PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 72 – THE GLORY OF WOMANHOOD (PT 5)

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FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Episode 72: The Glory of Womanhood (Part 5)

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

Nancy Campbell: Today we continue our series, The Glory of Womanhood. Now this is not really the vocab that we use today. But ladies, it is the vocabulary of the Word of God.

Let’s do a recap. So far, we have talked about five different points.

Number one. First of all, the first point is we have been endowed with glory from the beginning of creation. God has put upon us as females His glory because we are created in His image. Our job is to keep and hold on to that glory.

Number two. Motherhood is our glory.

Number three. The home is our glory. If you don’t believe me, go back to those podcasts and listen again to God’s Word because this is Bible language.

Number four. Even breastfeeding is our glory. That’s what the Bible says.

Number five. Raising our children to present before the Lord at His coming is glory. That is going to be our greatest glory when we bring our children before Him on that Day. You see motherhood is an eternal work. We’re not doing something that’s just for this life. We are doing something for eternity because our children are eternal souls.

And number six. We’re up to today to: Femininity is your glory.

When God created man, He first created the human as one. Then it was later that He put Adam to sleep and He brought out those female, womanly qualities or hormones or whatever they were that were already in the man. He brought them out of the man and from that He built (that’s the word God uses), He built and created a woman. This woman was to reveal another aspect of God.

So they were originally one then God made them two.

The male, his role is to reveal the masculinity of God. Although God is genderless Himself, He created the man to be masculine and the woman to be feminine. Both reveal who God is like in different ways.

The greatest thing a man can do is to reveal the father heart of God. God has put within man those masculine qualities of leadership and strength.

Of course, we as women have great strength too, but our strengths are in different directions and different ways. Maybe we’ll talk about that on another podcast sometime.

But we are also to reveal God’s nurturing and maternal heart and a femininity that He delights to see in His female creation. It would have been purposeless for Him to create another man, another male. God wanted someone who was different.

I do believe, especially now in this transgenderism culture in which we are living, which dear ladies, it’s hard to believe. It’s hard to believe we are living in a culture that encourages transgenderism. I mean, it’s unbelievable,

I have talked with teachers recently who, in their schools, they are encouraged as teachers to promote this. One teacher was telling us he has two students in his class who are changing to the opposite gender. They are encouraged to promote them and lift them up in the classroom as though they are doing something that is wonderful.

Can you believe this? This is just too much? And I think we dare not get used to it.

In Romans chapter 12:9 it says that we are to “hate evil.” Now the word in the Greek there literally means “to shudder at evil.” I believe we need to have that shuddering.

Do we really have that? Or are we getting so used to what is happening in our society today that (of course we don’t agree with it), but we kind of get used it.

We dare not get used to it!

We should have that shuddering of evil and that attitude should also come upon our children. If we don’t have a shuddering of evil, how will our children have it? They need to have it because they are going out into this society where this is beginning to happen more and more all around them. It is promoted in schools.

Therefore I believe this that in this society, and in this culture, we should be the pictures of femininity. We don’t want to try and be masculine. We don’t want to look masculine and we don’t want to be masculine in any way.

That doesn’t make us endearing to anyone and it doesn’t help us because we were created female and feminine. Therefore, that’s how we should live.

How sad to go through life and not be to the absolute fullness what God created us to be.

Therefore, because we are female, let’s embrace our femininity with all our hearts. Let us let people see everywhere we go that we are female. Let our children see that we are female, that we are embracing this role, that we love to be female and embrace our female like qualities and love to be feminine. It is true that our children will imbibe more from what they see than even from what we tell them.

I was blessed to grow up in a home where I saw the difference in the sexes. My father was a man’s man in a man’s world. He lived out there in that man’s world and he was a real man. There was nothing wimpy about him in any way.

In fact, he was an incredible man. He was what you would call a “Jack of all trades.”

Now sometimes you think of people who are called a “Jack of all trades but a master of none.” You know, they can do a bit of everything, but they are not really a master.

But my father happened to be a master of many things, not just one thing. They were very mannish things.

Apart from all his jobs, he was the world champion sheep sheerer of the world in his prime. He used to also run a sawmill. He knew the whole business of butchering. He did so many careers. He also was a hunter and a great outdoorsman.

I saw this real man, and yet a man with a father’s heart. I was blessed to have a father who had a father’s heart. I know who I am today because of my father who put great trust in me and who constantly encouraged me.

He saw in me things I didn’t see. I didn’t think much of myself, but he, because of his belief in me, somehow, I had to rise to it because he was a great father. Yes, he disciplined me, but he loved me. Because of his love I could receive his discipline.

My mother was a beautiful feminine woman. My father loved her as a feminine woman. She was a great seamstress. She used to make all her own clothing and her hats and everything. She was very creative. She always dressed like a queen.

It is so different today. If we want to get something from the supermarket, we just pop out of the house in whatever we’re wearing. But you didn’t do that back in those days. You would get dressed up.

To go to the shops, my mother would walk. You didn’t’ have a second car in those days.  She would walk and she would have on her beautiful clothes that she had made with her hat, handbag, and gloves to match—walking like a queen. Oh how my father loved her, and he was so proud of her. He had a queen! He was king and she was the queen.

She loved her home. She loved her family. She loved to be in the heart of her home.

And so I saw the roles distinguished. It is a very powerful thing. I didn’t think anything of it growing up, but then as I’ve grown up, and more and more as we are seeing the merging of the roles today, I am so glad that I saw that.

I didn’t have to have any lectures about it. I saw it! That’s what our children should see in us, lovely mothers. They should see it. Our sons should see our femininity. Our daughters should see our femininity so that we dress femininely.

Well sadly, hardly anyone dresses femininely today, because we all wear the uniform. Growing up I went to school and I had to wear the uniform. Back in those days you all wore a uniform and it was always the most horrible thing you could ever wear. It was always dismal, dark, boring, and horrible.

Oh goodness me, I hated it! And yet, isn’t it amazing how today, people wear the uniform. Not quite the exact uniform, but everyone today is dressed in jeans and top.

I’m not saying you can’t wear that, but I must admit it is a bit of a uniform. I also have to admit it’s not really very feminine. Sometimes you can make it feminine by putting on a feminine top and make it look a bit more feminine. But to tell you the truth, it’s not truly feminine, is it?

Yet here we are, that’s what everybody wears. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the secular place or in the church. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in the world or you’re in God, you’re still wearing the uniform, because we are like sheep. We follow what everybody else is doing.

Sometimes I look at some of our beautiful young people walking around. They are lovely young people and they love God with all their hearts. I look them with their jeans on with holes in their knees, holes in their thighs, and I think, “Oh goodness me, grandmothers would turn over in their graves to see them like this! They wouldn’t even be able to believe it!”

But there we go. That’s the uniform. But really, it’s not that feminine and to tell you the truth, I don’t even see any godliness about it. Yet, that’s what we do because that’s what everyone is doing.

We say, “It’s just as well God looks on the heart.” And I know so many of these who are dressing like this. Their hearts are beautiful. Yes, they just love God with all their hearts. But they are conditioned by society.

It’s true. We are conditioned by society more than we are the Word of God or even the heart of God Who created us feminine.

I’m at airports a lot of the time going to speak out at Above Rubies retreats. Sometimes we have to wait for planes. As I’m waiting, I look around and think, “I wonder if I can see a real feminine woman.”

It’s very rare. Every now and then you’ll see one with a beautiful skirt on, just really looking so feminine and they do look so lovely. Actually, they stand out.

In fact I was at a church one night, not our church that we are part of, but I went to this big meeting. This has actually happened a couple of times to me and I was unbelievably amazed. These young people came up to me and they said, “Oh, you just look so beautiful.”

Now here I am, this older person, and I have this lovely skirt and jacket on. And I mean, I have to confess, I don’t think I was looking very beautiful because I am older and here are all these glorious young people.

I thought, “I wonder why they said that.” I thought later, I think it was something about my femininity. Something about what I was wearing gave that feminine image.

They were all in their uniform of jeans and top. Even though that is what they wear, there is something inside them that obviously related to “Oh, yes, that is beautiful!” It has happened more than once.

It’s interesting. I love to have a dress up box in my home because the children love it, especially the young ones, the little ones. They love to come and get out the dress up box and find all these lovely dresses. Sometimes they get wrecked and we run out of them. But I have also lots of leftover lacey curtains and things. They are so creative! They can just take bits of material, lace, and curtains and dress themselves up like princesses and queens.

I find every time they come, that’s how they dress. They want to be a princess and they want to be a queen. It’s in them, this femininity, this wanting to look beautiful like a princess.

Then of course, as they get older and get into society, they get with the groove and start to wear those things. But really, inside of them, they delight to do that.

Coming up very soon we will be having Breezy’s Ball. Breezy is one of Serene’s children, Serene and Pearl of Trim Healthy Mama.

Breezy will be having her 10th birthday. But when she was only four years of age, Serene was putting on a little party for her. She decided, “Okay, I think we will have a ball for Breezy.”

Breezy, at that age, she was only four, but oh, she just wanted to be a princess. She always was dressing up like a princess. Every time you saw Breezy ,she was in a princess dress and she wanted to marry a prince.

So Serene said, “We are going to have a ball for Breezy. All the girls and mums and aunties, you have to come dressed up as a princess. Boys, you’ve got to come as a knight or a soldier or a prince and dress up as someone pretty amazing.

Because when we have parties at our place we don’t have “All of the little girls come to the little girls party” or “All of the boys come to the boy’s party.” Although that happens sometimes, because the boys will go out and sleep out into the woods sometimes. But mostly we have family parties, and everyone is asked.

Well, it turned out to be one of the most amazing fancy dress ball we have ever had. We do a lot of dressing up here, but everybody just went” to the nines” and it was just glorious.

Then we had some beautiful ballroom dancing for Breezy. It was such a beautiful night. It was so glorious that we have now made it a tradition and we do have Breezy’s ball every year where we all get dressed up.   

It just shows, though, doesn’t it, ladies, that it is actually inside us, it’s there right from the beginning. It gets sort of brainwashed out of us because of the culture we live in. But I think right down inside we really know that God wants us to be feminine. So I think we should seek to be as feminine as we can in the way we dress so when we go out in society there is a distinction between male and female.

I’m a great believer in seeing a distinction. Not just a blur, a distinction between male and female.

A distinction in the way we dress, yes, but in the way we talk, in the way we walk, in the way we sit. That’s another thing today. So many young people do not know how to sit because they are used to wearing jeans and they can put their legs any way they’d like because you can’t see up to everything.

If you are wearing a skirt, then you have to make sure that it’s long enough covering your knees and that you sit in a way that no one can see anything. You learn to sit femininely and in the correct way for women.

