Episode 21: Is Male Headship Biblical?

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

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

Nancy: Hello, lovely ladies. It is good to be with you again. I wonder where I am talking to? I know that so many are listening over the USA, but I know that many of you are listening in different countries too. I am glad that I get to speak to you all over the world. I would love you to drop me a note if you have time, just a little email. My email is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. If you live in a different country, drop me a line and tell me where you are listening from. I would love to hear that; it would be so exciting.

That reminds me of many of the letters in the New Testament and how Paul, and even Peter, wrote to the saints in so many different places. In 1 Peter 1, it says: “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.” Wow, they were all over the empire. Peter was writing to them all. I hope I’m speaking to lots of you in different countries today. By the way, have any of you ever traveled or been to Cappadocia? We visited this country, or this part of a country, when we were taking a tour to Israel, and then on to other countries.

We went on to Turkey. Cappadocia is way out in the middle of Turkey. It’s the most interesting country I’ve ever been to in my life. When you go there, it’s like you are walking on to the moon. It has all these cone-like structures coming up everywhere. There is no normal land of just grass fields; it’s all these cone-like structures. People lived in these structures, and they dug out their homes from them, and they even dug out underground cities. It was to Cappadocia that a lot of Christians fled to hide from persecution. It’s a most interesting place.

Then Peter goes on to give his salutation to the people. I love what he says; I would like to make it my salutation to you today. I would like to read it to you from the Passion translation. And it says: “You are not forgotten.” He was talking to those in many different places, just as I’m talking to you in many different places today. “You are not forgotten. You have been chosen and destined by Father God. The Holy Spirit has set you apart to be God’s holy ones, obedient followers of Jesus Christ, who have been gloriously sprinkled with His blood. May God’s delightful peace cascade over you many times over.”

That’s my prayer for you: that God’s peace and His love and His joy and His rest will cascade over you all throughout this day and all throughout this week. I bless you in the name of Jesus. Let’s go back to the King James Version. I’ll read it again. We notice something wonderful in this Scripture. “Elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Holy Spirit and to obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, grace unto you and peace be multiplied.” Did you notice there that God the Father, and Jesus Christ the Son who is God, and the Holy Spirit who is God, are all mentioned there in revealing the plan of salvation? Each one in the triune Godhead took part in salvation. Isn’t that amazing? So wonderful.

This last week when we were having family devotions in our home, and this is my favorite part of the day. Every morning and every evening, Colin reads the Word to us. Of course, he asks questions, and we discuss it together. Then, we pray. I was taken by a Scripture he read this last week. It’s in John 20:17 and Jesus was talking to His disciples. It was getting near to the time He was going to return to His Father in heaven.

He said these words: “Jesus said unto her, ‘Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brothers and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your father.’” I was captivated by those words.

 How amazing that Jesus, who was the beloved Son of His Father (I mean, He had this most beautiful relationship, the greatest Father-Son relationship in the whole of the world . . . the Father with His beloved Son . . . there is no greater relationship), yet our beloved Father (because if He is the beloved Son, the Father is the beloved Father) , was willing to give up His beloved Son and send Him into this world. To not visit this world and say, “Hi,” but no, to lay down His life. To give His life. To shed His blood so that we could have salvation, and we could be redeemed and so that we could be His beloved daughters. Isn’t that amazing?

Jesus shares His Father with us. I wonder, would you like to share your father with someone? I had a wonderful father, and I was blessed to grow up with a wonderful father-daughter relationship. I do not know if I would want to share my father with the world. He was my father. Yet, Jesus was willing to share His Father with us. Isn’t that wonderful? Not only to do that but to die to so that we could have this wonderful blessing of knowing God as our Father, just as Jesus knew Him as His Father.

I wonder if you know the Father in this way. Is He your intimate friend? He is your dearest, precious Father. I know that some of you might not have had a great father relationship when you were growing up and that can affect your own relationship with God the Father. Dear precious ones today, I want to encourage you that Jesus is sharing His Father with you, and He is the ultimate Father. Even if you haven’t known what fatherhood is like because of your experiences, you can know what fatherhood is like because God will reveal Himself to you as a Father. Maybe I can pray for you now.

“Father, I come to You now in the name of Jesus, and I pray for any precious mother or daughter today who has not experienced a good father relationship. Father, I pray that You will put Your loving arms around them, that You will gather them in Your arms. You will draw them to Yourself, and You will show them that You are there for them. That You are their beloved Father. That this is who You want to be to them. I pray that You will manifest Yourself as father to them, and they will know the anointing and preciousness of fatherhood in their lives. I ask it in the precious name of Jesus. Amen”.

I would like to share another Scripture that was in our same daily reading this past week. In Ephesians 3:15 it says: “For this reason,” This is Paul praying. “For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and in earth is named.” The actual meaning is “that from whom all derive their source. All fatherhood on earth and any fatherhood in heaven. It doesn’t matter where it is. It derives its source, its origin, from God our Father. In fact, we can’t even have family without fatherhood because the seed of life comes from the father. He is the origin of family. A family is a father and a mother and children. All are needed. Of course, you know that, but I am saying it again because we are living in such a deceived society where women are trying to put down manhood, fatherhood, and that word “family,” that every family finds its source in the Father God. That word in the Greek is patria. It means paternal. It comes from the word “father,” and the Greek word for father is pata.

Family comes from father. That’s its origin. Isn’t it sad, dear ladies, that we are living in a day when so many are rejecting fatherhood? They are rejecting patriarchy. It’s a scary word in our society today. I have been asked to be interviewed on TV on quite a number of occasions, and when I’ve been interviewed on TV or radio by the secular world, it’s amazing. They never fail to come up with this question. “What do you think about patriarchy?” Of course, when they say that word, they are thinking of men who are tyrants who are keeping their wives in subjection, lording it over everyone in the family. They have this terrible picture in their minds of patriarchy, and it’s the man lording over everyone.

That’s not the Bible picture of patriarchy. Patriarchy is fatherhood; it’s the picture of the beloved Father and His beloved Son. It’s fatherhood and family. Of course, we know that many times that picture is true of the tyrant. There are many families where that happens because Satan hates fatherhood. Every plan of God, that God has planned for us, which is for our blessing, for our highest happiness, Satan hates, and he seeks to distort it and bring it down. He tries to bring down fatherhood, bring down motherhood. We cannot reject fatherhood and motherhood because of that.

We have to acknowledge that it is Satan who is distorting the beautiful roles. In fact, if we go back to the very beginning in Genesis 1, when God first created the man and later the woman, He brought the woman to the man. At that beautiful moment, God said these words: “Wherefore, shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh.” This is the very first reference to father and to mother in the Word of God. It’s right back there at the very beginning, in Genesis 1.

Dear ladies, apart from reading about it, where was the Father and mother? There was no father and mother at that wedding ceremony that day. There was no father and mother in sight. Adam and Eve had never heard of a father or mother. “What’s a father and mother?” “I don’t know.” Do you see something amazing? God was establishing His plan right at the very beginning, before any person had ever seen a father or mother. God spoke about His plan because all God’s plans are perfect. All His ways are perfect. We sing that beautiful worship song, “The ways of the Lord are perfect.”

Every word of God has been tried. Psalm 12:6 says: “The Word of the Lord is tried, purified in the furnace seven times.” God’s plan is glorious and perfect, and He established it before we ever saw it. That’s the importance of fatherhood and motherhood. It was spoken about before anything else. This establishment of the family, of father, of mother, was the thing that God established before He ever talked about the church, before He ever talked about government, before He ever talked about all the other things we experience today. It starts with father and mother.

We even see a picture of the family in the triune God. We have our Father God; we have the Son, who is also God; and then we have the Holy Spirit, who is also God. Now, the Holy Spirit is never mentioned as a mother in the Bible, but we do see that picture over the working of the Holy Spirit. We go back to Genesis 1 and read how the Spirit brooded, like a hen broods over her chicks. He brooded over the waters. We go to the New Testament, and we see that He is called the Comforter, and the one who comes alongside. We see this beautiful picture even in the Godhead.

That’s the picture. It’s not half a picture, just a mother and a child; no, it’s family. Father, mother, children, and it’s so sad when we live in a day when fatherhood is being trodden down. It is sad because God has created the father to be the head of the family. Feminists hate it when you say that. Even so-called feminists in the church.

I don’t like to hear the words, “I’m a Christian feminist.” I don’t really think they go together because they don’t like to embrace that the father is the head of the family, but we see that in the Godhead. Ephesians 4:6 says: “One God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all.” He is above all. He is the head. God, in His plan (and God’s plans are best, no matter what we think, His plans are the best plans), created the male as head of the family.

Relax. Of course, that doesn’t mean to say he lords it over the family. No, because the Word of God plainly reveals that all His creation are equal. Both male and female are equal in value, equal in worth, equal in every way, but we have different functions. Even in our functions, God created the male to be the head, the protecting, providing, loving, and leading head. Now, we see this in a number of ways as we go right back to the beginning.

We see:

No. 1: Man was created first, then the woman.

God didn’t even create them both at the same time. I wonder why. He could have done that, but no, God in His plan, in the way He chooses, because God chooses what He will do. Because God is God. I think, don’t you ladies, we’ve got to get a hold of this? We have got to stop thinking that we are God and that this is the way we would have done it. We have to relinquish to God that He is God. He is Lord over all.

He is Omniscient; He knows all things.

He is Omnipotent; He is all-powerful.

He is Omnipresent; He is everywhere.

He is Omnibenevolent; He is a good and kind and a loving God.

