Above Rubies Daily Encouragement Blogs

"Encourage your husband today. Speak loving and encouraging words to him--your words either build or destroy your marriage.

Smile at him each time you look at him. Concentrate on his good points and be big enough to overlook the negatives--you didn't notice them when you fell in love."

"I will not be moved by trials,

I will not be moved by doubt,

I will not be moved by those who would steer

me away from God’s ultimate truth!"

“Many of our children have accomplished things that we could never have dreamed of! They have achieved things that were beyond our abilities!

Your children, too, are filled with divine talents that God has put into their lives. Don’t let them go undiscovered. Look for them. Encourage their hidden traits. Bring them to the surface.

Delight in their special abilities, rather than expecting them to be like everyone else in the family!"

"When the truth of God's Word is strong in the home, it will once again be alive in the streets."

“Encouragement is the rich soil in which we grow our children to their full potential.”

"Embrace your calling of motherhood. You live in the glory of who you were created to be when you are nurturing and nourishing your children."

"Be committed to the vows you made on your wedding day. Marriage is a covenant to be kept, not broken."

"To grumble and complain is a miserable way;

Instead I will be thankful to enjoy my day!"

Philippians 4:6 TLB says, "Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything" Do you think you could get through today without one worry? How would you like to go through today...

            Unanxious

            Undisturbed

            Unflappable

            Unflustered

            Unfrowning

            Unperturbed

            Unruffled

            Unstressed

            Untroubled and

            Unworried!

Your husband and children will be blessed out of their socks! And the atmosphere in your home will change."

I remember someone saying to me when I was raising our children, "There is never a convenient time to have a baby!"

How true. If we wait for the perfect time, it will never come. There is always some trauma happening in our lives which could cause us to think that it is not an opportune time to embrace a child! But, when we receive the blessing of conception and a baby comes, the BABY ALWAYS FITS INTO THE FAMILY! AND WE WOULD NEVER EVER EVER BE WITHOUT THIS PRECIOUS CHILD.

God's plans are always better than ours.

Love from Nancy

When God brought the plagues upon Egypt to show His mighty hand, He put a division between the people of Egypt and the Israelites. God said, "I will put a division (separation, distinction) between my people and thy people" (Exodus 8:22-23). It is still God's plan that there to be a distinction between His people and the people of the world of which Egypt is a type.

How distinctive are you from the people of the world around you? Are they aware that you are different or are you gradually submitting to the ways of our humanistic culture? You don't show your separation by outward show. It's not by the clothes you wear. Or being religious. It is by people seeing the power and presence of God upon you. This is your distinction.

When Moses asked how the heathen would know that God's people found grace in His sight, he answered, "Is it not in that thou goest with us? so shall we be SEPARATED, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth" (Exodus 33:14-16).

Do your neighbors know that God is with you? When you go shopping with your children, are people aware that God's presence is upon you? This is your greatest distinction.

Love from Nancy

Scriptures to check out: Exodus 19:5; Leviticus 10:10; 20:24, 26; Numbers 14:14; Deuteronomy 4:6-8; 7:6; 14:2; 2 Samuel 7:23-24; 1 Kings 8:53; Jeremiah 15:19; Ezekiel 22:26; 44:23; John 15:18-19; 17:14-16; 2 Corinthians 6:17-18; James 4:4 and 1 John 2:15-17.

The other day my husband was at the bank and got talking to the teller (he loves to talk to people). The lady asked what he did and he replied that we speak and write about strengthening families. She proceeded to tell him a little story.

Her daughter was putting a ham in the oven, but before she did, she cut a piece of both ends off the ham. A friend who was watching her asked, "Why do you do that?"

"Because my mother did it," she replied. She thought she would call her mother (the lady speaking to Colin) and ask why she did it.

"Because my mother did it!" her mother replied. The grandmother was still alive so the daughter called her grandmother and asked her why she cut a piece of the ham off at both ends.

"So it could fit in the pan," she replied! This unnecessary tradition was passing down the generations from one mother to the next! Such is the influence of motherhood. Ezekiel 16:44 says, "As is the mother, so is her daughter."

