heather always listens to the Lord. She changed her vocabulary. She stopped calling her children brats and she started calling them blessings, always referring to them as blessings.

Often she would be at my place and we would be enjoying fellowship together. It would be time to go and she would say, “Come on, blessings! It’s time to go.”

She always called them blessings, gathering them up as blessings. The amazing thing was, as she changed her vocabulary and as she began to call them her blessings, they became blessings. Children become what you call them.

I remember speaking about this subject many, many years ago. We were living in Australia at the time. I was asked to speak at this church in the part of the city where there were a lot of very poor families. There were families who had been through so much stuff.

This church was actually full of trophies of grace, of fathers and mothers and people just saved out of such terrible situations.

I remember one mother was one who had watched her own father shot in front of her eyes. She had been dragged up. She was a pretty rough sort. In fact, a lot of these were the rough sorts.

Any way, I went to speak there and I had just got this revelation of calling our children what God wants to call them and how I was eliminating the word “kids” from my vocabulary. So I challenged them about it.

I went back to speak there a few months later. As I came toward the church and was walking up the driveway, a number of these ladies came out to meet me. They said, “Nancy, Nancy, it works!”

I said, “What works?”

“Oh you know, what you talked to us about last time. We’ve stopped calling our children ‘kids’ and we’re calling them ‘lambs’ and it’s changed our motherhood. We’re no longer yelling and screaming at our children every day. When we call them lambs, we’re soft and tender towards them. It’s changed our mothering.”

That was such a beautiful testimony, and this was coming from these mothers who had been dragged up themselves, who were pretty rough and raw around the edges.

But as they changed their vocabulary it was changing their mothering.

So be careful what you call your children. Start calling them these wonderful Biblical names: Gifts, blessings, the heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb.

The Bible even calls our children “THE BELOVED FRUIT OF THE WOMB.” This is how God feels about them.

In Hosea 9:16, that’s where we read “the beloved fruit of their womb.”  

Other translations say: “cherished offspring,” “precious ones,” “dearest offspring,” “darlings,” “much loved little ones.”

You can use these words—they’re Biblical. You can say:

“Oh, my much-loved little ones, how I love you?”

“My little darlings, come to Mummy.”

“Oh my precious ones, it’s time to sit at the table. Come and get up now, my cherished offspring.”

This is Biblical vocabulary. Do you want to start changing your vocabulary?

Another one is REWARDS. “The fruit of the womb is the reward.” You could say, “Children, you are my precious rewards. I have got a prize from God. He gave me you! You are my prize!”

Now some of these words are going to be a bit much to call your growing young people, your teens. You’ll have to change your vocabulary as they get older.

You may want to call them your ARROWS. Psalm 127:4 says: “As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.”

Arrows, those are mighty weapons of war so I’m sure your young people won’t mind you calling them a weapon of war! You can remind them, “Yes, you are an arrow in God’s army and this is what we are training you for.”

One of our children, Evangeline and her husband Howard, they named one of their sons, Arrow. I’ve talked to you about Arrow. He was the one who had a very, very bad burn recently and God has so wondrously healed his face. I think his skin looks more beautiful and perfect than before the burn.

He is Arrow and when he was young Howard would be cutting all the boys hair and he would shave Arrow’s head so that the shape of his hair was in an arrow. He was reminded continually that he was an arrow in God’s army.

Our children are also called OLIVE PLANTS in Psalm 128:3. They’re called MATURE PLANTS in Psalm 144:12, talking about our sons growing up as mature plants, even in their youth.

God doesn’t want our children to stay babyish and foolish. He wants them to grow up to be mature young plants, sturdy young trees, trees of righteousness.

It talks about our daughters as POLISHED CORNERSTONES. They are princesses in a palace. You can call your daughters PRINCESSES! That’s a beautiful word for them and it’s a Biblical word.

They are associated with a palace (Psalm 144;12) and they are princesses and daughters of the King of kings, Lord of lords, and God of gods. They belong to a royal Kingdom.

So remember to call them princesses. As you call them princesses they are going to want to be like princesses. Our daughters should want to be like princesses. You find that our little daughters want to be like princesses.

