PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 47 – How Can We Change The World? - Part 13
FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell
Podcast 47- How Can We Change the World- Part 13
Rocky: Welcome to the podcast, FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy: Hello ladies, daughters, mothers, and grandmothers. Lovely to be with you again today. We are now up to point number 14 on HOW DO WE CHANGE THE WORLD? We are talking about this as wives and mothers. We may not be out there in the corporate world, we may be hidden in our home, but I believe that we can be world changers.
NO. 14. DILIGENTLY EMBRACING MOTHERHOOD
God not only wants us to be mothers but to whole-heartedly embrace mothering. We are finding out that we don't really impact the world, or we don't impact anyone around us very much if we are ordinary and status-quo. No, it's only as we are more, as we are more than is necessary, we are abundant, we are over the top. This applies even in mothering. We can just do mothering and get by. I think this is how many women mother. They just get through each day. They somehow survive.
God wants us to thrive as mothers. He wants us to thrive in every aspect of our being, in every moment of our life. It's not so much what we are doing, but who we are being that causes us to impact other lives. As a mother, you have such a privilege to impact and influence lives. You have little ones all around you, some of you have middling ones, others of you have teens and bigger ones and some who are married with having their own children.
With every season of life, we are influencing; we are training; we are imparting. That which we pour into our children, it goes on. It goes into their lives, and then it continues into future lives, and into their marriages, and into the children that they train, and into future generations. As mothers, we are impacting not only this generation and not only this nation. Mothers are those who are truly the IMPACTORS OF THE NATION because we produce the next generation. The next generation will be how we have input it into their lives, how we have trained and mothered and nurtured and inspired our children. This determines what the next generation will be like. Mothers determine the destiny of nations.
Precious ladies, no matter who you are today, with little ones or big ones, you are determining the future of this nation. You have such a powerful role. Don't just try to survive and think, “Oh wow, I've got to look after my children, but I've got lots of other things I want to be doing.” No, this is the most important thing you will ever do.
I realize that more myself now at this stage and this season of my life than I did when I was in the throes of it. Yes, I can remember being in the throes of mothering. I think back to the days when I had my first children. I started off with my first baby and then seventeen months later, I had another two babies. I had three babies in seventeen months when I started out. At that time, it was an overwhelming time.
We had just come back from the Philippine Islands where we had been missionaries. We came back to New Zealand, and we were living out of suitcases for the first little while, and I was there suddenly with these three little babies, three little babies in “nappies”, as we use to call them Down Under. I have to remember to say diapers now here in the States, but that's what we used to call them. Back then, I didn't have the washing machines that we have today. I remember having an old ringer washing machine where you wash the clothes in that and then you have to put them through the ringer. We didn't have dryers, so I would have to wash and then put them through this ringer, turning it by hand, enough diapers for three little babies and then hang them out on the line.
We always hung our clothes out on the line. There weren't any dryers. New Zealand is a wet country. The Maori name for our country, New Zealand, is Aotearoa, meaning the Land of the Long White Cloud. Often when we fly back to New Zealand and we arrive in Auckland, it's like that. You look out, and there's this long cloud. Of course, we are not seeing the whole country. Even what we do see, there's this cloud over it because it rains a lot and that's why it's so beautiful and green. The green often is like as though it's luminous it's so green. It's so amazing. Even the vegetables are greener and brighter. I love going into a Greengrocer. Yes, that's what we used to call it. That's where you buy your greens and your vegetables, a Greengrocer, or even the supermarket. Seeing all the vegetables, I can’t believe how much brighter, greener they are. It's amazing. There's a different ozone layer down there in New Zealand.
In fact, I was talking today with some folks at lunchtime. One of my little granddaughters came in and she'd been playing out in the sun this morning. Her skin is quite white, and she wasn't sunburned, but she had this pinkness all over her skin. It was so lovely, just lovely to see her out in the sun. I was saying that back when I was a child, I was continually sunburned in the summer, and I was just covered in blisters. It was normal to have blisters all over my shoulders, and that's going out on a cloudy day.
