Above Rubies Daily Encouragement Blogs

The words of Zechariah 13:7 also apply to motherhood: “Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.” As mothers we are shepherdesses of our little flocks. Just as the shepherd is essential for the survival of the sheep and lambs, so are mothers indispensable for their children.

Satan’s plan is to smite motherhood and scatter the mother shepherds out of the home. When he lures mothers away from their home, he can then turn against “the little ones” and entice them to his thinking and ways.

It is sad that many have fallen for Satan’s trap. It is time for watchdog, protective, lion-like, standing strong, never giving into deception mothers to arise. Mothers who will not be moved from their homes and who will guard their children and homes with all diligence.

Don’t be lured away, dear mother. No one, no matter how professional they are, can ever replace you, the mother! You are more important than you realize.

Blessings to you today,

Nancy Campbell

Take time to look at your children and appreciate the miracles they are. Thank God for them. Embrace them as miracles and joy in them.

The word “wonders” is the Hebrew word “pala” and means “astonishing, extraordinary, marvelous, miraculous, wondrous, to accomplish.” It reveals God doing things beyond the powers of human powers or expectations.

It is used in Genesis 18:14 about the miraculous conception of Isaac: “Is any thing too hard (pala) for the Lord? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life and Sarah shall have a son.” God miraculously restored Sarah’s womanly cycle and she conceived during the “time of life,” the time of the month when the womb is ready for conception and a miracle of God.

Although this was a very special miracle to an older woman, every married woman has this opportunity for a miracle during her “time of life.”

This word is used of God creating each new life in the womb (Psalm 139:13-16). The psalmist exclaims: “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous (pala) are thy works.”

God uses this word when describing a couple falling in love (Proverbs 30:18, 19). God sees it has marvelous and wonderful. I’m sure it makes His heart smile for it is His plan and design.

Each night as I am going off to sleep I like to think of all the wonders around me for which I can thank God and then I like to do it again as I wake in the morning.

We can easily get bogged down with all the pressures and complexities of life. But look up today, dear mother. Rejoice in the miracles all around you. You have wonders without number if you will only open your eyes.

Be filled with thanksgiving today,

Nancy Campbell

MORE SCRIPTURES ABOUT GOD’S WONDERFUL WORKS:
To be more encouraged you can look up these Scriptures containing the Hebrew word "pala."

We are to show to our children, and all people, God’s marvelous works. We must not keep them hidden: 1 Chronicles 16:9, 12, 24; Psalm 9:1; 26:7; 71:17; 78:4 (specifically); 96:3; 105:2, 5; 107:8, 15, 21, 31; 119:27; and 145:5.

God loves to wonderful and marvelous things: Exodus 3:20; 34:10; Job 5:9; 37:5, 14; Joshua 3:5; Psalm 31:21; 40:5; 72:18; 75:1; 78:32; 86:10; 98:1; 106:7, 21, 22; 111:4; 118:23; 119:18; 136:4; Isaiah 28:19; 29:14; Jeremiah 32:17, 27; Joel 2:26; and Zechariah 8:6-8.

Where can you pour out your heart and soul?
Where can you explain what is taking its toll?
Where can you share your vision and goal?
At the table.

Where can you dialogue and sift through ideas?
Verbalize thoughts and yet still be at ease?
Discover new subjects to debate if you please?
At the table.

Where can your hearts be knitted as one?
Where can you yarn and old stories be spun?
And feel accepted so you don’t have to run?
At the table.

Where can your children learn to sit still?
Acquire eating habits that won’t make them ill?
Be taught good manners of which some have nil?
At the table.

Where to imbibe values and ethics for life?
Learn to eat correctly with fork and knife?
Observe how “to father” and be a good wife?
At the table.

Where can you reveal God’s ways to your kin?
Teach them His Word will keep them from sin?
And to follow God’s laws is the way to win?
At the table.

Where can you encourage your children each day?
And boost the confidence of these “jars of clay”?
Give counsel that will keep them from going astray?
At the table.

Where can you make your house feel a “home”?
With a lovely warm ambiance and happy tone?
From where your children will not want to roam?
At the table.

Where can you show love to God’s special “flock”?
Feed those who come to your door and knock?
Even those who don’t know God can be their Rock?
At the table.

Where does God love His presence to fill?
Where does He want His blessings to spill?
Where does He want restless hearts to be still?
At the table.

Dear father and mother, look again at your table,
Family meals together will make your home stable!
Make it a priority--your God will enable!
Sit at your table!

~ Nancy Campbell

Seek to make it the life of your home too.

Love, Nancy

I know it doesn’t automatically happen. You as the mother of the home have to make it happen. You have to schedule it to happen. You have to put aside other things to make it happen. You may have to rearrange your whole life to make it happen. But you cannot let it go. It is not only for the blessing of your children now, but for future generations. You are training your children now for their marriage and how they will raise their children.