Have you found that when they want to dress up, they want to dress up like a princess? I have found that my little granddaughters and my older granddaughters if it’s a dress up party, or the little ones are playing dress up, that’s what they choose.

They don’t choose to dress up like some career woman going out into her career. No, they always want to be a princess or a queen. They want to be someone beautiful, with their beautiful long dress. They want to be so glorious.

As they get older, sometimes or mostly, they don’t think about being like that any longer because they get used to being like everyone else in society and they look the opposite to a princess.

They take on the vogue of the day, which are usually jeans and a top. It doesn’t look very much like a princess. Of course it’s always fun when it’s a dress up night. They can dress up for something special and when they do that they always dress up like a princess.

We always have lots of parties here at our place, birthday parties, and different functions. A lot of them we make them dress up parties.

In fact when Serene’s little girl, Breeze, was only four years old, she always loved to be a princess. She loved to dance like a princess. She loved to dress up like a princess. She wanted to marry a prince.

So when she was four years old, for her party Serene decided that we would have a ball—a princess ball for Breezy. She called it “Breezy’s Ball.”

Now when we have parties here, if it’s a birthday party for one of the little ones, maybe they’re only three, four, or five years of age, we don’t say to the other cousins, “This is a party just for the little girls” and ask the other cousins and friends that age to come.

No, we don’t do it like that here. It doesn’t matter what age they are; the party is for everybody in the family. So everybody comes—mums and dads, uncles and aunties, grandparents, and all the cousins.

So Serene said, “Okay, this is Breezy’s ball, I want everyone coming dressed as a princess. The boys and the men are to come dressed as a prince or knight or something pretty cool as a man.”

Well, it turned out to be the most amazing dress up party. Our family knows how to dress up.

The girls dressed up so magnificently from the oldest right down to the youngest and all the little girls in their princess dresses and Breezy in her princess dress.

Then we had all the beautiful, lovely dancing. It was so wonderful that it has now become tradition. We have Breezy’s ball every year. Everyone get’s dressed up and it is just part of our tradition now.

And now, how many have we had? The one coming up soon, just before Thanksgiving will be her tenth birthday and we will be having another Breezy’s ball.

Now, in one of the rooms in our house that we use for visitors we have a wardrobe in that room where we have all these evening gowns and princess dresses. When it’s time for a ball or a dress up party they can come and hopefully find something they want to wear. That is all there for them.

Of course they are always going to Goodwill and finding more and more princess dresses that they can always get more cheaply.

So that is a beautiful thing to call your daughters and it’s Biblical. I think the more you call them that the more they want to be who they’re meant to be, a princess in a palace as it says in Psalm 144:12.

Another name the Bible calls our children is SIGNS AND WONDERS. Isaiah 8:18: “Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts . . ..”

Everyone of the precious children that God has given to you are given to you for signs and for wonders to show forth the power of God. Everyone is a miracle.

Many of you have had miracle births and miracle pregnancies. You know that your child or your children are only here by a miracle, but apart from that they’re a miracle.

I mean, God created them. They are miraculous, unique, one of a kind, AN UNREPEATABLE MIRACLE.

You have miracles around you. Sometimes you say, “I haven’t seen God do any miracles in my life lately.” Well open your eyes, lovely mothers, and look at your children. They are divine miracles from God.

Embrace them as miracles. Call them your MIRACLES. Say to them, “You are my little miracle child!” Let them know they are a miracle from God. They’re a miracle in your life and you have yet to see the wonders and the miracles that God is going to do in their lives.

The more your mothering years go on, the more you will see the miracles. When you get to my season, looking back on the lives of our children and even the lives of our grandchildren who are now getting married and starting their families, we have seen and are seeing miracle after miracle.

Not only are they miracles, but we’re constantly seeing miracles that God does in their lives.

We see the miracle in Arden’s life. He just popped in this morning to bring the computer. It is incredible just to look at him and see him and what God has done in his life and how wonderful, healthy, and amazing he looks. God has brought him from stage four cancer and to now see the miracle he is today.

