What kind of aromas fill your home? Sweet or bad smells? The flesh gives off sour, bitter, grumpy, and horrible smells, doesn't it? They make everyone in the home feel bad and want to run! But Christ in us is a sweet-smelling savor, and He wants us to exude His sweet aroma throughout the home. Most husbands love fragrant perfumes (well, my husband does), but more than perfumes, we should constantly wear the perfume of Christ in our lives.
II Corinthians 2:14 (J. B. Phillip's translation) always challenges me: "We should have about us the unmistakable scent of Christ." What’s the fragrance in your home? Are your husband and children avoiding you or running to you?
(II Corinthians 2:14 (HCSB) says: “But thanks be to God, who always puts us on display in Christ and through us spreads the aroma of the knowledge of Him in EVERY PLACE.” God wants us to be a “sweet” aroma in “EVERY PLACE.”
Every place includes our home! It means in the midst of what we are doing--when children are making us crazy, when our husband is rubbing us the wrong way, and when we are doing the mundane chores like changing dirty diapers!
Keep sweet.
Love from Nancy Campbell
Painting: The Swing Art by Morgan Frederick
Isn’t it nice when everything is peaceful and lovely? We would rather not be in a battle, would we? But did you know that God leads us into battles? If you are facing a battle right now, maybe it’s God who has you the battle.
As you wait for the miracle of finance for the new magazine, I want to remind you that you can continue to be blessed in so many ways through the ministry of Above Rubies.
“Through childbearing God’s providence supplies humanity with problem solvers, world changers, and every other sort of individual. It is through this same mode that God Himself was able to come into the world to become human and become the ultimate problem solver and world changer.”
Not only does God call mothering and homemaking a “good” thing (Titus 2:3-5 and I Timothy 5:10), but there's something else! He also tells us how to do these good things! How do you think we should do them? Grudgingly? Reluctantly? Complainingly? No, the word is “DILIGENTLY”!
Did you notice I wrote the words, sacred AND secular, rather than sacred OR secular? God does not separate religious things with secular things. He wants everything in our lives to be touched with His divine presence. He wants everything in our homes—each person, each piece of furniture, and even all the pots and pans and utensils to be anointed with His presence (Zechariah 14:20, 21).
God’s dealings with us can be gentle or powerful. God spoke to Isaiah and said: “My care for the people of Judah is like the gently flowing waters of Shiloah” (Isaiah 8:6). What a beautiful description of God’s care and watchfulness over our lives. He loves to be gentle with us as He convicts us of things in our lives that grieve Him and as He woos us on to be conformed into the image of His Son. Do we respond to His gentle proddings?
Are you satisfied with your life? In other words, are you content? We are always thinking of something we need, aren’t we? But do we really need it? We can’t afford it and so we go without, and we find we live life just fine without the thing we think we need! It’s amazing what we can live without.
I am always challenged by Romans 3:4: “Let God be true, and every man a liar.” I have to ask myself the question: would I be prepared to stand true to God’s truth if I was the only one believing? The truth is not always popular! 
God hovers over the baby He is creating in the womb. He is the designer and creator. Every person in the world was a person from the moment of conception, a new and unrepeatable miracle planned by God. Life is precious. 
What is the crowning moment of your day?
Mother, you may like to share this poem with your growing up sons or you may like to pin it up in their room or the bathroom.
Our public education system separates children into their age groups. Our church Sunday schools also separate children into their ages. However, this is not a biblical pattern.
Your "down in the dumps" dress, your "grumble groaning" dress, or, maybe your “self-pity” outfit? Pretty ugly, aren't they?
I remember seeing a cartoon many years ago. It was a picture of a mother looking at the adverts in the newspaper. Around her were children out of control and the house in utter chaos. The caption read: “I’m looking for a job, I need a rest!”
God intends babies to be nursed at the breast and enfolded in their mother’s arms. We see this in nature. Animals instinctively encircle their little ones to them without having to read books or listen to CDs. What I find hard to fathom is how human mothers can leave their little babies with someone else to look after while they do their career? This is not even instinctive. Mothers and new babies should be inseparable.
I was arrested by a Scripture I read this morning in Isaiah 26:18 (NET): “We cannot produce deliverance on the earth, people to populate the earth are not born.” The NLT says: “We have not given salvation to the earth, nor brought life into the world.”
What is the most important thing on your agenda in your home? Does it prove God is preeminent in your home? 
God told Moses to consecrate the hands of Aaron and his sons, the priests. Exodus 28:41 (Knox) says: “And thou shalt consecrate their hands, and set them apart to serve me in the priestly office.” Because God has also made us “kings and priests unto our God” He wants us to have consecrated hands too.
Dear mother, when you are caring for your children in your home, you are in the heart of God’s kingdom. You are right where God wants you to be. You are in full time service in the kingdom of God. You couldn’t be doing anything greater! Have a wonderful day.