Episode 16: Building an Exciting Home, No. 4

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

We continue the series of BUILDING AN EXCITING HOME. We continue to talk about making your home...

1. A PRAYER CENTER – impacting the world from your dining room table.
2. A CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT CENTER/PLAY CENTER – teaching your children how to play creatively.
3. A SOCIAL CENTER – making functions happen in your home.
4. AN EATING CENTER – making every meal a love affair.

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

Nancy Campbell: May the blessing of God fall richly on your home today. We're continuing to speak about point number six, on making your home a home an exciting home. Point number six is the home is a prayer center. We've already talked about it, but we want to tell you a little more about praying in your home. I think it is so important.

We talked last week about even having a prayer meeting in your home. But of course, you can't have a prayer meeting every day as you pray with your family. I trust that you do seek to pray with your children every morning and every evening, because this is the precedent, the principle that God gave us, the Morning and Evening principle.

One of the things I find that really blesses our home in praying is our prayer boxes. Some of you may have heard me speak about prayer boxes, and I have written in Above Rubies about prayer boxes. I wonder if you have ever made a prayer box? Well, I'll tell you about it again. Maybe this time you will make one.

When I was raising our children, I started out with making a family prayer box. You always start little. I just got hold of a little box, and made it pretty, and wrote on it, “Our Family Prayer Box.” I wrote cards, and wrote the names of each of the children, Mommy and Daddy, grandparents, aunties and uncles, and cousins. And so, when it came time to pray, we would pass the box around, and children could take out a name.

That gave them someone specific to pray for, because, especially little children, they become very insular in their prayers. They often end up praying, “Dear Jesus, give us a good day tomorrow, and give us a good night sleep tonight. Amen.”

But we are the ones who teach them to pray. We have to teach them how to enlarge their prayers. So now they've got someone specific to pray for. It may be an auntie or uncle that they haven't really been praying for. Or maybe a sibling who they've just been quarreling with, and now they have to pray for them. It's so important that we pray for one another as a family.

So, we continue to have this prayer box in our home all these years later. This prayer box we use every morning and every evening. We always use our family prayer box. Now it has so many more names in it today, because our family has grown and grown and grown.

It's not only our children, but their spouses, and their children, and then their children. So, this box is packed full.

But we cannot be insular. So, we had other prayer boxes. I started out, a way back, with our World-Changing Prayer Box, and put in that cards of other people we were praying for, missionaries, people who were in need, and so on.

Now we actually have in our home nine prayer boxes currently. So, what we do, we don't use them all every morning and every evening. Otherwise we'd be the whole day praying. Oh, that would be good, but we have other things to do. We always use our family prayer box, and we add one other prayer box. We take turns with our other prayer boxes.

Some of the other prayers boxes we had, of course, we still have our World-Changing Prayer Box, with the needs of all kinds of current things that are happening in the world that we need to pray about.

We have our Persecuted Christians Prayer Box. I believe this is so important. In fact, dear ladies, I believe we all need to have this prayer box in our home, because Hebrews 13:3 tells us that we are to pray for those who are being persecuted.

We're meant to pray for those in prison as though we were in prison with them, as though we were feeling the pain of the torture in our own bodies. We're to really feel what they are going through, and to cry out to God for them. I find this just so important.

In fact, I often feel, as we're praying for the persecuted church, that if I was being persecuted, I would be so longing that someone was praying for me. I find it such a privilege to pray for them. I know that we often can't really feel the pain and torture they're going through.

I remember, some time back, Serene really challenged me. My daughter Serene, they are in the process of continuing to build their home. She was coming down a ladder from their second story. She had a long skirt on. Somehow it got tangled and she fell, the ladder fell, and she landed on her back. It could have been very, very serious. Praise God, she was fine, but she was in utter pain as she fell, as you can imagine.

Instead of just crying out for herself, she cried out for the persecuted church! She said, “Mum, I feel so terrible when we're praying for the persecuted church, because I feel so great in my body, and there's nothing wrong with me. How do I feel their pain?”

She said, “When I felt this torturous pain going through my body, I immediately felt, oh, I can pray and intercede for the persecuted church!” So, she began to cry out for them.

I felt quite challenged about that. It was a few weeks later that I myself fell! I broke three of my ribs. Now, you know, ribs, they just have to heal. But they can be very painful at the beginning. So, every time I was in this pain, I also was challenged by Serene, and began to pray for the persecuted church.

But, don't wait till you're feeling pain. Get a box. There are so many needs. You can get on the Internet and find out. There are sixty different countries that are persecuting Christians. North Korea is one of the most persecuting nations of the world. We need to pray for them.

We also have our Israel Prayer Box. Once again, this is not really an option, because we are commanded to pray for Jerusalem, to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. We are commanded to pray, to stand on the walls and pray, and to give God no rest until He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth (Isaiah 62:6, 7). There are so many needs for Israel, as she is surrounded by her enemies that want to throw her into the sea. So, find out all you can. Fill your box with cards to pray for Israel!

We have our National Prayer Box. We actually don't have a prayer box for this one. We have a Liberty Bell. A dear friend of ours, who has often stayed with us on occasions, he came back one time, and he had a little miniature Liberty Bell. He said, “This is what you need, Nancy, for your praying for the nation!”

So, we use that, and we have that packed with the needs for our nation, and our president and his family, our vice-president, our senators, our congressmen, our specific leaders, and those who are notably involved in the nation. We have all their names on cards. We pray for them, and the issues that we are facing in our nation.

Once again, because we usually record on Wednesdays, and Wednesday night is our prayer meeting, we'll also be praying tonight for the nation again.

Actually, just recently, I was reading through the Psalms and was noticing how often David was praying about his enemies. David had so many enemies. Many of his prayers are against his enemies, and they're pretty powerful prayers. As I was reading them, I thought, “Wow, these are prayers that we can pray for our President Trump, because he has so many enemies.”

I don't think there has ever been a president that has so many hating him, and slandering him, and wanting to impeach him, and coming against him. So, I began to write them all out. I now have 50 different prayers that David prayed.

Such prayers as, “Oh God, save him from the nets that they are trying to catch him. Cause his enemies to fall into that same net themselves. Oh God, save him from their slandering tongues,” and so on. There's all these that David prayed, and they're Biblical prayers, not just made up.

Every day now we will pray some of those prayers against Trump's enemies. Now, I have them all on my computer. So, if you are interested, you're welcome to just email me, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., and I'll be happy to send them to you, so you can pray too.

We also have our Marriage and Family Restoration Prayer Box. Many marriages that are falling apart, we're praying for them. We have our Salvation and Healing Prayer Box for those who need healing, those who need salvation.

We have our Countries and Capitals Prayer Box, all the most strategic countries and capitals in the world. We have the capital and the nation listed and we have the prime minister or president named on the back. We pray for them.

Then the ninth prayer box we have is our Above Rubies Prayer Box, where we pray for this magazine as it goes out into the nations, all our bases around the world. Above Rubies goes to well over 100 countries of the world, and we have many bases who send it out to all these different countries. We pray for our workers, we pray for their families, we pray for their marriages, that they will be blessed and healed as they receive the magazine.

So, these are our nine current prayer boxes. Now, you may not want nine boxes, but do you think you could start with one or two? Or two or three? You will be amazed at how it will enable your children to get into prayer! To pray for things that they've never prayed for before, to pray for issues that they would never think about praying. You're leading them out into realms of prayer. You're leading them to pray for nations. You're giving them a heart for the world. You are becoming a world-changing family!

In fact, dear precious mothers, as you begin to pray for the needs of the world, you'll become a world-changing family. Even though you may be just praying, hidden away in your little home . . . here we are, out in the woods, on the hilltop. Who knows what we're doing in our home? Nobody needs to know, but God knows, He hears our cries.

We are impacting nations of the world. I often feel as we're praying, as we pray for nations that we cannot even get into (if we were to preach the Gospel in those nations, our heads would be chopped off), yet as we pray, God is moving. We're hearing stories of many, many people coming to the Lord in Iran, through dreams and visions. This is happening, because God's people are praying! We impact nations that we cannot even move into, by praying in our homes!

Oh, just get a vision, dear precious mother, for what you can do, how powerful your family can be!

I love that Scripture in Leviticus, chapter 26. It's talking here in the context of war. In verses seven and eight it says: “And you shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase a hundred. And a hundred of you shall put ten thousand aflight, And your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.”

Now, precious ladies, what is the greatest way we fight our enemies? We aren't fighting flesh and blood. We are fighting principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world. We fight them in prayer and in intercession. Here it tells us that five of you can put 100 enemies to flight! Maybe you are a family, husband and wife, maybe only three children yet. That's five. As you pray together, you can put 100 enemies to flight.

The Bible says that 100 of you, my, that's just, how many, 20 families of five each, can put 10,000 to flight! Just imagine, families praying together all across this nation!

Oh, will you be part of this revival, part of bringing revival back to this nation? You can be part of it, if you begin to pray as a family.

What about families, some of you have six children, seven, eight, nine, ten children. What a prayer meeting you can have around your table, every morning and every evening, impacting this nation, impacting the nations of the world! Because there is no greater way that you can impact them. Oh, take up the challenge!

I am also always convicted by that Scripture in Jeremiah. Let me turn to it. Jeremiah chapter 10: 25: “Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families . . .” I wonder what families? It goes on to say: “and upon the families that call not on Thy Name.” What a challenging Scripture.

This is Scripture, not me, ladies, I'm not saying it, but this Scripture is saying that the families who do not call upon the Lord, that they might as well be heathen! God equates them along with the heathen if they do not call upon the Name of the Lord.

If we say that we belong to God, if we confess that we are believers, we will be those who call upon the Name of the Lord. We'll be those who cry out to God on behalf of the nation, on behalf of the families and the marriages that are weakening in this nation, on behalf of the nations of the world, because God Himself beholds the nations of the world. He looks upon them, and He dwells in us.