Last night Isaiah popped in to say hi. He’s another miracle. In fact, it was at the very same time that we were facing Arden with stage four cancer that Isaiah had a terrible head injury in a car accident. The surgeon said that he didn’t believe he would ever come out of a nursing home or ever be normal again.

Yet here he is, walking around just so wonderful, healthy, and glorious. God is continuously doing miracles. Those are just some of the big ones. We see little and middling ones every day. Some of them we don’t even see what God is doing.

He is such a wonderful God.

What about our LAMBS? Isaiah 40:11: “ He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.”

God is using the analogy of a shepherd with sheep, but He is talking about people here. He calls the little ones the lambs.

God calls our children lambs. He doesn’t call them kids. That’s not in the Bible. He calls them lambs so we can call them lambs or lambkins.

Another name is the WORK OF GOD’S HANDS. Isaiah 29:23: “When I see My children, the work of My hands . . ..”

Yes, that’s what they are. Not the work of our hands, the work of His hands.

In Malachi 2:15 they are called the GODLY SEED, the GODLY OFFSPRING.

In Hosea 9:11 they are called GLORY. Did you know that our children are called glory, the glory of the nation? Yes, that’s what God calls them—the glory.

Even Paul called his children in the Lord, ”glory,” saying: “For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? For ye are our GLORY and joy” (1 Thessalonians 2:19, 20).

This is what our children will be as we raise them in the ways of the Lord. This should be one of the things that we seek after that when we stand before the Lord that we will present our children before Him and they would be our joy and our glory as we present them before Him.

And to any grandparents listening, your grandchildren are called your CROWN! Isn’t that wonderful?

Well, there are just a few of the words used in the Bible. You don’t have to keep to them; there are so many words you can make up yourself.

You can call your children:

 “My amazing children,”

“My darlings,”

 “My incredible children,” or

“My precious ones.”

You call them all these wonderful, positive, loving, and endearing names. Amen?

Even naming your children. When you’re naming your children, think about the name. It’s great to think of a lovely sounding name, but it’s even more important to think of names that have great a meaning so that you can tell your children the meaning of their name and they can live out their meaning.

We called one of our daughters Evangeline. That means “evangel, the bearer of the Good News of the Gospel.”

We’ve told Evangeline the meaning of her name from the time she was a little girl. She knew that’s who she was. She was a bearer of the good tidings of the Gospel, so that’s what she’s always done.

Ever since she was a little girl she’s talked about Jesus. Now she’s 54 years old. Wherever she goes she still talks about Jesus. You can’t go anywhere and not hear her talking about Jesus. She is her name.

She has ten children. Every one of their names has a specific meaning. My time is running out, but here is just one: Zadok. He is the oldest and his name in Hebrew means “turning many to righteousness.”

He’s known that’s the meaning of his name since he was a little boy and that anointing has been on his life since he was a little boy and now at nearing 27 years of age, it’s still on him. He is constantly leading people to Jesus, leading people to righteousness just by his lifestyle.

There is something powerful about the names we call our children.

“Dear Father, we thank You for the power of words. Help us to realize the power of words, even how we speak to our children, even the names we call our children.

 

“Help us, Lord God, to call them the positive names. Even if we’re calling them children, which is so powerful, ‘the builder of the family name.’

 

“Give us a vision of the power of what we speak in to our children and what we call our children. We ask this in the precious name of Jesus, Amen.”

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You will be amazed at what God has to say to you as a mother! You will receive wonderful understanding through the 245 pages of this manual. 

Mothers can use it as a study guide for their older daughters. Many women use this manual as a guide for their Motherhood Bible Study groups.

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FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 63- WHICH ARE THE SHEEP AND WHICH ARE THE GOATS?

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello lovely ladies. I trust that you are walking in the joy of the Lord in your home.

Maybe you’re not. Maybe you’re going through a bit of a tough time. Well I am here to encourage you today. That’s what these podcasts are all about: to encourage you as a wife and mother. So I trust you’ll be encouraged here today.

Don’t forget to tell other mothers and other friends about this podcast because every mother needs encouraging. We need one another. So let them know about it so they can be encouraged too.