There are all these different areas of our femininity. I’m not putting any laws on you at all. But all I want to say is, God created us feminine. Let’s seek to be as much as we can and in every way, feminine.

This is our glory. We give glory to God when we are feminine. We’re not showing the glory of how He created us when we dress and act and speak masculine.

So I think we need these little reminders, don’t we?

Let’s go on to our next point, which is number seven.

Number seven. Raising young men to be strong is glory.

The Bible says in Proverbs 20:29: “The glory of young men is their strength . . ..”

That is so true. It’s wonderful to see young men growing up and growing up tall. Well some are going to be short but growing up strong. They are taking on their masculinity and are real males. There’s no little wimpiness or femininity about them. Once again, young men need to show their masculinity.

So lovely mothers, we are training our daughters to be feminine and we’re training our sons to be masculine and to grow up and to be like men.

To grow up in their youth to be like men. Psalm 144:12 talks about our sons growing up to be mature, even in their youth. We’re not keeping our sons as little boys, little wimpy boys who don’t know how to work and don’t know how to take responsibility. No, we’re raising sons to be mature.

We’re raising them to be strong physically, but strong in character.

Girls, of course, have to be strong in character too. But we’ll talk about that another day. Today we’re talking about our sons because we’re talking about how God says that for young men, their strength is their glory.

Who are the ones who are raising these young men? It’s we as mothers. We’re going to raise them to live in all their glory or to be wimpy and immature. What are we doing? I think that even from a young age we need to encourage our children to have a work ethic and our boys to work hard. It’s not always so easy when you live in the city and often it’s hard to find things for boys to do.

We are blessed out here in that our grandsons living here on the hilltop are able to do manly things. Their fathers get them to do things on the land and they’re driving tractors and they’re doing this and they’re doing that.

In the city you often think, “Well what can I do to get my sons doing some really manly things?” Of course, if you’ve got a yard, you’ll be getting them to keep that clean and keep it right. But maybe you’ve only got a little wee yard. What are you going to give your sons to do?

I printed in Above Rubies in one issue about this lovely mother in the city. I’ve actually stayed in her home on two or three occasions and met all these wonderful young sons. But they live in the heart of the city and all around them are these effluent people and these doctors and lawyers. So this mother who wanted to train her sons in maturity, she thought, “What can I do?”

God began to give her ideas. They began to check out with their neighborhood. Because so many of these people living around them are professionals and businesspeople, they don’t have time or even inclination to look after their yards or mow their lawns or do any of that kind of manual work.

She suggested, “I have sons who are willing to come clean your yards, mow your yards, and do creative work around your home, and anything that you need done that needs to be done by a man. You can employ them.”

These young sons have found so much work. They’re still homeschooling but even before they are moving on into their own realms and careers (their own father is a doctor himself), they are finding great work and income as they go around to their neighbors and they do their work for them.

Even their daughters have found their own work of cooking for these professional people.

So even in the city they were able to find work to do to train their young men and get them working hard and get them working physically. Because even if a young man is going into a career that is perhaps more using his brain, he still should have opportunity to use his brawn because men need to do this.

If they don’t use their brawn, they become wimpy and flabby and they’re not walking in the glory of their strength. Amen? I’m sure you’re all saying amen with me.

I also want to take you to another Scripture about young men. It’s in 1 John in the New Testament, chapter 2 verses 12 and 14:  I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. I have written unto you, fathers [it’s interesting how he repeats it again. It’s something so strong on John’s heart so he repeats it again], because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and [now it tells us how they are strong] the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.”

Those are powerful words, aren’t they?

Of course we are preparing and feeding our young sons to become strong. Of course we have to do a lot of cooking for that, don’t we? We want to do good, nutritional cooking because we don’t want them to grow up fat and flabby. We want them to grow up strong on good, wholesome food. Amen?

I see too many flabby young men around today. You never ever, ever saw that in times past.

In fact, I was looking at some pictures recently from back in my generation when I was young, and I couldn’t believe it. They were all very trim and I couldn’t’ see one fat person.

Then I began to think. I didn’t even know one fat young person when I was growing up. They were all trim and healthy because we all worked hard. We didn’t ride in the car everywhere. We either cycled or we walked.

We also lived on good wholesome food. We lived out of our gardens. We didn’t have all the fast food today that is putting on all that weight and causing so many to have Type 2 diabetes. They’re just all getting fat and flabby. Oh goodness me, it’s so sad.

No, we have got to raise young men who are not weak and flabby but who are strong physically but also strong in the Lord, strong in their convictions, strong in the Word of God so that they know how to overcome the wicked one.

Young men who are growing up strong and in their glory are young men who know how to overcome the enemy, who know how to overcome the deceptions in this culture in which we are living, who know how to overcome the temptations of the enemy.

Now precious mothers, they’re not going to just know this because it just happens. No, they will only know this by our mothering, by our training, and by our teaching.

We are the ones preparing them to live in their glory. I think this is one of the greatest needs there are today for young men to not only grow up strong physically, but strong in the Lord and who know how to walk in God and who are prepared to face life.

I think today of so many beautiful young women who know how to run a house. They’ve been raised in a family where they know how to run a home, where they’ve had children and babies around them. They love children.

They can’t wait to be married and have a home of their own because it’s within every young woman to have a home of her own. It’s within us to have a home and we want to establish a home and raise a family.

So many can’t find a suitable young man because there are too many wimps. Where do we find these young men who are strong in the Word of God, who are not giving into the temptations around them, who are not giving into pornography and all this junk. Men who are not giving in and who are not overtaken by social media.

So many of the young men, teenagers and twenties, what do they do all day? They’ve got their iPhones and are on social media. Oh goodness, this isn’t making a man out of them.

They’re looking for men who know how to overcome temptation. They’re looking for a man who is ready to marry, who is ready to have children, and who is ready to take the responsibility of having a home.

Where are they?

I know some of you are raising them. Thank you, thank you, that is so wonderful.

But there are so many beautiful girls who are getting into their late twenties and early thirties and they haven’t been able to find one. They’re in my prayer box. I pray for them. I pray that God will do miracles and bring these kind of young men into their lives.

Dear ladies, we’re raising young men, not to be like every other young man in our culture today, but to live in their glory.  We’re going to talk more about it in the next podcast.

“Dear Father, we thank You so much for the way You remind us about our glorious role and how You’re wanting us to raise children for Your glory, daughters, of course, and even sons that we’re talking about at this moment.

“I pray for all these precious mums to whom you have given sons, little baby sons, bigger sons, and older sons. I pray you give them the anointing of Your Holy Spirit to raise them to be mighty in God and to be strong in the Lord and to be mature even in their youth.

“I ask this in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.”

 

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 71 – THE GLORY OF WOMANHOOD (PT 4)

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FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Episode 71: The Glory of Womanhood (Part 4)

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

Nancy: So great to be with you again today, ladies. Today, I have someone special with me. I have one of my great granddaughters-in-law or grand-in-law-daughter in-law. Anyway, I have Kahoru with me and Kahoru was one of my Above Rubies helpers, one of my glorious, beautiful Above Rubies helpers. My husband and I always call them the “cream of the earth.”

Anyway, Kahoru came to us from Japan. Japanese was her first language. When she first came, she thought, “I don't know if I'll be able to answer the phone. My English is not good enough.” You know what? Her English was perfect because she had spent a year in Australia. Anyway, Kahoru ended up marrying one of our grandsons. I think you may have got to know that this has happened a few times! Our amazing grandsons have looked at these beautiful girls and decided “This was their one for life, the one that God had picked for them.”

(baby laughter in background)

Nancy: That's a little sound from Finn. Bowen and Kahoru now have a little baby boy called Finn. Anyway, I wanted Kahoru to come today because we are talking at the moment about the glory of womanhood and the glory of motherhood. I love to see Kahoru with her baby because she is the most wonderful mother. She's always smiling and always happy and revels in her motherhood. It's great to have you here today, Kahoru.

Kahoru: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Nancy: Now, I know that when you got married to Bowen. (By the way, Bowen is Pearl and Charlie's oldest son, Pearl and Serene of Trim Healthy Mama. She has Meadow, who is married. Meadow and her husband Kendall are currently living in Japan because he is an engineer with Nissan, and they are there for the year. And then there is Bowen). Anyway, I know when you got married, you couldn't wait to have a baby. Life isn't always perfect, is it? You were excited when you conceived and then you had a miscarriage. How did you feel about that?

Kahoru: Very sad. I was disappointed, but I wasn't having my period and my body wasn't really in a healthy state, so I was afraid, and I was pretty worried during that first few months. When I started bleeding, I knew that I was miscarrying. After five months of the miscarriage, I didn't get my period back, but God has blessed us with Finn. I had a wonderful pregnancy.

Nancy: Yes, God is good, and now she has this beautiful little boy. Is he nine months now?

Kahoru: He's almost nine months, next week.

Nancy: I can't believe it.

Kahoru: I know; it goes fast.

Nancy: Yes and if you happen to be on Instagram, go to Bowen and Kahoru, and you'll see pictures of Finn. He is so gorgeous.

Kahoru: Yes, he's the star.

Nancy: Tell me what you love about motherhood, Kahoru.

Kahoru: There's lots of things, but one of my favorite things about motherhood is definitely nursing, breastfeeding Finn. I didn't know the importance of breastfeeding until I became a mother myself. My mom had twelve children and the last two were twins, and she couldn't breastfeed because the hospital bottle fed them. They were premature, and they stayed in the hospital for a week, and she was so desperate and sad. She tried pumping, but the babies got too used to their bottles, so they didn't take the mom's breast. I couldn't understand her sadness until I had my own baby. The importance of breastfeeding, the bonding time you get to have with your baby during breastfeeding, I think it's amazing.

Nancy: Yes, it is. It's interesting that you say that because that's actually who we are. We are a suckling mother. God created us with breasts and to nurse a baby at the breast. Not only is it a physical thing, but nursing is a picture of God Himself because one of the names of God, Almighty. The Hebrew word is El Shaddai and that comes from the root word “breast” and that word El Shaddai means “The Breasted One, the One on whom I can lay my head”. I can lay my head on His breast, and He is my comfort and my solace.

We, as mothers, when we nurse a babe at the breast, we aren't just feeding that baby, we are satisfying them and consoling them and comforting them, and it tells us about that in Isaiah 66. It really is a picture of God Himself and of how He wants to be our Comforter and our satisfier. Isn't that wonderful?

Kahoru: That's beautiful.

Nancy: It's amazing. How does God reveal Himself? He reveals Himself through creation. Of course, the greatest creation were the male and female. We are made in His image, therefore, even in the image He created us we are showing little aspects of what He's like. It's a very physical thing but a very spiritual thing too. We are living in the glory when we are doing it, the glory of our womanhood.

