PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 20 – Building or Destroying?

Episode 20: Building or Destroying?

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ARE WE BUILDING . . .

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

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

QUESTION TIME

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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