Jesus is at the right hand of God, interceding on our behalf 24-7. He wants to intercede through us also. So, let’s do it, amen? Let's make our homes praying homes. Amen?

Well, let's move on.

7. OUR HOMES ARE CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT CENTERS OR PLAY CENTERS

You don't have to send your child to a day care, or a play center, or somewhere to entertain them. We can do that in our homes. Make your home a play center for your little ones. You can be so creative.

I used to love to make homemade play dough for my children. They would spend hours making things out of homemade play dough. And then I would find a sort of a tub with water in it. You can do that outside. Put toys in it, and things that they could play with. Let them play in the water.

There are so many simple little things that we can do with our little children. We don't have to be taking them out to entertain them. We can be creative in our homes. There are so many creative things that we can do and make for our children. Plus, we don't even have to always be giving them things to be creative. We can let them be creative.

I think that play is a very important thing for children, and especially allowing them to be creative. Often too many toys take away that creativity. Did you know we don't need a lot of toys? Often you go into homes, and there are so many plastic toys around. Children get bored with them very soon anyway.

It's a wonderful thing to just let our children be creative. Often when my children were little, I would just let them play. They would rearrange my whole home. They would get the chairs, they would make them into trains and buses. They would get my sofas and chairs and old blankets and eiderdowns that I would keep. They would take them and make huts. Then they'd want me of course, to make little plates of food for them to eat inside their huts and their houses they made.

Often, they would take all morning to make this, and play this creative game. Well, often they wouldn't play it. They'd spend all their time making it and doing it, and then, when they'd got it ready, well, they were finished. The great thing they enjoyed was actually making it and creating it.

Children love to create. Give them opportunity to create by themselves. You'll find that they will grow up to be creative! If we just have to entertain them with little toys, and always be giving them something that we give them to do, we're not allowing them to think, or be creative for themselves. I think this is so important.

Of course, you'll be a reading mother. We did a podcast on reading to our children. That's just so important.

All right, let's move on. Trying to move on a little more quickly

8. WE MAKE OUR HOME A SOCIAL CENTER

Now, many people say that the reason they send their children off to a school is because they want them to have “socialization.”

Oh my. What a weak excuse to send your children to a place where they're going to hear opposite things that you believe, to a place that is no longer a place where they can have prayer, where they can  no longer have God's Word, where they will no longer hear truth that you have convictions about as a believer. They will hear everything the opposite. Their “socialization,” dear mothers, will be the very opposite kind of socialization that you want them to have!

Because they will mix with peers who will be a negative influence on them. This is one of the worst things about the public school, the socialization. It's the peers that they mix with! They learn a whole different culture than the godly culture we are seeking to give them.

Now, of course, the day is coming when they're going to go out and live among this ungodly culture, but our little ones are not ready for that yet. We are getting them stronger. We are getting them ready to live in this ungodly culture.

In our homes, when you are homeschooling your children, and especially if you have many children, there's loads of socialization. Oh goodness me, and it's the socialization that is greater, because it's varied in ages. It is very important for children to be able to associate with children who are older, and then reach out and play with children who are younger, and to be able to relate to children of all ages, rather than just their peers of their own age.

Sadly, today, as young people grow, they only know how to mix with their own age group. We gear it to that in the public schools. Then we go to church, and we gear it to that again. They go off to Sunday school and children's classes, all in the same age group. They'll constantly be pushing in that age group that is the same as they are.

God wants us to be diversified. He wants them to be able to speak and converse intelligently, even with older people. So, make your home a social center.

Now, if you only have a small family, maybe God has only blessed you with a little family, because the number of our children is not the number we decide, it's the number God gives us. Sometimes God only gives one or two children. Other times He gives many. It's God's prerogative.

But you can do so many things in your home. This is where home is so exciting! Oh, if you have teens in your home, make opportunities to have other godly teens come in and do special things. We, of course, up here on the hilltop, we just have parties all the time, because we have a number of families all around us. There are so many cousins, they all meet together for parties, every birthday party. There's so much socialization. They're just overloaded with socialization.

But you can make things happen. I'm a great believer in making things happen. And not just for the age groups of your children, but to reach out to others. What about thinking of putting on a luncheon for a few widows that you know? Get your children to help you with the cooking. When these precious widows come into your home, teach your children how to bless them and minister to them, and make them feel at home, and wait on them.

Then you can get them to prepare, maybe they can sing, or play musical instruments. They can recite a poem. You can put on a concert for them after the meal. Such a beautiful thing you can do in your home! You can do it for widows, you can do it for other elderly people. It's a beautiful thing for your children to learn how to reach out to older people in hospitality.

You can do it for a single mom, or a couple of single moms. Bring them into your home. You can gather with other homeschoolers. You can open your doors in hospitality. Oh, you can think of all kinds of ideas. Be creative and realize that you can make your home a most wonderful socialization center, a godly social center, so that your children are in a godly environment, but still receiving all the socialization they will ever need.

 9.     OUR HOME IS AN EATING CENTER

Well, you know that, don't you, dear precious mother? So much time of our mothering is spent in the kitchen, where we're cooking meals. Breakfast, lunch, and supper, and often in between. We always seem to be preparing meals, always seem to be cooking. Do you sometimes complain about it, grumble, “Oh no, not another meal to get!”

Can I encourage you? Don't despise this part of your mothering. Embrace it with all your heart, for this is very much part of who you are as a mother.

We go to a Scripture in 1 Timothy 5:10. In the context, it's talking about widows. There were very many widows in the church, and Timothy didn't know what to do with them all. So, he wrote to Paul about it. Paul wrote back, and he said: “Timothy, this is what I want you to do. If these widows have children or grandchildren, they have the responsibility to provide for them, and to care for them. However, if they don't have any children or grandchildren, the widows who are truly widows, who are 60 years of age or older, and have lived a certain lifestyle, I want you to look after them.”

Ok, let's have a look at the lifestyle. Because when we read this lifestyle, we realize this is God's ultimate plan for women. The women, the mothers who have embraced this lifestyle, as they get older, maybe their children are no longer with them. There's no one to look after them. God says, “I'll look after you by My people, because you have lived the way I intended.”

Now, God lists some things, and He lists them all in order. God's Word is very, very specific, and He always lists first things first. I'm turning to 1 Timothy 5:10. It says: “Well reported of for good works.” That word is a word that means “beautiful works.”

The first one is, “if she has brought up children,” then goes on to say, “if she has lodged strangers,” if she's opened her doors in hospitality. “If she has washed the saints' feet, if she has relieved the afflicted, if she has diligently followed every good work,” I want to reward that woman, and I want you to care and provide for her, he told Timothy.

Now, let's look at the first one, “if she has brought up children.” That word, “brought up,” is teknotrepheo. Two words, tecknon, meaning “child,” and trepho, “to nourish with food, to pamper with food, to feed.” Isn't that interesting? The word, “to bring up children,” has everything to do with food! It means to feed them!

It starts off with nursing your little babe at the breast. But then it doesn't stop there. We keep feeding them, and feeding them, and feeding them. The bigger they get, the more we have to feed them! So lovely ladies, don't despise this ministry. This is part of your mothering ministry. Embrace it.

I was so blessed, and I'll just end with this little story. One time I was watching a movie called Babette's Feast. You may have watched it. If you haven't, get a hold of it. When I watched it, it was black and white, subtitled. It's quite slow moving. But now it's in color, and it's also in English.

It is an amazing story, talking about a woman who was an amazing chef, although the people she was living with didn't know it. One day she cooked this incredible meal. She used her whole inheritance on cooking this meal. It just brought miracles to this community. It was just amazing, how this meal changed the lives of these people, who'd become very grumbling and irritable.

There was a person at that meal, and he had been to this famous cafe in France, where there was an incredible chef. He got up and gave a speech about this chef, because this meal reminded him of the meals that he would eat at that place. He didn't know it was the very woman.

He said these words, in fact, on the movie, it just said that this woman knew how to make every meal into a love affair. When I heard those words, I grabbed a hold of them. They affected me. From that time, I have always taken those words, and made that my own goal. To make every meal, every meal I put on my table, to make it a love affair for the people I am serving. For my husband, or whoever I have around my table.

But then I got hold of the book, and this is the exact quote: “This woman is now turning a dinner into a kind of love affair, into a love affair of the noble and romantic category, in which one no longer distinguishes between bodily and spiritual appetite, or satiety.”

So, a meal is far more than just eating to appease your bodily appetites. It's also to appease that hunger in your soul, in your spirit. That's the whole concept of the meal.

That's the concept I love to share with women and remind you about today, dear mother, that when you cook a meal, it's not just to put some food on for your children to appease their hunger. No, it's more than that. You're going to minister to their bodies, but also their souls, and their spirits.

When you put a meal on the table, it's to feed bodies, souls, and spirits. That's when it becomes a love affair. When you're preparing the meal, you're thinking more than just what you're going to prepare. Although you think about that, and how you can make it nutritious, how you can make it appealing, how you can just make it so appetizing. You're also thinking about what you're going to talk about at the meal table. You're thinking about the ultimate moment of when you will open God's Word, and you'll feed the Spirit. So, it's a love affair of the whole man. It becomes such a blessing.

But time is up again. Let me pray.