If you’ve been getting out of this basic habit, ask the Lord to help you get back into the habit again. Ask God to show you ways to make each meal a very special time for your family. Start thinking now about what you will cook tonight? But more than that, think about what you could talk about together. Think about the joy of culminating the meal with Family Devotions.

Be abundantly blessed,

Nancy Campbell

He’s planned to be home from his busy work,
From his place at the table he will not shirk,
He affirms his commitment to his family and wife
And his presence at the table diminishes strife.

Mother has taken time to prepare the meal,
Full of nutrition, not a pre-packaged deal,
She delights to cook for her growing brood,
She knows it’s a sacred task to prepare their food.

The table looks inviting–a clean tablecloth too,
The plates nicely set, perhaps a candle or two.
The children get involved and do their part
To make the table look creative and really smart.

What joy to be together at the end of the day,
To laugh, and communicate, and each have a say,
To share the day’s happenings with one another
And tell what they’ve learned to father and mother.

The plates are now empty, tummies full to the top!
Is it time to leave the table? No! Stop, stop!
We’ve fed only the body and the soul so far,
The best part’s to come and it’s not out of a jar.

It’s time for devotions; we must feed the spirit,
Of the blessing from this, there is no limit.
Father opens the Bible and to his family he reads
Sowing into their hearts God’s eternal seeds.

Now it’s time to pray, each one takes a turn,
They pray for needs as God’s will they discern,
They give thanks for blessings with a grateful heart
And develop a spirit of gratitude right from the start.

God’s blessing is on this family we know
As around the table their “olive plants” grow,
God’s smile is upon them as they follow His way
And establish this principle for now and alway.

~ Nancy Campbell

I have to CHOOSE to love my husband, choose to be sweet to him, choose to make love to him (lots), choose to serve him, choose to honor him, choose to be the most amazing wife that's ever lived! It's all to do with CHOICE! And most of the time you don't feel like doing any of these things. But you don't live by your feelings. You live by what is right. You live by blessing the other person. You live by the love of God which is shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost which is given unto you (Romans 5:5).

As you do this, God's promises comes back like a boomerang to bless you. Whatever you sow, you reap. Whatever you pour out on your husband will come back to you. It’s an eternal law (Galatians 6:7).

Love to you today,

Nancy Campbell

BE INSPIRED BY OLDER COUPLES STILL IN LOVE

Go to this link to see the lasting love and joy of older married couples. Love always grows deeper and more beautiful as the years go on. The reason is that the more you love one another, the more you revel in one another's love. Show these pictures to your children too. https://www.pinterest.com/…/i-love-older-couples-who-are-s…/

Now don’t get me wrong. I know there are some women who will not get married. There are others who do not meet “the right one” until their thirties, or even forties. However, the majority meet when they are relatively young. This is God’s plan. This is the way He has created us. This is the time of life when He puts the desire within us for marriage, and yes, for sexual union.

Society today believes in the waiting game. You must wait unto you are more mature. You must wait until you have finished college. You must wait until you are financially settled. You must wait until “you have all your ducks in a row.” You must wait until you have traveled and seen the world! This sounds wise advice, but is it biblical?

We read in Malachi 2: 15 about the “wife of his youth” and Joel 1:8 about the “husband of her youth.” We read in Psalm 127:4 about the “children of your youth.” The word “youth” in the Hebrew word “na’uwr” and means “young people, juvenile.” That doesn’t sound like old to me.

If Colin and I had waited until we were financially secure before we married, we wouldn’t be married yet! If we waited for the ‘perfect” time to have children, we still wouldn’t have any children! It all sounds so plausible, but it’s hot air and the wisdom of this world. The reality is that God intends couples to marry young and have children when they are young.

We don’t find who God wants us to be by doing our own thing. We find who we are as women through marriage and motherhood. This is how we mature. This is how a young man matures. There is nothing like marriage to mature a young man. You watch him grow before your eyes (unless he is unteachable and without godly training). Ultimately, God gives parents the responsibility to prepare their children for married, from childhood through adolescence.

Amazingly, many couples are quite happy with the waiting game. But what happens with all this waiting? Instead of coming to marriage as pure virgins and righteous young men they come violated. God’s plan is for “young men to marry virgins” (Isaiah 62:5). The waiting game does not help God’s plan.

Why do we think we know better than God?

Blessings,

Nancy Campbell

This is something that happens to us spiritually. However, everything that happens in the inward man should be revealed in the outward man. Our physical body emanates what goes on in the “hidden man of the heart.” I believe that if we are truly covered with a robe of righteousness inwardly, we will also reveal this work of righteousness within us by covering our physical body.

