PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 365: OVERCOMING THE DAILY CHALLENGES OF MOTHERING
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 365: OVERCOMING THE DAILY CHALLENGES OF MOTHERING
Rebecca Groves from Northfield, Minnesota, joins me today as she talks about her challenges as a wife and mother on their homestead. Her husband is the author of two books, Durable Trades and The Family Economy.
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Today I have with me a visitor, all the way from Northfield, Minnesota. That’s just south of Minneapolis. And I have with me Becca Groves. Becca and her husband and family have just been down to visit Tennessee this last weekend because her husband has been speaking at the HOMESTEAD FESTIVAL held in Columbia, Tennessee. There were 5,000 to 6,000 people there, weren’t there?
Becca: Yes, I was told, many people.
Nancy: Her husband, Rory, has written two very interesting and powerful books about the family. The first one is Durable Trades. Then he has just written another one, called The Family Economy. They are by Rory Groves, so you can check them out.
Anyway, Becca, it’s so lovely to have you with me today. You have six children so far.
Becca: We do.
Nancy: Well, you can tell us their names.
Becca: Oh, absolutely. They are the joy of my life. Nancy, I’m so happy to be here with you. I feel like you and I have a meeting every morning, just so you know. I read my Bible, and I have my prayer time. And then I read one of your 100 Days of Blessings every morning. I tell every friend, “She is like my cheerleader.” When you need an encouraging word, and I feel like motherhood needs a lot of encouraging words, there are not a lot of people speaking encouraging words. You have been such a gift to me and my six children.
Ivar is 14 years old, Elsie is 12, Hattie is nine. This feels like a pop quiz right now! Alden is seven, Elias is five, and Abel is very two. [laughter]
Nancy: Amazing, wonderful age!
Becca: Yes, very young. It is a wonderful age. He’s a riot.
Nancy: And three of them are playing on our little playground.
Becca: They’re so happy. They found a park.
Nancy: That’s so great! Now, Becca, you have found that your husband has been getting into this whole concept of the family economy, although we’re not speaking so much about that today. We’re covering the motherhood part. But that’s affected your motherhood. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Becca: Absolutely. I was supposed to be an awesome mom. And I was just made so low. I was a babysitter growing up. I was always teaching Sunday school. I nannied for a long time. I worked at a summer camp as a camp counselor.
When I had my own children, it really was when I had my second. Then I had two children who couldn’t unbuckle their top buckle. I had two children who couldn’t even put socks on. I had two children who were utterly dependent on me.
The Lord used that time to really refine me. I remember crying to my husband. “I was supposed to be good at this!” And he would say, “You’re good at it, but the Lord’s doing a work in your heart right now.” I said to him, “Yeah, but the thing about the refiner’s fire, is that it burns!” [laughter]
But I was raised the traditional way, like public school, like, “Go, you can be whatever you want to be. Adventures out there. You’re a shining star.” What is motherhood, but the most genius way of the Lord to say, “You are super special, and I love you so much that I am coming in and I’m going to make you more like Me. And I’m going to use your children to do so.”
That is exactly, exactly, what happened. I feel like each child then . . . I have gained muscle along the way. I can see my growth. I can see where, OK, at first, I started making soup with a recipe. Then I realized I don’t really need a recipe. Then I figured out how to make more soup. Then I figured out how to stretch yesterday’s soup into tonight’s soup. Very practical muscles as the family grows. At any rate, I feel like my journey of motherhood . . .
Nancy: It’s interesting hearing you say “soup,” because I find a lot of American families don’t eat soup. It’s not so American.
Becca: How fascinating!
Nancy: Well, amongst the people I know, I’ll have a big pot of soup, because I’m a soup maker.
Becca: Uh-huh. Uh-huh!
Nancy: I love making soup, all kinds of soup. I make it differently every time I make it.
Becca: Yes! Totally.
