PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 192: THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD, PT 3
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 192: THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD, Part 3
Today, Christy Ireland from Montana joins me as we continue talking about the GOOD land of motherhood. Christy shares the joys of mothering her 12 children, and also about her little boy, who was born sickly and passed away at an early age.
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Great to be with you again. We’re talking about this wonderful series about the Land of Motherhood. It’s such an exciting series. I told you that I found twenty different descriptions about the land. It’s actually about the Land of Israel, but we’re likening it to the land of motherhood.
We are still on point number one, that IT IS A GOOD LAND. Twenty-four times in the Bible, the Bible speaks of the Land as a “good land.” It also tells us in His Word that motherhood is a good land. We’re discussing the good things that the older women are to teach the younger women. That’s what the Bible calls them. Good things. Beautiful things.
Today I also have another guest with me. This lovely mother, I know she thinks motherhood is a good land so I kind of pulled her in to do this podcast with me.
Now, Christy, Christy Ireland, and her wonderful husband, and all their glorious, beautiful children are passing through Tennessee. I first met them last year when they came to our Above Rubies Family Retreat down in Panama, Laguna Beach, in Florida. They drove all the way from Montana to come to our retreat. They loved it.
While there, of course, they met Daniel and Allison Hartman, who were the ones who put this retreat on. They do such an amazing job! If you’ve never been, you’ve just got to come. It’s just so incredible. Just look on the website. This April it will be happening again. Are you coming down again?
Christy Ireland: We’re hoping to, yes.
Nancy: Woo hoo! That’s so great! Anyway, Christy and Chad got to know Daniel and Allison and found out that they needed help in their busy times with their big successful photography business. So, they loaned their beautiful daughter Emily to them. They’ve just been down to pick her up again, traveling back through Tennessee, and hanging out with us all of us here in Tennessee. So great to have you, Christy.
Christy: Thank you. We love being here.
Nancy: Yes. Well, as I said, they have 12 children. You would never dream it. You can’t see Christy sitting here beside me. But she’s just this little thing. You wouldn’t think she’d ever had one child in her whole life!
They have a beautiful family. Brody is their oldest son, and then Derrick, who is married. How many children do they have?
Christy: They have Marshall, their first son, and then they have a little girl on the way.
Nancy: Oh, how wonderful! Then you had another son called . . .
Christy: Born sick, and he had a lot of health problems his whole little life. The Lord just called him home at a very early age.
Nancy: But I love that story you told me when you were telling me about his life and how at the end of his life you were just holding him. As you were holding him, the nurses told you later what was happening.
Christy: Yes. So, we knew that he wasn’t going to be able to live long. His body was in septic shock. This infection that he had had attacked his internal organs. He was on sixty different IV medications. He had . . .
Nancy: I can’t believe that. Six-zero?
Christy: Yes. It was not a pretty sight for a little baby. He had IVs in his head and just everywhere they could get them. Some were going into more than one tube. There were bags of IV fluid everywhere and machines everywhere. That’s not how we’re meant to live. His little body just couldn’t handle all the medications anymore.
When they were placing him in my arms, I hadn’t held him because the intubation tube that was going down his throat was very touchy. You can’t really mess with that. But we asked that they would turn his medications off and turn the machines off so that we wouldn’t have to hear any beeping or alarming.
I was able to sit down, and they placed him in my arms. I got to hold him. Half of his little legs were on my husband’s legs. We were both sitting in one big chair so he was kind of on both of our laps.
The nurses, though, were watching their monitors out at their nursing station. So, they were able to see that as soon as I held him, his blood pressure, even though he no longer had the medication that wasn’t doing anything anyway, went to a good blood pressure. They said they were able to see then that he actually knew I was holding him and that that made him happy. He was happy that I was holding him.
Nancy: I think that’s so beautiful. And doesn’t that just show you the power of a mother’s arms? A mother’s arms are healing. They’re so powerful. That was more powerful than all that medication. And also, how beautiful that you, in those last moments, you could be holding him. And he knew you were holding him. Oh, that’s so beautiful.
So, then they had Emily, this amazing girl who was down helping the Hartmans. Actually, Emily came and stayed with us while she was with the Hartmans. They came and had a weekend with us. I forget what it was about. Something we were having up here.