I’d like to begin again today with a lovely poem. I actually posted this on my Above Rubies Facebook page. I think it is a very powerful poem.

It says:

I ran into a stranger as he passed by,
"Oh excuse me, please" was my reply.
He said, "Please excuse me too;
I wasn't watching for you."
We were very polite, this stranger and I,
We went on our way and we said good-bye.

But at home a different story is told,
How we treat our loved ones, young and old.
Later that day, cooking the evening meal,
My son stood beside me very still.

When I turned, I nearly knocked him down.
“Move out of the way,” I said with a frown,
He walked away, his little heart broken,
I didn't realize how harshly I'd spoken.

While I lay awake in bed,
God's still small voice came to me and said,

“While dealing with a stranger, common courtesy you use,
But the family you love, you seem to abuse.”

“Go and look on the kitchen floor,
You'll find some flowers there by the door.
Those are the flowers he brought for you,
He picked them himself, pink, yellow, and blue.”

“He stood very quietly not to spoil the surprise,
You never saw the tears that filled his little eyes.’
By this time, I felt very small,
And now my tears began to fall.

I quietly went and knelt by his bed;
“Wake up, little one, wake up,” I said.
“Are these the flowers you picked for me?”
He smiled, “I found 'em, out by the tree.”

“I picked 'em because they're pretty like you,
I knew you'd like 'em, especially the blue.”
I said, “Son, I'm very sorry for the way I acted today,
I shouldn't have yelled at you that way.”

He said, “Oh, Mom, that's okay.
I love you anyway.”
I said, “Son, I love you too,
And I do like the flowers, especially the blue.”

~ Unknown

 

Isn’t that so true? We can be so quick, so terse, and so indifferent to our loved ones around us. May God help us to remember that our words have such power.

They have the power to bring death. They have the power to give life. We all know the Scripture in Proverbs 18:21 where it says: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue . . ..” Every time we open our mouths, we either speak life or we speak death. So we need to be encouraged, don’t we?

Thinking about the power of our words, I think of a word that we most probably all use every single day of our lives and that is what we call our children. I think the most common word that parents and people call children today is the word “kids.”

We talk about our “kids.” We call our children “kids.”

Well, I don’t use that word anymore and I stopped using that word years and years ago.

I started off using it when I started raising our family and I really didn’t like the word. It was just coming into vogue when I started raising our children. I fell in with the vogue, just with what everyone else was doing.

Isn’t it amazing how we can be victims of the system? We do what everybody else does. We say what everyone else says. So I also called my children that word and got into a habit.

I began our life of raising our children in New Zealand because I am originally a New Zealander, although now I am a US citizen. We later moved to Australia.

It was when we were in Australia that I read an article about a sheep farmer in New Zealand. Now New Zealand is a sheep country. We don’t have so many today, but back in the prime, New Zealand had about 50 million sheep and only 3 or 4 million people.

I was very familiar with sheep because my father was a sheep man. He was the one who designed the way that sheering sheep is done across the world. It is called “The Bowen Technique.” His name was Ivan Bowen. He was the fastest sheerer in the world in that day. He has since passed away. So I knew lots about sheep.

Anyway, I read this article and it was about this farmer in New Zealand. He said that he had diversified into farming goats. But he noticed a difference in the way the goats mothered. He noticed that the goats mothered their little kids differently than sheep. He noticed that the goats would herd their little kids together and off they’d go foraging for hours, leaving their little kids.

He was very surprised by this because he noticed that the sheep were always with their little lambs.

Now as I read those words something clicked in my brain and I thought, “Wow, this is interesting!”

But before I got carried away with my thoughts, I thought I had better check it out if it was really true.

So I went to my father. I thought that he would be someone very knowledgeable on this, seeing he had shorn about a million sheep in his lifetime and really knew about sheep.

I said to him, “Is this true?”

He said, “Yes, it is true, Nancy, about the goats and also sheep. A mother ewe, will never ever go any further than ear shot from her little lambs.”

I thought as I realized this: Is this why we call our children “kids” today? We have become a goat mothering society!