“Father, I pray that You will remind me again, and remind every precious mother, wife, and daughter listening of the power of a meal, and how every meal can be a love affair. Save us, Oh God, from just living in the grind. Save us from living in the drudgery. Take us to living in the delight, and making our meals a delight, making our homes a delight. Oh God, just take us out of the ordinary, into the extraordinary. Oh God, to live not just in the mundane, but in, Lord, the miraculous, in all the glory of what You have for us in our homes. Bless every mother again today. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

Episode 15: Building an Exciting Home, No. 3

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 wherever you are: in your kitchen, in your dining room, in your car, or maybe lying in bed listening. It is so good to be with you. We are continuing to talk about this beautiful Hebrew word naveh, which means to dwell in a home, to make a lovely fold of your home. Now we are actually talking about how we can dwell in our home, how we can make our home an exciting home because I believe that God intends us to make life in the home. We don't have to try and make life somewhere else. We can make the most exciting and greatest life in the home. Last week we were up to the point of making our home a prayer center. We'll talk a little bit more about that today, but before we go onto that, I want to just mention a few other little points about the home and bring you to one or two other Scriptures.

I'd love to take you to Hosea. Hosea 11:11, and here God says: “I will settle you in your home, declares the Lord.” I love the Knox translation of this Scripture. It says: “And in their own home, the Lord says, I will give you rest.” I love that promise. In our busy lives that we live today, we're often rushing here and there; life is overwhelming. We feel worn out. We feel just overwhelmed with all we have to do, but God gives a little secret here. He says: “When you come into the home, when you embrace your home, I will give you rest. It's in your own home, I will give you rest.”

I remember talking to a mother. She came to me and was feeling so overwhelmed and said, “Nancy, what can I do? I'm just overwhelmed.” I said, “Tell me your schedule. How does it look?” She began to tell me of what she did each day. She was a homeschooling mother, but her children were involved in, many, many outside activities, extra-curricular activities. She said, “I have to take my boys to violin lessons on Monday, and I'm taking my girls to this on Tuesday, and I'm taking them here on Wednesday, and I'm doing this on Thursday.” Every day she was going out and, goodness me, I felt overwhelmed just listening to her.

And I said to her, “Why don't you curb a few of these activities? God wants you to have rest in your home, not rushing here, there and everywhere.”

She said, “Oh, I can't change anything. I have to go to all these things. I've got to take my children to all these things.” “Well, “I said to her, “Okay, you'll just have to stay overwhelmed.” If we're not going to take God's answer and we want to do it our way, well we have to continue in our overwhelming state.

God wants us to come home. Do you know that you don't have to do everything you think you have to do? Did you know that you don't actually have to take your children to everything that all your friends are taking to them? Do you know that you don't even have to take them to every lesson and every sport and everything that's going on? Oh yes, there are some things that you will do, but you've got to work out which is the best, which are the priorities, because we're not meant to be running around here, there, and everywhere.

And most of these activities are often at this very most important time of the day when the mother is meant to be in the home. That time of the day, towards the end of the day, when it's time to prepare the meal for everyone to gather around the supper table together, to communicate, to be together, to eat together and to read the Word together, and to pray together. Instead, so many mothers are still out in the car. They’re still vying for time in the traffic and trying to get home. There they are. They're caught, and no one's at home. No one's getting the meal ready. Is there going to be time for the family to sit together at the meal time? Probably not. Most probably, you'll just eat something on the way home, and it's not how it's meant to be.

In Isaiah 32:15, God says: “In returning and rest shall you be saved. In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.” Now that's a lovely promise. Do you know what the next words are? The next words continuing say: “and ye would not.” God wanted them to return and live in rest, but the Bible says: “You would not.” They wanted to do it their way and so we have to choose if we're going to do it our way or God's way.

I'm always challenged by Proverbs 24:15 where it says: “Lay not wait, Oh, wicked man against the dwelling place of the righteous. Spoil not his resting place.” God calls our homes a resting place, and He says in this Scripture, “Look out anybody who spoils that resting place!
 

Sometimes it's we, the mothers, who actually spoil it ourselves because we're too busy involved in things outside the home. God wants us to come home. He wants us to make life happen in the home, and He wants life to be a place where everything's happening and where it’s exciting and where everybody loves to be, and in the midst of it all, we have rest because we are where we're meant to be.

There’s another lovely Scripture in Micah 2:9. Isn't it amazing that we find these Scriptures tucked away in the Minor Prophets and yet here they are to speak to us as mothers? In this Scripture it says: “The women of my people have ye cast out from their pleasant houses, from their children have ye taken away my glory forever?” Now that's the King James Translation.

Most translations say: “The women of my people you have cast out from their DELIGHTFUL HOMES or from the HOMES THEY LOVE.” We should have a LOVE for our home. Do you love home? Do you love to be at home? God has put that in every one of us. In each woman, there is inherently a love for home. Now, many mothers don't love home because they have been brainwashed to think that it's not the place they’re meant to be; it's a place where they're not really going to do great things, and they've been educated, and they've been influenced away from the home. If we come back to, and we take away and get rid of all that extra stuff that's been infiltrated into our brains, underneath, there is that love for home. God is concerned when women are cast out, taken out, or even go out of the homes they love.

The big reason He says this is because of the children in the home. In this Scripture He calls our children our “glory.” They are the glory of the nation. In fact, if we go back to Hosea again, Hosea, once again one of the minor prophets. In Hosea 9:11, it says here: “As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird from birth, from the womb, and from conception.” Now, what is this talking about? It's talking about Israel, called Ephraim here. It's saying that their glory was taken away. Actually, this is a Scripture of God's judgment upon Ephraim because they've turned away from the Lord, and God is bringing His judgment upon them. He says: “I'm going to take away your glory.” What does He specifically say their glory is? He says, “There will be no more conception, no more birth, and no more babies coming from the womb.” In other words, children, babies being born, and children growing up in a family are the glory of the nation.

They're God's glory, they're our glory, and they're the glory of the nation.

Here again, in Micah, we see the same thing, and it talks about our children being the glory. Can I give you a few other translations of that Scripture?

The Holman translation says: “You take away {when the mothers are taken out of the home} My blessing from their children forever.” Dear precious ladies, it's the blessing of children to be in a home with their mother.

The New Living Translation says: “And for forever stripped their children of all that God would give them.”

What about the New English Translation? When mothers are cast from the home “You defraud their children of their prized inheritance.” Mothers, it is the children's inheritance to be raised in the home.

Let's get it. This is God's plan.

God woos women into the home, but the devil, who hates every plan of God, entices them out of the home.

What about the Amplified version? When women are cast out of the home, or they leave the home, it says: “You take away my splendor and blessing forever” because that is one of the meanings of glory. It means “splendor, blessing, honor, beauty, and excellence.” You take away my splendor and blessing forever by . . . Listen to this, when I read this, I could hardly believe what I was reading . . .  “by putting them among pagans away from Me.” Did you get that, ladies? This is God speaking. “You take away my glory and blessing forever by putting them among pagans, away from me.”

You see, God wants us to raise our children in the home, in His presence, in the presence of God. That's what we seek to do, to make our home a sanctuary for God, filled with the atmosphere of heaven. When the mother goes out of the home, what's going to happen to the children? They go into daycare or they go to public school, and they are amongst pagans, taking them out of the home, taking them out of God's presence, to put them amongst pagans! What are we doing? Oh, let's just hear the heart of God who woos us to be in the home. Let's not be duped by the enemy, the devil, who entices women out of the home.

I have another little thought. I was actually writing about this on Facebook yesterday. I read in Job. Let me have a look at the reference, Job 7:2: “Like a hired man looking for his wages.” I read about the employed person, the hired person who waits for his or her wages. I was thinking about this in the light of motherhood and thinking of how everything that God planned, His original plan that was thought out in eternity. It was planned in the eons of eternity, and God's plans are for all generations, from the beginning of time until the Lord Jesus comes to take back His own. They are forever, but Satan hates every plan of God, so he has a counterfeit for every plan that God has.

Now, God's plan is for the mother to be in the home, raising her children in the home. That's God's original plan. Now, the devil hates it because it's God's plan. He hates it. He doesn't want women to be in the home for he knows the power of that. He knows the power of a godly mother in the home who is there protecting her children, who is raising her children in the atmosphere of the presence of God, who's training her children in the ways of God. Oh, this is such a powerful thing and the devil hates it because he cannot get his hands upon the children.

He has a counterfeit; he has daycare centers for little babies. Can you believe it? For little toddlers, can you believe it? For children, he has a place where someone else looks after these children, anyone but the mother because he knows the power of motherhood. You see, these people in daycare centers are doing it for money. They're not doing it out of that God anointed mothering intuition that is within them. They are doing it for pay. Let's be honest, if they weren't getting paid, they would not be doing the job.

Now, they can do the job very diligently, very conscientiously. I am sure there are many daycare workers and even some lovely Christian mothers who have daycares in their home who do it so conscientiously and diligently, and they care for these children in every way they can, but they are not the mother.

It is only the mother who intuitively really knows the inner needs of her baby and her little children. I think of my daughter, Serene, and she has her little baby. How old is Solly now? I think she's about four months. This most beautiful little baby and she is totally mothered. I hardly ever see little Solly out of Serene's arms or in her baby carrier, and even when she is out of her arms, she's just looking at her, and she's doting on her and smiling at her and squeezing her little fat thighs because she's so gorgeous and fat, and just loving her. She is totally mothered day and night, and then she has all her brothers and sisters who are also fighting to hold her and talk to her and be with her. This little baby is so totally mothered, and this is how a baby is meant to be mothered in the home. Now, a baby in a daycare can be cared for, but they are not mothered like that. They miss out on so much. It's a counterfeit. It's the devil's counterfeit.

Once again, Jesus even spoke about this in John 10 where He was talking about the Good Shepherd, and in the word of God, mothering is likened to shepherding. He says that the hireling, that's the hired worker, the paid worker, he just does it for money. He's doing a job, but the true shepherd will lay down his life for the sheep. That is the difference. A mother will lay down her life for her baby, her children. That's why she can't leave them with someone else to look after, a hired worker, because this baby is her life. These children are her life.