Nancy: I just made a wonderful pot of soup last night. I had about four different kind of beans, which I soaked overnight. Then, about ten different vegetables, and organic beef. It’s so filled with nutrition! I always have to count, “How many vegetables did I put in that soup?”
In fact, in the soup, you get more than if you're just doing an ordinary meal. When I make a meal, I’ll have meat, and then I love vegetables, so I have at least three vegetables and also the salad. But in a soup, you get even more than that! Isn’t it amazing?
Becca: It is.
Nancy: You can make all kinds of soup. Now I’m getting beautiful fresh vegetables out of my garden.
Becca: Yes, yes! You know, this is actually a fascinating thing, because I feel like we started homesteading in the same season of my motherhood. My soup making comes from, well, I have this chicken. We’re eating it tonight. I’ll make the broth out of the bones. As your family grows, it’s like, “How do I make this chicken spread into another meal?” That’s always the game, right? So, I call it “poor man’s food.”
But as we’ve had more children and we’ve grown more of our own food, I’m realizing, “Oh, all of these foods, these cultural ethnic foods, where some mom who had a bunch of cabbage, and some tomatoes, and some leftover rice, and a little bit of meat. And she invented, quote, unquote, cabbage rolls.
But it’s like, oh, that makes so much sense. Soup is like some mom just saying, “All right, well, dinner comes around at lightning speed. How can I make last night’s soup stretch into tonight’s?” Or, “How do I make last night’s chicken stretch into another meal tonight?”
Nancy: Isn’t that so wonderful, seeing you using the broth from the bones. But then, you have to be careful, because if you don’t have an organic or a home-grown chicken, you're not going to want to make broth from those commercial chickens.
Becca: Sure.
Nancy: I never do that. But if I have an organic chicken, or home-grown, well, I’m always going to use them to make the broth. In fact, I love making broth. I love to boil up bones for at least 72 hours.
Becca: I remember you telling me that.
Nancy: Yes! So, when your broth becomes like thick, thick jelly, so filled with all that amazing stuff.
Becca: I have to confess, I use an InstaPot, so I’m really sorry. I saw your pot downstairs, and that’s like gold, right there. 72 hours!
Nancy: Now I’ve got lots of celery growing in the garden. I love to make a cream of celery soup, so I’ll go and grab celery with all the tops, the greens. I notice how many people will only use the bottoms. They cut off all the green tops and throw them in the trash. So much is thrown away that is so filled with goodness! I will chop up everything, with some onions and garlic, and simmer it. Then I’ll add maybe coconut milk to make it creamy. Oh, it’s so beautiful. You can make soup out of anything, can’t you?
Becca: You can! You can! It’s so funny. I’m thinking, “This is hilarious, we’re on these little soup cans.” But this is part of it. It’s like the Lord just teaches so much creativity, so much industriousness in the heart of the woman if you're willing to take it on.
It would be easier, actually, to load everybody up and go to Culver’s. But there’s the fruit of, “OK, what have I got in this fridge that I can pull together? I can make something tonight for dinner.” The world’s going to scream, “Don’t do that! You don’t need to bother! Just buy something ready-made.” But that’s the culture that’s yelling, yelling.
Nancy: So many meals are fast food, and even in the home, they’re not really from the very source. That’s where all the nutrition is. That’s what we are responsible for, as mothers, to be filling our husbands and our children with all this real nutrition.
Becca: Oh, totally. But think of the Lord’s heart work that He does on that point alone. If you're not raised that way, or if you don’t understand that, “No, that’s really my gift, that’s my offering, that’s how I can help my family.”
If you don’t understand that, self-pity is just waiting. Self-pity is such a jerk, just right there, and ready to say, “Poor you. You have to make dinner again!” That was always hard. I was like, “I just fed you guys last night. Doesn’t that count?” [laughter] No, it doesn’t. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner! They’re hungry, hungry, hungry! And your heart has to be . . . the Lord has to transform your attitude. And He’ll do it on the basis of breakfast, lunch, and dinner!