He is Omnisapient; He is the only wise God. Three times in the New Testament it states these words: “To God only wise.” He is the only one who is truly wise. Yes, He gives godly wisdom to man, but He is the only one who has ultimate wisdom. None of us could ever truly know like God knows. He knows from the beginning to the end. Therefore, He can make the right decisions because He knows what’s going to happen. He holds the whole future in his hands. He knows everything that is going to happen from this moment on, for all eternity. This is our God.

 How can we go against His plans? I love this Scripture in Proverbs 21:30: “No wisdom or understanding, nor counsel can avail against the Lord.” No matter what argument someone puts up, no matter what they think, it can’t stand against God’s plans. His plans are best.

I love Psalm 33:11: “The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations.” When God created male and female in the beginning, when He established the plan, when at the very beginning He talked about father and mother before we’d ever seen a father and mother on earth, He was establishing His counsel. It stands forever. That’s what the Word says. We either believe the Bible, or we don’t. His counsel stands forever. The thoughts of His heart are to all generations, right up till now, this very generation in 2018. It stands forever. It’s as relevant today as it was then.

No. 2: God caused Adam to represent the human race.

In 1 Corinthians 15:22 it says: “As in Adam, all die, so also in Christ shall be made alive.” Now, we all know that when Adam and Eve sinned, sin came into being. God doesn’t say, “Ok, it was a problem with Adam and Eve.” No, he says, Adam. Adam is the one who represents the human race.

No. 3: God gave Adam the responsibly to name Eve.

When someone names another person or names even an animal (Adam named the animals, and he had authority over them), God also gave him the privilege to name Eve. Once again, that doesn’t give him the option to lord over her, but he is her head, her beautiful, protective covering.

No. 4: God called the man and the woman “Adam.”

He didn’t say, “Adam and Eve.” We go back to Genesis 5:1,2 and it says: “Male and female created He them. And He blessed them, and He named them male.” It says “Adam” in the King James version, but the word just means man. He named them man when they were created. Both were created totally equal. Both were created to have worth. Both were created special. In fact, God left the creating of the woman until last. She was His final and most blessed creation of all. She was the one who was left to His last special, amazing creation.

I remember reading a quote about this. This was written by Richard Helman, and he says, “God’s glorious creation began with things such as dirt.” Well, actually, isn’t it interesting? How was Adam created? Out of the dust of the earth. How were the animals created? Out of the dust of the earth. How was Eve created? Dear ladies, she was not created from the dust of the earth. No. How about that? God took her out of Adam, out of an existing creation. She didn’t even touch the dust of the earth!

Anyway, this quote goes on to say: “God’s glorious creation begins with things such as dirt, then vegetation, then animals. It kept getting better and better. God then created His great love interest, His adopted children, human beings, yet man was created only second to last. Woman is the crescendo. The last and greatest of all God’s creation. God has created nothing more beautiful, more loving, more tender-hearted, more nurturing. That is why women are perfectly positioned to be wives and mothers, because women are the pinnacle of all God’s creations. “

There we see that, although she was left to this last glorious creation, God still called the man and the wife “man.”

There was, in God’s eyes, a headship. There is, in God’s heart, headship, even in the trinity.  There is no difference of worth between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each one is equally God, and each one has different functions, but they are equally God. Part of the function of the father is to be the head.

Yet feminists hate this truth. They hate this word. Do you remember recently when there was the battle for judge Brett Kavanaugh to come into the Supreme Court? The Hawaiian senator stood up and said to all the men of this country, “Just shut up.” This is coming from the leadership of our land, telling the men to shut up. “They don’t have a voice; it’s we woman who have the voice.” That’s not God. That’s not His plan.

No. 5: God created the man accountable.

In Genesis 3:9, after Eve had sinned and then she had also given the fruit to Adam, God came into the garden, walking in the garden in the cool of the day as He did, for He loved to come and talk with Adam and Eve. He loved fellowship with them. That’s why He created man because He loves our fellowship.

When He came into the garden, of course He knew what had happened, but He called out, and what did He say? “Adam, where are you?” He didn’t say “Adam and Eve, where are you?” No, “Adam, where are you?” God held Adam accountable for Eve’s sin because his responsibility, as her head, was to be her protector, to keep her from that sin, to protect her and woo her away. God came to Adam. He was the one that was held responsible.

No. 6: God made Eve a helpmeet for Adam.

When God said He was going to make someone for Adam, what did He call her? He said: “I’m going to make a helpmeet.” The words in Hebrew are two words: ezer kenegdo. The word ezer in the Hebrew simply means “helper.”

No, He didn’t say: “Adam, I’m going to make you a leader; she’ll be the one who’ll direct you and show you the way to go.” No, He didn’t say those words, ladies. He said: “I will make you a helper.” Now, don’t get too sad. “Helper” is not an insignificant word, ladies. We are not insignificant because God made us a helper. Did you know that that very same Hebrew word ezer is a word that’s also used to describe our God? God, who is our help and our shield--it’s the same word. Its an attribute of God. As helper to our husbands, we are being God-like.

He (our husband) cannot do without us. He cannot do without our help.

The next word is kenegdo, which means “corresponding to.” In other words, God created each one of us differently, uniquely, specially. We are not the same. With our differences, we dovetail together. As we come together, we are made one. You can think of a picture of a seatbelt. I’m sorry it’s such a basic picture, but when you put a seatbelt together and it clicks, the two parts are not the same. If they were the same, they would not fit together.  Each one is different, therefore, they become one. They become one, precious ladies. God could not make two the same to make them one.

God’s plan and purpose for marriage is that we be one. One flesh and also one in spirit and mind and heart. ONE. We have to be different to be one. Let’s take another basic picture of a puzzle. When you’re fitting one piece of the puzzle into another, you can’t find two that are the same shape. If you do, they won’t fit. You can put it on top of the other, and that’s not God’s plan. His plan is not for the husband to be on top of the wife. He’s the head who is leading her.

It’s not His plan for the wife to be on top of the husband. Opposite, it’s absolutely opposite. We are different. Isn’t that amazing? Kenegdo, corresponding to. We are different, but we come together, and we fit. Praise the Lord! God’s ways are so wonderful. He created the man to be the leader and for the wife to be the helper, but both positions are powerful, and none is less than the other.

Well, time is going again, ladies, and I have a couple more points. I’ll talk about them next week. Let me pray for you.

“Dearest Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus. I want to pray for very mother and daughter and grandmother listening today. I pray that Your truth will go into their hearts. They will receive it from You, Father. Help us to receive Your divine truth from You, not to listen to the ways of the world. They can sound so good; they can sound wise, but they are not Your ways, Lord. You laugh at the foolishness of the wise. It’s just foolishness to You for You are the only wise God. Help us to be those, God, that hear Your counsel.

“Help us embrace who You created us to be. Help us to release our husbands to be who You created them to be. When we do that, we will dovetail together, and we will truly be one.

“Father, I pray for the husbands, oh God, of every wife that is listening today. I pray for these men. Men have been so put down in our society today. Their role has been downtrodden. I pray that You will lift them up, Lord God, lift them into all the glory, the glory, the glory, and the status that You have given them, oh God. Not to be tyrants over their home, but to be loving, serving leaders. Providing, protecting, gathering their families around them and under their wings.  Oh God, I pray that You will raise up the anointing of fatherhood in the home of everyone listing today. I pray that You will raise up the anointing of fatherhood in this nation and the nations of the world. I pray, oh God, that you will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, to their families. Oh God, that they would come back. In the midst of this deceived generation, You will give them a revelation of who they are, and they will return, oh God, to Your plan which is for their glory and Your glory and the glory of the nation. We ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen.” 

 

Episode 20: Building or Destroying?

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

In this podcast we talk about caring for an elderly relative in the home. We talk about life from conception to the grave. We talk about building or destroying our homes. And I begin answering your questions. You can email questions to me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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

Nancy Campbell: Hi there, ladies! May God bless you in your home today and fill you with joy as a mother. Well, of course, I'm sure you're filled with the joy of the Lord, because if Christ dwells in you, His joy dwells in you. Our joy is not really determined on our circumstances. It's determined on the truth that Christ, Who is all joy, dwells in us!

So, even if you're feeling despondent, just kind of down in the dumps, well, you don't have to listen to your feelings. I know that's easy to say, and not so easy to do, but I know, because I've been there.

I remember as a young mum, so often just listening to my feelings. Feelings are usually negative. Well, they usually go toward the negative. I had to learn that if I was going to live by my feelings, I would live a pretty miserable life!

So, I began to live, not according to how I felt, not according to what was happening in my life and my circumstances, but according to God's Truth. The Word of God is a far greater truth than our feelings. The Word of God doesn't lie. The Word of God is a fact. We can stand on it, and we can live by it.

I earned, little by little, to walk, not just by how I feel, but, as Jesus said in Matthew 4:4: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Can I encourage you to live this way? Live according to what God says.

Now today, I am rejoicing. I'm rejoicing because of good news, not just because I'm walking in faith. I have such wonderful, good news! And I only just heard this morning!

Arden and Esther, only found out last night, that he is now free of cancer. We are rejoicing that he is healed! Oh, this is the most amazing news in the history of the world for us. For we have all prayed and believed and interceded and worshipped and hung on in faith, and fought this battle with him and Esther for, well, how long is it now? Two-and-a-half, nearly getting on three years. It's been a long, long battle. But now we, well, it's just so unbelievable!

Now you may be getting this news a little bit later, because we are recording a little bit ahead. We have now sent out to you 13 different episodes of this podcast, but today we are recording Number 20! So, we are a little bit ahead. In case Arden has to go away, or Colin and I have to go away, we won't leave you in the lurch! You'll have episodes waiting.

But if you haven't heard this news yet, you can rejoice with us. You may remember my sharing in Above Rubies how it was just after Esther and Arden were married that he got the news that he had this Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Then began our great battle, his great battle. We were just so with him all the way.