Kahoru: Yeah, that's so amazing.

Nancy: It's great. Another thing I notice about Kahoru is she's so content about mothering. You're not wanting to do something else.

Kahoru: No, I love it. I love it so much. I actually wanted twins. I was praying for twins, but God gave me Finn and maybe one day I'll have twins.

Nancy: You never know because it's in your family. It is back in our family but way back, well, not too far back because I had twins. I forgot about that. The thing is, Finn is the third generation and none of my children had twins and so far and most of them are getting past their childbearing age. There's only Serene left who is in her childbearing years, except our adopted children. We will have to wait and see. Maybe it will come out in your generation, so you've got it on both sides.

Kahoru: Yeah, I'm so exited. Bowen's like, “Oh, but you'll be so busy.” I'm like, “That's great. I want to be busy.

Nancy: Yes, I know. You are such a great, capable person. When you were an Above Rubies helper, you used to love Fridays.

Kahoru: I know (laughs).

Nancy: Fridays here in our home is what we call, Preparation Day. Did you know, ladies, that there's actually a specific day that is written in the Word of God? In the King James Bible, it is written with a capital P. Do you know what it is? It's called the PREPARATION DAY. Before the Sabbath, they had the Preparation Day. If you want to have a day of rest, you can't really unless you have a day before where you clean up everything. Otherwise, on the day of rest, you're still cleaning up again and cooking and going on. God provided a day that precedes the day of rest so that we could clean the house, cook extra food, and then on the day of rest. You can put your feet up, look around, and everything is great, and you don't have to work hard. Isn't that amazing?

Kahoru: Yes, that's true.

Nancy: Friday, here in our home, is cleaning day from top to bottom. Kahoru couldn't wait because she loved it. She would get into her shorts, and she would start cleaning, and she was in her element.

Kahoru: Yeah and now that I have my own house, almost every day I think, I mop and vacuum and clean the bathrooms. That's part of my morning routine. I love it. I enjoy it so much. Finn likes the noise of the vacuum too, and he chases the vacuum and it's so much fun.

Nancy: Yes, they can be part of everything we do, can't they? Especially as we make them part of it. Talking about the Glory of Motherhood, I found a little quote this last week, and it talks about the glory. It's written by James Russel Miller. He lived back in the late 1800s, early 1900s, so he's back in the time when, really, mothers considered motherhood as a glory. Sadly, in our society today, so many of our precious young moms are brainwashed, and they're propagandized that motherhood is insignificant, and they are wooed out of the home, when God wants to woo us back to the home and find our delight in our homes. Anyway, this little quote says:

“O that God would give every mother a vision of the GLORY AND SPLENDOR of the work that is given to her when a babe is placed in her bosom to be nursed and trained! Could she have but one glimpse into the future of that life as it reaches on into eternity; could she look into its soul to see its possibilities; could she be made to understand her own personal responsibility for the training of this child, for the development of its life, and for its destiny,--she would see that in all God’s world there is no other work so noble and so worthy of her best powers and she would commit to no other hands the sacred and holy trust given to her.”

Isn't that a powerful quote, ladies? Let's look at that last line: “And she would commit to no other hands the sacred and holy trust given to her.” I believe that it's so true. When God gives us a baby, He doesn't give us this baby to give to someone else. I mean, how would you feel leaving Finn every day at a daycare?

Kahoru: Oh no, definitely not. I left him only one time since I gave birth with Mom and Dad for two hours when Bowen and I went on a date. That two hours felt so long because Finn wasn't with me. It felt so weird in the car, driving to town. I was like, “It's so quiet, Bowen. Finn's not with us.” It was weird.

Nancy: I know, I use to find that too. My husband would say, “C'mon Nancy, we've got to get out. We've got to get away together.” He would pull me away from my baby just to go out for a little meal. We would go out and you know, I'd think, “I'm missing my baby, I wonder if he needs me. I wonder if he's alright.” Then, the milk would let down, and I would think, “Oh goodness me, why aren't I just home?” You know?

Kahoru: I know. Yes, so true.

Nancy: I think you know, especially when our babies are little, we are inseparable as mothers. I really don't understand how mothers can so easily give up their babies and their children for others to look after them. I think when you're nursing, the bond is so strong. When you're nursing a baby, you have those hormones. You have prolactin which is a very strong protective hormone, and that makes you want to protect your baby, and you have oxytocin, which is this beautiful, calming, blissful hormone.

They encourage and inspire your mothering. God puts them in us to make us even greater mothers. When women, perhaps, are not nursing, because the studies say that the more you nurse, the more prolactin you make, therefore, the more motherly you become.

The less you nurse, the less motherly. The more you nurse, the more motherly.

You look at the animals... Often, I would walk amongst the sheep with my father back in New Zealand because he was a great sheep man. He was, in his day, the world champion sheep shearer, and we would walk amongst the sheep with their little lambs, and you noticed how the little lambs wanted to be close to their mother. The sheep would never go any further than earshot form their mothers. There was that close bonding. You see that in animals, yet here we, who are the highest creation that God created. What has happened that mothers can leave their babies?

This is showing the opposite of how God feels about us because the breast speaks of the nurturing heart of God. It speaks of how God wants to be near to us, close to us; He's always available, and we can come to him. The actual understanding of shad, the breast, is “that which is enough.” The breast is enough to mother our baby, either physically for milk, but more than that, emotionally satisfying and comforting and consoling. But God is “He who is enough.” We are just a little tiny replica showing what God is like, that He is enough.

What are we showing when mothers leave their babies? How are they showing that they are enough to their babies? This is how God wants us to reveal His image. Isn't it amazing?

We aren't only enjoying motherhood because God has put it innately in us,

but we are showing and revealing the image of God.

Kahoru: Yeah, that's beautiful. I think having your baby in your bed at nighttime definitely helps. Finn will wake up and look for my breast, and he'll eat, maybe two or three times a night at the moment, but if he was in a different bed, he'll cry, then I'll feed him, then I'll put him back, and he'll probably cry again. It's so much easier, and he feels more comforted and secure in my arms, and the thought of not having him in bed makes me sad. I'd miss him. Bowen said, “Eventually, he'll have to sleep in his own bed.” I understand that. By that time, I'll probably be pregnant again.

Nancy: Yes, how gorgeous. It's great, Kahoru, that as a young mom, you have found this beautiful way already. It takes a little bit of an art, doesn't it, to learn how to nurse in bed so that it's safe and you can do it easily? You learned the art and it's wonderful, and you get so much sleep.

Kahoru: I know.

Nancy: You are so blessed because I have to confess to all you ladies today, I didn't actually find that way until my fourth baby. Oh goodness me. When I started out, I knew nothing. When I had my first baby, I listened to all the old wives’ tales. Back then in New Zealand, we had what was called the “Plunket nurse” who use to come around and check on you every week. They would check on the weight of the baby and how many times you were feeding the baby, and you were meant to only feed your baby every four hours. That was deadly because my poor darling baby woke and was ready for me before four hours, and I was the most frustrated mother, and he was the most frustrated baby.

Then, I had twins. They came 17 months after Wesley was born. I began to mother more and more, but I still thought, you weren't meant to take a baby into bed with you. Goodness me, that was wrong. It wasn't until my fourth baby who, oh goodness me, screamed night and day. He screamed all night, and it wasn't until I thought, “I'm going to try just taking him into bed, against all the wives’ tales, and I'm just going to do it.”

I took him into bed with me and he stopped screaming. He was the happiest baby for the rest of the time. I learned to nurse, I learned the art of nursing him in bed. He would come and nurse and then go back to sleep, as you find with Finn, then they'll come and have a little nibble again, but you're not getting up all night, walking the floor, trying to put them back to bed, and they are still crying. Goodness, what a way to mother; it's just deadly. Then, when you bring your baby to bed, it's dreamlike. It's wonderful. Then, all the rest of my babies I nursed like that.

It was wonderful. It changed motherhood for me. That completely changed motherhood. I began to enjoy motherhood from that time. Also, you have that blessing of natural amenorrhea because your baby is nursing throughout the night. You're there, and the baby can nurse off and on. The baby is sucking more from the breast, and it's the sucking that holds back ovulation, so you have longer amenorrhea, not that you want it because you're wanting another baby, but you have natural time. You're not having a baby right on top of another one because God planned it this way, that your breastfeeding would hold it back until that time. God has the plan. It's wonderful.

Kahoru: Yeah, He gives enough time for me to enjoy time with Finn and then the next baby. Actually, I understand the hardship of not being . . . When I had c-section, we were in a hospital for a week because Finn came a month early. When I started bleeding out, his toes were already coming out when I got to the hospital, so it was an emergency c-section.

Nancy: I know. It's not something you wanted, but praise the Lord, Finn was safe, and we were praying. When we heard, he's a month early and you were bleeding, we went into prayer.

Kahoru: He was also breach, and the doctor said if I was couple hours earlier, he could have turned him around, but his toes were already coming out, so that didn't happen, but Finn is healthy and everything. For a week in the hospital, the nurses taught me to feed him every three hours and then put him back in the bed. He did not sleep well and when I came home, Aunty Vange is the one who taught me how to lay down and feed him. I got so much more sleep. It was so restful and precious. It was a special time.

Nancy: I know. It seems now with all our new, young mothers coming home from the hospital, we have to get with them and re-show them how to mother after they've been  in the hospital. I think Aunty Vange has become the pro at doing that. Goodness me, can you imagine trying to carry on? This is what gets me sad. It's so sad because the hospital, I don't know, don't they really know what a mother is all about? They send these new mothers home, and they have no one. You girls, you have us all around you. Many mothers go home, and they don't have a person and they try to continue feeding their babies like they showed in the hospital, and they get you to feed in a football position which is uncomfortable. You can’t sit back and relax. You're having to put them back the moment they finish feeding in their beds. No, babes are not meant to be isolated in their beds. They are meant to be with their mother, sleeping with her at night, being carried in a carrier, nursing off and on, this is normality. But so many mothers try to do it the hospital way and they are frustrated mothers. They usually end up weaning, and they don't enjoy the blessings of motherhood.

Kahoru: It's sad when you think about it.

Nancy: I know, even after being there for a week, it's so great that you were able to get back into normality.

Kahoru: I know. I'm blessed to be living on this Hilltop with so much support and advice for mothers.

Nancy: Yes, I was actually hoping to have some of our other young moms today too, but they will come another time. Some were sick and some couldn't come, but there will be more times. I think too, although you're at this stage, you don't even want Finn out of your sight, but as he gets a little bit older, you have the blessing of all your, what do you call them, like Autumn, who, even now, is minding Finn, and she's so amazing with him.

Kahoru: I know. She's amazing.