Nancy: True! But sadly, there are many young mothers today who haven’t even grown up with that, so they don’t even really know how to go about it. I think having the right attitude about feeding our families is a very important foundation for a mother and a homemaker.
THE FOOD WE FEED OUR FAMILIES MUST NOURISH THEM
If we look upon getting meals as a bore, and a chore, it’s something we have to do, we’re really not caring about how we feed our family, we are not being who we are. As mothers, we are meant to be feeders. There are two main Greek words for food. They both mean “to nourish.” If the food we are feeding our families is not nourishing them, then it’s not food. It’s not even food, because FOOD MUST NOURISH.
That’s who we are, as mothers. We are nurturing and we are nourishing. We have to continually see ourselves as that. When every meal comes around, every meal is a new opportunity to nourish our family. It’s exciting! I have always, well, not always, it was quite a number of years ago . . . when I watched that movie, “Babette’s Feast,” it’s an old movie. Have you seen it?
Becca: I have seen it, yes.
Nancy: I first watched it in black and white, with subtitles. You can now get it in color, and in English. But the story is amazing, about how one meal changed a community. I’ll never forget the words of this man who stood up at this meal. He said these words, “I knew a woman who knew HOW TO MAKE EVERY MEAL INTO A LOVE AFFAIR.”
I caught onto those words, and I’ve never forgotten them. That’s now my goal. Every meal I make, I want to make it a love affair, not only to nourish my children and whoever’s eating, but when we sit around the table . . . You see, food is far more than just the eating. It’s your dialogue, and communication, and you’re nourishing their souls. It's all nourishing. Nourishing the BODY, they’re nourishing the SOUL, and then, when you're at the table, you're opening the Word at the end of the meal. And you're nourishing your SPIRIT
Becca: Amen! You know, Nancy, that’s why you shine so bright! I feel like, who would say that out there? Really, truly, the whole word is saying, “Fast, easy, cheap! Just get it done. Move onto something more important.” There is a time every spring where I just hit soup fatigue. If I chop another onion . . . Then you know it’s time to get the grill out. The season’s changed, and everything, and it’s time to get outside.
But nobody is saying that. It’s so counter to our culture right now. And yet, we all listen to Nancy talk about soup and food, and nourishing, and something rises up in us that says, “Yes! You’re totally right!” And it takes time. The time is a sacrifice. But then, what are we gaining?
When I think of my children walking into a house that smells like garlic and onions, or if you decide to do a surprise desert, that’s exactly what I want my house to smell like. That’s exactly what I want my house to feel like.
I feel like the gift of the homemaker is to really make that house a home, that’s the paradigm shift right there. There are lots of houses out there. There’s lots of people out there. But are there homes that feel like a place of welcome?
I remember when I spoke, when I was here a couple of years ago, I was speaking at that homemaker conference. And I’d written my own definition of a homemaker, and it was “creating a place where my people want to be and where they know they can always find me.”
It was so grounding. It was like, well then, I’d better stay put. Then I’d better make this a place where it feels inviting. That has as much to do with attitude, and moods, as it does, like a candle, or keeping it clean. But it’s important. You speak of wives’ work. So encouraging.
Nancy: Tell me about your environment. How many acres do you have where you live?
Becca: We live on ten acres. We have sheep and pigs. We moved to our farm, I think now, 13 years ago, knowing nothing. We just bought it. We thought we’d get some chickens, and we’d grow a garden. It took us a lot of years to figure out how to grow a garden. Many weeds and figuring out how often we’d have to weed. That was actually part of gardening.
It has really transformed us, because it’s given us so much meaningful work as a family to do together. That’s really the start of our life change and Rory writing the book Durable Trades. He had a computer programming job, but we were doing this simultaneously. We were tapping our maple trees for the first time, and we got honeybees.
Every single day he had to leave his family to go and work at his computer at his quote, unquote, real job. He said it just became so obvious that the work that we were doing as a family together on the farm was the life-giving work. He knew all the codes that he was writing would be obsolete in three years, and he himself would be obsolete in three years if he didn’t re-up his know-how and everything. That kind of stuck with him for a year or two.