Now we rejoice at God's faithfulness, how we hung onto the promises of God. There was one time, perhaps Arden's darkest time, when we all gathered as a family for three months. It was over the summertime. Every night, for three months, for about 13 weeks, we all gathered. Many times, there would be 30 plus of us, just all the hilltop family gathering together, right down to the little babies.

Serene's little one, Remmy, was just a little baby, but everyone came. The children came. The children prayed. Everyone prayed. We just hung onto God. I printed out promises from the Word of God about Him being our Healer, and the faithfulness of His Word. We pinned them all around the room. As we would walk around and pray, we would go to these promises printed out in big, bold letters. We could read them and claim them and pray them.

We were praying them in faith, because what we were seeing was the total opposite of what we were reading in those promises. We just kept hanging on in faith, and hanging on, and hanging on. God has been so good!

Arden has been looking so well and so wonderful for so long, now. But now we have the official clearance! He is healed, so we just praise the Lord! Thank You, Thank You, Thank You, Lord!

Now last time, when I was talking with you, I had told you that I had 15 points about making an exciting home. I actually forgot to tell you the last one, even though we've finished that subject now. But I must tell you, because I don't like leaving anything out when I told you something.

The last point, No. 15 Our home can be a convalescent home.

Sometimes we may have someone who is sick in our family. We are having to spend much time just ministering to them. Now we have spoken about the healing home, but this is a little different again.

This is when someone in the home is requiring convalescent care. Maybe you have a child who has special needs and requires so much of your time. Some of you may be looking after older members of your family.

The Word of God is very plain about this. It does say, that when we have older parents, that the children or the grandchildren are to look after them. It's what it tells us in 1 Timothy, chapter five, that it is our responsibility to care for our aged parents (1 Timothy 5:4-8).

Did you read the story in the last Above Rubies, Number 95? I have this feature, Young People Speak Out. One of these beautiful young people was Gosia and she wrote about looking after their grandmother in their home. If you haven't read it, get out that Above Rubies again, and read it.

I love that it was written from a young person's point of view, because her parents took the grandmother into the home. She was in her nineties, maybe eighties when they took her in. They cared for her right up to the very end.

It took lots of sacrifice, not only from Gosia’s mother and her father, but from the children themselves. They had to learn how to serve an older person, how to minister to their needs. She tells of how it was such a great blessing in establishing her character and teaching her about life.

This is part of life, caring for someone as they are nearing the end. This is part of life. So. if you are in this situation, I pray that God strengthens you, helps you. I just want to encourage you that you are doing the very right thing.

Some of you are wondering whether you need to do this. Well, do it, because it's what God wants us to do. Sadly, it doesn't happen in many homes today, because often, not only the father, but the mother is out working. They're just not in a position to bring in and care for an older person in their home.

They're put in these nursing homes. Oh, what a terrible thing for an older person to be in a nursing home! I mean, they don't have family around them, they don't have children around them, they don't have someone to really prepare nourishing and healing food to help them. They don't have the stimulation of family life. You just watch them die. I just think it is so sad.

I have to confess that I didn't care for my wonderful father as he was in his last months. Because we lived here in the States, he lived with my brother and my sister-in-law. They had the privilege of caring for him that year.

I remember I flew down to New Zealand four times to be with my father that year. I was very close to him. It would have been the delight of my life to have him in our home. But he wasn't able to come to America. He had to stay in New Zealand.

I must tell you a little thing about what happened at the end. I was there at the end. I had flown down. He was getting close to that time of going. My father was a very wonderful man, a very godly man. I remember, I was sitting by his bedside when his pastor came to visit him. The pastor said to my father, “Ivan,” he said, “you know, you've lived a great life. You've served the Lord, and you're ready to meet Him. We just give you that freedom to go to the Arms of your Savior.”

At that time, it sounded lovely, and I really wasn't aware of what was happening. In fact, it wasn't until I was back in the States, and my father had passed away now. We were with him as he passed away. Such a privilege to be with a loved one as they're going into the Arms of Jesus.

But I woke up one night and God just showed me that those words were not right! Because no one has the right to tell a person it's time to go, or tell them, “Oh, you've got permission to go! You can go. You don't have to be here any longer.”

People will say that to someone who knows the Lord because they know they're going to be with Jesus. But when I woke up that night, I knew those words were wrong. And I know these words are often said to people as they're getting closer to the end.

Somehow, you know auto-suggestion is very powerful. I realized we have to be those who are pro-life from the beginning of conception, or before conception (we are just for life). from the beginning of life, and even before the beginning of life, because we're open to life.

We have to, as young couples, be open to life. It's more than just when life is conceived. It’s before life is conceived. We are open to life. We are ready for life. We are waiting for life, even before it is conceived.

Then we are pro-life right to the very end. We're not saying, “Oh, you can go now,” because it's only God who knows the moment when He will take that breath away. I sense that even in my precious father's lingering days and hours, that although he wasn't able to talk he was aware that we were there.

Because he loved us, I believe he didn't want to go until Jesus took him. He just wanted that lingering with his family. He loved his family. There was never a father that so loved his family and loved his children. In fact, if you could say he had a negative in his life, his negative was that whenever people came around, he would talk about his children and talk about how amazing they were.

He must have bored so many people up, but, oh goodness me, he just couldn't stop talking about his children. Then when we got married, and then we had children, then he added all the grandchildren to his skiting list. This is what we call it down in New Zealand. If you're boasting about someone, you say you are skiting about them.

This would have been his negative in life, that, oh, everybody had to listen to him boasting about his children and boasting about his grandchildren. So, I sensed that he just wanted to linger. He wanted to just hear their voices. I'm sure he was hearing us even though he couldn't speak.

So, I believe, right up to the very end we are to be for life. We let God be in charge. He is the One who takes them at the right moment.

I want to read you something else, too. This comes just as a combination as we were talking about building an exciting home. This is something I wrote years ago about the kind of home we are building. or the kind of home we are destroying.

ARE WE BUILDING . . .

• An angry home, or an anointed home?
• A boring home, or a bountiful home?
• A cynical home, or a celebrating home?
• A depressing home, or a delightful home?
• An empty home, or an encouraging home?
• A fretful home, or a flourishing home?
• A grumbling home, or a grateful home?
• A harassed home, or a happy home?
• An impoverished home, or an interesting home?
• A jaded home, or a jubilant home?
• A kill-joy home, or a kindhearted home?
• A legalistic home, or a loving home?
• A mournful home, or a merry home?
• A negative home, or a nurturing home?
• An oppressive home, or an overcoming home?
• A prayerless home, or a prayer-filled home?
• A quarreling home, or a queenly home?
• A rebellious home, or a restful home?
• A sour home, or a sweet home?
• A troublesome home, or a tender home?
• An unstable home, or a united home?
• A vexed home, or a virtuous home?
• A worrisome home, or a wonderful home?
• An exhausting home, or an exhilarating home?
• Are you building a yielded home?
• And are you zealously guarding over your home?”

My precious mothers, I hope you're on the positive! I hope you're building all these wonderful positive things into your home.

QUESTION TIME

Well, precious ladies, at last I am answering some of your questions. Here we are, at podcast No. 20 and it's taken me all this time. I seem to have so many things I want to say to you! But anyway, some questions have been coming in, and I am saving them. You are welcome to email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you have other questions you'd like me to put on the list. We will gradually answer them.

All right, now this lady says: “I have appreciated your comments on studying the Bible in the podcast. Can you tell me what study tools you use?”

Well, yes, I'd love to do that! Now the Bible that I use, ladies, and I am now onto my third Bible (this kind of Bible). It’s called The Hebrew/Greek Key Study Bible. You can Google that if you are interested: The Hebrew/Greek Key Study Bible. You can get it in different versions. I love the King James version.

I am not a King James only, where I only read the King James, but I do love the King James because I grew up with it. It's like home to me. The language is so familiar, and so beautiful, and I love it. So, I read the King James every day.

But I do refer to other versions. I'm actually a connoisseur of different translations of the Bible. I have a whole . . .  just rows of them in my library. Often, I will refer to them on a particular Scripture I am meditating on. I will just see, well, what are they saying? Sometimes I think, “Oh goodness me, how do they say that?” Other times, “Wow, that's just amazing!” 

But then, what I love to do best of all is go into the Hebrew or the Greek to see what the original really says. Now, this Bible helps me to do that. It has the Strong's Concordance at the back of the Bible. It's amazing. It’s not that big, but it has it there. I don't refer to that so much, because I refer to that more on my iPhone.

I have an app, which is called The Strong's Concordance. It is the most wonderful app, just called Strong's Concordance. I can go to any word. I just type in the word, and up it comes. It gives me the Hebrew understanding of that word, or the Greek. Then it lists every single word where that same original word is used in the Bible.

Now this is where it gets so exciting, because, Oh! I'm always amazed. It doesn't just say the same word. Say I'm looking up, goodness me, what could be a word I'd be looking up? “Overcome.” Now, you put that word in, and then . . . well, maybe for that word it does say “overcome,” but many times it will give me about three, or four, or five, or six, or seven, or eight, or nine, or even ten different words or phrases that the King James has translated for that same original word!

It's amazing! You begin to see all the words in the Bible where that word is used. It gives you so much more understanding. It is amazing. So, I love my Strong's Concordance on my iPhone. I use my iPhone more for studying the Bible than I do for anything else. In fact, if you were ever to message me, you'd most probably not get an answer because I forget to even look at my messages.

Back to this Hebrew/Greek Study Bible. It is edited by Spiros Zodhiates, if you're checking it more.

Now, as I read through the Bible. I will see the Strong's numbers. You know how in the Strong's Concordance, every word has a number. If that number is in bold, that means I'll be able to look it up at the back of this Bible in the Lexicon. When I look at it in the Lexicon, I get far more understanding than in the Strong's Concordance, because it elaborates more on that word.