Nancy: That's Bowen's younger sister, and then I think of Evangeline's family. She has three married now, but there's still all the young teenagers, Tivvy (Tiveria), Sahara, and Iqara, wanting to mother each baby and play with every toddler. As more children are coming on, they've got the blessing of all the aunties. Rashida and Jack can go out to a meal together now that their little ones are getting a little bit bigger, and the girls are happy to go over and watch them.

Kahoru: I know. They love being mommies.

Nancy: Yes and that's the blessing of big families. It's a blessing all the way around, isn't it?

Kahoru: Yes, I come from a big family with twelve sisters and brothers.

Nancy: I know. Isn't that amazing for Japan? Aren't you so blessed?

Kahoru: Oh yes, I know. In Japan, most families only have one or two, three are considered big. These days, some people choose not to have any. They don't get married until 35-40 or don't get married ever.

Nancy: Then they are too late to have them. Isn't it so sad?

Kahoru: It is. They want to have their own life and be by themselves, I guess. We were very rare in Japan. We were considered odd. We would drive in town with our big van, and everyone would know that that is the Higurashi family.

Nancy: I think, secretly, you were hoping that this miracle would happen and that the Lord would give you a husband here that loved family because it's hard to find them in Japan, isn't it?

Kahoru: Yes, it's hard to find a Christian man and then, after I lived in Japan, I moved to Australia and there's more Christians there, but it's so hard to find a man who has a vision for family, who wants to be married and get married and have children and surrender their fertility to God. That's very rare. They always want to plan and maybe wait three years until we get married, maybe wait five years until we have the first baby. I felt very blessed to meet Bowen and to be married to him. He is such a godly man and has a great vision for family.

Nancy: So wonderful. Another beautiful blessing you have is that Bowen's cousins, like Arden and Crusoe and Jireh, they are all getting married and all having their babies so just as our grandchildren grew up all together (not all of them because some of them live in the city but the three girls’ families are around here), and their children grew up together. Not only did they have their siblings, but they had their cousins, and they were so close. It was such a glorious thing and such a keeping power. Now, the great grandchildren are going to be growing up together too.

Kahoru: I know. It's amazing.

Nancy: They are all babies now, but they are going to grow up and they are going to have such friends.

Kahoru: Yes, so fun. They get to play together and grow up together. It's such an encouragement.

Nancy: It is. Any other little things that you thought of about motherhood?

Kahoru: Oh, my family is in Australia, and my dad is in Japan and it’s been almost three years since I moved to America. When I first got married, I felt very lonely because I was driving back in Australia, but I couldn't drive, I couldn't go out; I felt very stuck at home. I didn't know much of everyone. I didn't have close friends, but having my own flesh and blood, Finn, has definitely made me more joyful. He's my little best friend.

Nancy: Aww... Isn't that beautiful? I love that.

Kahoru: He keeps me company all day. He makes me smile. I'm not talking to myself all day. I'm talking to Finn all day. When Bowen gets back home, it's the three of us as a family, and we have a good time. It's wonderful.

Nancy: So great. Love that. Your little best friend. Isn't that so beautiful? Of course, now you've got a license here in America. You and Finn have a bit of fun getting around.

Kahoru: I know. I take him swimming. We do go grocery shopping together, and he makes everyone smile in town.

Nancy: You're going to make him a swimmer like you. You were training for the Olympics back in Japan, weren't you?

Kahoru: Yes. He'll be a swimmer, and he can play basketball like his dad. He can do whatever he wants to, try everything.

Nancy: Well, Kahoru, thank you for coming to be with me today.

Kahoru: Thank you, Nana.

Nancy: I hope, and I know you've been inspired. Lovely young moms who are listening, I hope you are encouraged by Kahoru's enthusiasm for motherhood and her joy. If only you could see her face. Her face is radiant and filled with joy. Every time I see her, I feel uplifted myself because you're so radiant and you're filled with the joy of motherhood, just as the Bible says. Psalm 113:9: “He makes the barren woman to make a home and to be the joyful mother of children.” That is the testimony that God equates  with motherhood. It's joy, and I think when we embrace it, we come into the joy of it. Let me pray for you today.

“Father, we thank You so much that You created us in Your image. You created us to show forth Your glory, to show forth Your image. As mothers, we can show some of what You are like as we nurse a babe at the breast.

“Of course, these times are for a season of our lives and we get past childbearing years. I pray for the older moms listening too, that, Lord, even if they cannot nurse a baby any longer, that they will pour out from their nurturing heart, Lord, Your love and Your nurture to everyone they meet because this is Your ultimate plan for us. Whoever we are, whatever stage of life, we are to reveal the nurturing heart of God. We thank You, and I pray for Your blessing upon every mother today.

“All the young moms, be blessed. Middling moms, with all your growing children around you, be blessed. Older moms, I trust you're encouraging and teaching the younger moms, be blessed in the name of Jesus, Amen.”

 

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 70 – THE GLORY OF WOMANHOOD, PT 3

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FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Episode 70: The Glory of Womanhood (Part 3)

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello ladies. Today we are continuing our series, The Glory of Womanhood.

Our point today is:

No. 4: BREASTFEEDING IS YOUR GLORY

“I beg your pardon you,” say? Oh yes, it’s Bible ladies!

Remember our little ditty:

“Why don’t we live in our glory?

Because we have been told a different story.”

But when we get back to the Bible, we see what God calls glory.

Let’s look at this passage in Isaiah 66:10-13. This is a wonderful passage of the Bible, a passage that really helped me as a young mother. When I started my motherhood journey, I really had no clue what I was doing.

Even with breastfeeding it took me some time to really learn the art, and it really is an art, as it says in the Le Leche League book, The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding.

I think everything is an art, even everything we do as a woman in our home.

Homemaking is an art.

Birthing is an art; we learn it. The first time we birth a baby we have no clue what we’re doing. Even when we read books, we still don’t know until we experience it and then we gradually learn the art.

Breastfeeding is a very big art that we learn, and I didn’t know what I was doing. In fact, I started off scheduling my baby because that’s what the “old wives” told me and that’s what the “Plunket Nurse” told me, which we had down in New Zealand.

Oh goodness me, we had what we called the “Plunket Nurse.” She would come around every so often, maybe every week or so, and check how you were doing as a mother. She would weigh the baby and check up on you. They would always say you had to keep to this four-hourly schedule.

Of course it didn’t work, and I was just the most frustrated mother until I came upon this Scripture. Do you know that I have found the answer to everything in God’s Word? I still find the answer to everything I want in God’s Word.

In this passage it’s an allegory about Jerusalem. It relates Jerusalem to a nursing mother.

As we read, we see how God looks upon a nursing mother. It says: Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her: That ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the ABUNDANCE OF HER GLORY . . ..”

There it is, ladies, that word glory again. This time it’s in the context of a nursing mother, of breastfeeding. It’s the word kabowd, glory.

So here we see that breastfeeding also is a glory. And what does it say— the ABUNDANCE of her glory. In the margin here in my Bible it says the “brightness” of her glory.

Actually, that word in the Hebrew is the word ziyz and it just means” the fullness, the abundance, the bountifulness.” Some other translations say that “you will milk out and be delighted from her abundant stores” or from “the fullness of her glory” or “from the fullness of her breasts.”

The Complete Jewish Bible says: “Drinking deeply and delighting in the overflow of her glory.”

I think sometimes when you first start nursing you know what that means: “the overflow of her glory.” You are just bursting out everywhere with milk! Milk is just flowing out everywhere and you have to use pads to absorb all this milk that’s flowing out—the overflow of her glory.

Do you notice what the Bible calls it? He calls it glory. In other translations:

“To be delighted with the full measure of her glory.” Isn’t that beautiful?

The Holman Translation, I better give you this one: “Drink deeply and delight yourselves from her GLORIOUS BREASTS.”

Now that is what the Bible calls a nursing mother. Her “glorious breasts” and when you think about it, ladies, they are glorious.

When you think how God created this whole design so beautifully. The baby comes forth from the mother and immediately she can put her baby to the breast. These beautiful, glorious breasts that are filled with milk and filled with nourishment.

God created this and so it is His glory. Yes, His glory. He causes the milk to just continually be there. It just comes the more the baby sucks. Of course we know that the more the baby sucks, the more milk the breast makes. It’s just a glorious design that God has planned.

Once again, it’s glory. Therefore we have to begin to think of it like glory. Maybe some of you are nursing mothers. You’re nursing your baby right now as you are listening.

Dear lovely, nursing mother, YOU ARE IN  YOUR GLORY! God says it. He created this beautiful plan. As your baby nurses from your breast, you’re doing a glorious thing.

I know sometimes when I was nursing my baby, that’s when you sit down and put your feet up. Then you look around and, oh goodness me, that’s when you see dirty windows, you see cobwebs, and you see things you don’t see when you are looking after your little ones, getting meals, and managing the home.

Oh, but you’ve got to forget. Those dirty windows will still be there in years to come. Those cobwebs, oh well, what are they? I’m nursing my babies.

As the little poem says, “Babies don’t keep.” Oh no, you won’t be nursing this little baby forever. The time goes so quickly.

In fact, can I encourage you who are nursing babies? Just nurse them. Nurse your baby whenever your baby wants you. Whenever your baby makes a little cry, just put it to the breast.

You don’t have to think, “Well, my baby only fed about twenty minutes ago.”

No! Putting a baby to the breast is far more than just feeding a baby. Ladies, this is full mothering. Forget about just giving your baby some food. IT’S FAR MORE THAN THAT!

We see this as we read: “That ye may suck, and be satisfied.” Oh, when you’re nursing your baby, you’re satisfying your baby, you are consoling your baby, and you’re comforting your baby. You are just totally ministering in, not only to the physical of your baby, but to the emotional and every part of your baby. It is a full mothering.

That’s the beauty of breastfeeding and as you do that you’ll be nursing frequently. In fact, that is why God created the baby with a sucking instinct so that your baby wants to suck all the time and that drives you crazy!

Oh goodness me, why does this baby want to suck all the time? So what do you do, you just get a pacifier and plonk it in its mouth!

But lovely ladies, did you know that a pacifier is the mother’s substitute? Yes, you are letting the baby suck on the pacifier instead of sucking on the breast.

You miss out on two things. Firstly, of course, the more the baby sucks at the breast the more milk you will make so you will never ever run out of milk.

Secondly, the more the baby nurses at the breast the more prolactin you produce which makes you more motherly. It’s a beautiful cycle of motherliness. The more you nurse, the more motherly you become.

Of course, when you nurse you have both prolactin and oxytocin, both just glorious, glorious hormones. Both are stress-free hormones.

The more your baby nurses at the breast and sucks at the breast, the more oxytocin you’ll release, the more prolactin you’ll release, and the more stress-free you will be and the more calmness, love and relaxedness will come over you as you nurse your baby.