What would be the plan? What could a family still do together in this age? It was 2018 that he wrote that book. Then I was looking for a publisher for a whole year. I found a publisher just before the pandemic began. Suddenly, we’re in a crescendo of AI, and there’s an actual pandemic.
A SHARED VISION
In the book, it addresses what to do with inflation. And just kind of saying, what have we traded in our industrial base, where Dad goes here, and Mom goes here, and the children are always age-segregated all the time. Entertainment is age-segregated, school is age-segregated. Even churches are age-segregated. But how, in this day, in this culture, is it possible to bring the family back together? Is it possible for a husband and wife to find a shared vision? That was our book.
HOME AND GARDEN ARE SYNONYMOUS
Nancy: That’s so wonderful. Talking about the garden, where’s God in it? I think most people don’t really associate the fact that home and garden, well, there’s a magazine called “Homes and Garden,” isn’t there? But really, that’s a very biblical title because home and garden are synonymous.
If you go back to the beginning, because every truth begins in the beginning, which means it begins in Genesis, which is the beginning. What was the first home? A garden home. The Garden of Eden was the first home where God put the male and female He created.
When we disassociate the garden from a home, we haven’t got God’s idea.
God’s plan is a home and a garden to support and feed the family.
Now, of course, we can get away with it today with our supermarkets. We can, in fact, buy anything we want, in any season, from any country of the world. If we want it, we’ll find it. Actually, it’s not the way we’re meant to eat. We are meant to eat in season. In fact, I remember growing up in the days when we didn’t have deep freezers. We ate in season. What was in the garden, that’s what we ate. I remember eating, for three weeks in a row, just beans and pumpkin. That was all that was in the garden!
I remember my father who was a great man who loved to go out hunting for deer, and then when it was duck shooting season, he would go out. He was a great shot, and he would always be the first man out with his limit bag. You could get so many and then you had to stop. But in those days, well, he’d shoot all these ducks. We’d give them away, but we still had so many. So, we would eat duck every night for at least three weeks.
My mother, the first night, she would cook three ducks. One whole duck for my father, and then two for us. There were only three children, sadly. I only had two siblings growing up. I always thought I was deprived. [laughter] But the amazing thing is that when eventually deep freezers came into being, and we could put these ducks in the deep freeze and we could eat them throughout the year . . . do you know, it was never quite the same. There was nothing quite like that feast of ducks.
It was so interesting. But now, we just live a different way of life. Of course, we don’t even have to grow a garden, although, when you think about it, we really do, because you go to the supermarket. You go to buy this organic lettuce . . . your organic mixed greens, and you bring them home. And in two days, they’re starting to go soggy. You think, “How long have they been sitting there?” We’re not really getting the fullness of what we’re meant to eat.
Becca: Yes, I know. And I think of the garden as one of my very best child-training grounds. To get children out in the garden . . . Is anyone really glad to be there? Not really. We’re there to weed. If you’re there to harvest, harvest is a joy. Harvest is fun. Planting is fun too. But we grow a very large garden. There’s a lot of hard work that’s done in the garden. Sticking with something, a work ethic.
Nancy: Well, I’ve noticed something this year. I don’t know. I’ve gardened. We came out here in 2000, so we’ve been here 25 years. I’ve grown a garden every year. The first year we came on this hilltop, it was just chert. It’s just stone. You can’t grow a thing. We had to buy in our dirt, and we put it in raised beds. That’s how we started.
From that, I have kept that soil going. I save every little bit I can for compost. We add manure, we add this, and we keep adding it, just supporting our soil. But all those years, I grew wonderful gardens. But, oh, I had so many weeds. Weeds, goodness me! I thought I was the most professional weed grower in the world! [laughter]
But then, last year, I had surgery and wasn’t able to do my garden, which was so sad to me. My daughter Evangeline, who really is a professional gardener, said, “Mom, I’ll do it for you.” Wow. The amazing thing is, there’s hardly a weed! And then this year, she said, “Mom, I’ll do the garden again,” because she loves to garden. And you’ll have to come and have a look before you go.