Okay, let's try, for example . . . I'm just opening my Bible like a flick trick! That makes me think of my daughter, Serene. She loves the Word of God, but sometimes she says: “Oh, Mum, I'm naughty sometimes! Sometimes I'm just needing a word from God, so I'll just open my Bible randomly and look and see if God will speak to me.”

I think she must be ones of God's pets, because it seems that every time she does that, God speaks to her! She calls it the “flick trick.” But anyway, she doesn't mainly do that, because every day she reads the Word.

Anyway, here I am opening up to where ever it is, and it's Psalm 26:7. It says: “That I may publish, with the voice of thanksgiving.” And “publish,” oh, it's got a bold number here. So, let me see, 8, 0, goodness me, I've got my glasses on, and I still don't know whether it's a 6 or a 5 or an 8. Yes, it is 8085.

Okay, over the back, to my Lexicon! 8085. Let's see if I can find it here. You can hear the turning of the pages! 8085. Okay. Another grandson has just walked in here to my lounge. This is where we're recording.

“Arrow, have you ever used The Strong's Concordance? You haven't? Well, just listen in, and hear how to study the Bible! It is so exciting!”

I don't know how people cannot do this! I couldn't live without this Bible, and without my app on my iPhone. It just makes the Word of God so exciting! Every day, I am just seeing new and wonderful things as I look up these words to see what they really mean. Of course, you get the blessing, because I'm always sharing them with you, aren't I?

8085. If you haven't got time to do this, looking after your little baby, and your little toddlers, and your other children, well, don't worry. You just try and read the Word as you can. If you are a young mum, oh, I know what it's like. It's so hard to get time to set aside, but you can put an open Bible in the toilet (not in the toilet! But on a stool near the toilet!), you have to go there every now and then throughout the day. Have it open at Psalms or Proverbs. You can get a little snippet as you are there.

Put your Bible on your windowsill. Oh, I did that right through the raising of our children. There was my Bible, open at either Psalms or Proverbs where it's easy to take just one Scripture. I could look up and get something.

I don't have it on my windowsill today because this house doesn't even have a windowsill above my kitchen sink. I keep dreaming of one day if maybe I ever get another home, I've got to make sure I've got a ledge on the windowsill where I can have my Bible.

I notice, my daughter Pearl, she has her Bible on her windowsill. It's there, every day, open. Serene, I notice she has . . . with her little baby she finds the best way (when I go over to visit her). She has her laptop and it's quite a big screen. She has the Bible in large print. She just pulls it up. When she's sitting nursing Solly she can turn it on and read the large print. That's how she finds she can get the Word at this season of her life.

Okay . . .  well, I'm talking, and I'm still looking up 8085. We're getting to it. It usually doesn't take this long, just because I'm talking. 8085. Wow! I can't believe that! Is that actually? Is that truly? I'd better just check this, because this is interesting, because I know what this Hebrew word is.

8085 is shama. And that word means, “to hear, to listen with attention and obedience, to give undivided listening attention.” Wow, that's amazing, isn't it? It even means, “to eavesdrop, to overhear.”

But it always talks about when you hear that you obey! It's very interesting that that's the word that's used here, in that Scripture I just picked up. I'm just going back to it. “That I may publish, with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all Thy wondrous works.”

That means, “I will hear them first.” So, we've got new understanding. “I will hear, and I'm going to listen, but not only listen and obey, but I'm going to tell everybody about them too!” Isn't that wonderful when we hear revelation from God? We don't keep it to ourselves. We publish it! Yes! Publish it! Tell it! Let everybody know!

In fact, there's another Hebrew word I've just been looking at recently. It's caphar. Sometimes it's translated “show forth or tell.” This is what you find out when you look up that app in the Strong's Concordance. I looked it up, because I was looking up what it meant, “to tell and to show forth the works of the Lord.”

And then I read all these words, “Scribe, to write. It's the same word that is used for a scribe who writes things down to publish them. So that word, caphar, and sometimes it's translated, “publish,” it's not only to tell through our mouths, but to write it down and publish it.

Do you know what, ladies? You can do that every day. When God gives you a wonderful Scripture, well, write it down! It's wonderful to have a little book. I've always kept journals right throughout my life, not to write . . . well, I wish I had time to write my life story, but I don't have time.

But I keep a journal to write what God says to me. When I see a Scripture that, oh, it speaks to me—it’s a wonderful promise, or it's a challenge, or it's revelation to my soul, I write that Scripture down. Then I begin to write what God is saying to me about it.

Now, when I had lots of little children, three in 17 months, four under four, and so on, I didn't have time to write all these wonderful things God was saying to me about the Scripture. If I could write the Scripture, that was all I could do! But I would write that.

Today, many of you are on social media, you are on Facebook. Do you know that you can use your Facebook, not just for all the mundane waste of time stuff? You can use it to publish God's Truth! When you get a good Scripture, when you get a wonderful revelation, just write it on Facebook, and send it out to all your friends.

That's what the Bible says we're to do, to publish His Truth, publish His Word, publish His wonderful works! If you haven't got time to get any yourself, go onto the Above Rubies Facebook, find some of my good posts that challenge and bless you, and post them and share them with all your friends, so we can keep getting the message out! Amen?

Okay. So, I use the Strong's app on my iPhone, and I use this wonderful Bible. I take it wherever I go. Now I'm wearing out my third Bible! They are such a blessing.

All right. So, how's our time, Arden? Well! Goodness me, I was ready to give you another really exciting question, but time has gone. So sorry! Let's pray.

“Oh, precious Father, we thank You so much for Your precious Word, that we have Your Word, that we have it clearly in this country. Help us to appreciate it, and to realize it's like gold. It's treasure. It's filled with revelation. It's God's Word personally to us.

I pray, that Lord God, Your precious Word will become real to every mother and wife listening, every daughter listening. And Father, I pray for the young mums who've got their little ones around, that You will help them to be proactive in putting their Bible in places where they can get it throughout the day. Where they nurse their baby, or wherever they go, so they can get little bits of Your Word.

For those who are in a different season, and are older, and their children are grown, I pray that you'll give them such a heart to get into Your Word, rather than doing all the other vain things of this life. And Lord, that You show them Your precious Truths, that they will speak them, and write them, and publish them.

Lord, we need an army of women publishing Your Truth and Your works out today through social media. It seems that this is a way that the Word goes out today. Help us to be faithful to get Your Word out, rather than all the deception that is out there today. We ask it in the Name of Jesus. Amen.”

And ladies, a little final word as we close. In one of my podcasts, I shared with you how we are a mighty army. God speaks in Psalm 68:11, 12 about the mighty army . . . that's the word He uses (rab in the Hebrew) meaning “mighty, powerful, that word also means “multitudinous.” It's not a few women, it's a mighty army of women, multitudes of women, in the home!

But they are publishing and proclaiming the works of the Lord. You can do it from you home. You're most probably on Facebook or something, or Instagram. Use it to proclaim the works of the Lord, to publish His Truth! Don't waste it on other things. Amen.

 

Episode 19 – God’s Lifestyle Plan

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

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

Nancy: Many blessings to you and all your children and. of course. your husband today. We are carrying on with our passage in Jeremiah 29, and I have Nadia Pitana with me again today. I know you enjoyed her last week, and I know you’ll be enjoying her again today. In this passage, the God of the heavenly armies, even though they are in exile, wants them to keep doing the things that He originally gave them in the beginning. God’s plans never, ever change. Everything that God says is unchangeable. We have to get that into our very being. I don’t know how it is that some people think that God writes something, and maybe He changes it as maybe it doesn’t fit with our 21^st century. No, God cannot change. It is impossible, for He is God. Everything He writes, what He wrote in the beginning, is for every generation.

I might read this passage to you today. I usually read from King James, but can I read to you from the Common English Bible? It says, “The Lord of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, proclaims to all the exiles, I have carried off from Jerusalem to Babylon. Build houses and settle down. Cultivate gardens and eat what they produce. Get married and have children.”

Now we are up to the next one . . .

No. 4.

“Then, help your sons find wives and your daughters find husbands in order that they too may have children. Increase in number; don’t dwindle away. Promote the welfare of the city where I have sent you in exile. Pray to the Lord for it because your future depends on its welfare. Don’t let the prophets and diviners in your midst mislead you. Don’t pay attention to their dreams. They are prophesying lies to you in My name. I didn’t send them, declares the Lord.”

We see that we are up to number 4, and God is still talking about children. This time, instead of saying “Marry and have children,” He’s saying, “Make sure you have grandchildren.” It says here: “HELP your sons find wives.” That’s very proactive isn’t it? That’s a little bit opposite to the way we think today, even in the church. Mostly, parents are not helping their sons and daughters to get married.

Some other translation says: “LET your children get married.” I think that applies to some parents. “It’s ok if they meet the one God has given to them when their maybe 26 or older. Oh yes, they are ready to get married.” What if they meet them at 17 or 18? Are you going to let them get married? Well, that’s what the Bible says.

In fact, back then in Bible days they married young. They weren’t old when they got married; they got married young. The statistics reveal that the marriage age is getting older and older so that now its 29 years for men and 28 years for women. That’s getting old. Do you notice? All those beautiful child-bearing years in your twenties have been wiped out? The devil is very good at that because he knows our fertility decreases as we get older. In those prime years, if he can keep people from marrying, especially among God’s people because this is in the Christian church, couples in the Christian church.