So don’t hold back from nursing. Make the most of your nursing season. Don’t inhibit it. Often women think, “Oh, well, I better get my baby sleeping through the night.”

No, don’t do that, especially a young baby. Of course as they get older you will encourage and teach them to sleep through the night.

But when they are young, they need that nursing. A breastfeeding baby has to nurse through the night. If you don’t, and here is another blessing, because the more your baby sucks at the breast, the more it holds back ovulation, so you won’t conceive.

Now if you are making your baby sleep through the night and you are giving it a pacifier, well, you are most probably going to get your period back very quickly and you lose that beautiful blessing of natural contraception which you have when you are nursing your baby.

Do you see God’s glorious design? It is just so beautiful. So just let your baby nurse and let your baby nurse until your baby is ready to wean.

Don’t be trying to stop the nursing process because this is who you are, a nursing mother.

When we go over to the New Testament, we see a passage in Matthew chapter 19. The Pharisees are coming to Jesus to try and trap Him as they often were. They asked Him about divorce.

Jesus replied with these words: “Don’t you know that He which made them in the beginning made them male and female?”

Now the word He used for female there was a different word than what is usually used in the New Testament for women which is gune and it means “woman, wife.”

But this time He used the Greek word thelus coming from the root word thele, which means “to suckle a babe at the breast.” The noun is “a suckling mother.”

The word comes from a word that means “nipple.” So when Jesus spoke those words He said, “Don’t you know that He who made them in the beginning made them male and female.” He made them suckling mother.

Mother, you are a suckling mother and as you have babies and suckle them, you are in your glory. It’s who God created you to be. It’s such a blessing, not only to your baby, but also to you.

You are both blessed beyond measure. So just keep going as long as you can.

Maybe there are older mothers listening today. I’m sure that secretly, like me, you wish you could have another baby to nurse because it is such a beautiful experience.

It is what the Bible says: glory. So embrace it, dear ladies, it’s your glory.

I can think of some other Scriptures here. We can go to Genesis 21:7. This is Sarah speaking and she’s talking about motherhood and thinking “How amazing that I am blessed to be a mother after waiting all these years.” She never thought that it would happen, but here she has this precious child. 

But how does she describe it? She says: Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah should have given children suck . . .”

That is how she described being a mother: suckling a baby. That is a beautiful description of motherhood.

We also see that of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1:23. It tells us that when Samuel was born that she stayed home from going to the temple and she abode in her home and “gave her son suck until she weaned him.”

So it just explains it clearly. She gave her child suck. That’s what it’s all about. It’s such a beautiful thing.

The Word of God is so amazing because, in Isaiah 66, it is talking about Jerusalem, it relates to Jerusalem, but because it’s describing her as a nursing mother, I think the whole preeminence of the passage is the beautiful description of a nursing mother.

We should continue it because we stopped at verse 11. “ . . . And be delighted with the abundance of her glory [her glorious breasts]. For thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river . . ..”

And how true that is, that when you nurse your babe, oxytocin flows, and that calmness and peace comes all over you.

You can be in a state of tension, and oh goodness me, the children can be screaming, and everything is going wrong. The baby is screaming and oh, what do you do? You pick the baby up and you put your baby to the breast and oh, the milk let’s down and that feeling of peace comes over you.

Sometimes you just nod off to sleep. God gives this blessing to the nursing mother so she can get up again and she is refreshed and can cope again. This peace comes over her like a flowing stream.

“ . . .And the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream: then shall ye suck [and keep on sucking!], ye shall be borne upon her sides [so you’re still sucking as your baby gets older], and be dandled upon her knees . . . “

You’re still nursing your baby as he’s getting older. He may be a little toddler now. Some babies may want to wean at a year or so, but many babies want to keep nursing two years to three years, some even four years. Some go beyond that.

But you never see a child nursing when they’re older. They always wean when they’re ready. It’s a beautiful thing to be attentive to when they’re ready to wean.

I remember when Pearl weaned. I nursed her for about three and three-quarter years. I remember sort of thinking, “Okay, she’s been nursing all this time. She’s had enough, I think I’m going to put a stop to this.”

Of course you’re not nursing them like a little baby. When they’re getting that age it’s just those special little times when they need you. They’ve hurt themselves or they’re just going to bed. In fact, nobody even needs to know that you’re doing it because they do not need constant nursing like a baby.

But I remember thinking, that’s enough, and then I noticed she had some adverse little reactions, behavior problems. Then I realized, no she wasn’t quite ready.

I think when you’re mothering, and each new baby comes along you just relax more and you’re more attentive to their very inner needs.

So when Serene came I nursed her till she was four. I think she was very ready to wean at that time. Some babies and some toddlers and some little ones are ready before others.

I’ve known many mothers who have tandem nursed and they are still nursing when their baby is born. They continue nursing their first baby and their second baby weans before their first baby. It’s just the difference on the inner needs of their child. Here they are, dandling on your knees and you’re still nursing!

“ . . .As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”

And so we see that. But then, we also see this in a spiritual light. We see how it can also be related to Christ Who is our fullness and to Whom we can come and find all our needs met in Him.

God Himself is El Shaddai. We could look at these Scriptures, these words, in this passage:

“That ye may suck and be satisfied.” That’s total satiation and plenty.

“With the breasts.” That word breast is Shad in the Hebrew. Shad is the root word of El Shaddai, which is one of the names of God. El meaning “God is the Mighty One.” Shaddai is a picture of God as “The breasted One.”

Oh ladies, I can never get over that, can you? God is pictured as “the Breasted One.” He takes on the name of Shad, which is the name for breast. But He is the all-encompassing breasted One. The One in Whom we can find all our needs. The God Who is enough.

Just as a little babe comes to the breast and can find enough, there is always enough at the breast. If the baby is nursing constantly, there is always enough at the breast.

We can come to God as the One Who is Enough and we can find in Him all that we need. In Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. We find all our satisfaction and all our source in Him.

We can’t really find it in anyone else, even as wives in our husbands. Sometimes wives can look to their husbands to meet their every need. No, a husband can never ever meet your every need.

Oh yes, there are certain needs that he can meet, but there are inner needs that you can’t find totally met from your husband. You have Christ. You have God. He is the God Who is enough. He is “The Breasted One.” The One in Whom you can find everything you need. He is your source. Go to Him. You will find your solace and consolation as it says here, your consolations, you’ll milk out, you’ll suck. But do you know what? We don’t find our all in Christ if we just think, “Oh, well, yes, Christ is all in all.”

No, it’s only as we suck from Him. The little babe is not satisfied until the babe sucks. Then it is comforted at the breast, it is made full at the breast.

It’s as we come to Christ. Think of Him as “The Breasted One” where you come to suck from Him and from His Word. Do you really do that? Have you ever done that?

Have you ever really come and sucked from Him? Milked from Him? Just opened your mouth of faith to suck from Him, learn from Him, and spend time in His Word and in His presence and in meditating on Him?

This is sucking from Him and it is only as we do that that we are filled, satisfied, satiated, and consoled.

Even those who are going through tragedy, loved ones passing, and these very dark experiences in life, can I encourage you? Perhaps you are facing something like this now, come in and suck from your Beloved One now. From God Himself, from “the Breasted One, who is enough.

As you truly milk from Him, you will be consoled and comforted because all consolation and all comfort is in Him.

You will be delighted, not only just with a little bit. No, God is not stingy. He is abundant. Amen?

Let’s move on to our next one. It’s up to number five.

What is our next glory, ladies? Are you really getting it? Are you really going to start living in who you are, in the glory? Amen?

All right.

No. 5: PREPARING AND RAISING OUR CHILDREN TO PRESENT TO CHRIST IS GLORY.  

I’m going to read you a Scripture from 1 Thessalonians, chapter 2:19, 20. This is Paul writing to the Thessalonian Christians. They are his babes in Christ. He looks upon them and actually says in this book that he is like a nursing mother to them.

It says here in these verses:  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.”

Now Paul was the one who had brought them to faith and now he is nurturing them in the faith. He has a father’s and a mother’s heart. He’s not just nurturing them for this life, but he’s nurturing them for eternity because he knows that one day he’s going to present them all before the Father.

He’s brought them into His Kingdom and how is he going to present them? Are they still going to be little babes, struggling with all their problems? Or are they going to be mature in Christ? Are they going to be his crown of rejoicing? Are they going to be his glory? And that’s the word he uses.

I think, lovely ladies, of how Paul was this man and yes, he was doing this with his babes in Christ. But we have our own flesh and blood. Surely this longing that Paul had will be even more upon us as mothers that we are preparing and training our children, not just for now, not just for their careers, not just for their future life in this world (which we are doing, of course, but the ultimate is for eternity.

For each one of our children is an eternal soul. We are ultimately preparing for the eternal realm and this is such a challenge.

One day when we stand before the Lord, which we will, and we will present our children before Him, which we will, will they be our glory and our joy?

Oh, precious mothers, there’s no greater glory than to be preparing our children to present them as our glory before the Lord. We see it in the whole fullness, okay?

God told us as we started this series that He created us with His glory upon us as a female.

Then He talks about motherhood, which is our glory.

The home where we raise our children is our glory.

Nursing a baby at the breast is our glory.

As we’ve been faithful to do all these things and raise our children in the home and prepare them for this life, then one day we are going to present them as our glory.

This glory, this was our glory on earth, preparing these children for the eternal Kingdom. This is the ultimate, isn’t that amazing?

I can read you some other Scriptures here. Let’s read Philippians 4:1: “Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved.” This time he’s writing to the Philippian believers and once again he’s calling them his joy and his crown and of course his glory.

We go again to 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, this time to verses 7, 8 and we see Paul’s attitude towards these believers who were his glory: “But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children. So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us.”

Just think of that compassion and longing he had for these believers, the same that we should have for our children, that we’re ready to give our own souls for them they are so dear to us.

Verse 9: “For ye remember, brethren, our labor and travail: for laboring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you . . ..”

There is Paul, because this is his whole vision to bring these believers before the Lord on that day when we meet Him face to face. He labors day and night. Sometimes we complain because we have to get up in the night. But here’s a guy and he’s prepared to be laboring night and day for these souls. This is the heart, also, that we should have.

Also, of course, by our example, that’s one of the ways. Paul spoke of this many, many times. This speaks to us as mothers, ladies.

First Corinthians 4:15: “For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.”

So he was not only the one who brought them to faith, but he was a father to them, to raise them in the faith, just as we are a mother to our children.

He goes on to say: “Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me.”

This is the biggest way I think in which we train our children, isn’t it mothers? By our example, by just saying to children, “Just follow me. I’ll show you the way to go.”