Becca: Oh, I can’t wait!
Nancy: It is the most glorious garden. You just have the say the word “glorious” over it. There are no weeds because she has learned how to get the soil in a way that somehow it grows the vegetables, and it doesn’t even grow the weeds!
Becca: Really!
Nancy: Oh, I don’t know how she does it.
Becca: Is she using a cover crop? We’re big into Back to Eden gardening
Nancy: I don’t even know what she’s doing,
Becca: Are there wood chips down? Is she putting a mulch down, or straw?
Nancy: It’s sort of a mulch. It’s better than what I used to do.
Becca: Oh, I can’t wait to go and see it!
Nancy: It is amazing!
Becca: I’ll say, in the garden, you're working on your own heart. This is a big patch of potatoes that needs to be weeded right now. But you're learning endurance and sticking with something. I always give my children a popsicle if they stick with me for an hour out in the garden. Then they get it. A carrot would be a healthy treat. I give them straight-up sugar with probably some food dyes in it.
But the fun of it is that we work that garden, and it’s hot in July. We feel it, and then we enjoy the reward under the shade tree. Everybody’s happy with a popsicle. But then the cool thing is, if you can and preserve, there comes a night in January where we pull down the carrots that we pressure canned. They’re feeding us, and we’ll all be freezing cold in Minnesota, and be thinking back to when we were sweating buckets in July, and how hard we were working. But now we’re feasting.
I feel like there’s a really . . . The garden ends up being this very slow-motion reward system in an instant culture where everything is like, you get your reward right now.
WORKING AND WAITING BUILDS CHARACTER
Nancy: That is great too, because it teaches our children that you don’t get things instantaneously. That is the concept now that so many children are growing up with. If they don’t have it right now, look out! We are meant to work for things and wait for things. Both are so important. Working and waiting are part of life. If we don’t understand that, we’re going to face a lot of problems.
Becca: Oh, yes! In fact, our family right now is in the season of waiting on the Lord. We keep saying, “Waiting.” He’s showing it all over in Scripture. Waiting is so much harder than “Go.” We’re doers. We’re movers. Like, “OK, tell us what to do! What’s the plan? We’re there.” Instead, Rick’s really working new muscles to wait.
Nancy: Even children are learning to wait for things. Today we live in such an affluent world. Children come to town with you, and they want something. It’s so cheap. “Oh, yes, that’s fine.” Even some little thing that they want right now, they don’t learn to wait for.
I remember growing up as a child. You didn’t get anything throughout the year. Christmas time! Woo ooh! It was like I could hardly bear it, that wait for Christmas time, when I knew I was going to get a gift! Oh, it was just too much. I could hardly bear it, that waiting. But what an amazing thing, that anticipation you went through, and that longing, and that waiting. Then just something simple was so amazing to you.
But many children have never even known that feeling of that incredible anticipation, and waiting, and longing. It’s quite an amazing thing. I think everybody needs to learn that, because how do you learn to wait for God, if you haven’t learned to wait on even the normal things of life?
Becca: Amen. Amen. I remember a woman came up to me in church one time. She said, “Teaching my children to obey my voice the first time is not because I want a more peaceful home, or because I want their obedience to me. But it’s because I want them to know when the Lord speaks to you, you obey the first time.”
Oh, that shook me to the core, because sometimes I think you think motherhood is all about obedience training, character training for the sake of you and their relationship. Oh, isn’t that a greater vision, that the actual training we’re doing of our children is so that you know how to connect with your Maker, and hear His voice, and wait on the Lord? I understand these things are hard. They are not in our natural disposition. We’re a very impatient, grumbly, just-let-me-have-my-way sense.