When the Hartmans came, the Hartmans, oh goodness me. If you don’t know them, these people are so hospitable. Allison cannot go anywhere without inviting the world! So, even when she’s at my place, she invites the world! There was another family that got stranded on the side of the road. So, she called me. She said, “Nancy, they’ve got nowhere to go! Can they come and stay with us here?”
Well, we already had people, and then we had the Hartmans, and then we were going to have this other family with also about ten or twelve children.
Christy: And the Hartmans have eleven.
Nancy: Here we were! It was time for supper, and I said, “Oh goodness me! I’ve got all these people to feed.” And then we had around the table, there were over 20 children and young people, apart from the adults. I’ll never forget. Emily came along and we had this chicken. She just took it, and she began to make it into this most beautiful dish, with the most amazing flavorings. She had tray after tray, just going into the oven. This girl, how old is she?
Christy: She just turned 17.
Nancy: Yes, just turned 17. She was feeding this multitude with the most delectable food. I was so proud of her! She was just amazing!
So, then they have Cannon, and Frankie, and Gennell, and Hannah, and Ibbi. Oh, I love Ibbi. What a gorgeous name!
Christy: Yes, Ibbi loves you!
Nancy: Oh, but she’s so gorgeous. Not only are their names gorgeous, they’re such gorgeous children! Oh, yes! And then Jace, and Kindle. She’s so gorgeous, too. But I love how you thought of naming her “Kindle.” Tell me how you thought of that.
Christy: Well, we knew that we needed a “K" name because we do have the alphabet going there. It’s not in order at the beginning, but as we get down to Frankie, we have Frankie, Gennell, Hannah, Ibbi, Jace, Kindle, and Lynlee. So, we needed a “K" name. At first, we were thinking that we would name her "Kendall."
But my husband purchased for me, and this was so long ago. I’m kind of behind the times and didn’t have podcasts and things like that. It was an MP3 or something that you were teaching from a long time ago. You had said that we need to keep the fire kindled in our older children’s hearts, not just the children that we still have at home with us, but our children who are grown up and out of the house.
By this time, I did have children grown up. My son was going to be married right when she was going to be born. So, I wanted to keep that fire kindled in my older children now. That just stood out to me. “Kindle,” I love that name “Kindle,” and I love the meaning of it. That’s how she got her name.
Nancy: Oh, I just love that! Yes, because that’s what the Bible talks about, how we are to kindle the flame. We do that, of course, by coming together as a family and reading the Word, and praying together. We’re kindling the flame, and kindling the Light in each one of our lives.
That is so beautiful. Then we have Lynlee, the last little darling who loves to talk all the time.
Christy: Oh, yes! Yes, yes. She takes after me.
Nancy: It’s just lovely, introducing all these wonderful families who live in this great, good land of motherhood. In the Scriptures, we are in Titus 2. We are now up to that very word where one of the things the older women are to teach the younger women is to be good. Good! That’s what it says. Well, it just means to be good. Actually, I shared with you in the first session all the meanings of that word “good.” There are so many wonderful meanings.
And then, the next one, which is another good thing. It says that we are to teach the younger women to be “obedient to their husbands.” Wow! To some people, that really doesn’t sound so very nice, especially in this feministic age in which we live. Most women, even Christian women, don’t believe in being obedient to their husbands. Help!
But the Bible says it’s a good thing. Isn’t it amazing that we often think we know better than God? And what God said is good, we don’t like. But you see, it always works out for good. The actual Greek word is hupotasso. Coming from two Greek words, hupo and tasso. Now, hupo means “under,” and tasso means “to arrange in an orderly manner, to assign to a certain position.
So that’s actually the full meaning of the word “submission,” because that’s the same word. Where it says to be obedient to our husbands is the same word that is used in other places where it says we are to submit to our husbands. It’s this word hupotasso.
And yet, there are so many women who cringe at that word. They just can’t get around it. It’s amazing, because one of the greatest and most powerful attributes of Christ Himself is that He is submissive. He was submissive to His Father’s will. He was submissive to the cross. I mean, help!
To be submissive, or to obey our husbands in some little thing he tells us, is pitiful compared to submitting to the cross. Not only the physical agony, but the spiritual agony of when He had to take upon Himself the sin of the whole world, and the pain of the world. He willingly submitted. He said: “I delight to do Thy will, oh my God” (Psalm 40:8).