We’re like the shepherd. What does the Middle Eastern shepherd do? He goes in front of his flock. He goes ahead of his flock and they follow him.

Our children are going to follow our lifestyle. In fact they are going to see how much our Christianity really works in our life because they watch us all day long. They are going to see how much God really is paramount in our lives.

Do we put aside time every day as a family to spend time with God? Do we gather the family to listen to the Word and pray together each day, hopefully every morning and every evening? That is just such a little token of our day to give to God.

If we’re not doing this, our children see, “Oh well, really, all the things that Mum’s involved in, going here and there, and all the things they do are really far more important than God.”

We go over to chapter 11:1: “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.”

Next, we’ll go over to Philippians 3:17: “Brethren, be followers together of me . . ..”

And Philippians 4:9: “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen [not just heard, but seen] in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.”

Also 1 Thessalonians 1:6: “And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost.”

They became followers of Paul and of the Lord. Our children will become followers of the Lord as they see the example in following us.

Just one more, 1 Thessalonians chapter 3, verse 9: “For what thanks can we render to God again for you, for all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before our God.”

Isn’t that beautiful? That was the way Paul thought about his young believers and this should be our attitude to our children.

Oh, the joy, all the joy we joy before the Lord! Yes, this is our greatest joy!

Our children are our joy, our crown of rejoicing, our crown of boasting, our hope and, ultimately, our glory when we stand before the Lord.

Oh, wait on, one more Scripture I have to give you, 1 Thessalonians 5:23. This Scripture is one Scripture that I took hold of as I was raising my children. I made it my vision.

It’s great to have a vision. We may not make it, but we work towards it. This was my longing. It’s a prayer: “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Once again, lovely ladies, we are mothering not just for now. We are mothering for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, when we will stand before Him and we will present our children before Him.

Will we be able to present them whole? W-H-O-L-E: whole in body, soul, and spirit.

You see how mothering is not just caring for their physical needs. It’s not just feeding and clothing and housing them. It’s ministering to their souls. Ministering to their spirits, that they would grow up whole and that we can present them whole before the Father.

The next verse says: “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it

God is faithful to help you, dear mother!

“Oh, I thank You, dear Father, again, for Your precious Word. Thank You that You are the faithful God. You are faithful to help us in this greatest career You have given us as mothers.

“Thank You Lord, for showing us that our highest calling is to raise our children for eternity. For one day we will present them before You and this will be our glory.

“Help us to live in our glory in the name of Jesus. Amen.”

 

 

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 69 – THE GLORY OF WOMANHOOD, PT 2

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FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Episode 69: The Glory of Womanhood (Part 2)

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

Nancy: Hello ladies, we are continuing our series of THE GLORY OF WOMANHOOD. Let me read you Isaiah 43:7. God says: “I have created him for my glory.”

We go back to Psalm chapter 8 in verses 4-6: “What is man that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him little lower than the angels and hast crowned him with glory and honor.” Now, last week, we were talking about two different Hebrew words, kabod and hadar. Here we see these words in the same Scripture where it says He has crowned him with glory and honor. Glory is kabod, and the word is honor is hadar.

Remember that beautiful Hebrew word, hadar? It's not only a Bible word. It's not only a word that is used for the glory of God because all these words about glory are used for God. Yet, they are words that are also used about us as women. We found that out in our last session. This word, hadar, is used in Israel today. Many mothers even call their daughters hadar because they want them to live in the glory that God has for them. This word means “beyond honor, beauty from above,” and God says that He has crowned His creation with glory and honor, and He wants us to live in it. “Thou makest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands. Thou hath put all things under his feet.”

Today, we are going onto our second point which is:

No. 2: MOTHERHOOD IS THE GLORY OF THE NATION

We are going to turn to Hosea 9:11. It's amazing how we can read Scriptures that give us an understanding about motherhood right throughout the Bible, in the psalms, in the prophets, in the New Testament, throughout the Old Testament. It's all throughout the Bible. In this passage, it's actually in the context of God bringing judgment and punishment upon Israel because of their sin. Then we read about the punishment.

It says in verse 11: “As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like the bird.” This was going to be their punishment. Their glory was going to fly away, it was going to go. What was their glory? This is where we find something interesting here. It says: “From the birth and from the womb and from the conception.” Here, God calls conception, the womb, pregnancy, birth, the glory of the nation. In other words, motherhood is the glory of the nation.

Therefore, mother, as your embrace your motherhood, you are living in the glory that God wants you to live in. This is your glory. I can hear you saying in your heart, “Oh goodness me, I don't seem to be having much glory around here today.” It’s true, motherhood is challenging. Motherhood is not for wimps. Motherhood takes a strong and courageous woman. Motherhood is a high and powerful calling, and anything that is high and powerful and worthwhile takes effort.

You're always facing challenges. You're facing children who are getting upset. You are facing challenges where you have to deal with children's behavior problems. It doesn't always seem to be very much glory. But dear precious mothers, really, motherhood comes back to our attitude. It's true. If you have a negative attitude about your mothering and if you think that, “Well, really, I just love my children but really, I've got other things I could be doing. I could be getting so much money out in the career that I've trained for. I just have to get through this.” You have all these negatives. I know ladies, the negatives come upon us from all around us. It's all around us in society. It comes from the words people speak to us—neighbors, family, people even in the church. The negativity is always there, and it sort of comes down on us. We are coming from this negative attitude. Even when we face difficulties, or we do have a hard day, we think, poor me, and we get into this trough of self-pity and into this pit of depression.

You know what, ladies? I think we have to gird up the loins of our mind as the Bible says. If you think about it, there are literally, right now, millions of God's people in Middle Eastern and western and northern African countries, and Muslim countries who are suffering incredible persecution. We also think of North Korea, which is number one for persecuting Christians in the world. They are being tormented, beaten, and physically tortured. They are starving. They are going through such torture and persecution and separation of families, yet they are still standing for Christ.

Here we are in our homes, God has given us a home, we have a husband, we have precious children, the most beautiful gifts God could give us, and we have a few problems, and we get into a state of depression or self-pity. What is wrong with us? I believe we've got to come up to what are God sees. God sees motherhood as a glory.

As I shared with you last session, I read you my little ditty:

“Why don't we live in our glory?

Because we've been told a different story!”

We've been told so much negative junk that you think motherhood is a negative thing. Therefore, every bad thing that happens, every little challenging thing, it all piles up into the negativity. No, we've got to have our minds renewed as it tells us in Romans 12:1, 2: “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

We have to cast off all these lies and deception that come from the pit of hell, and we have to renew our mind with Bible truth. Now, the Bible truth is that God says motherhood is the glory of the nation. Motherhood is our glory. Let's embrace it, dear ladies.

Let's read on a bit further in this passage. “Though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them. That there should not be a man left. Yea, woe also to them when I depart from them.” Now, what is this judgment? It's taking away their glory, and God says, “When I do that, I'm departing from you.” That's pretty powerful, ladies. When God takes away the glory, God is departing from us. It's sad that there are women today who will choose the curse, who will choose to take the judgment and who will not embrace the glory. They don't want to have children. If they do, they'll make sure they limit them because they don't want too many; they don't want too much of this glory. They limit what God says is the glory. God says when He's taking away the glory, He's departing from us. Why would anyone choose that of their own volition? Because that is the judgment of God.

We go on over to verse 24. It's still continuing the judgment. “Give them, O Lord, what wilt thou give, a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.” That was the judgment of God, yet there are women today who choose to stop the function of their womb. Therefore, they have dry breasts. That's not blessing, that is judgment.

Verse 16: “Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up; they shall bear no fruit. Yea, thou they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.” Although this is in the context of judgment, we still see glorious things written here. We see what God calls our children. He doesn't just call them children, He calls them “the beloved fruit of the womb”. That's how God sees them. He knew that was how Ephraim, another name for the children of Israel, saw their children, as “the beloved fruit of the womb,” “the cherished fruit of the womb.” Then, His judgment was to take them away.

The New Living Translation of Hosea 9:11 says: ‘The glory, (the kabod, that is the kabod, remember that beautiful word?) “The glory of Israel will fly away like a bird, for your children will not be born or grow in the womb or even be conceived.” Wow. That is really powerful, isn't it?

Let's go on to the next point ladies.

No. 3. RAISING CHILDREN IN THE HOME IS THE GLORY OF THE NATION

Now we are going to go to another one of the prophets, to Micah, Micah 2:9. It says here: “The women of my people have ye cast out from their pleasant houses, from their children have ye taken away my glory.” Hadar, my glory. Remember, God created us as hadar, He created us with glory. Now, He's talking about children. This is from their children “have ye taken away my glory forever.”

Here, the glory is revealed as the children growing up and being raised in the home. Something was happening here in Israel and the women were being cast out of their houses. Then it goes on to this part that we are going to talk about. “From their children have ye taken away my glory forever.” In other words, these children, along with the mothers, were taken out of their homes.

Now God says, “When they are taken out of their homes, they are taken out of my glory.” Do you notice something there? My glory. Yes, God is speaking. “From their children, have ye taken away my glory forever.” This is not man's glory. This is God's glory, ladies. Let's get it. We are coming back to the Bible language. You see, we haven't often lived in our glory because of what?

We've listened to a different story,

But we are coming back to the Bible story!

That is God's glory for our children to be nurtured, nourished, trained, prepared, and grow up in the home. The home is where God planned for children to be raised. God is the originator of the home. Back in Genesis, we see how all that God originates and His plan at the very beginning. In fact, when He created man,  He created him before He created the home, which is rather interesting.

We go back to Genesis 2. We see this in the chronological  order it is written here.

Verse 7: “And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and became a living soul.”

Verse 8: “The Lord God planted a garden.” It was after He created man that He planted the garden and created the Eden home, the home of delight. We don't read about the women until down in verse 18, way down in the chapter, where it says: “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make him a help meet for him.” I'm going to make him this helper, this counterbalance. It's actually two words, help and meet. Helper is the word, ezer. It means to be a helper like God. It's one of the words that is used of God. God is my help, ezer, same word, yet this word was first used for the woman.

The next word, meet, is kenegdo, ezer kenegdo. Kenegdo meaning “counterbalance, over-against.” It's like when God created the woman, and He brought her to the man and they were face to face, counterbalanced. Now, there was the male and the female. He created them differently but equal to counterbalance one another. That's the beautiful thing about male and female. We each have our own characteristics that counterbalance one another.

That's the beautiful thing about marriage, we counter-balance one another. We, as the female, as the woman, we are the home-nester, the homemaker, the nurturer and the nourisher, and the man is the provider, and the protector, and the leader. We counterbalance one another. It is such a beautiful thing when we embrace this.

I got onto another point, but I was talking about how God was the originator of the home and when He created the woman, where was she? She was in her home. She woke up, and there she was in the garden, in her home. The man, He created him, the man, before the home.