A robe is not a scanty dress; it covers the body. It doesn’t have to cover head to foot, but at least a robe will modestly cover the top to below the knee. My spirit is grieved as I observe women who confess they are Christians and yet blatantly display cleavage, some a little, some as much as they can! Many even delight in it. To many it is normal. No, I don’t believe it is normal, or godly, for a woman who is covered with a robe of righteousness. Display is for the bedroom; not for the public eye. In fact, I can’t believe how husbands. who are the covering of their wives. allow them to leave their home with so much flesh showing.

Revelation 1:6; 5:10; and 20:6 tells us that we have been made “kings and priests unto God.” What kind of clothing does God wants His priests to wear? Exodus 28 tells us all about it. In fact, God is the first clothes designer and He designed glorious clothes for the priests, “for glory and for beauty” (Exodus 28:2).

The High Priest was most gloriously clothed with a breastplate, a shoulder garment, a robe, an embroidered long shirt, a turban, and a girdle all in amazing colors and precious gems! All the other priests had to wear linen trousers with a long shirt of fine linen, once again “for glory and for beauty.” The main thing we notice is that they were CLOTHED and COVERED, not with drab clothing, but beautiful clothing. This typifies a priest of the most High God.

Are you fully covered with the robe of righteousness? Psalm 132:9, 16 says: “Let the priests be clothed with righteousness.” If so, you will automatically cover your physical body.

Blessings to you today from Nancy Campbell

Why do they want to do this? Because it is inherent within them. We don’t have to tell them to do it. It is instinctive. Therefore, if it is instinctive and God-given, why do little girls change as they grow up? This is an important question.

I don’t believe God intends us to change. I believe He wants females to continue to dress and act like royalty. We are daughters of the King of kings. Yes, we are DAUGHTERS. We are meant to look like daughters. We are meant to glory in our femininity because this is the way God made us.

Today we live in a society that blurs the sexes in the way we dress, act, and even think. We are indoctrinated. We are propagandized. We are influenced by the enemy of our souls who wants to lure us away from who God intends us to be. God created male and female. Therefore, Satan who wants to rebel against all God’s ways, seeks to destroy these roles.

I think it is time we began to really think truthfully. We are like sheep and so quickly led astray to do whatever everyone else in society is doing. Look around you. How are most women dressed? In the uniform. All the same. Everyone wears jeans and top. They have to be like everyone else. Where are the girls and women who dress femininely like princesses. Like their original instinctiveness before they were indoctrinated by society.

I think of Sarah, Abraham’s wife. The Bible says she was beautiful. She dressed beautifully--not drab or boringly. She dress like royalty. Her name even means, Princess. When Pharaoh sent his scouts out looking for beautiful women for his harem, they spied Sarah. They weren’t looking for a woman in jeans and top. They looked for a princess. It happened again with King Abimelech.

I am sure I am treading on people’s toes. But, let’s be honest. We are conditioned by society more than our God-given instincts. Are we even in touch with how God innately created us?

Do you still love me?

Nancy Campbell

P.S. The picture: Two of the little flower girls at the wedding. L. to r. Georgia Campbell (my granddaughter) and Joyce Calhoon (my grandniece, named after my mother).

Perhaps your husband is not walking in the ways of God. Do not give up. Keep pouring God’s truths into your children. Live your godly life before them. Pray for them daily. God has chosen you to steer them in the ways of God.

Blessings,

Nancy Campbell

Do you remember Brayden and Tali Waller? Some of you may have seen their DVD, BETROTHED. Braydon has pioneered the visions of betrothal for marriage. Brayden and Tali are on their way back to Israel again for the Fall. Their new baby is due October 6 and will be born in Israel, their third baby to be born in an overseas country. She says: “It always makes for an exciting experience and always gives the Father a unique opportunity to teach me to lean on Him and trust Him more.”

I love the last two lines:
Let fulfillment’s greatest goal be found
That on the cornerstone be placed the crown.”

What is the cornerstone? The cornerstone is the foundation of the home. In building the home all other stones are set from this foundation stone, thus determining the entire structure. It is the crown. We as mothers are the cornerstones of our home and we also are training our daughters for this great task. Rejoice today in the great commission God has given you.
~ Nancy

P.S. Painting: Lady of the House, by William Henry Margetson, 1861-1940.

Weary and homesick and distressed,
They wander east, they wander west,
And are baffled and beaten and blown about
By the winds of the wilderness of doubt;
To stay at home is best.

Then stay at home, my heart, and rest;
The bird is safest in its nest;
O'er all that flutter their wings and fly
A hawk is hovering in the sky;
To stay at home is best.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The picture is by the American illustrator, W. L. Taylor, a 1904 painting of this very poem.