So, how is it? I can understand people in the world, they don’t believe in submission. Well, you can understand that, because they don’t understand anything of Jesus and Christ and His life. But when we come to the Lord, and we belong to Christ, well, who are we? We are a Christ-one. We have Christ dwelling in us.
But if we don’t have that spirit of submission that He had, does He really dwell in us? But I’ll show you this.
Hupo. OK, it means “under.” You think, “Help! Do I have to come under my husband” Well, let me give you some Scriptures.
Matthew 23:37and Jesus is speaking. He says: “How often would I have gathered thy children together?” He’s talking about Jerusalem. “Even as a hen gathers her chickens under (hupo) her wings, and you would not.” And he’s talking about Jerusalem, likening Jerusalem to a hen, with her chickens all under her wings. She’s got her wings over them, protecting them, and watching over them.
He said, “This is what I want to do. I want to protect you. I want to gather you under my wings. But you would not.” Isn’t it interesting, how we can resist that word? And although it means “under,” it’s a beautiful word. It’s a beautiful word of protection.
Another time Jesus was talking, and He noticed this little mustard seed. And He talked about it, and He said how this mustard seed grows up into this great big tree so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it. That same word again, “under.” The same word that is used in submission, “under.” In Mark 4:32. It’s another beautiful description of the birds, just lodging under the shadow of the tree.
That’s what submission is all about. When we submit to our husband, who is our protection and our covering, we can blissfully bask in that protection. It is so wonderful. And I am so glad, because, goodness me, if I did the things that I wanted to do, and I had my way, I couldn’t imagine where we’d be today. Most likely, we wouldn’t even be married, but it would have all been wrong and gone to destruction anyway!
My husband is such an amazing protector over me, keeping me on the right path! Keeping me from going out too crazy. [laughter] Yes. Let me give you another one.
1 Corinthians 10:1-2. That’s sharing how God protected the children of Israel in the wilderness. It says that they were “under the cloud.” In the wilderness, the cloud protected them from the heat.
Isn’t it a beautiful word? It’s so amazing, isn’t it? So, as an older mother, I am commanded and mandated to encourage you, dear mothers, that it’s a beautiful thing, it’s a good thing, to submit to your husband. Has that been how you got on with that in your life, Christy?
Christy: I had to learn some hard lessons.
Nancy: We all have to learn. We never start out just being this perfect, submissive wife, do we? Why is it that we all resist? I don’t know! And so, we learn that it’s the best thing after all.
Christy: It is, yes. I learned that it definitely is so freeing to trust the Lord to my husband, and then trust my husband, that as he follows the Lord, that he will lead our family the way the Lord has us to go. That he is protecting us. I have a very loving and protective husband. I’m so blessed.
I did have to learn some hard lessons, though. I liked to do things my way for about the first ten years. I’m very blessed the way the Lord was gentle with me and my learning. I’m very blessed. I learned at that time, yes, this is a blessing, because the rest of the time has just been amazing! It really has been!
Nancy: Yes, yes, I know. For you see, I think you . . . Actually, it’s the fruit of something that we see. The fruit of resistance and “I’ll do it my way, thank you!” Most times that ends in destruction and the fruit of it is not good at all. God’s way is always the best. Amen!
And so, all these lovely things we’ve been talking about, ladies, the Bible says they are good things. They’re beautiful things. Then, at the end of that passage, oh my. It’s pretty strong at the end. It says that if the older women are not teaching these things, and so few are doing it today. Where do you find older women teaching the young women? And even encouraging them to be at home? Most of the older women are out! Hoo hoo, they’re gone! Their children are grown, I’m out of here!
They’re out in their careers. How can they be showing or teaching the young women when they’re not even doing it themselves? The Bible says here that if we do not walk in this way, we blaspheme the Word of God. That’s pretty strong, isn’t it?
I remember one time using that Scripture in an issue of Above Rubies. My, I just got the most horrific kind of feedback! “How dare you say that?” Well, the funny thing was, I wasn’t saying it! It’s the Bible! [laughter] Isn’t it amazing how women can be so up in arms and mad at something when it’s actually the very living Word of God itself?
Other translations say:
“It will bring disrepute to the Word of God.”