God waited until he had the home ready before He created the female. He has put innately in her it be a home-nester, to make a home for her husband and for her children. God created this place, this place of safety, and this place of stability, and this place where we house the presence of God, and where we live in our glory to raise our children. This is God's glory. Don't forget those words. Let's read some other translations, shall we?

The Holman Translation says: “You take My blessing from their children forever.”

The Amplified says: “You take away My splendor and blessing forever (by putting them among pagans, away from Me).” When I read those words, I could hardly believe what I was reading. Obviously, these folks and these precious children were taken out of their homes, maybe even taken to another country. Here, looking at this, as it is today.

Let's read it again. “You have taken away My children by putting them among pagans, away from Me.” This is what is happening to many of God's children today. They are being taken out of the home and put in a pagan education system. I know that way back, years ago, it wasn't pagan like it is today. I remember growing up as a child, even in high school, every morning before we went to our classes, we all assembled together and listened to the Word of God being read and then we sang a hymn before we even went to classes. That is not the case today.

The Bible has been taken out of school. Prayer has been taken out of school. Now, we are faced with the liberal agenda becoming more and more and more prevalent. In fact, it is taking over. Now, there are more classes about the Muslim religion than, well, there's nothing about Christianity. We have this whole tendency, even of the transgender that is coming into our society. It's not just in our society, it's in our schools, it's in our classrooms. We better believe it.

Last year, my husband and I were speaking at an Above Rubies' retreat. There were two high school teachers at that retreat and both of these men were wonderful men of God and their wives were homeschooling their children. But their profession was a teacher. One of them got up. He said, “Please pray for me. In my school in New Jersey, we were told that we must promote the transgender ideology that is coming in.” He said, “I have two children in my class who are changing from one sex to the other, and we are expected to honor them in the classroom.” This is unbelievable. It's hard to believe we are even living in this kind of thing happening in America. We have to be watchful. I think there are many, many Christian parents who, I don't think, truly understand what is happening in our education system today. They are sending their children amongst pagans. There may be a few Christian teachers here and there, but these Christian teachers’ tongues are tied.

What are our precious children receiving each day? In fact, our younger generation coming up are really, perhaps, the most dangerous generation of our time because they are getting closer and closer to voting, and they are brainwashed, especially in our colleges today. They are being absolutely brainwashed with a socialist agenda. When they vote, what will they vote for? It will not be for righteousness, it will not be for life, it will not be for family, it will not be for God, but a totally ungodly, socialist agenda.

We need to be praying for a mighty revival. I cry out every day for a great, mighty, supernatural revival amongst our young people. I know God is moving amongst many of our precious young people, but there in those in colleges, they are being duped and brainwashed and propagandized with total deception. Without a great intervention, that is on a downward path for this nation. We need to be praying and crying out.

We also need to be aware of what we are doing when we send our children into this pagan system because it has now become a pagan system of education. Here, we read it, right in the Word of God. Let me read it to you again. “You take away my splendor and blessing,” that is another word for glory that explains that word hadar, “by putting them among pagans, away from me.”

Do you remember how in the King James version, it says, my glory? God wants to be with us, dear mothers. He wants to be with us in our homes as we nurture and train and teach our children. When we send them off to pagans, to ungodly teachers, to teach them and influence them for all those hours of the day, they are being taken away from Me (God states).

You, as a godly mother, are to teach your children God's ways and teach them of Him. That is the most important part of their education, being taught His ways, His words, who He is. Even the character of God, we know so little of it. How we need ourselves to seek and understand more and more of His attributes and character and teach them to our children. Dear lovely mothers, if your children know who God is, they will never turn from Him. Some mothers feel fretful and wonder, “Will my child ever turn away from God?” That's your greatest thing that would grieve your heart. As you teach them His ways and you teach them who He is, when they know who He is, not just about God but they know who He is, how can they ever turn from Him?

Let's have a look at some other translation.

The New Living Translation: “And forever stripped their children of their prized inheritance.” Children's prized inheritance or in other words, their glory, is to be raised in the home. Little children who are sent into day cares are a substitute for the home. They are substitutes. The devil loves to have substitutes. He has substitutes for everything that is of God.

The New English Translation says: “You defraud their children of their prized inheritance.” Once again, it's talking about their prized inheritance.

Lovely ladies, embrace your motherhood. Embrace your home. It's your glory. This is your glory and if you will understand that this is the truth and embrace it, you can find glory in your home. I'm not saying that it's going to always be easy. Yes, you'll face lots of difficulties, challenges, and heartaches, but it is glory.

I love that Scripture in 1 Peter 4:12: “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trail which is to try you as though some strange thing has happened unto you but rejoice in as much as ye are partakers of Christ's suffering. That when his glory shall be revealed ye may be glad also with exceeding joy and if ye have been reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye, for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you.”

God, who is the God of glory, the Spirit of glory, He is resting upon you, not just when everything is going good, but when you're going through suffering, when you're being reproached. It says here: “The Spirit of glory rests upon you.” Be encouraged. Even in the most difficult times, even in the darkest times, you can know and experience the Spirit of glory upon you.

Embrace the truth. As you get the truth into your mind, you will begin to live in the glory of it. I'm thinking of a Scripture in Jude, the second to last  book in the New Testament. In verse 6, it talks about when Satan rose up against God. It says: “And the angels, which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.”

I wish I had with me some other translations of that Scripture. Look it up in the translations you read. I'm reading from the King James Version. In some other translations, it's also very, very powerful, how Satan and his angels left the place that God had ordained for them. As they left it, they left their glory, and they ended in utter destruction.

 God has given to every person, even to every animal, and everything in the world, He's given that sphere. There is a sphere for everything in life. Even for His people, God gives us a sphere. He gives to mothers a sphere in which He wants us to mainly dwell and raise our children and that's our home. Of course, we are going to go out of the home. We have to go out of the home to even bring food for our home and so on and to do so many things, but our base, our foundation, it's our glory. The more you understand of it and come to embrace it, the more that you will truly enjoy the glory of it.

Let's finish here. Next week, we are going to find another glory.

“Dear Father, we thank You so much for Your wonderful Word and how You're showing us that, Lord God, You've created us to live in Your glory as we embrace motherhood, as we embrace our home. Thank You, Lord for showing us that You want our children. This is their prized inheritance. It's Your glory, not only ours, it's Your glory for them to be raised in the home. We thank You for teaching us Your wonderful Word, in the name of Jesus, Amen.”

 

 

 

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 68 – THE GLORY OF WOMANHOOD- PART 1

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FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 68- THE GLORY OF WOMANHOOD- PART 1

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, welcome again to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours.

I’m going to begin again today with a lovely poem. This is a poem by Edgar Guest. He lived back in the first part of the last century and he wrote many poems.

Actually they say he wrote over 11,000 poems and published more than twenty volumes of his poetry.  He just wrote about the simple things of life and about family. People loved it because it was all about their lives.

At one stage he printed a poem every day in the paper because he was a journalist.

This one is called “No Children in the House.”

I actually remember a few years ago when I would take my grandchildren with me to Above Rubies Retreats. I remember Mercy (my daughter), Rashida and Meadow (my granddaughters) coming.

Meadow has one child now, little Warren. Meadow and her husband, Kendall, are currently living in Japan. He is an engineer for Nissan, and he is posted there for a year.

Rashida, she has two beautiful little girls now (Ezra called Ezzie for short and

Emory), and Mercy, who is our youngest daughter, she has one little boy called Canaan. 

So they all have children now, but this was in their single days. If anyone came to an Above Rubies Retreat with me, they always had to do something.

Of course Meadow used to sing, but sometimes they’d recite this poem. Between the three of them, they would all take a verse or so each. I’m remembering that as I read this to you.

Here we go:

“No children in the house to play—
It must be hard to live that way!
I wonder what the people do
When night comes on and the work is through,
With no glad little folks to shout,
No eager feet to race about,
No youthful tongues to chatter on
About the joy that's been and gone?
The house might be a castle fine,
But what a lonely place to dine!

“No children in the house at all,
No fingermarks upon the wall,
No corner where the toys are piled—
Sure indication of a child.
No little lips to breathe the prayer
That God shall keep you in His care,
No glad caress and welcome sweet
When night returns you to your street;
No little lips a kiss to give—
Oh, what a lonely way to live!

“No children in the house! I fear
We could not stand it half a year.
What would we talk about at night,
Plan for and work with all our might,
Hold common dreams about and find
True union of heart and mind,
If we two had no greater care
Than what we both should eat and wear?
We never knew love's brightest flame
Until the day the baby came.

“And now we could not get along
Without their laughter and their song.
Joy is not bottled on a shelf,
It cannot feed upon itself,
And even love, if it shall wear,
Must find its happiness in care;
Dull we'd become of mind and speech
Had we no little ones to teach.
No children in the house to play!
Oh, we could never live that way!” 

 

Now ladies, I want to start sharing a series with you called “The Glory of Womanhood.”

My first point is, ladies, we already have glory.  I love that Scripture in Proverbs 11:16 and it says: “A gracious woman retains her honor . . ..” In other words, she already has honor, she’s just got to keep hold of the honor and the glory God has given her.

That word there in the Hebrew “A gracious woman retains her honor,” that word is actually “glory.”

It’s the Hebrew word kabod and in most places in the Bible it’s translated “glory.” It means “to carry authority in speech and demeanor and comportment, the way you live and walk.” It means “esteem, majesty and wealth.”

One of the main meanings of this word is “weight.” Now this doesn’t mean we put on weight. No, it’s the meaning of a weight of honor, a heaviness of honor. We carry a weight of authority because of this glory that God has given to us.

Now ladies, how is it that we already have glory? It is because we were created in the image of God. In the very beginning God created man or mankind and when He created the man there was only one being. But in the man, there was already the woman.

We then go on to Genesis chapter two and we read how God took the woman out of the man and then there were two. There was a male and a female. God Himself is genderless, but when He created mankind, He created the male and the female and each one reveals different aspects of Who God is.

The man reveals the manhood, the maleness of God.

God has planned for us to reveal the beautiful femaleness of God, His nurturing heart, His compassionate heart. Of course a man can have compassion and mercy also, but it is physically and very innately exemplified in the female.

So when God created us this way, He put in us something of His glory. Of course we don’t live in the fullness of the glory of God. When we read about God, He is called in the Scriptures the God of Glory. He is called the Father of Glory. He is called the Spirit of Glory. We also read of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory. We read about the throne of glory in His heavenly realm.

Everything to do with God is related to glory. He is glory. That word glory, as I have shared, is “majesty, esteem and wealth.” It’s a beautiful word.