This is what so many mothers are doing today. They gather up their little children and drop them off at daycare and school and everywhere. They’re dropping off their little children for the day while they go out to their career or their job and do their thing.

Now that is goat mothering. The word “kids” was not originally in the dictionary to mean the word for children. Go back to Webster’s 1828 dictionary and you will not find it there. Of course it is now in our dictionary today as we have continued to add so many new words and of course so many humanistic words to our dictionary and this is one of them.

This is a word that now just fits with our society of goat mothers who will leave their children and come back to them later on in the day.

I have actually experienced this with my own eyes. I remember going back to New Zealand, and of course I have been back so many times since originally leaving.

One time I was walking around the fields with my father and he was checking out the sheep as a real shepherd does. He was always watching over the sheep. It was lambing time, springtime, so he was checking out the lambs.

He said to me, “Oh Nancy, if the ewes are in good health, we have no problem with the lambs. They just birth their babies and we come out and we find the little lambs are born. They’re all safe and they’re all wonderful. It’s only when the ewes are in bad shape and they have not been on good grass that we have problems with the birthing. We have to go and help them pull out their little lambs. We have little babies that die.”

I thought that was an interesting statement too. I think if that’s true in the animal world, that it’s true in the human world.

The healthier the mother is, the better she will enjoy her birth and have a more natural birth without intervention and be more able to give birth. So I think it is very important that we as mothers, childbearing mothers of course, that you do look after your health.

Dear lovely mothers, who are still in your childbearing years, please look after your health. Eat wholesome foods. Throw away the junk, all the white flour. I hope you don’t have white flour in your pantry, and I hope you don’t have white sugar. I mean, that is a poison. It’s known to be a poison and it destroys the B vitamins in your body and you as a mother need all the nutrients you can have because you have a huge job as you mother your children, nurse your babies, and give birth.

Your body was created for this task, but you are meant to be in good shape. Maybe you’re listening to me and you notice my voice. I do have a cold, but I’ll get rid of it. I always say, “Things come, and things go!”

But I do feel that it is important for all of us, especially you childbearing mums, that you keep up your immune system and you don’t eat the junk foods and all the white processed foods and all the packaged foods. Keep to good wholesome foods out of your garden if you can and eat lots of vegetables and fruit. You just don’t fill your pantry with all this other junk.

When I go to the grocery shop, I rarely ever go down the isles with all the packaged food and the tin food. There’s hardly a thing that I get from those isles, only certain basic foods that are healthy.

I don’t even go looking because you can be tempted by this and that.  In fact, I can get my groceries very quickly. I know what I want, and I whiz down those isles and I get what I want, mainly in the frozen section and the fruits and vegetables section, maybe one or two other things. I just get them and I’m out of there. I don’t like to be tempted by all these other things.

Actually, when you get home and you have time to read the ingredients, wow! You can’t even read half those words and if you can’t read those words, they’ll be bad for you. They’ll be cancer forming.

Often you will read “fructose corn syrup” and all those kinds of words. Look, if you see fructose corn syrup there on the ingredients, you throw it back on the shelf and never buy it. It’s just not good for you at all.

In fact, you never want anything with sugar in your house. I just don’t have it and I haven’t had it for years and years and years.

Anyway, that was a little by and by about the healthy sheep. When they are healthy, they give birth to their lambs no problem.

My father also said to me, “Nancy, the sheep will never go any more than ear shot away from their little lambs.” That’s sheep mothering, ladies. We have to decide who are we? Are we a sheep mother or are we a goat mother?

Now when I realized this I thought, “Oh my, I don’t want to be part of the goat mothering company so I’m going to get rid of that word ‘kids.’” So I made a point in my mind that I would not use that word again and I haven’t used it for years and years and years and years. I’m glad to have it out of my vocabulary because I believe when we speak that word, for every word has power, we are speaking into our precious children the character of the goat.

The goat has different character than the sheep. Of all the animals in the whole of the world, what animal did God use to call us, His people? He chose the sheep. Isn’t that amazing? Of all the animals God made, why did He choose sheep, to call us His sheep?