“It will bring reproach.”
“It will bring shame.”
“It will discredit the Word of God.”
“Disgrace the Word of God.”
“Dishonor it, malign it, revile it, slander it, speak evil of it.”
All those words are translated for when we do not do this.
I think it’s because this is God’s plan. This is God’s perfect will, the plan He made for women. So, when we do not walk in it, we are actually, we are literally blaspheming Him, because we’re refusing to walk in His ways. And we’re showing to the world a different picture than God intends us to show, because by our lives we are created and born to reveal the likeness of God and to reveal His ways. So, if we’re doing the opposite, well, we are not really much of a blessing to God, are we?
Now here we are, talking about this good land. I want you to share a few more things, Christy. I know you started off all excited about this good land with your first baby, but was everything always perfect and good?
Christy: Oh, my! No. [laughter] It got very hard. I was very excited to become a mommy, and I loved everything about being a mommy. But as they grow, they start to get this little mind of their own, and they start to get this little will of their own. I don’t know if I was prepared for that. I really didn’t know what to do.
I wasn’t trained. I didn’t know my Bible. I didn’t know that children were supposed to be disciplined. So, my little guy just got away with things. And boy, did that grow quickly in him! It was actually at that time, when my next baby was borntoo. To me, I was thinking, “Oh dear! What have I done?”
But I still loved being a mother. I loved being a mother, even though it was hard. But then it wasn’t until my baby Andrew was born, my little angel baby, that the Lord opened my eyes to the beauty of being a mother. He just gave me a heart to love it, beyond anything I could have done for myself. Writing a book. He did that work in my heart. To Him be all the glory.
He made me love to be a mother. I love that Scripture that you just shared about the chickens under the hen’s wings. Because that is how I feel toward my children. I’ve never really linked it to that Scripture for some reason, but hearing you say that, oh, I just . . .
When Andrew was a sick baby in the hospital, I was homeschooling Brody through kindergarten. Derrick was three. So, I got to just have them with me every day. I would put them up to lay down next to their brother in his bed or they’d be on my lap. They were just with me every second of the day.
I’ve pretty much kept them like that, even all these years. I still have them here with me today. They go everywhere with me. That’s the way I like it to be.
Nancy: So wonderful! And you were telling me once about how, I think you were up to about baby number seven. Oh! You had all these little ones all around you, and it was getting you feeling a little overwhelmed, and you were complaining. What happened then?
Christy: Oh, my goodness! Thank God for my friend Joanie. She’s been an amazing blessing in my life. She is the picture of a joyful mother. I got to know her after my sixth baby was born. She’s been a very huge example in my life of being a joyful mother.
I happened to be at her house one day after a hard day, or a hard week, or something. I was venting to her. I said, “Oh, this is just so hard! Oh, this, this, this!” Apparently, I was complaining quite a bit and not realizing it until she gently placed her hand on me and said, “Would you mind not sharing all of these things right now? My young girls are listening to you, and I want them to be joyful mothers someday. I want them to want to have children someday. The things that you’re saying might make them maybe not want to be a mother someday.”
I was like, “Oh, my word! I didn’t even realize what I was just doing!” It was the very second she said it, I knew what I had been doing, and the Lord did a work in my heart, just like that, like a flash of lightning. I realized I never ever again want to complain about being a mother.
Nancy: Wow!
Christy: I probably have, [laughter] but I try to recognize it, and I really try to show the joy of being a mother now.
Nancy: Beautiful. That was amazing that that lovely mother was faithful, just to say something too.
Christy: What an example to me!
Nancy: Yes, yes. Imagine how, when we complain about motherhood, what it does to our children? I mean, that certainly is not going to make them want to be mothers if we’re complaining all the time. God equates joy with motherhood. I love Psalm 113:9: “He makes the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children.”
We’re talking about this good, wonderful land. That’s not the only Scripture that speaks to us as mothers about the good things.
In 1 Timothy 5:10 it also speaks about the woman there. I can’t believe it. I came to this podcast without my Bible! I can’t believe it! Have you got yours there? I always have my Bible beside me. Let me go to 1 Timothy. Oh, wow, this is amazing! You’ve got the Hebrew-Greek Study Bible! Wow! My favorite Bible.