I'm sharing these Scriptures with you, so you can get God's heart and be encouraged as you mother your children in your home. We need a revival back to the home, back to God's ways. I've been thinking about revival because we are praying for a revival in our nation. I'm praying for a revival of mothers returning to the home.

Back in one of my podcasts, I talked about that incredible, powerful Scripture about the women who are a mighty army in the home. God talks about this mighty army, and it's in the home. God wants this mighty army in the home. Sadly, this army has been vacating its post and that's why this nation is weak regarding family, because the mighty army, the mothers, have left the home, their post where they are meant to be fighting the battle for their families. Listen to that post if you missed it (Podcasts 5, 6, and 7). I'm praying that God will turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children, and they will get a heart for children, and that families will come back to God's ways.

Of course, revival means to bring back to life, to come back to the original, to restore. That, of course, will take repentance and take a great turning back to God. I was reading some definitions of revival this morning. Duncan Campbell describes revival as “A community saturated with God.” Isn't that beautiful? Now Duncan Campbell was the man through whom God used to bring revival to the Hebrides Islands way out there, west of Scotland or east, can't remember, but the islands of Scotland. What a great revival that was where God came down in such a mighty way. It affected the homes and the communities. I believe that a revival is not a revival unless it affects the family and the children.

I think of that great revival in King Josiah's time (2 Kings 23). Do you ever remember reading about that? King Josiah was used by God to bring a mighty revival to the people of Judah. They got rid of evil in the land. They got rid of all the sodomites. They broke down all the groves of the idol worshipers. Man, they got rid of every bit of evil in the land. It was so powerful, and they vowed before God that they would serve Him only. My, if that happened in this land, we would really say that was revival. Yet, Josiah's children did not walk in the ways of God. They became future kings of Judah, yet they did not walk in the ways of God. That revival missed it. Unless a revival, a move of God, touches our children, it's not true revival.

Another couple of descriptions, let me see. Another one says: “The sovereign act of God in which He restores His own backsliding people to repentance, faith, and obedience.”

Robert Coleman says: “It's an awakening or quickening of God's people to their true nature and purpose.” I love that because I think that is the revival that we need in family today, for fathers and mothers to come back to their true nature and purpose for which God created them.

I think of a testimony that was given by a husband and father at one of our Above Rubies' family camps. It was a few years ago in Louisiana, and at our Above Rubies' retreats, we love to have a testimony time. We usually have that on Sunday morning, and we do it at our ladies' retreats and our family retreats.

This was a family one, and this guy got up, and he shared how when he and his wife got married, they were so passionate for God, and they were so passionate for revival, and they cried out to God every day to work in their lives and bring a revival to their lives, and a revival to their church, and a revival to the people around them. He said they continued praying that every day and continued doing this. They had two or three children or so, and then God began to speak to them. He began to convict them of living the status quo, normal life like everybody else in the church and limiting their family. God touched their hearts, to open their hearts to receive the children He wanted to give them. They realized that they were wanting God with all their hearts, but they were holding back from God this aspect of their lives, her womb, his loins. They were holding that to themselves, so they yielded that to God, and God began to bless them with more children.

But they never lost their heart for praying for revival. They kept praying, and then God began to talk to them about having a garden, and they thought, “Wow, this is a bit strange, but yes, we're feeling this urgency.” They began to put in a garden. They began to, instead of just eating sprayed vegetables from the supermarket and GMO vegetables, they grew their own vegetables. They really got into looking after their family with their own produce.

They kept praying for revival. Then, God began to talk to their hearts about having chickens. Oh goodness me! We were all laughing because here they are crying out for revival and then God is speaking to them about children. Then He's speaking to them about a garden. Now He's speaking to them about chickens. Well, they got chickens. They lived in the suburbs. They were in the city. They ended up using every little bit of their space they had with a garden and with chickens. The message he was getting across was that, as they prayed for revival, God was bringing them back to His heart and His plan.

Very practical, but it was what God wanted. Well, I do have to confess that we don't really have revival in our home about chickens because I've wanted chickens only for about 55 years because that's how long we've been married. But my husband, he just doesn't want chickens. Well, he grew up on a farm, and he grew up with chickens, and he grew up with them hanging around the doorstep and messing on the doorstep, and he just couldn't stand it. He said he never wanted chickens. Well, I'm still asking him to make a chicken coop where they can be confined, but he hasn't got to that yet. One day, we might have a revival there!

Anyway, let's keep coming back to God's ways and to the home, shall we?

Now we are getting to the end of this session, and I was going to continue talking a little more about prayer. Perhaps we can share a tiny little bit and share some more in our next session next week. Prayer is very much part of making a home where we live. It should be a house of prayer.

Do you have a prayer meeting in your home? Have you ever had a prayer meeting in your home? Now it's so good to be praying personally, praying as a family, but, you know, it's great to even have a prayer meeting in your home. Have you ever thought of that?

Colin and I have had a prayer meeting, apart from our own prayer and family prayer, for most of our lives. We've had different seasons. Sometimes we've had a prayer meeting where we've gathered people to pray and cry out to God for Israel. We've had prayer meetings for other certain situations. Currently, since we've actually lived out here on the hilltop in Primm Springs, we have had a prayer meeting every week. Actually, since 9/11. About that time, I think, we began to pray, and we've continued that prayer meeting every single week.

Tonight, it's a Wednesday night, we'll be having another prayer meeting here, and we will be crying out to God for the nation. In fact, I just emailed one of my grandsons, and this is what I wrote: “Valiant soldiers needed to help with battering ram payer against the gates of evil in the land. Ramming at 7:30 pm tonight.”

Did you know that that is what prayer is? The Bible talks about it, about the battering ram. Now, I guess you all know that back in early battle days, to get into a city, they always had the big gates of the city and the walls, they had to get in through those gates. They would have these big, long battering rams. On the end, there was a steel thing that could bang into the gates, and usually, it had a ram. It was made into the head of a ram (male sheep). That's why they called it a battering ram because a ram likes to butt. They would have a whole lot of soldiers all holding on, and they would run with it and bang and bash and ram into the gates until they broke through the gates. That's what we do in prayer when we come corporately to pray and to batter through and ram the gates of the city and the gates of the enemy. We have so much evil in the gates of our cities today and even up there in the swamp in Washington.

I wonder if you are praying. You might like to get a little prayer meeting going in your home. It's so wonderful. It blesses your home amazingly. We don't only have older people come to our prayer meeting. We have the children. We invite everybody on the hilltop and other families as well and other people. Some even drive an hour or more to come to the prayer meeting.

So, the children come. Dear mother, if you have a prayer meeting in your home, include your children. Don't think, oh wow, I better get all the children to bed before everybody comes to pray. Oh no. Don't deprive your children of prayer meetings. It is the most powerful and greatest thing that they can be involved in. It doesn't matter if they get tired and go to sleep. They can just fall asleep on the sofa or fall asleep on the floor. In fact, at our prayer meetings, when we start, we will often have to say, “Now children, all the children are going to fall asleep, you pray first.” So we get them to pray right at the beginning of the prayer meeting, so they don't miss out. Because often, they will go off to sleep as the prayer meeting goes on. In fact, we've always taken our children with us to church or had them with us at prayer meetings in the home.

When our children were younger, they used to sleep on sheep skins. Because we come from New Zealand, sheep skins were very readily available, and they are very healthy and wonderful for babies to sleep on. All my babies slept on a sheep skin. They all had their own sheepskin. In fact, even as they got older, I would have to get a new sheep skin for the new baby because they wanted to keep their own sheep skin. They would put it on their bed between their sheets, of course, we had sheets as well.

In fact, while I'm talking about sheets, I have to tell you how we have sheets. We always have two sheets. Now I have stayed with lots of people in different countries because wherever you go in different countries, it's different. Often we go to a home, and we'll go to the bed, and there is just one sheet, the bottom sheet. Then there is a cover, an eiderdown, for the top. I have to confess that I miss my top sheet. When it gets hot, what do you do? You've got to throw off that big eiderdown, and then you're left with nothing on you. I don't know what to do. I've got nothing to cuddle myself and nothing to have over me. It's sort of nice to have something over you. When you have two sheets, you've got your bottom and your top one, which you can have, and then eiderdown. If it's hot, you only need your sheet, and then if it's cold, you can have your eiderdown and even two or three if you want them.

Back in the older days, we didn't have fitted sheets, so we used to, this was the plan, nobody has to do this today, but you may be interested. We used to, every single week, take the bottom sheet off and put it in the laundry. We would put the top sheet on the bottom and then the new clean sheet on the top. This was faithfully done every week, but then fitted sheets came in so we no longer had to do that. Now of course, I'll just leave the sheets on for two weeks or perhaps three and then wash them both, but that's how we used to do it.

Anyway, talking about the sheep skins, the children loved to keep their sheep skins, and they would love to take them. They could bring them out and lay them on the floor to go to sleep in a prayer meeting or so on.

Time is going again. Be blessed precious ladies. Love your home, enjoy your home today. Oh, when you wake up each morning, don't think of it as a drudgery. Think of it as a joy because He makes the barren woman to dwell in a home and to be a joyful mother of children. Make your home a wonderful place for everyone to enjoy. Think of how you can make it more enjoyable. Make that your goal. Make that your purpose.

“Father, I pray that You will bless each precious mother listening today. Oh God, please fill her with such a love for her home because this is Your plan, Your idea, and Lord, we want to do things Your way. I pray that You'll fill each home with Your blessing and Your anointing and Your presence and Your glory. Help each dear mother to see that her children are her glory and Your glory and the glory of the nation. Lord, it is your plan for them to be raised in Your presence in the home. Pour out Your blessing on every husband, every mother, every child. Oh God, I pray for, Lord, any children today who are wayward, who, Lord, are going through a difficult time. I pray that You will give great wisdom to the parents, and You will pour out Your spirit upon these children and these teens and draw them back to You and to your fold. I ask it in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.”