Oh my, I haven’t got time to tell you everything today, there is so much! You can go on to my webpage. I think I have a title of articles called “Sheep and Shepherding.” There are a number of articles there that you can read about shepherding and how we as mothers are shepherding mothers.

And we also are meant to be sheep. Sheep are very submissive animals, opposite to the goats. The goats are independent, and they are proud and destructive.

I wonder if any of you have ever had a goat. Some of you may farm goats.

I remember when we grew up, we had a pet goat. It was my brother’s goat and he called her Jilly. He had this goat for years and years and years.

I don’t know why we kept it because this goat was always getting us into trouble with the neighbors. We were the most unpopular neighbors because of this goat. But somehow my father had a soft spot for my brother and he just didn’t want to hurt him, and he kept this goat.

Well this goat, it would get into the neighbor’s gardens. It would eat their beautiful trees, and it would even tear the clothes off their clotheslines.

Oh goodness me, you can’t believe how destructive goats are! Goats will eat anything. They eat the shrubs and they’ll eat anything they see, whereas the sheep they will only eat the fresh tender grass.

They also need a shepherd to look after them because if they get stuck in a thorn bush or something happens to them, they don’t know how to look out for themselves. They don’t know how to get out of a problem.

I can remember walking through the fields with my father and there was a sheep. It was stuck in a thorn bush. My father said, “Come on, Nanc, we’ve got to get this sheep out of here! Come on, help me pull it out!”

Because that sheep was stuck, it didn’t know how to get out. We had to pull it out and when we got it out, it just got up on its four legs and off it trotted away. It was fine. But if the shepherd had not come along, if we had not come along, that sheep would just have stayed there till it died.

And so sheep need a shepherd. These are some of the reasons we are called sheep.

Another reason is that sheep always want to gather in a flock. We are also not only called sheep; we are called God’s flock. We are the sheep of His pasture, the flock of His pasture. He wants us to be together.

God wants us as a flock. He doesn’t want us to be independent like the goat. The goat not only is very independent and destructive, but proud. They always want the highest place.

We used to keep our goat out in our back paddock. “Paddock” is not an American word, but it is a field or a grassy place. Jilly used to be out there. Of course, she was always getting through the fence or jumping through the fence or getting out to the neighbors and doing something. In fact there were times when my mother would come into my brother’s room and find this goat lying on my brother’s bed. This goat could get anywhere!

Well, usually though, you could look out to the paddock or the field and this goat would be standing out on the highest place in the field. If there was some sort of little thing it could stand on, well it would get up and stand on it because that’s where they want to be—top dog. They want to be in the highest place.

And so, what are we speaking into our children when we call them kids? Not only are we aligning with the goat mothers, but also, we are speaking that character into our children.

I believe God wants us to speak His character into our children. The sheep, the little ones, are called lambs. There was a time when mothers used to call their little children “lambkins” or “little lambies” until the word “kids” came into vogue.

Really, it’s a much nicer word. Somehow, have you noticed, that it’s very easy to yell at “kids”— “Oh, you stupid kids, what are you doing?”

Somehow you can yell at them. Have you ever tried to yell at lambs?— “You stupid lambs!” No, it doesn’t work. Those words don’t go together because when you speak the word lambs it brings tenderness, it brings softness.

But more than all these things, we really need to go to the Word of God. That’s really what got me convicted.

We go to Matthew 25:31-46. It would be good to read this whole chapter sometime after you’ve gone through this podcast, but I will just read you these words:

“When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left . . .. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous [the sheep] into life eternal.”

And so we see in this Scripture how there is coming a day when God is going to separate the goats from the sheep.

If we go to the Middle East, the Middle Eastern shepherd often has goats and sheep together. In fact mostly they will have a little flock of goats and sheep. I have been to Israel many times and looked out and seen the Bedouin shepherd’s little flock of goats and sheep following on behind them. That’s a typical Middle Eastern scene and a typical Biblical scene.

The shepherd always goes out in front of his sheep. He leads his sheep. That’s the Bible picture. It is a little different from how we shepherd in New Zealand where we have huge flocks of sheep and thousands and thousands of sheep. The shepherds have to go out on their horses to round up all the sheep to bring them in for shearing, and for dipping, and for branding, and so on.