Therefore, as we realize this divine truth (and can I please interrupt my sentence here--it is a divine truth and because it is God’s plan the enemy wants to rob us from it. When he robs us of this truth, he robs us of our full understanding of God). As we embrace this divine truth we come to find out more and more who God is like. And the more we embrace His ways for us as wives and mothers, the more He reveals to us and leads us in His paths.

Seek with all your heart to KNOW GOD in the way He created you. Discover all the amazing hormones He gives to you when you are pregnant. Experience the blessed hormones He gives you while you nurse your baby. God is wrapped up in all your mothering. You miss knowing much of who God really is when you discard your mothering ways for other ways.

We understand how He wants us to mother even as we read these negative Scriptures about animals and birds:
Job 39:13-16: “The ostrich . . . which leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in dust, and forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them. She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers: her labor is vain without fear.”

Lamentations 4:3: “Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give s.uck to their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.”

Jeremiah 8:7: “Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times, and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming: but my people know not the judgment of the Lord.”

Be blessed, Nancy Campbell

P.S. Here are some links you may like to check out:
http://tinyurl.com/PreservedThroughMotherhood
http://bit.ly/PreservationTestimonies
http://www.thealphaparent.com/…/how-breastfeeding-changes-y…
ww.nationalrighttolifenews.org/…/the-amazing-interplay-be…/…

“The Scriptures” is a relatively new translation published by the Institute for Scripture Research. They translate the verse correctly: “KNOW Him in all your ways.” We can only experience God’s true direction in our lives as we know Him. If we have put God into our little box and made Him a god of our own understanding, we will be led our own way. We have to pursue knowing God. We must seek the revelation of Him in His Word.

And dear mothers, we must seek above all things to teach our children to know God, not only know about Him. When God spoke to the little boy, Samuel in the temple 1 Samuel 3:7 states: “Now Samuel did not yet know (yada) the LORD.” Samuel lived in the very temple with the priests but didn’t know God personally yet.

Your children can grow up in your godly home and know about God, and yet miss KNOWING Him personally. Pray that they will come to know God intimately. Fill them with the Scriptures daily because it is the Word that makes them “wise unto salvation” (2 Timothy 3:17). Make sure you are revealing to them the God of the Bible, not a god of your own imagination. They will only know God’s ultimate direction upon their lives as they know God truly and intimately.

Be blessed,

Nancy Campbell

I feel very convicted about the state of my own heart. We face the same evils in our land today that were happening in Israel. What is our response? Do we just carry on as usual? Or do we have soft, tender, and broken hearts about the sin in the land? I am horrified about the same sex marriage law. I get on my knees and cry out to God. But I have to admit I haven’t torn my clothes. Do I really see sin like God sees it?

It seems that God is getting at me. I also read these Scriptures over the weekend:
Psalm 119:53: “HORROR has taken hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake thy law.”
Psalm 119: 136: “RIVERS OF WATER run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law.”
Psalm 119:158: “I beheld the transgressors, and was GREIEVED; because they kept not thy word.”
Romans 12:9: “ABHOR that which is evil.” (“Abhor” in the Greek means to ‘SHUDDER WITH HORROR.”

I know this is not a nice, comforting post, but we must get down to reality. If we as God’s people are not mightily affected by the sin in the land, if our hearts are not grieved to tears, if we don’t shudder with horror at evil, and if we are not concerned enough to cry out to God repentance, we not much different from the world (Jeremiah 10:25).

Are our hearts hardened because we are so used to the sin and worldliness all around us? Or do we have soft, tender hearts. My continual cry is that God will keep me walking in the fear of the Lord with a weeping heart over sin (in my own life, in my family, in the church, and in the nation).

My prayer for you and me,

Nancy Campbell

A few more Scriptures to ponder: 2 Chronicles 7:14; Ezra 9:1-3; Isaiah 66:2; Jeremiah 9:17-21; Ezekiel 9:4; Amos 5:15; Joel 2:16-18; James 4:8-10; and 1 Peter 1:17.

Two quick EARS are listening to all that you say,
They’re listening to you, mother and dad.
Then speak of the things that are lovely true,
For some day you will wish that you had.

Two swift little FEET follow you all of the day,
They step in the footprints you make.
If you follow God’s paths, they’ll walk there too,
Or stray if His ways you forsake.

Two soft little HANDS have been placed into yours,
They’re trustfully clinging to you.
Today, while they’re pliable, train them aright,
They’ll do what you teach them to do.

A warm little HEART beats to music you make,
To your life notes of love or of hate,
It swings to the rhythm of your life all day,
Do not let it hear the love notes too late.

~ Anon.