Welcome to the podcast FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ NANCY CAMPBELL, Founder and Publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy:

Hello dear ladies. We're continuing to talk about this wonderful Hebrew word, navah, which means “to dwell and live in your home, to make it a lovely home.” We're talking about different ways, and we're up to number four. We make our home a . . .

TRAINING AND EDUCATION CENTER.

This is where the bulk of the training of our children happens, in our homes. Not just going to school. Now, some may send their children to school. Many of you are homeschooling. I believe that today (maybe we could have gotten away with it years ago), but today we are facing more and more deception. Not only deception, but irate lies against God and His ways in our public-school system.

The gay agenda is pushing itself more and more and more into our public-school system. And it's touching the lives of our children. Even Muslim education is coming into our public schools and many schools. Even here in Tennessee, where I live, there are schools where they have been made to recite the Muslim prayers.

And yet we cannot have the Bible or pray to our great God in our public schools. And therefore, I believe that as godly, God-fearing parents, we have to think very carefully about the education of our children. I know we all want to raise godly, Bible-believing, God-fearing children. How can we do that when we send them to a school where they are taught the opposite? And this is happening today. Where they're being influenced by the gay agenda, where they're being influenced by alternative lifestyles, where they're being influenced by everything that is against God, where they're being influenced by socialism and everything that is foreign to our constitution and how this nation began.

And so, many of course, are now homeschooling their children. And we're so blessed that today, we have such wonderful homeschooling curriculums. There's just so much. In fact, there is too much because you hardly know what to choose. There are so many wonderful curriculums to get hold of for the teaching of your children so that they can have a very good education. But it's not only just learning facts that is education. Education is LIFE, and it's in our homes that we learn to live life.

I find in the public-educated children that I know, on the whole, (of course there's always exceptions), but on the whole, most of them as they come out of school and then they go onto college, they have no idea what home life is like. They are at school most of the day, they come home, they go out to extra-curricular activities, and they've got to do their homework. They don't become part of the running of the home, the chores of the home. They're not having time to learn to cook and how to manage a home. These are such valuable principles that are part of life learning.

It's so sad that so many young women today, they get to that place where they are getting married. Often, it's later and later and later today. The average age today in the states is 29 years for men and 28 for women. It is getting older and older and older for couples to get married. This of course is also opposite to God's plan and opposite to the word of God, opposite to His heart. It even goes against nature because when does God arouse that longing and desire for a mate? It's not when young people are in their mid, late twenties. It's when they're young. Now, does God do that to frustrate them and say, “No, you must not be married till you're in your late twenties or thirties?” No. God intends couples to be married when they are young, if they meet the right person.

Of course, sometimes couples don't meet until they're later in life, but I am so against couples meeting and just hanging out and going on and on and on in a relationship and never coming to that place of getting married. I believe it's totally wrong, and I don't believe, (well, there could be those who are truly walking in righteousness), but I think most of them are not living in righteousness, they're living in fornication. And therefore, it's all out of order and all upside down and opposite to the way God wants it. But in many of these, when they decided to get married at this later age, have no idea how to run a household. They have no idea how to cook. They have no idea even how to hold a baby. They've grown up in two child families, and they've never had younger brothers and sisters.

So, they've never seen their mother nurse a baby or had little babies around. This is one of the beautiful things of large families. Older children are able to see mothering and fathering right at hand. They see their mother nursing their younger siblings, and it becomes normal to them. They see how it happens and they are ready for it. They know how to cook a family meal for a big crowd. They know how to manage a household. They know how to go and get the groceries and they know how to do it all. They've been trained in it because they have been there on hand.

And so, we are not only educating our children with learning and facts, which are important. I believe, myself, that it's important to learn something new every day. I love that line from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow when he says:

"But to act that each tomorrow find us farther than today."

Every day of our lives should find us learning something new, stretching forward in a way we haven't ever done before. In fact, that's a great idea for you at the family evening table every now and then, to ask your children this question: “Children, tell us something new that you learned today.” And you go around the table. Each one having a turn right from the youngest to the oldest, including Mummy and Daddy. Oh yes. Have you learned something new today?

We should all be striving to learn something new. Apart from learning facts, we are learning life. That's even more important. Learning the principles of life, and how to live life, and also how to speak well. That’s a very important one. We talked about that on an episode recently, about how we're training children to speak.

Remember it says in Psalm 127 “Happy is the man that has his quiver full of them." Full of children. “He shall not be ashamed, for he shall speak with the enemies in the gates.” Well, I mean, “THEY shall speak with the enemies in the gates.” It's they, it's the children. We're raising children to speak, to speak well, to speak for God, to speak the truth, to be prepared to speak out, and to, maybe one day, speak in the gates of the city, or the gates of the land of this nation. Wow.

But we are preparing children for this. And that's why we need to always be training our children to speak clearly. I notice that a lot of young people mumble. (Incoherent sounds). They speak so fast and just mumble away to each other. They actually do understand one another, but I don't understand them. Maybe I'm getting a little deaf, but I think it is important that if our children are mumbling, we should say to them, “Hey, speak clearly, speak slower. Say that again, so I can understand what you're saying.” Because as our children grow up, their success is going to be determined on how they speak, how people hear them, how they speak to other people. Do they speak clearly? Do they speak in confidence? Do they know what they're talking about? And these are important things to prepare them for success in life.

And so, we're teaching them how to speak.

And this is another little thing too. Some people say, (well actually, it’s a big thing in some people's minds), you get people who say, when you talk about homeschooling, “Oh, but I send my children to school so they can be a witness.” Well, that sounds all very well and good, but it usually doesn't work out. What usually works out is your precious, vulnerable children are instead infiltrated and influenced by an ungodly culture at school. They'll just get completely rammed down if they try to speak, and they will be influenced instead.

But what we're doing when we're homeschooling is getting our children READY to speak. Oh, we're kind of looking after them now. We're hibernating them now because they're not ready. They're not ready to go out into this world yet, but we're training them. We are getting them ready because we're not keeping them forever. No, we are getting them ready to send out. There's a day when they going to go out. We will send them forth as arrows to shoot the mark. And we send them forth, oh my, we send them forth to the wolves because that's what Jesus said, that you will be like lambs in the midst of wolves. And our little children aren't ready to go out among the wolves yet.

We've got to get them stronger. They've got to know the Word. They've got to know the truth. They've got to know how to speak it. And they've got to have convictions. They've got to be able to contend for the faith, and so they have to be ready, because when they go out, they will face the wolves. When they face the wolves, they've got to know how to stand. And having done all to stand, as it says in Ephesians chapter six. Oh, I love those words. They're great words to take as a vision for your children as you're raising them. “I'm raising children who will be able to stand against the enemy and having done all, stand.” So that even when the wolves come, even when people come to knock them down, they'll still stand because they have the truth. And so, we're teaching them how to speak.

We're teaching them etiquette. Oh my, etiquette seems to be a dying art in our culture today. Young people don't know etiquette, and while we have our children in the home, we have opportunity to teach them etiquette and all the little things of life. Even at the table.

How do you run your table? Is it just bedlam? Does everybody speak at once? Well, maybe you don't mind that happening in your home, but I do. I do mind that happening in my home. We don't have everybody speak at once because it's bedlam. Nobody knows what anyone else is saying. And nor do we have private conversations because, did you know? They are rude. It is rude to whisper or have a private conversation with someone else at the table when there are others sitting around the table. And so, you teach your children etiquette, you teach them the right habits, so they know how to conduct themselves one day when they are adults and go out amongst people and have to dine with them.

Even last night we had a lot of young people at our table and they began to start off talking to one another, different ones having different conversations, and I had to say, “Hey everybody, we don't have private conversations at our table. We all join together. We're going to have one person speaking, and we're all going to listen and enjoy. So, we brought a subject to the table and different ones shared and we could all listen and laugh and enjoy what they were saying all together, and this is how it happens. But we teach this, we teach this kind of etiquette. It's so important.

Did you ever buy my etiquette posters? I have seven etiquette posters in a little package. You buy them all together and they are: Table etiquette, Home etiquette, Speech etiquette, Receiving Hospitality, Church etiquette, how do we conduct ourselves there? Work force etiquette, preparing your children when they go out into the workforce, and Daily Life etiquette.

Each one has a page full of just etiquette encouragement that we can teach our children. You can pin them up on your walls or put them as place mats if you like to, you know, put some plastic over them at your table just so you can teach your children. Or you can use them yourself, taking them one by one to teach your children.

I was talking to a friend just recently and she was saying to me, she said, “Oh, I'm so blessed. The young man who is courting my daughter, every time he leaves our home, he comes to me and he says, ‘Thank you so much for allowing me to be with your daughter.’” I thought how lovely that was. You can tell that that young man (he is a homeschooled young man), has been trained really well.

I think communication is a very important one, that we teach our children to communicate wherever they're going, whatever they're doing. If they are going out (because this applies to older children, as they are getting older), that we require them to tell us where they are going, what time they will be home and so on.

We, as parents, while our children are under our roof, have a responsibility (f they live in the home), to know exactly where they are and when they will be home. That is not overpowering a child, that is etiquette. That is what we train them to do, so they will be prepared for marriage. If we, as married couples, if one of us has to go out somewhere, we don't just go out. We tell our husband, and we tell him where we'll be. We tell him when we'll be home. We communicate. He does the same with us. We are training our children how to live life. We're preparing them for marriage. That communication is very, very important. We do not ever live lives just unto ourselves and do what we like. In fact, that is really the whole concept of etiquette: thinking of others, putting others first, putting others where we would like them to put us. And so, we are training them in this way.