But the Middle Eastern shepherd, he just has a little flock. As you look out, because you’re not right up close, you can’t tell the difference between the goats and the sheep.

The goats over there are little bit hairier. Unless you are right up close, you couldn’t really tell the difference.

God is speaking here, and He says the goats and the sheep, they’re all together and often people don’t so much notice the difference.

In fact growing up in the church, there are sheep and there are the goats, but in the end time God is going to separate the sheep and the goats. The sheep go to eternal life, the goats go to everlasting punishment.

God uses many different illustrations. He uses the tares and the wheat. The wheat is growing up, but along with the wheat, the tares are growing up with it. They’re not the wheat, but they look a little bit like the wheat.

In fact, in one of Jesus’ parables, they said, “Why don’t we pull out these tares and get rid of them?”

Jesus said, “No, if you pull them out now, you’ll upset the wheat and pull them out, too. Wait till the end of time and I will separate them.”

He also talks about the separating of the good fish and the bad fish. So throughout the New Testament there are these stories of how there are the good and the bad together and often the bad is not too bad because it looks pretty much like the good. But in the end God is going to separate.

Now, I want to be part of the right company. So I thought, “Okay, I’m just not having anything to do with the goat company so I will get rid of that word ‘kids.’”

Here’s another Scripture, back in the Old Testament, Ezekiel 34:17 (GNT): “‘Now then, my flock, I, the Sovereign Lord, tell you that I will judge each of you and separate the good from the bad, the sheep from the goats.”

Zechariah 10:3: “ . . .I punished the goats: for the Lord of hosts hath visited his flock,”

There’s a day coming where God visits and does this separation.

Anyway, that’s my reasons, lovely ladies, of why I decided to kick that habit.

I wonder, do you want to do that with me? Maybe you could just talk about it with your friends and say, “Hey, why don’t we try and help one another and when we hear each other calling our children ‘kids,’ well, we can say, ‘Hey, why don’t we call them children or something else’”?

Sometimes we do need help to knock a habit. Really, that’s all it is. It’s just a habit that we’ve gotten in to because that’s what everyone else calls them, but we don’t have to be like everybody else, do we?

Now one of the good things about sheep I mentioned before and that is that they love to be together. They are a flock. God loves us also to be together. He loves us to be together as families. He loves us to be together as God’s people.

He says, “I want you to come together and not forsake the assembling of yourselves with one another’ (Hebrews 10:25). God loves that togetherness because we are a flock.

But that good point of wanting togetherness and remember that’s the opposite to the goats who want independence, so do remember in our families, lovely ladies, as we are building godly families, remember that togetherness is how we build.

I often think as we are deciding, “Well, what should we do about this?” or “What should we do about that?” One of the ways you can make a good and wise decision is to say, “Will this keep our family together?”

If it’s something that will keep your family together, do it. It’s a good thing. God loves family togetherness. He wants us to be a flock. We are mothers of our little flock.

But if this thing you’re thinking about doing, or someone is trying to get you to do it, or your feeling pressured from people to do it or even society to do it, if it’s something that’s going to fragment your family or cause your family to go in all different directions I would say don’t do it.

The wise decision is the decision that keeps your family together. The foolish decision is to go ahead with that which will fragment your family.

We often find in a little practical way we face this at our family meal tables. Oh, Satan doesn’t want us to sit together around our tables as families. He doesn’t want that. Goodness me, that’s just too much of familyness and he doesn’t want familyness!

But God wants it. That’s the picture He gives of the family, the mother in the home and the children all sitting around the table. That’s the picture of Psalm 128:3. But, the devil doesn’t like it and he’s going to try and stop you from doing it.

There will be so many things, oh goodness me, I think you could count ten things on your fingers now of things that are going to pull you away from trying to sit together as a family every evening and even for breakfast and every meal in your home.

You’ve got to watch out. This is why we have to be strong as mothers. Look, to be a great mother you can’t be wimpy. You can’t just let people take over. You can’t let society take over what you’re going to do.