You can be playing out on a cloudy day and come in and be sunburned and blistered. It's quite amazing. Whereas here where we live in Tennessee, our summers are so much hotter than we ever experienced in New Zealand, but we don't get sunburned the same. In fact, I can remember our children, some of our children were prone to freckles like I was as a child. I remember our eldest son. He was a redhead. He had so any freckles that all his freckles turned into one big blob there were so many of them. It's amazing now, he's in his fifties, and they've all faded now.
Pearl, our beautiful Pearl, and most of you know Pearl of Trim Healthy Mama, well, I don't know if she would like me telling her secrets, but when she was a little girl, she was covered in freckles. She hated her freckles. She got most of them when we lived in New Zealand. Then we moved to Australia for ten years, and Pearl was in her teens at the time. Although we lived just about right on the beach, the rolling breakers of the Pacific Ocean, I don't think Pearly hardly ever went to the beach. If she did, she was totally covered up because she didn't want any more freckles, and her whole life was just getting rid of her freckles. Well, I can’t see a freckle on her today. They do fade as you don't live out in the sun.
Anyway, I don't quite remember how I got talking about sun and freckles. I was talking about motherhood and back in those days when I'd hang out clothes on the line. I still love to hang my clothes out on the line. I'm one of those great believers in getting the sun on your clothes and airing them in the sun and letting the wonderful sun sanitize your clothes and deodorize them. In fact, I refuse to sleep on sheets that haven't been dried out in the sunshine. I always wait for a sunny day to wash my beautiful linen sheets because after many, many years of saving and saving and saving, I actually didn't buy them. God wonderfully blessed me, and someone gave them to me as a gift. I love linen sheets because linen is such a healthy fabric, along with wool, the healthiest fabric there is, and I certainly don't like to lie in synthetic sheets all night.
Synthetic clothes are not really good for us. I wear them myself, especially when I'm going out, although I try not to wear synthetic around home because it's not good for you. I think, I'm sleeping all night in sheets, so I'm now so happy to have my linen sheets, and I always dry them in the sun. They come in so aired and beautiful. I love to dry all my clothes in the sun, although I haven't even got a clothesline.
Now, Pearl and Serene know how much I love hanging out my clothes so a few years back for Christmas, they bought me a clothesline, a revolving one. One of those that we used to have in New Zealand where it is revolving around. Somehow, my loving, wonderful husband still hasn't had time to put it up. So, I hang my clothes on the deck. At least I get them out in the air.
I think I was getting onto that because when I had my eldest son, then the twins only seventeen months later, and after I had been washing all the diapers, I'd go out and hang them on this line. I'd take the twins out, and I had swings for them. I would hang one swing on the other side of the clothesline and one swing on the other to balance it out. As I twirled the clothesline to hang up the nappies and all the baby clothes and all the other clothes, they would swing around with me. That was how I kind of cared for them while I was hanging out the clothes. They were very overwhelming days.
In fact, I have to go back to those days to let you know that that's really where I got the revelation for God's heart for mothering. I didn't have it when I started. Well, of course I loved my children. Doesn't every mother love her children? When my first baby was born, I could not fathom this love I had for this baby; it was so incredible. I wondered how I would ever love another baby as much. How could you have enough love for another person when you love this one so much?
Of course, these babies came along, and you find then you have as much love for them. Although I loved these children, I still hadn't come to that place of loving motherhood. You see, when Colin and I got together and were engaged, it was while we were engaged that we, my husband, went out full time for God. We have really been serving the Lord full time since we were engaged. My vision was to change the world for God.
We got married, and we had our first baby and then these two babies came along, all unexpected. Can you believe it, that I didn't know I was having twins until I had them? Now today, that would be hard to believe because everyone has their ultrasounds every month to check their baby. Back in those days, we didn't have ultrasounds. In fact, I wasn't even checked until the end of my pregnancy. I conceived in the Philippine Islands, and we came back to New Zealand when I was about eight months pregnant. I went to a doctor. He said, “Well, everything looks fine. Actually, I'm going off to England so when you are ready to have the baby, go into the hospital. Whoever is on duty will look after you.” That's just what happened.
In fact, I went in a week early, and it was a false alarm and still nobody detected twins. Nobody looked at me and said, “Oh my, you look big. Do you think you could be having twins?” You see, I'm tall. I may have shrunk a little bit, but I am/was 6 ft, so nobody really noticed. Although, I did. I thought, “My, I've got some huge baby in here.” It wasn't until my due date that I went in again, yes, I was in labor again and lasted right till then for twins. They were listening to the heartbeat with the old doppler, and the nurse said, “Hmm, interesting, I can hear another heartbeat. Oh well, could be an echo. Let's just wait and see!”