Dear mother, think how powerfully we can influence our daughters, practically and spiritually. They will take things into their future lives that we haven't sat down to teach them, but just by watching us day after day.

Love from Nancy

In discussing the modern trend of waiting to having children, one mother writes, "Children deserve to have fun and that requires money." I certainly believe that children deserve to have fun, but I don't believe that it takes money. Children don't have to be rich to have fun. Children don't have to be taken to all kinds of entertainment, or be entertained, to have fun. The poorest of children can have fun.

Children have fun when they play, and especially when they play creatively. Many modern children haven't a clue how to play creatively because they are given "things" to play with all the time. Or, they are taken to amusements where they can be entertained. When children are given opportunity to make their own games, they have the greatest fun. And it doesn't cost a penny!

Last night I attended a birthday party for our eight year old grand-daughter, Sahara Oasis (Evangeline's daughter). There were no elaborate birthday plans, special invitations sent out, or extra money spent. We enjoyed salad and home-made pizza for supper. She didn't even have a birthday cake, but we all lit candles and stood around Sahara and sang Happy Birthday which she loved just as much. Lots of her cousins came and with all her brothers and sisters the room was filled with people. The whole night was filled with fun, laughter, and creativity. I sat back and watched with joy at everyone laughing out loud, the antics of the little children, and everyone having the time of their lives.

Evangeline's husband, Howard is very creative and always comes up with some new exciting thing for every birthday. Tonight he had some white material which he cut up. Everyone had a piece to use as a mask. They cut holes for eyes and each one decorated their own mask the way wanted. With their masks on they all gave birthday speeches to Sahara (which is a tradition with all our birthday parties). Once again, it didn't cost a cent!

I find that the greatest fun that children have is with one another. It's not toys or entertainment. That gets boring. But, they never get bored playing with their brothers and sisters and all their cousins. The little girls laugh and giggle when they are together and make their own creative play. And the boys are never happier than when they are together--they are inseparable.

We have 39 grandchildren so far and 24 of them are here on the land. I never hear children crying or getting angry with one another. There is nothing but laughter, smiles, and fun! Forget "things"! Brothers and sisters and cousins are far more fun!

Love from Nancy

Tonight I was visiting with my daughter Evangeline. I read some Facebook posts she answered to mothers complaining that they don't get enough sleep. Isn't that a constant complaint of mothers with little children? What did Vange (mother of 10 children) have to say?

"It is amazing how much we need more sleep when we confess we are so tired and haven't slept in the last six months! I remember one time thinking, "Far out, I think I slept four to five hours straight! I feel like a million bucks!". You can actually can get adrenaline shots just by your frame of mind! When you tell yourself that you are just going to doze and get sleep when you can and that a few hours is AMAZING, your attitude changes.

It's a passion of mine to liberate mothers who are under the delusion that life should be as it was before they had children. Mothers can so easily allow their minds to get out of whack because they think that life, sleep, and noise should be the same as before they married. Of course it will not! It will be SO different, on many levels, sleep being one of them. Your world is no longer going to be "normal," but it is going to be better if you have the right attitude and understand how GREAT it is!

We need to get "on track," planting both feet in the Land of Motherhood with abandonment. It is only as we make this decision that we can be joyful in this season of our lives. All books you read should line up with God and His ways."

Love from Nancy

I was talking to a young mother recently and picked up on a phrase as she talked. She shared with me how that before marriage she and her husband were counseled by their church pastor to wait to have children and "ACQUIRE YOUR WEALTH before you think of having children."

I was astounded that in the name of God, a pastor would encourage a couple to accumulate material possessions and "transitory wealth" and to deny them the real truth of the wealth of children! Surely, children born in the image of God and who are eternal souls who will live forever are greater wealth than cars, houses, and "stuff" that will all be left behind.  

Which wealth are you accruing? Wealth that last forever, or "wealth" that will be left behind?

Love from Nancy

It is an incredible thing for us as human beings to know that we were born to reveal the likeness of God. God says of His people Israel, "This people have I formed for myself; they shall show forth my praise" (Isaiah 43:21). Although this Scripture is primarily speaking of Israel, it also relates to us as God's redeemed people. God did not create us to for our own pleasure, but for His pleasure (Revelation 4:11). He created us to show forth His praise and His glory in the earth (Isaiah 43:7).