So many areas of training in the home that prepare our children for life. And so, it is a training center.

Number five. We make our homes a . . .

PRAISE AND WORSHIP CENTER.

Our home should be filled with praise. It's wonderful to have the beautiful worship songs or hymns playing in our home. We're very blessed that we have so much music available to us today. And so, fill your home with beautiful music and the praises of the Lord. One time, (actually it was a number of years ago), I was reading in the Word, in Colossians. It’s in Colossians 2:7 and at the end it says that we are to be “abounding with thanksgiving.” Some translations say, “overflowing with gratitude.”

I looked up this word, abounding, to see what it really means, and it's a very powerful word. It means “to super abound, to be in excess, to do more than is necessary, above and beyond.” Wow, I thought, goodness me, how do I do that? If I'm going to be” abounding in thanksgiving,” how do I do that all day? I mean, I'm busy at work. I'm doing this. I'm concentrating on what I'm doing.

I was talking to the Lord about this and something came to my mind. I'm sure it was the Lord who put it into my mind and these words came: kitchen timer. “Oh, wow, what a great idea, Thank you Lord.” When I went back inside, because I was walking and talking with the Lord, when I went back inside, I got out my kitchen timer.

Well maybe you don't have one, but go and get one from Walmart, they're as cheap as dirt. I used this timer, and I would put it on for either a half hour or an hour. When it dinged, then I would remember to praise the Lord, and I would just take one little moment, “Thank You,  Lord for your goodness to me today. Thank You for Your faithfulness.” That was all, but I was brought back to a heart of thanksgiving.

Turn the timer on again, and you get busy. You forget all about it, but suddenly it rings again. “Oh, thank You, Lord. Thank You for my home. Thank You for blessing me with these children You have given me. Thank You for your presence here with us. Thank You, Lord.”  I turn the timer on again for another hour.

Of course, if your children are with you, then you're going to get them thanking the Lord too. So, you're bringing the whole family into an attitude of praise and worship. You can all do it together when it dings. “Okay, come on, children, let's thank Jesus.”

“Thank You, Jesus. We love You. Thank you. Thank You for all Your blessings. Amen.”

Get them all to thank with you. And as you are doing this throughout the day, it keeps you in that beautiful attitude of gratitude, and of thanksgiving. Maybe you've just got into a bit of self-pity and feeling sorry for yourself because everything's going wrong—and ding! Oh my. You can no longer be in self-pity. “Thank You Lord. Oh, I thank You that You are my joy. I thank You that I don't have to look at these circumstances. I look to You, Lord. You are bigger. I thank You in the name of Jesus.” And so, once again, you're back in the right attitude.

Maybe the children are bouncing off the walls and right at that moment you're ready to blow your cool—Ding! And so instead of screaming at the children, you confess: “Oh thank You, Lord.” “Come on. Come here, children.” You hold their hands and you pray with them. “Oh God, I pray that You will touch my children now. Lord, give them soft, tender, forgiving hearts to one another. Fill them with love for one another in Jesus' name.”

And so the timer can be a wonderful blessing in your home to keep you in the praises of the Lord.

Well, let's carry on, number six. We make our homes a . . .

PRAYER CENTER.

Well, this is very, very, very biblical of course, because we know that Jesus said that his house is a House of Prayer, and he was talking about his temple. And of course, it also means our home. And if you have dedicated your home to the Lord, it's His home. Every one of our homes should be God's homes, and therefore, they should be praying homes. They should be homes of prayer. How much is your home a home of prayer? How much time have you spent in prayer today?

Now, we do pray personally, and of course, we're going to be praying. We're going to be bringing things to the Lord in our hearts throughout the day because we're always needing Him. Oh goodness me, I'm always needing Him, aren't you? In fact, I think one of the prayers that I pray more than any other prayer is Zechariah four, verse six, where it says, “Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord."

“Oh God, I thank You that you are God, that You are bigger than this challenge that I face. I pray that You will come by Your Spirit, and You will move because I can't work this situation out. I can't change this person's life. Oh God, I can't change the attitude, but You can. I thank You. I pray that You'll come by Your Spirit. It's not by my might, nor my power, it's by Your Spirit. Come by Your Spirit and move, Oh God.”

Oh, how I constantly pray that prayer often throughout the day. And so, we pray personally, but we must pray as families because our homes are places for families. A home really is a family. That's what it is. It's a family, so we pray as families.

Do you gather as a family to pray? How often do you gather? Biblically, God has shown us the way to come into His presence—every morning and every evening. He shows us this way back in the teaching on the Tabernacle, and God reveals what is called the Morning and Evening principle. And God showed it in very practical ways. Everything that God teaches us, He also teaches it to us practically.

At the very beginning of their building the Tabernacle, God talked about the brazen alter. That was an alter made of brass where they were to do the sacrifices. And God told them that when they did this, that they were to come to that altar every morning and every evening. They were to take out the ashes of the fire, because there was a fire upon the altar, and then they were to put on wood to keep the fire going. This spiritually speaks to us of coming into God's presence every morning and every evening, bringing our children into His presence. In His presence is where He will convict us if there's anything that is hurting and grieving His spirit. That's where we take out the ashes, take all that dead stuff out and all that stuff that grieves the Holy Spirit. But then we've got to put on the fuel, put on the wood, and so we put on the word of God because that fuels us. And then we pray. We do it morning and evening. But that was not enough. That happened in the  outer court, but then you move into the Holy Place.

And in the holy place there was the Table of Shewbread on which they laid the 12 loaves. Then they had the candelabra, the beautiful seven-branched golden candle stick. And God said to the priests, “You have got to come once again every morning and every evening to keep that light burning. Every morning you've got to take off all the burnt stuff from the wick and get rid of it.” Always getting rid of all the bad stuff.

And then pouring in the oil, which speaks of the Holy Spirit, that renewing of the Holy Spirit, morning and evening. And he said, “You have to do this every morning and evening because this light is never to go out. If you do it once a day, it'll go out. You've got to do it twice a day to keep the light burning.” And that's why they had to do it twice a day at the altar, at that brass alter. Because God said, “This fire must never ever go out.” And he repeats it twice (Leviticus 6:12, 13).

Lovely ladies, if we want to keep the fire of God burning in our hearts, burning in the hearts of everyone in our family, we've got to come twice a day. Doing it once, the fire will go out. It's only as we keep it going. We've got to attend to it two times a day to keep that fire burning.

And then that wasn't all. Because before you went into the Holy of Holies, just at the entrance, there was the Golden Table of Incense where they burned the incense. Once again, can you believe it? They had to do it every morning and every night! God wanted His home where he dwelt there (where the God of the universe who could not be contained in the earth, and yet He deigned to live in a tent, to be with His people and to dwell in the midst of them), He wanted His home filled with a beautiful aroma, that sweet aroma of incense. And so, they would light it in the morning, but by the evening it would be dissipating, so they would have to light it again to keep it going.

And the Bible tells us that the incense is the prayers of the saints (Revelation 5:8 and 8:3-5). That's what it is. And as that incense went up, it was just like a beautiful sweet incense. It was like prayers going up to God. And so, God made a principal way back there, a precedent, a type for us to keep going, that we will continue to pray and intercede and praise and worship every morning and every evening as a family.

Let me read to you a couple of Scriptures from Revelation. These are amazing because I was talking to you about the Tabernacle in the wilderness, and you can say, “Oh, that's all very well, that's a way back then, back in the wilderness, that doesn't relate to us today.”  Oh yes, it does! Because everything regarding the Tabernacle was done according to the pattern that God gave. And it was according to the pattern of the Tabernacle in Heaven!

Yes, in heaven. This tabernacle, which now is! When we go to Revelation, it is John giving us a picture of the vision that he sees of Heaven and what is in Heaven. And we see, ladies, the very same thing happening in heaven that we were talking about back there in the wilderness. So, this is more up to date than today, because this is in the eternal realm. Revelation 5:8 says: "And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps and golden vials full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints."

Dear mothers, our prayers are going up before the Lord, even now, to His heavenly throne room. Oh yes. Those cries from your mother's heart. They're going up. They are not forgotten. They are before the throne.

Revelation 8:3, 4: “And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer and there was given unto him much incense.” Not a little bit . . . but MUCH! How much incense do you have going up in your home? A little bit or much? “That he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar, which was before the throne”

Dear ladies, this is now in the eternal realm! “And the smoke of the incense which came with the prayers of the saints ascended up before God out of the angel's hand.” So, we see how this is the prayers of the saints, the prayers of God's people, the prayers of families. Can I encourage you so much to make this time every day in your family?

I know it's not easy, but you have to make it happen. And lovely ladies, remember you don't try and fit it around your schedule. No. If you try to do that, you'll never do it. If you try and fit it around everything you're doing in your home? Oh goodness me, you'll never have time to do it. No. This is what you do. You fit every single thing else around this most important part of the day. This is more important than anything else that you will do. This is eternal, and this will affect your family, your children, and generations to come. It will affect the nations of the world as you pray for them.

As you come every morning and every evening before the Lord, you're bringing that incense, but you've got to make it happen. You've got to absolutely make it happen. You've got to make that time and make that place, and everything else fits in around it and if not another thing gets done, well, too bad. These are the most important things in our home.

We find the most wonderful time of the day is at breakfast and at our evening suppertime, because it's the morning and evening principle of course. But we find it works best at meal times because that's when the family gather. To gather your family is not an easy thing because everybody's going here, going there, doing this, doing that, especially as they get older. But it's an amazing thing, they all come to eat. Oh yes, everybody wants to come to eat because we're all hungry, so you've got them there. You get them, they come to eat, and so at the end of your meal, that's when you have your time to open the Word and then to pray and to cry out to God at your altar, in your home.