Evangeline was born. They felt my tummy. “Oh yes, there's another one there,” they said. About five minutes later, Stephen was born. That was the first news that I ever had that we were having twins. Suddenly, here I was, with three little babies in four walls, living out of suitcases, washing nappies with this old ringer washing machine and didn't know anybody, just come back from the Philippine Islands, and I wondered what had happened to me. My husband, he kept going out serving the Lord, and I was stuck at home.
Do you know, ladies, at that time, I thought that I had got out of the will of God? “Oh God, what have I done with my life? I can no longer serve You. I'm stuck home with these three babies. Oh God, I'm sorry, what have I done?” I kept crying out to Him, and He began to show me. He began to reveal to me that I was in His perfect will, that He had chosen to create me a female in order to fulfill His destiny in me. It was as a female that He would be glorified in me. It was at that time that I realized, yes, this is who I am. I had never really embraced my femaleness before in my whole life. I'd always wanted an adventurous life, and I thought, “Oh my, the men have so much more adventure, and why am I a woman?” But God had to come, and He showed me, “I created you this way. I created you. Your body is created for childbearing. This is how I made your body. It's totally different to a male body. I have given you a womb; I have given you breasts. Every way I have created your body is for childbearing, even right down to your elbow.” They are shaped differently than man's; they are shaped in a way that is easy to cradle babies. Every part of a women's body is created for ultimate childbearing.
I didn't get this revelation all in one hit; it came little by little. As God showed it to me, I was able to embrace, for the very first time in my life, my femininity, my womanhood, my motherhood, so I embraced it. I was able to come little by little to that place of not only loving my children but loving motherhood, knowing I was in the perfect will of God, knowing it was His destiny for me. As I began to embrace it and love it, I could begin to walk in the fullness of it and the joy of it.
When we don't come to that place, we walk in frustration. Perhaps you may be a mom who is in a frustrated place at the moment. I understand. I was a frustrated mother in the beginning; I was frustrated. I loved these children, but I had not embraced motherhood. I felt that I had more important things to do. I had to come to that place of embracing, embracing with all my heart, knowing that this was God's destiny upon my life, that this is who He had created me to be. As a mother, I would fulfill this destiny that He had for me. It was a very powerful time in my life. I was able to come into that, and of course, more and more as I walked in motherhood.
Everything in our lives is a MORE AND MORE walk, isn't it, lovely ladies? I simply love that Scripture in Proverbs 4:18 which says: “The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” I always call my walk with the Lord a more and more walk. It's always more and more. In fact, if we get in a rut and we are not coming into more understanding and revelation of our great God, we are in a rut. Even in our motherhood, if we aren't coming to more understanding of God's incredible role for us as wives and mothers, we are in a rut. We are never meant to be in a rut. There's always more if we will only seek after Him and embrace what He gives us and then be open for more and more.
Now, some of you are in that time of little ones all around you that I was talking about in my life, and some of you are getting older children, some even older. I'm in the season now of not only being a grandmother but being a great-grandmother, yet have I finished learning about motherhood? No, I'm still learning. I come to God every day, “Father, I'm here to learn more from You. I know You have so much in Your heart for us as wives and mothers. I want You to show me more of Your ways because I'm an older mother now, and I have a responsibility to teach the younger women. Show me Your ways.”
God is continually opening the Scriptures to me. They are always new. The Scriptures are like that. You can read the Word from cover to cover, and you go back, and you still are finding new things. Don't you love it? I hope there are some older moms listening today along with young moms. Dear older, fellow mothers, we have such a responsibility to teach and encourage and train the young mothers. Don't vacate this very important season, this important watch of your mothering, which is the watch of you're now responsible for another generation. It does concern me that there are many, many older mothers today who have vacated this season, who have vacated this watch: “I've done it; I've raised my children. That’s it. Now I'm going on to something else.” No, we never ever, ever, ever stop mothering. We are mothers until we meet Jesus because this is who He created us to be, but we are mothers of different seasons. Our mothering is going to be different at the different seasons of our lives.