It saddens me when couples get together, and they keep on hanging out together, but they don’t get married. What’s the story? What about, as I asked, if they are even younger? Do we let them get married? No, not if it’s not the right one. If it is a godly young man or a godly young woman and you know that it is the right person for your daughter or son, of course you let them get married. They are not too young to get married, that is the Biblical age to get married, or even younger in Bible days. We need to get with the Word. In fact, it says here to help your sons and your daughters to find the right one. We are meant to be proactive because God wants our children to get married. He wants us to raise them for marriage.

Many parents today, even in the Christian world, are not raising their children for marriage. They are raising them for their careers. They are raising them to get everything they can materially. They aren’t really raising them with a vision for marriage and for raising a family. No young man or woman is ready for marriage if they aren’t ready to embrace children because that’s what you do when you get married, according to the Word.

Right here: “Marry and have children and then get your children to marry and have children so you can have grandchildren.” Any grandmothers listening today? How many grandchildren do you have? Are you actively encouraging grandchildren to get married? This is all God’s heart because he loves a couple coming together. It’s a beautiful thing—it’s all God.

In the very beginning, God brought the women to the man. God did it. God still does the same today. He delights in bringing the woman to the man. It’s a God thing. It’s a miraculous thing. I was talking to our Above Rubies’ helpers around the table the other night, and I was saying, “Girls, this is a miraculous thing.” When I think about how my husband and I got together, well, yes, I saw him, and yes, my heart fluttered, but really it was God. God did it. It could have been with some other guy, but no, God caused my heart to flutter for this guy. What about you?

Nadia: God.

Nancy: Yes, it’s God. When you look back, it’s God. It’s God; He does it. I’m thinking, here’s Arden here, recording for us. God brought Esther to him. She was one of our Above Rubies’ girls. She came all the way from Canada, but she had come all the way from China before that because she was adopted from there. He was only very young, but he took one look, and he knew that was the one God had for him. We all witnessed it too. They married young, and they have been so blessed. Let’s get with God.

What does the next thing say?

No. 5:

“Keep increasing in the land of your exile, and do not diminish.” Do you get God’s heart? Some other translations say: “Don’t decrease; don’t dwindle away.” We have got to increase, multiply. That’s what the Word says in the very beginning. Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth. We are to multiply. I was recently watching the news and the race between the Democrat and Republican in Ohio. The caption read on the screen, “They are neck and neck.” It was such a close race. We aren’t meant to have neck and neck races because God’s people aren’t meant to be neck and neck with the spirit of the world. God’s people are meant to be mightier.

You are going to hear from Nadia soon, especially when we get onto a certain subject in one minute. Let me read this in Exodus. Back in Exodus, the children of Israel were under the domination of the Egyptians, and their lives were hard with bondage and bitterness. If you ever see the Ten Commandments, you see what they are going through, yet in the midst of it all, it says: “The children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and WAXED EXCEEDING MIGHTY; AND THE LAND WAS FILLED WITH THEM” (Exodus 1:7).

Verse 9 says: “The people of the children of Israel were MORE AND MIGHTIER than the Egyptians.” That really scared them. Do we scare the people who are not with God? Do we scare them today? No, we don’t scare them much at all. We are not much of a threat to them. Yet we are meant to be a threat; God’s people are meant to be a threat. The children of Israel were a threat; they were more and mightier. So, the Egyptians afflicted them, but the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.

Here we are in this cushy lifestyle. We have everything so easy here in America, and we can’t even multiply in good times. They were multiplying in persecution, bitter hard times of bondage, but they still obeyed. This is what God wants. We have to get out of being victims of the lies and propaganda of the enemy who has deceived the people of God to limit their families. This is the lie of the devil. This is the plan of the devil because the devil knows that his greatest threat is the people of God.

The more godly children born into this world, the more it is a threat against him and what he wants to do because more of God comes into the world. We fill the land, not only with people, but we fill it with God’s image, with His truth, with His salvation, with His mercy, and with His love. This is what we are meant to do, and we are giving a righteous vote.

This is one of the very important things. We are coming up to the end of this year to our midterm elections. I believe that every God-fearing believer has to get out and off their bottoms because there is such antagonism and such hate and such desperation for the left to win these elections because they want to take back everything that our president has been doing. We are in a very blessed time when so many laws have been changed and we are having many freedoms again. God is so good, and we have a window of opportunity. May God save us from being “neck to neck.” May God raise up His people that we may be “more and mightier” than the Egyptians. What do you say?

Nadia: Amen!

Nancy: Amen! We dare not diminish, dwindle away; we dare not decrease. But what happens next? This is amazing . . .

No. 6: It says: “Seek the peace of the city where I have carried you to. And pray unto the Lord for it. For in the peace thereof, you shall have peace.” Here’s another command, dear ladies. We have been talking about payer in some of our podcasts. God specifically says: “Come on now, don’t forget to pray. You are not in your beloved land now; you are exiles, but you pray for where you live.” I would like Nadia to share a bit about this because, as a family, they are prayer warriors, and I’m challenged by their life of prayer and fasting. I specifically wanted Nadia to be on this podcast. Tell us what you do in your family to pray and how you feel about prayer? How important is it in your family?

Nadia: Well, prayer is very simple. We are told, “If my people will humble themselves.” The only thing that keeps us from prayer is pride. The recognition that I need God causes me to pray. When a family is no longer calling upon God, they think they have it right. They have it all figured out, I don’t need God in my life. When we realize how we need Him, we will call upon our God. When we realize, and also recognize that our children need him and will need him, we will call upon Him.

Therefore, they must be equipped to know how to pray for the things that will come around into their lives. I think prayer is very essential, just as air is essential, just as doors are essential in our home. We lock our doors, right? Nobody just leaves their home unprotected and allows anyone to come in to their home. Prayer is that shield. It’s what we use to spiritually, physically, and emotionally cover our family.

Nancy: I know you and Pitana love to pray, but how have you taught your children to pray?

Nadia: Again, you can only give what you have, so we did it before they were ever born. I would rise up early, when my husband was going to work, before ministry. I would get up early. He would be going by five, so I would get up by four to have that time in prayer with him before we started the day. When the children came along, I couldn’t.

We do want to find time, even in our family devotions, to allow time to pray. It is not just, “Ok, we got the Word.” We have to pray that the Word will get into our hearts. The Bible says if we just hear and don’t do, we deceive ourselves, yet we can’t do it on our own.

The other major thing I was thinking about the other day was that they go around praying. Just as important as going to church is for us, prayer meetings are just as important. Since they were little, we went to church for the service, but we also went to church for the prayer meeting. When you are a part of a church that has a prayer meeting, which are very few nowadays, get your children there because that communicates that it’s important. Those prayer meetings are usually on weeknights, and it’s late, but that is an important thing for us. I had to readjust, and they went to bed late, but it communicated to them that it’s important to call on this God that we serve.

Nancy: That’s a wonderful thing. I think.about homeschooling. You can go to a prayer meeting; you can take your children, and even if it’s late, and they have to sleep in in the morning, well, who cares? They are doing something so powerful.

Nadia: Well, others who don’t homeschool take them to sports events and still show up. Which one is more important?

Nancy: I know. I’m such a great believer in having children in prayer meetings. We have a prayer meeting here every Wednesday night. We encourage all the grandchildren to come. In fact, there’s usually more children at the prayer meetings than there are adults. Often, Colin will say at the beginning” “C’mon children, all the children pray first,” because some of them will go to sleep as the meeting goes on, so we get them praying first, so they get their prayers in. You only learn to pray by praying.

Nadia: There is no other way. We travel a lot as a family, and when we are in a place where there is no prayer meeting to be found, we always open our home for a prayer meeting. We invite people, and if they can’t show up, we still have our own prayer time as a family. We make it a priority.

Nancy: Amen. Your children love to pray?

Nadia: Oh yeah, because, as you pray, you grow to love prayer because you see the results of prayer.

Nancy: That’s right. Can you tell us any special answers to prayer? I know you’ve had so many, but can you isolate one or two and think of them?

Nadia: On the way coming here, I was sharing a testimony because we were praying for specific finances. We just started a TV ministry, and we needed the finances to come because we just did a recording to pay for it. My oldest son said, “I woke up at night around 3.00 am and I heard you talking.”

I said, “Yeah.”

He said, “Wow, you stayed up that late?”

I said, “No, I went to bed, but the Lord gave me a dream, and I woke up to pray about it.”

He said, “Oh, what was it?”

So, I was sharing. I said, “Before I went to bed, the Lord had answered our prayer. Somebody sent in money to pay for the recording.” He was like, “They did?” He was excited because we had been praying about it.

They already saw that provision, from things like sickness. We had a son break a leg and had a cast on, and they said it could be five weeks before he could heal, and even then, we would have to see if it’s healed properly. Well, at that time, my belly was big, and I had a two-year-old that needed to be carried around with a cast. He was potty-trained, so he didn’t want to go back into diapers; he wanted to be carried here and there and that was heavy, and as I did it, I began to get contractions. I had about eight weeks left in the pregnancy and I didn’t want to go prematurely.

We don’t have family around, so I began to cry out to God. I called my husband at work and said, “I can’t do this, I’m having contractions. If I keep carrying this baby like this, we will have a premature baby.” He came home for lunch, and we said the Word of God is true. He doesn’t change. Let’s agree that the same Word that says, “by His stripes you are healed” God heals. We are going to agree for healing. We laid our hands on him. We got our five-year-old, Jeremiah. We all agreed. We laid hands on him. We believed, and the Bible says, when we believe, it’s done.

Let’s get him to the hospital. We went to another hospital, another emergency room. We had taken him the day before; that’s when they put a cast. We went to another hospital with different doctors, so we waited there. While I was there, I was having contractions. Actually, I was the one laying down on the bed because I was having contractions.