You decide what is best for your family and you do it, no matter what. We have to make the wise decisions and the right decisions.

But this wonderful and positive thing about sheep and being a flock and that they want to be together can also have a very negative situation too.

Let me just end with this story. I read recently how years and years ago in 2005 the BBC announced a story on their media program of 400 sheep in East Turkey that all fell over a cliff to their destruction.

Can you imagine 400 sheep all falling over a cliff? I mean, you can imagine one having to fall over a cliff, but how come 400?

That wasn’t the end of the story because it wasn’t only 400 that fell, it was another 1100. It was a flock of 1500 sheep and every single sheep fell over that cliff.

Now the 1100, actually they were able to save, because when they fell over the cliff their fall was cushioned by the sheep that already had fallen to their destruction.

So dear ladies, how come 1500 sheep all fell over the cliff? I’ll tell you why. Because sheep are followers. Sheep follow one another. Sheep become victims of what all the other sheep are doing.

Did you know that we, because we are sheep, and God knows we are sheep, we are also prone to do that?

That’s why in John chapter 10 Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice and they run from the stranger.”

We’ve got to be sheep who are so sharp and so close to our Shepherd that we hear His voice and will go the right way. Because if we get away from the Shepherd, then we start to listen to the voice of the stranger, the alien, the society around us. Then we can start going the wrong way.

So what happened here is most probably one of those sheep were getting close to the edge of a cliff. He didn’t realize it and probably got too close and he just fell over.

These sheep didn’t just fall over all together, no, one by one.

But you see, because the sheep are a flock they are close and the next sheep goes over to see what happened to the poor sheep he was next to and oops, he’s over the cliff, then the next one it just comes over the cliff.

So the sheep, because there’s 1500 of them, they are away, away out there, but their gravitating to that cliff, not knowing they are gravitating to destruction. They’re following each other and don’t even realize where they’re going so in the end, they were all over the cliff.

My husband has told me a very similar story because, although I was the daughter of a world champion sheep sheerer in his day, my husband was part of a sheep farming family. They also farmed cows, they were dairy farming, but they were sheep farming as well.

When they had this big sheep farm in Waitotara in New Zealand, my husband told of how amazing it was how if one little sheep found a hole in the fence, that eventually all the sheep would get through that hole.

So the sheep can be grazing on the hillside, eating the beautiful green grass that grows in New Zealand and one little sheep finds a hole in the fence and goes through into the next paddock, or as you would say, pasture or field.

The other sheep a way, way out there on the hillside, because we have thousands of sheep in New Zealand in a flock, they have no clue what’s happening to that little sheep. But because they’re together, because they’re a flock, they are gravitating slowly, little by little towards that hole in the fence. It may even take a day or two or three days, depending how many sheep are in the flock.

But eventually all of the flock, all those sheep, will be in a different pasture. They will have all gone through that little fence because they just followed one another.

Dear, darling ladies, isn’t that just like us today? Many of us don’t know we’re even living a humanistic lifestyle because that’s what everyone’s doing. That’s what is going on around us.

That’s what everybody is doing in the church. We just follow one another. We don’t check out the Word. Oh my, if we check out the Word of God, sometimes we find, oops! I’m in a wrong field. I’m in a wrong pasture. I better get back to where I’m meant to be.

Let’s be sheep who follow the Shepherd closely to hear His voice. Let’s not get too far away because then we’ll be listening to the stranger and we’ll get in the wrong pasture and be following everyone else.

“Lord Jesus, we thank You so much for the way You teach us. “Thank You for teaching us that You want us to be sheep. You don’t want us to be goats. The goats don’t belong to You, it’s the sheep who belong to You. We want to be Your sheep, Your true sheep who listen to Your voice.

“We want our little lambs to grow up to be Your sheep. We don’t want them to be goats. We don’t want them to be part of the goat company. We don’t want to be part of the goat mothering company. Lord God, help us to be sheep mothers, tending to our flocks, never leaving them, always close, never ear shot from our little lambs.

“Help us to be who You want us to be. We ask it in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.”