At this stage, we are at a season when we should be training another generation.
It saddens me when I will send out a new Above Rubies magazine, and I will get emails from older mothers, “Thank you, Nancy, for blessing me all these years as I was raising my children, but my children are grown now, so I don't need Above Rubies anymore. Can you take me off your list?” My heart is grieved because I'm thinking, their children, don't they want to keep getting the magazine for their children? Are they not passing it on to them? Are they not saying, here are the names of my children who are now getting married because they will need the magazine? Are they not thinking of another generation that is coming on, that God has mandated them to train and to encourage and to pass on God's truth to them?
Oh my, every mother needs Above Rubies. In fact, single women need it. I have loads of young women, who are not yet married, who love to get Above Rubies because they are wanting to prepare their hearts for motherhood. Of course, every mother with little ones and middling ones and teenagers all need Above Rubies. The older moms need it too because we need daily refreshing so that we are refreshed to encourage the young moms. How can we do it if we are off doing something else? How can we show them the way if we don't know it ourselves, and it's not in our hearts, and we are not getting refreshed in it ourselves?
Wherever you are in your mothering season, I want to encourage you today to embrace it. Embrace it with all your heart. Don't be an ordinary mother, surviving, and just getting through each day. Embrace it so that you intend, as you wake up each morning, to be the greatest mother in history, where you are going to pour out your life as a mother. Ladies, there is never enough time to pour out everything we want into our children.
Now, can I talk to you young mothers? It's like one blink of my eye of my children growing up. Even when my first son was married, it was like one blink of my eye from the day that he was born—that glorious, wonderful, amazing day when he was born. When your firstborn is born, it's the most incredible moment of your life, and I still remember it vividly. It was like one blink of my eye, and he was married. Now, he has children who are married, and grandchildren. You see ladies, don't take it for granted. You will always feel, if only I could have poured more into them. there wasn't enough time. Embrace your motherhood. Do it passionately. Do it diligently, with all your heart.
Can I encourage you with this? I do believe that mothers who are passionate mothers, who have embraced their vision from God, they know their mandate from God, they know who they are, they know that God has given them this mothering, this anointing of motherhood because we all have this anointing. Even if you don't have any children, you are still an anointed mother. God has put within you this anointed, nurturing heart. It’s in every woman. Every female is created with a nurturing heart, and it is in us. If we don't feel it's in us, it's only because it's been brainwashed out of us by this society and this education system.
Yet, it's amazing, even those who have it brainwashed out of them to have children, you will notice, they still have pets. Oh yes. If a woman doesn't have children, she will have a pet because she's got to pour out her nurturing heart on something. That's why so many people have so many pets today who don't have children. I know older women who are longing for grandchildren; their children have grown, and they are not getting married and if they are, they are taking so many years to have children. These poor grandparents are waiting and waiting because we are not ever meant to be waiting for grandchildren.
No, it's meant to be a cycle. We have children, if God blesses us and continues to bless us with children. Often, we will be having a little baby and our older children will be in late teens, maybe getting into twenties, sometimes they will be getting married. As this little one is growing, instead of having the empty nest for years and years, then you have a grandchild coming on, and that's how God intends it. Instead, many have the empty nest for so many years, and they are waiting to be grandparents for year after year after year. I know one beautiful woman, and she's going to be the most amazing grandmother the world has ever seen, but she hasn't got a grandbaby yet, so she has lots of little puppies. We've got to nurture; that's who we are.
Let's pray, shall we?
“Father, we thank You so much for Your plan. Lord God, in this society, Your beautiful plan for women is disdained, and there are so many growing up who have been brainwashed with lies and delusions about who we are as women. I pray, Father, that You will come to every daughter, mother, grandmother listening today and confirm and affirm them in the truth, in Your truth of who they are and how You have created us to be nurturing women, Lord, with our own children or in society, to the hurting and the needy. Father, I ask, Lord God, that You will save us from being passive mothers, and You will change us to be passionate mothers who embrace motherhood with all our hearts, and we will be great mothers in our homes and in society. Wherever we go, we will go with this mothering anointing upon us, to bring Your compassion and love and Your nurture into society. We ask it in the precious name of Jesus, Amen.”