The doctor comes in and he says, “What’s going on?” I said, “It’s not me, it’s my baby. I need you to take the cast off.” He said, “I can’t do that; this cast just got on yesterday. You need five weeks for the leg to heal.” I said, “No please, I need you to take it off.” We prayed that God would move his heart to go past his natural understanding, his medical understanding, and get the cast off. We prayed and prayed. He finally gave in.

He said, “I am going to take it off just because I know that you will be back before this day is done begging me to put it back on. He will be in so much pain, you will come back today; I guarantee it. We will put it back on.”

We said, “No, we will not come back in the name of Jesus. You take it off, and we thank you.” Off they went, and they used this machine. Oh, my goodness, you think they are going to cut off his leg to get it off. The whole time, he is saying, “He’s going to be in pain, and it’s going to be horrible.”

My husband is saying, “No, it’s going to be fine.” He gets it off, and says, “The boy sat still, the prayer worked. When I touch it, he’s going to scream.” My husband says, “He’s going to be fine.” He touches the place, no pain. He squeezes; the boy is fine. He cannot believe it. He puts the boy down; the boy walks.

We were so in shock that we didn’t even stay to witness to him because we were thinking, let’s get out before they realize what just happened. We took off, and we kept our appointment in five weeks with the specialist. We showed up and the boy is playing outside in the hallway waiting, and the doctor comes and says, “Where is Samuel?” I said, “Right there.” She said, “No, no, no, where is Samuel with the broken leg?” I said, “Right here.” She said, “No, that can’t be the same boy.” 

She didn’t believe us. Took the same x-rays. You know when the bone is healed, it still shows where it got hurt, and the only way she could believe it was by looking at a second x-ray. She said, “I don’t know what happened. I can see that this is where it was broken, and it’s healed. I don’t know what you did.” We said, “Well, Jesus healed him.” They have testimonies like that.

Nancy: Praise the Lord. That’s so beautiful. You were saying how Jeremiah, your oldest, just turned 13 a week ago, and you told me how, as a 13-year-old, he spent his birthday praying and fasting. Was that his idea?

Nadia: Well, as mothers, you encourage. We had, as a family, been on a 21-day fast.  We were going to finish it shortly after his birthday. We were doing a Daniel fast. I said to him, “Don’t you think being 13, because biblically they thought that was a man (some people believe that Mary were that age when Jesus was born) . . . that’s a big responsibility. Don’t you think you need to seek God the Father to find out what He has for you.” He said he was actually thinking about that.

I said, “Do you think you need to do a deeper fast than us?” He said he was actually thinking about that. He picked a day, two days before his birthday, and went to be with the Lord and to just find out, “God what plan do you have for me?”

Nancy: Wow, so he just went out into the land?

Nadia: Well, I cleared his schedule, and he woke up early. He was in his room just praying and fasting throughout the day,

Nancy: How wonderful. Praise the lord!

Nadia: Out of that, came the message God gave him. He is now starting a podcast to minister the Word to young people. God gave it to him very clearly.

Nancy: That’s what he felt in his heart? That’s amazing.

Nadia: God gave him a message. While God was giving him a message, God was telling me about a podcast.  He didn’t know how he was going to go about it. Over his birthday, I said to him, “The Lord told me that it is time for you to begin, that we should let you start a podcast.” He was like, “Oh, He gave me a message, but I didn’t know how I was going to give the message.” He will be starting that soon.

Nancy: I think we should get Jeremiah in here to get him to say something. There’s nothing like hearing from a young boy whose heart is for God. Let’s go find him, shall we?

Nadia: Yes.

Nancy: Now, here is Jeremiah. He has just turned 13. I think it would be lovely for you to hear from him. Now Jeremiah, you are 13 now, and if you were a young Jewish boy, you would be becoming a man now.  What’s on your heart? What is God putting on your heart at this age of your life?

Jeremiah: To love Him and love people and talk with Him any time of the day. Like before I go to bed, I always just pray to Him and hear from Him which is really a good thing. Also, love people.

Nancy: I know you love to pray. In fact, as a family, don’t you pray and fast on Fridays?

Jeremiah: My dad prays the whole night on Friday nights.

Nancy: Really? Do you children ever join him for any part of it?

Jeremiah: Yeah, when we were younger, he wanted to motivate us, so we would get a treat if we prayed with him in the middle of the night. As we got older, the treats went away, but we still wake up, and pray with him for a little bit.

Nancy: You do? If you wake up, you go out and pray with your dad. That’s so wonderful. Your mom was telling me how, on your birthday, you put it aside to pry and fast. Tell us how that went.

Jeremiah: I was really hungry. I think it was worth it. I got to hear what God wanted to tell me and what He wanted me to do. 

Nancy: She even said you want to start a podcast to talk to young people.

Jeremiah: Yeah, well my parents, for my birthday, gave me the chance to do a podcast.

Nancy: That’s so wonderful. What would you really like to talk to them about?

Jeremiah: About being God’s child.

Nancy: Yes, but you’ll have to say more than that.

Jeremiah: Yeah, well being in the kingdom of God.

Nancy: Yeah, well you’ll have to say more than that.

Jeremiah: Well, that’s basically it for now.

Nancy: You’ll be seeking God to know what to say?

Jeremiah: Yes

Nancy: And how to encourage them.

Jeremiah: Yes.

Nancy: That’s so great. Thank you so much Jeremiah. Time is going again. Perhaps I could just mention to you the last point.

Number 7.

“Don’t be deceived.” When God said that, He didn’t say, “Don’t be deceived by the Babylonians among who you are living, but don’t be deceived by the prophets who are in the midst of you.”

We can’t be gullible and take everything that anybody says, even in the body of Christ, even in the church. We need to seek God and His Word for truth. Now, if we do these seven things, we get the most wonderful promise. Verse 11 which so many people love: “I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace, not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Many take that promise, but they don’t realize it comes at the end of those seven commandments that God gave. As we obey these seven commandments that God reminded them about, then you’ll have a future and a hope. Isn’t that good?

Ok, we are going to pray. We will both pray.

Nancy: “Oh father, I thank You for the precious ladies listening today. I ask that Your blessing will come upon them in their homes. Give them a heart for prayer. Give them a heart to seek after you. Help them to be a family with a passion for God, a passion for prayer, a passion to seek Your face, and a passion to lead other to your ways. Save us from wanting to be like everyone else. Help us to be those who are truly set apart for You and following Your ways. In the name of Jesus, Amen.”

Nadia: “Father, we thank You for the promises You have given us in Your Word and instruction. We might have a desire to pray. Peter had a desire to pray when Jesus took the disciples in the garden. They had the desire to pray, but they could not pray. He said, “Can you not even pray for one hour?” They needed something. They needed to be empowered by the Holy Spirit. We see in Acts that when they received the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, in Acts 2, they were empowered. They were able to become men of prayer. Those who couldn’t pray a little bit when Jesus needed them became people of prayer that influenced nations.

I pray for these ladies in their homes, Lord God, that they will have an encounter with You. That they will be filled with Your Holy Spirit, as we see in the book of Acts. That out of that, they will be empowered to pray. Because Your Word tell us that we know not how to pray, but the Holy Spirit prays for us, interceding for us, with the groanings that cannot be uttered. We need the help of Your Holy Spirit to pray for us and for our children. In Jesus name, Amen.”

Nancy: Amen. Blessings to you today.

 

 

Episode 18 – BUILDING AN EXCITING HOME, No. 6

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

The last point about the exciting home:

15. A GARDEN CENTER

The first home, which was the prototype for all homes to come, was a garden home. A home is not truly a home without a garden, especially growing food to eat. If you are not able to grow a big garden, grow a little garden. Even a tomato plant, or herbs in pots on your deck!

And introducing Nadia Mutana, mother of seven children. Nadia is originally from Rwanda where she grew up with a single father (no mother) and servants. She had no idea of how to mother, cook, or manage a home. She shares how God has been her teacher.

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello, dear ladies. Here I am again with you, in your home, coming to you from my home. Well, last week I still didn't get to talk with you about the last point, #15, which is OUR HOME IS A GARDEN CENTER.

I know that you often go to a garden center to buy plants and seeds. But truly, our homes should be a garden center, because if we go back to the very beginning, in Genesis, we see that the very first thing God did after He created Adam was to create this beautiful home for Adam, and for his wife, Eve, who was not yet created.

Eve had not yet come into the world, because God didn't want her to come in until He had the home ready for her. He created the man without the home, but not the woman. When Eve woke up to life, where was she? In her home, where God planned for her to be.

But it wasn't just a home with four walls. It was a garden. We all know it's the Garden of Eden. Yes, we've got to get that phrase, “the Garden of Eden,” the first home, which was the prototype of all homes to come, with a garden.

Therefore, a home is not truly a home unless it has a garden, and especially a garden of produce, because God intends us to eat from our gardens. It's the healthiest way to eat, but we can get away with it today, of course, with our supermarkets and all our refrigeration.

In fact, I remember growing up as a girl, we didn't have refrigeration, we didn't have all the deep freezes. So, we lived according to seasons. Whatever produce grew, or fruit grew in that season, that's what we ate. I remember one time, for goodness, three or four weeks at least, all we ate was pumpkin and beans. That's what we had in the garden, so that's what we ate!

But now, of course, we can go to the supermarket. We can buy any fruit from any country in the world. We can buy any vegetable we want in any season, because there it is: because of refrigeration.

Even so, it's still not the healthiest. How long has it been sitting there? Is it GMO? Is it sprayed? Most probably. In fact, even if you want to buy organic, you look at it, and oh, it doesn't look very, very fresh at all. So, it's a beautiful thing to grow a garden.