We have some of that glory; we reflect some of His glory. God wants us, as His female creation, to embrace how He created us because when we do that, when we embrace who He created us to be as a female, we live in our glory. Isn’t that wonderful?

Dear ladies, God wants you to live in your glory. To live in your glory, not to go against it, not to think it’s of no worth, no, but to embrace it with all your heart and to live in it.

We’re going to find out more as we go along how to live in this glory. We have to retain the glory that God has given to us.

That word “retain” in the Hebrew is the word tamak and it means “to keep fast, to hold up, to maintain.”

It is the same word that is used when Joseph held up his father’s hand to place it on Manasseh’s head, his son’s head, when his father was blessing his sons. It was a holding up. It’s the same word when it says: “Thy right hand upholdeth me” (Psalm 63:8). It holds  me up.

And just as God holds us up, He wants us to hold up the glory that He has given to us. He wants us to hold on to it and not bring shame to it. When we don’t live in it, we’re actually bringing shame to His glory.

In Psalm 4:2 it says: “ . . . how long will ye turn my glory into shame?” “Glory”— that’s that word kabod. How long will you turn it into shame? We either do two things, precious ladies: We either embrace the glory that God has given to us, or we bring shame to it.

In Jeremiah 2:11 it says: “But my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.” That’s a powerful Scripture, isn’t it?

We see the feminist world today coming against everything that is truly womanly. They call themselves “feminists” but they’re the opposite to everything feminine. They are the opposite to every way God created them.

We don’t have to be very intelligent to look at our bodies and see how God created us: femininely, womanly. Our most basic characteristic as a woman, as a female, is that we have a womb. It’s our most basic characteristic; it’s what makes us a woman.

This womb is a powerful place. Maybe one time I’ll do a series for you about the womb. The womb is where we conceive and carry a baby that grows in our womb. We bring this beautiful baby forth, this life, this child within us that has been a child from the moment of conception, a child that has been born not only for this world, but for the eternal world. We have the privilege to do this from our womb.

We have breasts from which we nourish and nurture this child. This is the glory that God has given to us.

It is so sad that today feminists and liberalists are turning away from who God created them to be and they are no longer who they are.

I remember one time our grandson Zadok (he’s Evangeline’s oldest son, he’s 27 years now), and he has such an anointing of evangelism upon him. Everywhere he goes he speaks about Jesus. Sometimes we call him “the Wal-Mart evangelist” or “the bus stop evangelist” because he goes to these places and everywhere he goes he finds people who need Jesus and he is not inhibited in anyway. He just speaks to everyone he meets. He leads people to Jesus in Wal-Mart. He prays for people to be healed at Wal-Mart. He goes to a gas station to get gas and he will end up leading someone to Jesus.

I remember one time he decided to go down to the streets in downtown Nashville and he didn’t know that the night he went down was going to be some gay demonstration. It was filled with gays and homosexuals.

He was sharing with us later how he came up to one person, this guy who was dressed as a woman and the anointing of God just came over him.

He rose up with such authority in God. He spoke with this loud voice and he pointed at this man, and for many they would think, “Help, help, why would you do this?” but it was the anointing of God and he pointed at him and said, “You are not being who God created you to be. This is not who you are!”

Then he began to speak to him, to this man, and because it was under the anointing of God, God arrested him, and this man began to weep.

But what a true statement, “This is not who you are.” I believe this is the message for so many precious women today who have been deceived, who are duped by this feminist dogma. “This is not who you are!” and this is not the glory of womanhood that God has given you.

So, precious ladies, we have to embrace this glory. Yes, it is a glory.

I’m not just talking to you, making this all up to make it all sound great, that this is all glory. No, I’m speaking to you from the Bible and as we go through today, we’re going to see that this is Bible language.

We have got to get the right language. We have got to get the truth. We are bombarded on every direction by deception from the feminists and the humanists and all the “ists” and “isms” that are so contrary to the Word of God.

It’s time we came back to the truth and the language of the Bible. This is our very beginning basic point, precious mother, precious daughter, whoever you are today. You were created in the glory of God. You carry the glory of God. God has put some of His glory on you so you can reveal it in this world and show to the world what God is like.

When we as women embrace our femininity, we bring glory to God. When we as a mother come to motherhood and when we embrace it, we are revealing the nurturing, compassionate heart of God and He wants this revealed in the world.

It is God’s glory and He wants us to revere it. Amen?

You’ve already got it precious, ladies. You’ve got to just hold on to it, hold on to your glory. Amen? 

All right, let’s look at some other Scriptures. We go to Proverbs 31:25 and this is speaking about the virtuous woman and in this verse,  it says: “Strength and honor are her clothing. . .. ”

The word “honor” there is another word for glory, another Hebrew word this time and it’s the word hadar.

There are a lot of different Hebrew words for glory, but the ones we’re going to speak about today are kabod, which I’ve talked about, and now also hadar.

Hadar is also a wonderful word and it also means “glory, honor, majesty and beauty.”

In fact a while back I had a beautiful girl living with us as an Above Rubies helper. I think you know that I have Above Rubies helpers come to live with us. They come from all over the USA and also the entire world.

This girl, Avigail, was from Israel. We were so blessed to have her come all the way from Jerusalem. Avigail has lived in Jerusalem all her life. She has grown up living among the Orthodox Jews. Hebrew is her first language.

It was so wonderful when we would have prayer times, she would begin praying in English and then move into Hebrew. She just couldn’t help it! Oh goodness, when she began to pray in Hebrew it was so powerful.

But I loved having Avigail with us because when we were reading the Word we would say, “Oh I wonder what this word really means.”

We can look it up in our Strong’s Concordance and find the meaning there, but often it’s not the full meaning.

I remember one day asking Avigail about this particular word. It was “Strength and honor are her clothing” and we realized it was the word hadar. 

I said, “Avigail, okay, do you use that word today in your everyday language in Israel?”

She said, “Yes.”

I said, “Tell me, what does it really mean?”

She thought for a moment and she actually found it quite hard to fully express the meaning. She said, “It really means ‘beyond honor.’ It’s a very powerful word. It means ‘beauty from above.’ In other words, it’s a beauty that comes from God.’” She said that it’s such a beautiful word that many mothers in Israel love to call their daughters “Hadar,” so they speak that over their daughters, this beauty from above, this honor.

Isn’t that beautiful? And this is the word here in Proverbs 31 where it says: “Strength and honor [beauty from above] are her clothing.” This is what she is clothed in.

Dear ladies, this is our testimony. We are to be clothed in glory. We put on glory each day. We wrap ourselves around in glory. It’s not a glory of our own. We haven’t got it of ourselves. It’s given to us from above. It’s this beauty from above. It’s this reflected glory of the image of God that we are revealing as a female.

Let’s look at another Scripture. I’m going to turn over in my Bible here to Psalm 111. It’s just a description here of the works of the Lord.

All of the works of the Lord are so wonderful. On the sixth day God created His final creation, mankind: male and female. Every day He said it was good, but on the sixth day, after He had created His highest creation, He said “It is VERY good.”

We use the word “very” and it’s not really such an incredible word we use. If we want to say something’s really amazing, we use the word “amazing” or “incredible” or “fantastic.”

Well that’s really what that word means. It’s not just “very.” It does mean “incredible, amazing and just so beyond the normal.” It was very good. Exceedingly good.

So as we read this passage we can think about all God’s works of creation, but His highest creation, which is male and female.

Psalm 111:2-3: “The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein. His work is honorable. . ..” That’s the word howd. Wow, that’s another word for glory in the Bible and it means “beauty, glory, excellency.”

“His work is honorable and glorious. . ..” That’s the word hadar. That’s the word that we’re talking about now. She’s clothed with hadar and when God created us, He said He created us with hadar, that’s the word here, ”glorious,” He created us with hadar.

Are you getting it ladies? Yes, hadar, which also means “dignity.” That’s another part of it.

In fact, I’ve noted here, I’ve found 19 different translations of Proverbs 31:25 where they use the word “dignity.” So although it means glory, it also means dignity.

Some translations will say: “Strength and dignity are her clothing and she laughs at the time to come.”

What does dignity mean? Well, the dictionary tells us that “it’s the quality of being worthy of honor. It’s a high sense of propriety, truth and justice. It’s an elevated deportment of manners and behavior. It’s an elevated office, an honorable or high rank.” That is the meaning of dignity. God has given you, as a female dignity so embrace it. You are not inferior as a female. You are created with hadar, with glory, with beauty from above.

Psalm 111 goes on with verse 3: “He hath made His wonderful works to be remembered . . ..”

Wonderful, that’s the Hebrew word pala. Oh goodness me, how I love that word! It means “wonderful, marvelous, miraculous, extraordinary, astonishing, beyond the bounds of human power or expectation.”

Verse 6: “He hath showed the people the power of His works.” They are powerful.

Then it goes down to verses 7, 8 and I am going to read these verses in the ESV: “The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy; they are established forever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness. . ..”

Dear ladies, you can trust the way God made you. Everything He says, everything He does is trustworthy.

Daughters, beautiful daughters who are listening today, young daughters and older daughters, embrace your femininity. It’s your glory and it’s who you are. Always be who you are, who God created you to be.

I think one of the saddest things in the world is for someone to go through life and to not be who God created them to be. I think that is the most devastating thing in the entire world.

Fancy being here on earth and not being who you were meant to be! The greatest thing you can ever do is be who God created you to be.

That means as a daughter, that means when you become a mother, we embrace who we are with all our hearts. As we do, we live in our glory and we keep and hold on to the glory God gave us at creation. We are giving glory to God.

I believe it is time that we took back the glory.

I wrote something this morning, just a little kind of ditty:

“Why don’t we live in our glory?

Because we’ve been told a different story.”

I believe that’s the reason, ladies. That’s the reason that we’re not living to the full of our feminine glory is because we’ve been told a lie.

Not only have we been told a lie. We’ve been told it so much, that we have been educated in the media, in society all around us and, sadly, in the church today that we don’t believe the truth.

And so we don’t live in the glory. That’s why we’ve got to come back to Bible truth, Bible language so we can live in our true glory.

Then I wrote another little ditty:

“If you want to live in your glory,

Take heed to the Bible story.”

Amen?

All right, ladies, I’m going to pray and then next week we’re going to carry on learning more about the glory God wants us to live in.

“Dearest Father, Oh how we praise You that You are the God of glory. You are the Father of glory. You live in glory. Your throne is a throne of glory and we will never, with our finite minds, fathom even a little of the glory of all who You are and where You dwell.

“One day we will live and see this glory, but now, oh God, we can only dream about it. But we thank You for Your truth that You have created us to live in Your glory, to live out Your glory, to bring glory to You.

“We ask that You will save us from ever bringing shame to Your honor and glory, but that we will truly be who You have created us to be. In the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.”

 

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