WE SHOW OUR HONOR TO GOD BY HONORING OUR PARENTS
Nancy: Oh, yes. That is so true. Yes. Obedience is training our children. That’s why even honor is so important. Why does God say: “Children, honor your parents”? It says: “Obey your parents.” And “Fear your mother and father.” It says to honor them.
In fact, those aren’t the only Scriptures. I have just done a study recently. I ended up with six pages of Scriptures about our attitude toward our parents. There is so much in the Word of God. Now, why does God want that honoring of parents? Because, in the same way we talked about obedience. Unless we learn to honor them, how will we truly honor God?
So, God gives us a practical thing, right in front of our face. If we can’t honor our parents, how can . . . We are really showing our honor to God by honoring our parents. There are some powerful Scriptures there. There are Scriptures in the Old Testament which are very scary. They say: “The one who curseth his mother and father shall be put to death.” Well, that’s Old Testament.
But you read that and think, “Oh, goodness! Nobody would curse their parents unless they’re really evil.” But do you know what that word literally means in the Hebrew? It means “to belittle, to think lightly of.” Oh, goodness me! God’s judgement is on those who even just look lightly upon their parents. Obedience is important to God and honor is important to God. All these things God gives us a family to where we teach these things.
Becca: It’s a genius plan. Only a genius God, right? I always think that about marriage. How could we most effectively slough off your slushy self? Well, put yourself with another person. Yoke up for the rest of your life, and you’ll start to see you're not quite as charming and darling as you thought you were. But it’s such a good idea. Well, then, you’ll have a friend who’s going to help you see this stuff that you can’t see yourself.
Nancy: It’s wonderful, isn’t it, to start the day off with the Lord. You just get away with the Lord, and you're in the Word. And you know His presence with you. He’s telling you these things as you read the Word, and it’s so wonderful.
But then, you leave your little place with the Lord, and come out, and suddenly there’s all these children, and a husband. Most of them saying the wrong thing, and everybody’s not doing what you want. It’s all overwhelming, and suddenly you don’t feel so perfect and wonderful! [laughter] Don’t you see, it’s learning to do it in the midst of the storm.
Becca: Amen. Amen.
Nancy: But it’s time to close this session. I must tell you a little thought. This is what I was meditating on this morning, so I’ll just tell you.
Becca: I’d love it.
CAN YOU KEEP YOUR SEAT?
Nancy: I think we’ll have to have another session. But I was reading 1 Peter 3:4, where it talks about how the thing that’s most precious to God is a “meek and quiet spirit.” Well, I’ve always been challenged by that, because I was never in the natural this very meek or quiet person at all. That’s not my personality.
But I was looking up the Greek for the word “quiet,” and really, it doesn’t mean that. It doesn’t mean that you're quiet, and you never say anything. No, the root of that word means “to keep your seat.” Now what this means is that on the inside you keep your seat. You stay seated when things all around you are in chaos, and you're agitated, or you're getting mad, or you want to fly off the handle! Instead of jumping up and giving into your flesh, you keep your seat. You stay calm in your spirit. Isn’t that incredible?
Becca: It is. It is.
Nancy: So, that is what God says is so precious to Him, because it can only happen in our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s not in our own flesh. But I knew this before, and I was really looking at it again. I was being reminded of it, and I thought, “Yes, Lord, help me be always one who keeps my seat, no matter what is going on about or around me.” Amen?
Becca: Amen. What a word.
Nancy: Well, let’s close, shall we?
“Father, we do thank You for Your goodness to us and how Your heart is for mothers, how You want to come into our homes, manifest Your presence, and to be with us. We thank You. I pray, dear Father, that You will manifest Your presence to every mother and wife and homemaker who’s listening. Fill their homes with Your peace. Fill their hearts with Your peace. Lord, work in their spirits, that they will know that beautiful anointing of a tranquil spirit. I ask this, Lord God, in the Name of Jesus. Amen.”
Becca: Amen.
Nancy: Amen.
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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Transcribed by Darlene Norris
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