I have the most wonderful garden this year! Oh, I'm so blessed! I go out every day, and it just looks glorious! It's blooming. And now I'm in the middle of the harvest. I go out in the morning, and I just pick about three huge bucketfuls of tomatoes, and then cucumbers, golden squash, and zucchini. Now my okra is coming on. Then I go and pick basil leaves to make pesto to eat with my tomatoes. Oh, it's so wonderful!

I grew some beans this year. They're called “long beans,” I think, because I just found this old packet, and I don't even remember what the name was on the packet. But I planted them. And I couldn't believe it! They grow these long, long, long, long beans . . . they're so exciting! And I've got one still growing on my garden. I haven't picked it. I want to see how long it's going to grow. Do you know it's already two feet, nine inches long?! Can you believe it?

But I have to tell you. In the spring, when it was time to put in my garden, I didn't feel like putting my garden in. Oh, I was very busy at the time. I was going to a lot of different retreats. At the same time, I was fighting this cough and this flu, which I'm just getting over this cough. I just didn't have the energy.

But I knew, if I didn't do it, we wouldn't eat. Well, we'd get it from the supermarket, but we wouldn't eat lovely life-giving foods. So, I had to get myself by the scruff of my neck and make myself do it!

You know, sometimes ladies, it's not easy to do things. We have to just make ourselves do them. But then we get the blessings. I couldn't believe the blessing I'm getting now! Even though I sowed my garden just about in tears, now I'm just rejoicing in the reaping!

Now of course, you may think, “Well, I know, Nancy, you live out there on the land. It's easy for you.” Well, not really. When we first put in our garden many years ago when we came out here, we couldn't even grow a thing. It's just chert up here on the hilltop. Chert! You can't grow anything!

So, we had to buy our dirt, and make these raised beds. From them, I have composted, and composted, and kept them going all these years. Now, you may only have the tiniest little bit of land, or just in your pot. But, look, just grow a few tomatoes. I grew over 100 tomatoes, but you can grow, maybe one or two tomato plants? Even in a pot, on your veranda! And a few herbs. But grow something, because your home is a garden. Okay?

All right. Now, dear ladies, I want to carry on in this passage we started with. You may have to go back a few podcasts to get to where I started, because it's taken a little while to get here.

Jeremiah 29:45: We started with this letter that was written by Jeremiah, but the words were given by God, by the Lord of Hosts. He sends this letter to them, to those who were in Babylon. They were captives. They were exiles, away from their beloved land of Israel. God came to them and He said, “This is what I want you to do while you're in Babylon.”

Actually, there were seven things that God told them. We started talking about the first one, which was: “Build houses, and settle in them.” That's what we've been talking about, what it means to build an exciting home, and just live in it! To really make life in it.

The very next thing He says, number two: “Plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them.” Well, we just talked about that.

What's the next thing He says? Verse six: “Take wives, and beget sons and daughters.” Another translation says, “Marry, and have children.” OK. Do you notice something? It says, “Marry, and HAVE CHILDREN.”

It doesn't say: “Marry,” and then to the wife “I think you better also get out to work, and make sure you save up enough money to get your own home, and pay off your car, and get all these things in line. And then, maybe, you could think about having children?” No, it just says, “Marry, and have children.”

Well, I've got something exciting for you today. I have someone special in our studio, which is actually my lounge. Anyway, I want to introduce you today to Nadia Mutana. Say hi, Nadia.

Nadia Mutana: Hello, ladies. I am glad to be here with you.

Nancy: Now Nadia is a mother of seven children. And Nadia, seven children? Did you plan that when you got married?

Nancy: (Laughing) No, definitely not!

Nadia: Tell me about it!

Nadia: We had a plan, just like everybody else. We were gonna wait five years, get financially stable. It's the intelligent thing to do. And have one, two, and . . . maybe we were gonna be a little radical, push for three, but definitely not go over four, and that will be it.

Nancy: So, what happened? You've got more than four now!

Nadia: Well (Laughing) Somebody showed up in my life that I was not pleased with. She brought me your magazine, which I packed in my home, and I kept it for over a year. Didn't think that was something for me.

Nancy: Do you mean to say that you had Above Rubies in your home for a year, and you never read it?

Nadia: Yes. No, she was my doula, and so I had been polite. She was helping with the birth of my baby, so I just stuck it on the side for a while, and the year went by. My first born was a year. Summer . . .  we were moving, so I was unpacking. And I looked, and it was there. I just could not comprehend the things that were being said in that magazine. It seemed to me at that time, ridiculous!

(Laughing) I could not believe! Who lives this kind of lifestyle?! That was my introduction to the magazine.

Nancy: I mean, it seemed so ridiculous to you, well, how did you actually get with it?

Nadia: I love God, so my desire was to seek God, to lead my life dedicated to Him. After having been saved, and the things He'd taken me from. So, what I found in the magazine, there were Scriptures about it, so I just wasn't gonna take it because you said it or pointed out a few Scriptures. Because anybody can point to a few Scriptures and still connect it in the wrong way.

So, I went to prayer, actually what I call wrestling with the Lord. I prayed about it, and said: “God, you cannot be asking me this. Show me proof.”

I said, “God, if I ever trusted You like they were saying, I could end up with 20, 30 children! That is NOT OK, that is not possible for my body!”

I just wrestled with God, and He said to me, He dealt with me, and began to talk to me: “Who says you'll have 20? Who says you'll have 30?”

I said: “Well, science is very clear. If I don't do anything to stop it, I obviously will get pregnant!” I was only 21, so I could only think of having a full house!

So, He took me Scripture by Scripture by Scripture to prove to me that He already knows how many children you're gonna have, that it's Him Who opens the womb, it's Him Who closes the womb. Just because I was willing to surrender, didn't mean He would give me, how many? It could be, or it might not be.

But He already had a plan, and He had to just deal with me. He said: “Really, Nadia, this is an issue of you not trusting Me. You don't think I love you enough. You don't agree when I say I have good plans for you. (We're talking about Jeremiah 29:11.) I have good plans for you, to prosper you.”

I said, “Yeah, but I don't see how.”

He said: “You're fearful because you don't think I would ask you of what is good for you. I'm not out to hurt you.” So, once we got past that, I'm like, OK, but how many could I have? And He literally took me by Scripture by Scripture and began to show me. How many did Abraham have? How many? You know? Right?

OK, how many did Jacob have? I say, well, I don't know. Jacob had two wives and a couple of concubines, so four women, and he only got 12 children. I'm like well, you divide it, that's not a lot. And he lived past 130 years. How many did Isaac have? Rebekah only had one pregnancy (that is recorded).

And on and on and on. He went on to say that “Just because you trust Me is also no guarantee that you'll have children. You just have to surrender that I have the exact amount number that is perfect for you.”

Nancy: Yes. So how do you feel now about making that decision?

Nadia: Well, so After I got over the fear and I learned that He has a good plan for me. Honestly, when people ask me, I say: “This is not what I planned, but I am so glad. It's so beyond what I could have given myself.”

I mean, which one would I trade? I love each one of them. Each child has brought incredible, incredible blessings. This doesn't mean there are no times to challenge you, like “OOOHHH!” You know, difficulties that come up. You're like, OK, we surely can't be doing another one!

But, oh, you get another one, and my husband and I were like, aren't you so glad we have another one? I am so thankful we made that decision.

Nancy: And they have seven precious children. Their names are Jeremiah, Samuel, Wonder (don't you love that name?) Eliza, Jairus, Cyrus, and precious little Grace.

Now the first, no, I don't think it was the first time, because I met you at an Above Rubies retreat.

Nadia: But it was the first time you met my family.

Nancy: The first time that Nadia came to our home and came with some of their family (they've had more since), and I think Jeremiah (their oldest has just now turned 13), yes, he would be about six or seven at this stage.

I have to tell you ladies, I was so impressed. They came up the stairs, and this young boy, only six or seven years old, saw me, and he put out his hand. He said: “I am Jeremiah Mutana. I am so pleased to meet you!” And shook my hand.

Then, along came Wonder. “My name is Wonder, and I am so pleased to meet you!” And she shook my hand. So did Samuel. I was just so blessed! Thank you, Nadia, for training your children to be young gentlemen and ladies. Oh, it was beautiful!

Oh, ladies, it's such a good thing to teach our children how to greet people, and how to greet older people. Today you find that most young people, young people in their teens, and then right down to young children, they don't even take any notice of older people. They just run in and out of houses or walk in and out.

I find you can have young people coming in and out and they don't even bother to say hello. I mean they don't hardly even notice. This happens to be YOUR home that they're entering in. Oh my. Let's teach our children, and our young people, etiquette. That when they go into a home, they don't just enter into a home, even if perhaps another young person is bringing them in.

They should always go to the parents of that home and say: “Thank you for the privilege of coming to your home. My name is, say, Steven Bryant. I am very happy to meet you, and happy to be in your home.”

Teach them to show respect. Teach them how to greet people. And Nadia's been doing that. Thank you very much. You're very much into etiquette, aren't you?

Some time ago we went down to have a meal with Nadia and Pitana and their children. It was just beautiful to see the way the children were conducting themselves. They were all learning how to really show proper etiquette, even at the table. It was wonderful!

So, Nadia, not only had you never ever heard about having more than a couple of children in your life, but you didn't really know anything about mothering or homemaking.

Let me look at this magazine here because, let me tell you, Nadia and her husband wrote, not in number 95, but the one before, 94, about the naming of your children. You can read their article in that magazine.

Nadia also wrote an article in issue number 90. That's the one with Evangeline and her spinning wheel on the front cover. It's a wonderful article. I was just reading it again today, Nadia. It's called, “A Mother Desperate for God.”

She starts off, “I have nothing in my upbringing that qualifies me to be a good and godly wife. I grew up in a broken Muslim home.” That was in Rwanda, because Nadia comes from Rwanda. “And every relative I knew had a broken home, too. I had to cleave to the Rock that is higher than I. And there are four, soon to be five (at that time), lovely children who call me Mama. They expect me to nurture and train them.