Now, back in the early days, not only did they have the brass altar in the tabernacle and they had the altar of incense in the Holy Place, but earlier than even that, the Patriarchs made altars. And why did they make them? They made them as a point of contact to cry out to God and to hear God speak to them. Now we are not in a day of making alters. You're not going to make a stone altar or any kind of altar in your home, but the altar we make is that time and that place where we make it happen. A beautiful place is around your table, but it can be what works best in your home. And so you make that time and you come together to pray.

Did you know that prayer is the greatest thing you can do as a family? There's no more powerful thing. Not only do you pray for one another, but oh, you pray for the nation, and you pray for the world, and you teach your children how to do it, and you become nation-changing families.

As I close this session, I've got to tell you something very important. Satan will try to stop you because he hates prayer. He will do everything he can to stop you doing this, and when he stops you, he'll be laughing up his sleeve because he has won a victory. Because when we pray, we defeat the devil.

Are you going to be a devil-defeating, world-changing family, or are you going to let the devil have the victory?

Let's pray. Lord, I pray that You will help us all to be praying families, to make our homes prayer centers, where prayer is part of our lives. Where our children grow up praying, interceding, and knowing how to pray. Oh God, teach us how to be interceders for the nation and for the world. I pray that You will pour out a spirit of prayer upon every family hearing this podcast today or tonight in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Episode 12: Build an Exciting Home, No. 1

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: Well, it's such a beautiful day in Tennessee here in Primm Springs where we all live. The sun is shining and some of the young people are out on the volleyball court playing. Well, they don't seem to mind the heat. I think I would prefer it in the cool of the day. I hope it's a lovely, beautiful day where you are living too. Well, it's good to be back with you. In this episode, I want to come back to the very first word that we talked about when I started doing the podcasts. We are now up to podcast 13. My, how the time goes. In episodes one and two, I introduced to you a Hebrew word, naveh. It is spelled N-A-V-E-H, and it's one of the Hebrew words for the word dwell. It means to dwell in a home. It means to be at home, to reside at home. It can be a dwelling place.

One Hebrew commentator calls it the “inhabitress of the home.” Well, we don't use words like that very much today, do we? Although, we do! What about waiter, waitress; actor, actress; mayor, mayoress; editor, editress. Well, I don't think anybody actually uses editress. Although, I like to call myself the editress of Above Rubies because it is more grammatically correct. When this gentleman says, “not the inhabiter but the inhabitress of the home,” he is talking about the woman in the home. We actually found out about that in episodes four and five where I talked about this same Hebrew word and how we found that this word is in the context also of war and of this mighty woman. She's in the home, but she's also part of a great army. That was in Psalm 68:12.

Now, this word is also used to speak of God's home and of our home, of course, and even of a pasture for animals. It's a word that also means “lovely” because our homes are meant to be lovely places. In Jeremiah 6:2, it talks about the daughters of Jerusalem, and it calls them lovely and delicate women. Here the word is related to a woman, just as it is in many passages.

In Psalm 113:9: "He makes the barren woman to keep house (or to dwell in a home, to naveh in a home) and to be a joyful mother of children." Psalm 68:12, which we talked about, where it says: “she that dwelt in the home,” talking about the “she.” Not talking about the man, but the “she” that dwelt in the home.

It reminds me of Proverbs 31. Have you ever noticed, as you've read through that chapter, that the word “she” occurs 16 different times? She does good to her husband. She looks to the ways of her household. She does this, she does that. It's all about the “she.” Anyway, today I want to bring you back to this word again. We've been having many different podcasts, and I've been interviewing different folks, but now I've got to get you back to this word again. We haven't finished yet, and I want to take you to another Scripture where this word is used.

This time, it's in Jeremiah 29:5. Now, let's get the context before we read the scripture. The children of Israel have now been taken from their home of Israel. They've been taken to Babylon. They are now captives in a foreign land. God comes to them in Babylon and speaks to them through the Prophet Jeremiah.

Although Jeremiah is giving the word, God says that He is speaking, “Thus says the Lord of hosts . . . thus says the Lord of Israel.” Here we read this description of God as the Lord of hosts. Now this is a description that we read many times of God. I wonder, when you read it, do you think about what it means? Who is God as the Lord of hosts? Well, it literally means the God of the armies of Heaven, the God who fights for His people, Israel and for his covenant people today. He fights for us. He is our God. If God is for us, who can be against us. This is our God, and it's always in the context of war, or God standing up and fighting for us. Here He comes to the people in Babylon. He comes, “thus says the Lord of hosts.” Wow, they better listen.

This is an important word from God. Even though they are captives in a foreign land, God is speaking. What will He say to them? What does He want them to do in this foreign land? This is a very amazing passage, and we're going to read about seven different things that God said to His people in Babylon.

The very first one, let's read it in verse five. It contains the word naveh. God says to them: "Build houses and dwell in them." Many different translations say: “Build houses and live in them.” The word is naveh, meaning “to dwell in a home, to live in it, to make your life in it, to make it a lovely place, to make it a secure fold.”

In my second episode, I talked about how God wants us to make our homes a beautiful fold as we fold our flock and fold our family in our homes.

Here we go. Now ladies, isn't this amazing? I could never really quite comprehend this because this is God, the Lord of hosts, speaking this sovereign word to His people and what does He tell them? Build houses.

Our God is such a practical God. Dear precious ladies, God is interested in every aspect of your life. He is so vitally interested in your home. God loves homes because He is the designer and the author of homes. He is the first home designer. He is the first architect of homes. He is the One who created the very first home in the Garden of Eden, and it was called the Garden of Eden.

In Hebrew, the word Eden means delight. The home that God created was a delightful place. Perhaps there has never been, in fact, there never has been, a home that was as beautiful and delightful as that very first home. That first home was a prototype. Everything that God did in the beginning was the prototype for all that was to come. It was His plan for the future. He showed us the foundation and the vision of what He wanted and how He wants us to live. The first home, meaning a delightful place, is what He wants all our homes to be. He wants us to make them a delightful place.

Now, we all want our homes to be delightful, of course, but they don't just become delightful. We have to work at them becoming a delightful place. It takes thought. It takes meditation. It takes prayer. It takes vision. It takes work. It takes sweat. It takes our lives to make our home a delightful place where our husband loves to be, where our children love to be, where we love to be, because we make it a delightful place for ourselves too. God comes again, and when He comes to them in Babylon, because they're no longer in their beloved land, He says to them, I'm reminding you of the vision I gave you in the very beginning  Just because you are now in a foreign land does not negate what I told you in the beginning. I want you to keep doing it because this is My plan, the way I want you to live. “Build houses and live in them.” Naveh in them.

You see, dear mothers, we are to live in our homes. Not to just be running here and there and coming in to roost or coming in to do something for awhile and out again. No, our homes are to live in. God gave us homes to live in, to make life in them. We are to make life happen in our homes. Our homes are to be a hub where everything is happening, from birth to the grave. I mean, it's all meant to happen in the homes.

Today, sadly, homes are vacated. Often during the day, many homes are completely empty. Children are off to school. Mother is off to work. Husband, of course, is out doing his provision for the family, but the whole home is vacated. That's not how God intended it to be. He wants us to live life in our homes and to make wonderful things happen in our homes. So they are places, not only of delight, but of productivity and beautiful things happening and wonderful memories taking place.

Now I'd like to share with you 15 different ways we can make life happen in our home. Of course, there are many more and maybe I'll add to it, but I've just written down 15 for the moment. Shall we look at some of these?

1.     WE ARE TO MAKE OUR HOMES A PLACE FOR GOD’S PRESENCE

We are to make our homes a place for God's presence, where we live in His presence. I think that is the very ultimate. When Jesus, well no, when His disciples asked Jesus, “Teach us how to pray,” what did Jesus say? He said, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

We kind of glibly say those words. We repeat the Lord's Prayer, and we don't really think about it. But what is it saying? Your will be done, Father, on earth here, just as it is in heaven. In Luke's Gospel, in chapter 11:2 it says it very simply. It just says: “As in heaven, so in Earth,” but that is so powerful if we can just get it; I don't think I really get it. “As in heaven, so in Earth.” We could perhaps say it more personally, “As in God's home, so in my home”.

If we could get this vision—to bring a little bit of heaven to earth, because that is what God wants. That's what He told us to pray. When we pray with our family each morning, that would be a good prayer to add, wouldn't it? “Oh Father, help us to just bring a little bit of heaven to earth. Help us to establish your heavenly ways in our earthly home.” That means, of course, living in His presence.

I love the Scripture. I've written it down here. In Hosea 6:2 it says: "After two days he will revive us, and the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his presence." Don't you love that? We shall live in his presence!

Psalm 102:28 is rather similar. It says: “The children of your servants will settle down here, and their descendants." Not only us but our descendants, our children, our children's children will live securely in Your presence. That's God's plan. For us to establish that in our homes so that when our children get married, they will establish it in their homes and from generation to generation. As one translation puts it: “Our descendants will live in His presence.” The Moffatt translation says: "Though eternal, thy years shall never end, and in your presence, live your servants, children and their posterity forever."

In establishing the presence of God, how do we do it? I guess it starts with us individually because our God is a dwelling God. He wants to dwell in our hearts and if we have received Him into our lives, He has come in by His spirit and dwells with us. In fact, He says that He not only abides in us, He wants us to abide in Him. He also says in Ephesians 2 that because we are in Him, we are seated in Christ in heavenly places where Christ sits at the right hand of God.

This is where we are positionally in Christ. We're not often there practically are we? We need to see ourselves positionally. I'm in Christ; He is in me, and this is how we operate our homes, from that place of Christ living in me. I dwell in Him, and it's from this attitude, this relationship, that we operate our homes, and this brings the presence of God and the atmosphere.