1 Timothy 5:10. In this passage of Timothy, Paul is writing to Timothy to answer a problem that he had in the church. That was, they had all these widows! I’m not sure why there were so many widows. Timothy said, “What do I do with them all? How do I look after them all?”
So, Paul wrote back, very practically, because the Bible is so practical. It gives every practical thing for our lives. Paul said, “If any of those widows have family, or even grandchildren, they must care for their widows. But” he said, “If they don’t have children, and they don’t have grandchildren, and they don’t have any family to look after them, and they are a true older woman,” and he gives the age. Sixty years of age and over. It's interesting. You can be an older woman in that you’re older than some other mother. I think all along the way, we should always be encouraging mothers younger than us. But the official age of an older woman is 60 years of age. Interesting, isn’t it?
But I was encouraging women before I was 60 years of age. I started Above Rubies before I was 60 years of age. I was encouraging young mothers. I think we’re all meant to do that. We’re all meant to be encouraging those who are just coming on behind. But this was the exact thing that Paul said.
He said, “OK, so any of these ladies, they’re 60 years of age, and no one to look after them.” Oh, and here’s another thing. They had to have lived a certain lifestyle! What was the lifestyle? “Well reported of for good works.” There is it again! That word “good.” It’s just meant to be so much part of the land of motherhood. We are to be involved in good works.
And yes, we can be involved in good works out in the neighborhood, out in our city, helping the poor, and doing this, and doing that. Yes, but we only do those when we have done the first good works, which are in our homes. Because it starts off, and God does everything . . . it’s always in perfect order.
The first thing: “If she has brought up children.” That’s the very first good work that God gives us to do. There it is. “If she has brought up children.” The word “brought up” is teknotropheo, from two words, teknon, “child,” and trephos, “to feed, to nurture, to fill up.” Oh, it’s an amazing word!
What it’s saying here is really the whole thing of motherhood. It’s feeding, right from when your little baby is born. We put the baby to the breast, and we nurse the baby from the breast with feeding. But we continue feeding.
Once that little baby weans, we’re feeding it food. It's just in us to feed our children. So, we’re always feeding. It’s motherhood. So many mothers despise cooking! They’re not really interested. “Oh, well, have to cook another meal.” No! Feeding, cooking, is good work! Amazing! Yes.
Christy: I am in the process of learning to love to cook for my family. All of these years, a lot of them were not very good in the kitchen. But as I see that it is such a need, and I want to nourish my family with good food, good food, it has become more of a priority.
Nancy: That’s the interesting thing. It’s a good thing to cook and to feed our families. But then again, we’ve got to feed them with good food. Yes, it’s not much of a thing if we’re just going to feed them junk food and de-vitalized food and all these white pastas, and rice, and bread, and all that stuff.
As mothers, we have such a responsibility to feed them good food. When God talks about His shepherds feeding their flock, it talks about them taking them to good pastures, and green pastures, and lush pastures. We, as mothers, are meant to do the same. We are to take them to the lush pastures, the good pastures.
Even if it’s not been a thing in our lives, we really need to learn to make it that way. Now, of course, you’re teaching your children. Emily has just become such a wonderful cook, hasn’t she? This is a very important art, because cooking is an art. Like so much of motherhood is an art. Breastfeeding is an art that you learn. Birthing is an art that you learn. Cooking is an art that you learn. We can hone our arts and realize. When we realize it’s an art form . . .
When you think about it, mothers, and you say, “Oh, I don’t like cooking,” just think of the people who go to school and go to college and go to all these special classes to learn to be these great cooks! It is an art! Here you have the opportunity of honing an art, right there in your home which will bless your family and bless so many other people as well.
So, that is a good thing. But, oh, our time has gone. It’s gone so quickly! But let’s pray, shall we?
“Oh, dear Father, we thank You so much that we can come together. We can talk about the things that relate to us as women, the things that You want us to be involved in, in the home. Thank You for reminding us that they are good things.
“You look down upon us, Lord God, and You see that as we mother, and as we gather our children in our arms, as we feed them each meal, day after day, and day after day that it’s a good thing!
“And, Lord, as we are faithful, it’s all building up. It’s going into our crowns that we will have one day. So, I just pray, Father, that You will encourage, and inspire, and bless every precious wife and mother listening today. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.”
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
www.aboverubies.org * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.