“But who am I, that I should undertake such a task? I had never known the love of a mother. From infancy, my older brother, younger twin brothers, and I were brought up by a single father. Where I was raised in Rwanda, East Africa, this was not common. Single mothers, yes, but I had never met single fathers. With the help of servants, we carried on, and my father did the best to care for us.”

So, when you got to get married, have children, and now you've got to cook for them, and you don't know how to cook, and you've got to train them, and you don't know how to mother . . . Oh, tell me what you did!

Nadia: (Laughing) Pray, pray. I still do that, because I still don't know! But I pray, “Oh, Lord, I'm so thankful Jesus said, 'I will not leave you comfortless. But I will send you the Helper.'” I believe the Holy Spirit is not there just to help us with spiritual things, reading the Word, the theology things, but in the everyday things.

I'm called to be a mother. I believe the Holy Spirit can guide us and lead us in how. The first thing He led me to was to find a mentor, somebody close that I could call. So, in my first two or three years of mothering, I called her like five times a day. “OK, I have to make this food, so this happening . . . it’s boiling! What do I do now?” (Laughing) That's before the days of Google!

I needed to feed a family, and I didn't know how, having grown up with servants who did it all. So that's what I did. A lot of praying and asking for help.

Nadia: So, with growing up with servants, you wouldn't even have known how to manage a home.

Nadia: No, I'm still learning! (Laughing) No, I wouldn't, honestly. Cleaning didn't come normally, and laundry, oh my. My mentor once said, “You know, once in a while, I take all my fridges and clean them.” I was like, “Fridges need some cleaning!?” What? It had never occurred to me! (Laughing)

Nancy: Oh, goodness, I guess when you did it, you found loads of things that were waiting away behind! I find that I must clean out my fridge at least every two weeks. Weekly is better, because if I don't, you know, things get left, they're rotting, and oh, I like all my food to keep fresh.

Nadia: By the grace of God, now I have a system where we do it weekly.

Nancy: Good, that's the way! Weekly is the thing, yes. Oh, that's good. You’ve even got your system down.

Nadia: My Samuel is my fridge cleaner. He does it once a week.

Nancy: That's wonderful. So, you have been not only learning yourself, but training your children.

Nadia: Oh yes, because it was very tough. I was raised in that culture. What I figured out in raising my children . . . I don't know where God's gonna call them. I don't know what He has in store, where in the world He's gonna call them to serve Him, to do what He's called them.

So, my goal is to train them in every area so that they can thrive. I couldn't thrive in what He had called me. I was academic, but academia was not the area He had called me. I strive to teach them all those things, so that if they don't need them, great. Anybody can get used to servants. But it's hard if you've been used to servants, to get used to going without them.

Nancy: Yes, that's good training. Because that's all part of mothering . . .  the training of our children, isn't it? It's not just having children. Oh my, that's just the very beginning. It's training these children. I do have to say you're doing a good job, Nadia.

Nadia: Oh, praise God, thank you.

Nancy: Your children are beautiful, and they are such a beautiful testimony of, not only good behavior, but children who love the Lord. That's the whole purpose of our having children. We don't have children just for the sake of having children. We have children to raise for God. That's the powerful thing about mothering.

As a mother, you have a passion for God, Nadia. But you are multiplying your passion. Yes, multiplying it. That's what we need to see, dear mothers, that as mothers, what we have, our passion for God, our love for God, our love for His Word, we multiply that in our children!

Nadia: Well, that's what Timothy's mom and grandma did. They passed it on Timothy, and Timothy, look what he accomplished for the Gospel.

Nancy: Exactly. So, we impact people in this world. But when we think of our children going out and what they will do in this world, it's just amazing. That's the wonderful thing, that the more children we have, and that God blesses us with, the more multiplication we have of the image of God, and the blessing of God in the world.

Nadia: Well you know I used to be a Muslim. In Islam they have a few wives, and lots of children. But what the very big important thing that we do is indoctrinate them in Islam. They have to have a strong foundation for Islam, and how to influence the culture with that Islam. So, they have that system handed down to them. When I became a Christian, well, I'd better do what I can to raise mine to take this God-giving life out.

Nancy: And that is a very good point, Nadia, because Muslim people are truly indoctrinated in their faith. And it's not easy to win them to Christ without the power of God coming in revelation, because they are so indoctrinated in their faith. Their parents have put it into them.

Nadia: I was devout before I was ten. I was super devout to my Islam by then. Look what we have to do. I was just thinking because we were talking about prayer. By six, seven, you're fasting as a Muslim, going all day without food. As a child in Ramadan, we all had to do it. I used to have to go through school, and there's no exception, right?

Nancy: Oh yes, we're going to talk more about that on this podcast, too, but let's get up to it, because we're going to get up to it in the Word. We’re finding here, we're just talking, lovely ladies, about these things that God, the Lord of Hosts, the God of the heavenly armies, told His people, who were in exile to do. It was not an easy place.

You know, the things God gives us to do are not just when everything is easy, and it's all just going smoothly, and it's all lovely. Yes, we can obey the Word of the Lord when it's easy. When we face issues that are not easy, that's where we still must obey. God doesn't change His plan for our circumstances. But the amazing thing is, that even when we face the difficult circumstances, we know that God comes through.

I'm thinking, if I could just take time for a few minutes, I'm just thinking now about a dear couple, and you met them, because you came to the retreat in Tennessee. Sherri Leiter and her husband, Dave, and beautiful family. They put on a retreat in Tennessee?

Nadia: Oh yeah, yeah.

Nancy: Well, Sherri and her husband started off in the way so many start off. They had their two children, and they had a boy and a girl. Whoo, perfect! I don't need any more! So, he went and had a vasectomy. That was it! Life was good, they just had it all planned down.

But, as often happens, the years went by, and Sherri begins to long for another baby, because that's what the Word of God says. In Proverbs, chapter 30, it says there are four things that never say it is enough, that are never satisfied. One is a barren womb.

Oh, you may feel satisfied for a little while, while you've got two little ones that are taking all your life to look after them, but, oh, the years go on. And your womb cries for life again. So, she talked to her husband about it. He said, “No, I've done it. I'm not having another operation.”

She was so desperate. She nagged, and she nagged. The more she nagged, the worse he got. He put his foot down. Anyway, a dear, lovely woman of God said to Sherri, “Look, you've got to change your tactics. Start praying instead of nagging.”

So, she stopped nagging. She started praying. And she prayed, and God did it. God changed his heart. They had a reversal. Then they conceived! They were so excited. But she miscarried.

They conceived again. She miscarried again. They were getting so disappointed, so discouraged. But she conceived again. This time, she kept the baby, right through to full term. But the baby was stillborn.

They couldn't take it. Here they'd given their lives over to the Lord, put themselves back where God wanted them to be, and what's happening? Miscarriages! Now their precious baby was born dead?

The husband came to Colin. He was desperate. He said, “I cannot keep doing this to my wife. I cannot do this. I've got to get another vasectomy.”

Colin encouraged him, gently, but encouraged him in the Word, and in prayer. He said, “You know, we don't live by situational ethics. We live by obedience to the Word of God.” He encouraged him, and by God's grace, they came to the place, yes, OK, we trust God, we trust Him, even if He slays us.

Time went on, and she conceived again. This baby was born alive! Oh, thank You, Lord! But you would have seen their beautiful children. They had five more children after that.

Nadia: Lovely! Good!

Nancy: Beautiful, godly children. Five beautiful children after that vasectomy. But they could have stopped, because it was hard, because it was so desperate. But you see, we keep trusting God, and He comes through.

So, dear lovely ladies, number three is, “Take wives and beget sons and daughters,” or “Marry, and have children” (Jeremiah 29:6). That's what we do when we get married. God said this to these people in exile! “Yes, you don't stop, just because you're in exile. No, you keep doing what I told you to do, in the very beginning. This is My plan for you.”

Well, ladies, once again, our time is going away. But next week, I'm going to get Nadia to be with us again! We're going to keep talking about many things. So, let's pray for you. I'm going to pray and ask Nadia to pray for you too.

“Father, we love You. We love Your ways. We love Your Word. We love Your plans. Help us to be those who are obedient to Your ways. I pray for any mother today who is struggling. Oh Father, I pray that You will come to her. Let her know that You are her Rock, that You are her God, that she can trust You. For Lord, You are always working everything out for our good. Your plan is for our good. Oh Father, I pray that You will pour out Your Spirit on each mother, and all her children in the home, and her husband. In Jesus' Name, Amen.”

And Nadia, you pray for them, too.

Nadia: “Father, I thank You for this appointed time for every woman that is listening. You know them by heart. Father, I thank You.

God, I sense a heaviness, I think that heaviness is in somebody's heart. I sense cries and tears. My God, I thank You that You are a God who knows, who sees and who can do something about everything. In Jesus' Name, we pray Your Holy Spirit to minister to that lady who is wounded. As Mrs. Campbell shared that story, I sense somebody saying, “That’s me. I have lost child after child.”  Somebody says, ‘That is me . . .  child after child’.

Spirit of the Living God Who comforts, I pray Your comfort over this family in the Name of Jesus. And Father, we also pray, Your Word also says that the thief comes to steal, to kill, and destroy We rebuke the devourer, oh God, in Jesus' Name, that he will not steal any more. That this time we just speak life, that this time when they conceive, this child shall come to full duration. This child shall be alive, that they too will have the testimony that that couple had. to took back and say, ‘Look how many we had. God saw us through the other side.’ In Jesus' Name.”

Nancy: Amen. The Lord bless you richly.