We go to the New Testament and receive the same message (Ephesians 1:6-7; 13-14). We were created to "show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:9). The NET translation says, "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may proclaim the virtues (which is the correct word according to the Greek) of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."

Each day when you wake up, your highest purpose is to reveal God's virtues (the excellencies of the life of Jesus Christ who lives in you) to your husband, your children, and the world around you. And you thought you had no purpose in life? What higher vision could you have?

And you can extend that vision? Seek to be a FAMILY that is a praise to God in the earth, in your neighborhood, and in your church fellowship. What a great vision!

Love from Nancy

Every mother loves her children, but not every mother loves motherhood! This is why many mothers feel frustrated and hemmed in. They spend years training for their career and now mothering is a threat to their plans. Of course they love their children, but they reject the career of motherhood!

Dear mother, can I share with you a secret? It's not enough to love your children; you have to love and embrace your career of mothering to enter into the fullness and anointing of all that God intends for you. It is your highest destiny. It is God's plan for you. Why not stop "kicking against the pricks" and enjoy it?

Start right now and say out loud, "I LOVE MY CAREER OF MOTHERHOOD!" Come on now, say it again! "I LOVE BEING A MOTHER!" The more you confess it the more it will become part of you. You are going to become a motherhood lover! You are going to start laughing instead of frowning.

Love from Nancy

Enoch was 65 years when he began Methuselah (Genesis 5:21-24). Something happened to him when Methuselah was born and he began to walk with God. He had such a walk with God that God took him home to himself without him dying.

How did he walk with God? He didn't go into a monastery. He didn't isolate himself from everyone around him. The Bible tells us that "he begat sons and daughters." He may have had hundreds of children over the next 300 years--children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and many more generations.

Enoch walked with God in his everyday life--feeding his chickens, tending to his livestock, fathering new babies and communicating and teaching his children and their generations. His life was full, but he didn't do it according to his own plans, but by listening to God and talking to Him about every detail of his life.

Dear mother, you can walk with God in your home, facing all the challenges of raising your little ones and teenagers. Oh I know that you thought you were perfect until you had children! Then you wondered what happened to your walk with God!

Don't despair. Constantly remember God is with you. Not only with you, but IN YOU! Talk to Him about everything. Talk to Him about your children all throughout the day. Walk with God in your kitchen and when you walk into your laundry and wherever you go. Walking with God is practical daily life.

You don't have to go to a mission field to walk with God. You are doing it right now in your home.

Love from Nancy

Did you know that all wisdom is not godly wisdom? The Bible talks about man's wisdom, vain wisdom, fleshly wisdom, wordy wisdom, foolish wisdom, worldly wisdom, perishing wisdom, crafty wisdom, conceited wisdom and Egyptian wisdom. This is an eye-opener! We can't trust all wisdom. We must seek God for discernment to cut through man's wisdom to understand God's wisdom. God's wisdom is revealed in His Word and therefore we must be filled with His Word to understand His wisdom. 

Egyptian wisdom is an interesting one. Acts 7:22 says that "Moses was learned (educated from a child) in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." Egyptian wisdom is humanistic wisdom. What did God do with Moses' Egyptian education? He took him out to the backside of the desert for 40 years to get rid of it! He couldn't use Moses to be a leader of His people when filled with Egyptian wisdom. And what did God do with the children of Israel when He brought them out of Egypt? He caused them to wander in the wilderness for 40 years to get rid of Egyptian wisdom out of their brains and hearts before He brought them into the promised land.

And yet what do many Christians do? They send their children to the public school each day to be educated in Egyptian wisdom (the vain wisdom of this world). Do they want their children to be used mightily by God? Well, God will have to allow their children to go through His dealings at some stage to get all that Egyptian wisdom out of their system before He can use them in His plan!

Why waste their time? Why waste years of our children's lives that will need to be eventually eliminated from their hearts?

Love from Nancy