Atmosphere is so powerful. Every home has an atmosphere. You know that, don't you? You go into some homes, and you feel all that warmth of atmosphere. You want to be there. You want to go there. You want to stay there. You don't want to leave there because you feel that relaxed atmosphere.

You go into other homes, and they may have beautiful decor. It may look beautiful. There may be nothing out of place, but it's cold. There's no atmosphere. It's just a house of beautiful things. You can go into another house, and you can cut the air with a knife because there have been arguments, and there's been strife. Where there is strife, it always affects the atmosphere.

I love this quotation from S. D. Gordon. He wrote a book called "Quiet talks on home ideals." In this book he says: “The influence exerted by the mother is great beyond the power of our minds to think or of our words to tell. The making of a child's character is in the mother's hands to a degree that is nothing short of startling." In another passage, he writes: “The atmosphere of the home is breathed in by the child and exerts an influence in his training more, by far, than all other things put together. The child receives more by unconscious absorption than in any other way. He is all ears and eyes and open pores. He is open at every angle and point in direction and all between. He is an absorbing surface. He takes in constantly. He takes in what is there and what he takes in makes him. The spirit of the home then is the one thing on which the keen mind and the earnest heart of the father and mother will center most for the children's sake."

Dear mothers, our children are going to imbibe far more from our godly, heavenly atmosphere, that relaxed atmosphere, that warm atmosphere, that atmosphere of love and joy, than all the things that we'll ever try to teach them. It's the atmosphere they will remember. Those will be their memories as they grow up.

First of all, above everything else, let's seek to make our homes a place where God dwells. Invite Him into every room in your home because He wants to live in every room, in every nook and cranny of your home. He wants to come to your table. He wants to be present as someone who sits at your table. He wants to be involved in every conversation. When we are aware that God is with us, it changes so much in our whole mothering.

You see, dear mother, God is with you in your kitchen, when you're cooking, when you're dealing with your little ones, and they're crying, and they're scratchy, and they're upset and this one is having, you know, a tousle or an argument with another sibling and all things are happening at once, and you're just feeling overwhelmed, and you want to tear your hair out. God is there; God is with you.

Instead of screaming and tearing your hair out, say, “Oh God, I thank You that you're here. Thank You that You are with me.” You only have to cry out those words, and you'll know His presence. He will come to you. He'll give you His calm and His rest, as you acknowledge His presence. That's one of the big things in experiencing the presence of God--acknowledging His presence. “Thank You, Lord that you are with us.”

When you start the day, you're at the breakfast table, you can say, “Oh, thank You, Lord. You are with us today, Lord Jesus.” Tell your children, “Children, God lives in our home. He is with us today, so He's going to be with us in everything we do today, in all our conversations, in all our play, in all our learning, in all our chores. He is with us. Isn't that exciting? Yes. Just rejoice with me. Say, thank You, Jesus.” Get all the children to say, “Thank You, Jesus. You are with us.” As you acknowledge Him, you are going to be so much more aware of His precious presence with you.

2.     THE HOME IS A MOTHERING AND NURTURING CENTER

The home is a mothering, nurturing center. This is the place where we nurture and mother our children, and this is where God intends it to be. When God gives us a little baby to nurse at the breast and to nurture and to love, He doesn't give it to somebody else. He gives it to us, and He gives us the privilege of raising this little child in a home.

We're so blessed because God has put motherhood in our hearts. Dear ladies, motherhood is in our hearts. God has put it there by divine creation. He has put within the female a nurturing instinct, and it is there in our hearts.

Now, we know, of course, more and more today are rejecting motherhood and turning away from everything that is motherly and feminine. Even these screaming, yelling women can't get away from who God created them to be because you'll find, if you go and check it out, that they'll have a pet. They've rejected motherhood, but they've got to have something they can love, so they have a pet.

You see, God has put it in our hearts. Not only has He put nurturing in our hearts, He's put home in our hearts. It is in our hearts. It is natural to love home. Now, once again, in our educated society today that's educated in socialism and feminism and humanism, it has often been educated out of the brains of women, so they have been pulled to leave the home, and they've been brainwashed that it's an inferior place to be. When they get rid of all that junk, down deep in their hearts, there's a longing for home because God has put it within us. He wants the woman to be in the home.

We go back to the very, very beginning, and we find that when God created man. We read the account in Genesis 2. He created man and “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” And that was Adam. He was created first.

Then the next very Scripture says, and then God created the home, the Garden of Eden. That was the next thing He did. He still hasn't created the woman yet. We don't even read anything about her until way down in the chapter, verse 18, and God says: “I'm going to create a helpmeet for Adam.” Even then, she doesn't come. God then creates all the animals and the beasts of the fields and the birds and so on, and that all happens before He creates the woman.

Then the day come when He puts Adam to sleep and out of the man, He brings forth a woman. When she awakes to life, she's in her home, HER HOME. Yes, God created the man before the home but not the woman. He had the home ready for her.

There she was. “This is where I want you to be,” God says. “This is the beautiful place I've created for you. You're going to make life in a home. It's from this home that you're going to affect the generations. It's from this home that you're going to nurture the world.”

Here in our homes, we embrace our home because we embrace the place of nurturing. Today, we have daycares, and yes, children can be cared for. They can be watched over from harm and so on, but they can't be truly mothered. Only a mother can truly mother her child. Only she knows intuitively the needs of her child and that can only happen in the home. Day cares are only counterfeit. Everything that God has planned is perfect and everything that God has planned, the devil hates. He has a counterfeit for everything that God has planned, and his counterfeit for the home are daycares, of course. We must embrace our home as a place of nurturing.

3.     WE EMBRACE OUR HOMES AS A PLACE OF BIRTHING

Number three, we embrace our home as a place of birthing. Now, not everybody is going to birth their babies in the home, but it's a beautiful place to birth babies and such a relaxed atmosphere to birth a baby. I love that poem, I've just forgotten the author now, a great American poet, and he talks about how our home is not a home until there's been someone born in it, and there's been someone that died in it, and everything has happened in this home.

I know many of you have had beautiful home births. Some of you have had situations where you've not been able to birth at home, and you've had to go to the hospital. Those who have to go to the hospital, I think that can be an even greater challenge because you've got to be really on top of things. There are so many invasive things that they do today in birthing. Even when the baby is born, we need to make sure that they don't happen to our baby, and we become very educated and informed and know what they are really doing.

I remember when Meadow, my granddaughter, had her first baby. She had it in a birthing center at the hospital where she had a midwife, and it was like being at home, but she was there at the birthing center. She had prepared herself so well. I mean, she'd studied. There wasn't one thing she didn't study and check out about birthing at home or what happens when you birth in a hospital. She had written out everything, gone over it with her husband, and he had the list so that when they were at the hospital, he could check everything off and make sure that that happened or that didn't happen.

When you're in birth, you're so vulnerable you can't even think about these things yourself, and you need someone advocating for you. He was well-educated, and they were able to protect themselves and protect their baby. I think that is important if you're birthing in a hospital. If you're birthing at home, that is such a beautiful experience too.

Well, time has gone again, and we've hardly started. Next week, we're going to speak more about living in our homes.

Let's pray, shall we? “Dear Father, I thank You so much for Your wonderful plan; Your plan for the home. Your plan for us to naveh in our homes and make our homes a lovely place, a delightful place. Help us, Lord, to get a vision for our homes, to see it beyond just a place to live and eat and sleep but to see wonderful and great and amazing things happen. Help us to be those who make things happen, who envision things to happen in our homes. I ask Your blessing and Your protection on every wife and husband and child who is listening today in the name of Jesus, Amen.”

Here is the poem I mentioned in this podcast.

IT TAKES A HEAP O’ LIVIN’

By Edgar Albert Guest

It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home,

A heap o’ sun an’ shadder, an’ ye sometimes have t’ roam

Afore ye really ’preciate the things ye lef’ behind,

An’ hunger fer ’em somehow, with ’em allus on yer mind.

It don’t make any differunce how rich ye get t’ be,

How much yer chairs an’ tables cost, how great yer luxury;

It ain’t home t’ ye, though it be the palace of a king,

Until somehow yer soul is sort o’ wrapped round everything.

Home ain’t a place that gold can buy or get up in a minute;

Afore it’s home there’s got t’ be a heap o’ livin’ in it;

Within the walls there’s got t’ be some babies born, and then

Right there ye’ve got t’ bring ‘em up t’ women good, an’ men;

And gradjerly, as time goes on, ye find ye wouldn’t part

With anything they ever used—they’ve grown into yer heart:

The old high chairs, the playthings, too, the little shoes they wore

Ye hoard; an’ if ye could ye’d keep the thumbmarks on the door.

Ye’ve got t’ weep t’ make it home, ye’ve got t’ sit an’ sigh

An’ watch beside a loved one’s bed, an’ know that Death is nigh;

An’ in the stillness o’ the night t’ see Death’s angel come,

An’ close the eyes o’ her that smiled, an’ leave her sweet voice dumb.

Fer these are scenes that grip the heart, an’ when yer tears are dried,

Ye find the home is dearer than it was, an’ sanctified;

An’ tuggin’ at ye always are the pleasant memories

O’ her that was an’ is no more—ye can’t escape from these.

Ye’ve got t’ sing an’ dance fer years, ye’ve got t’ romp an’ play,

An’ learn t’ love the things ye have by usin’ ’em each day;

Even the roses ’round the porch must blossom year by year

Afore they ’come a part o’ ye, suggestin’ someone dear

Who used t’ love ’em long ago, an’ trained ’em jes’ t’ run

The way they do, so’s they would get the early mornin’ sun;

Ye’ve got t’ love each brick an’ stone from cellar up t’ dome:

It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home.

Edgar Albert Guest is one of my favorite poem authors. Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959) (aka Eddie Guest) was a prolific American poet who was popular in the first half of the 20th century and became known as the People's Poet.