PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 336: BOOTS ON THE GROUND

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 3Epi336pic36: BOOTS ON THE GROUND

Courtney Kelly joins me today. She and her husband were not communicating but God showed her what to do? What did He tell her? What’s the secret?

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 Courtney Kelly with me again, so that’s going to be exciting. This morning Kelly would like to discuss with me about their family devotions time. She thought it would be good to discuss it together on this podcast. What do you actually call your time together, Courtney?

Courtney: We just call it Bible Time.

Nancy: Bible time.

Courtney: Bible Time. [laughter]

Nancy: That’s great! Everybody has their different names. It doesn’t really matter what you call it, as long as you do it! Some people call it “Bible Time,” some “Worship Time.” We call it “Family Devotions.

I think I may have told you before, the people in Holland have a very interesting name for it. I found that out as I was speaking one time at a family retreat in Belgium. I was being interpreted by a Dutch lady, because everyone speaks Dutch over there, so the interpretation was in Dutch. When we go to Europe, we always have to speak by interpretation.

I was speaking about family devotions, and the interpreter stopped. She was fumbling for a word. We eventually worked it out, but I asked my friend who had organized the retreat, afterwards I said, “Why was she having problems with that word? Because I know that you do family devotions. Many of the families do that.” She said, “Well, we don’t call it that. We call it “Finishing up the Meal.’” I had never heard of that before.

But I thought, “How true, and how amazing!” Because it really goes along with the vision God gave me so many years ago, that the table is the place where we feed the whole man, not just their hungry tummies. We feed our children’s bodies, souls, and spirits. So, we cook a wonderful, healthy meal. All the children come running because they’re hungry, and we feed their tummies.

But that’s not enough. We have to feed their souls, and that’s why I’m a great believer in having dialog and discussion at the table, so we can really get to the nitty gritty with our children, and we can all be involved. I’ve never been one who believes in that saying from the dim dark ages, where “Children should be seen but not heard.”

Well, I’m sorry. Our table was opposite to that. You could most probably hear us down the street with all my loud and very, very vocal children! As they got older, and this is one of the wonderful things, ladies, is that we talk about coming together for the family meal table, and coming together for devotions.

In the beginning, when your children are little, there’s lots of challenges. Children aren’t perfect. I can remember sometimes when I thought, “Wow! That was just impossible!” But you keep doing it, and you keep training. You get the reward. As your children get older, it’s the habit of their life!

So, you get to these most wonderful and amazing times when discussions around the table . . . I still miss them. In fact, I love it when we can get our whole family together because you can hardly hear yourself think. But it’s always so amazing, and so incredible. In fact, I remember when Evangeline went out on a mission trip. She went to India, and then she went to Israel. Then she went to Africa (Uganda).

I remember she was in Africa. I got this letter from her. Back then it was still mainly communicating by letters, not all the social media we have today. “Oh, Mom, oh, how I miss the family meal table! Could you just get a tape recorder and tape it, and send it to me?” Well, one night when all the children were home, because some were married by this time, I put the tape recorder on. Nobody knew it was on. It was discussion and hubbub of voices, and oh, goodness me! I sent it to her. Oh, she said, “It was like music to my ears!”

Then, of course, we feed the body. We feed the soul. But if we don’t feed the spirit, we send our children away from the table empty. The inner man, which is more important than the outer man is often starved! So, they had this incredible phrase. We are now finishing up the meal. They finish up the meal with the Word of God, feeding the spirits of their children, feeding their inner man. Isn’t that so great?

Of course, what people used to call it was “The Family Altar.” That’s died out. Now nobody even seems to know what that word means. But it actually comes from the Bible. It comes from Leviticus 6, where God told Moses to build the altar, and how that the fire upon the altar was to keep going. It was never, ever, ever to go out. Even when they traveled, they couldn’t let it go out. It was to be always burning.

God showed them how they could keep it burning, and that was coming to that altar, taking out the ashes, and putting on more wood every morning and every evening. It was a morning and evening principle. That’s where they got that phrase, “The Family Altar.” It was a place to meet with God, because God said, “At that altar, I will meet with you” (Exodus 29:42-45). That’s what a family altar is. We no longer build altars of stone or wood. We don’t do anything like that. But it’s a time and a place where we come to meet with God.

Anyway, tell us about what happened at your home.

Courtney: Well, I’ll just go back. My husband, and my parents, we didn’t grow up having any Bible time at home. Ever, really. My mom got saved when I was 11. She would put little Scriptures around the house for her to memorize. Of course, I memorized all of them, and they’re the Scriptures that I know best to this day.

But as far as just a Bible time, or a Bible reading, we really just depended on church services for it. It was not something that was shown to us when we were children. When we were even young parents, we didn’t know anything about this. It wasn’t until we saw the example in other people that we started doing it for ourselves.

Rob would gather the little toddlers at that time. He would use a story Bible with pictures. I remember they would always sit on the living room floor. All the little faces would be in the center. They would all be laying down. It was so adorable and heartwarming, as a mother, to see them doing that. Then they would pray at the end. Those little mumbled prayers that no one could understand. It really became the foundation of our evening way back then.

We realized that if they could memorize those pictures, then they could study their Bibles separately from us. Because like you said, they have a spirit that needs to be fed. If they’re not, they’re starving. You can see it come out in their behaviors and all of that. So, they need to be fed the Word.

Of course, they can’t do it for themselves when they’re really little. When they get older, they can. That was so important, because that’s one of our main responsibilities as parents is to get the Word into them, and to show them Who God is, and what God loves, and what God hates. We’re building faith. There are so many amazing things. That’s how we started out.

We had never done anything in the morning. For all of these years, really, we had our own private Bible time. But I even remember when Elias and Addison, my teenagers now, but when they got to be 11, I remember telling them, “I want you to start having a longer reading time in the morning. This is something that I want you to do. It’s a discipline I want you to form in your life.”

It was so amazing over the years, just to see them laying in their beds for an hour in the morning, just reading. I don’t set a time limit on it or anything. But it became something that they took on for themselves, and I was so blessed to see it. It was amazing. They continue that to this day.

I’m so thankful that I drew that line in the sand for them, because I know some parents maybe wouldn’t want to push that. They say, “Oh, it needs to be of their own.” But I wanted to catch that vision. I set rules in every other area in my family’s life, so something as important as the Word of God, I think it’s OK! Of course, they didn’t rebel against it. They loved it. There’s so much Word in them. As the other ones have come up now, they do their own private Bible time too. Then just recently . . . [music playing]

Nancy: You can just turn that off. Oh dear, so sorry about that. I didn’t realize I hadn’t done it.

Courtney: I think three months ago was when I started gathering my children for morning prayer and worship. It’s been so amazing. In the evening, we would do Bible time with Daddy. We would do prayer, but oftentimes it was just Daddy who would pray, and Daddy who would read.

We would do some singing, but then in the morning I really wanted to gather, especially my older ones, because Elias and Addison are going out to work every day now. I wanted to gather everybody before they got out the door. The only time to do that was at six, because we have cows, and we milk at 6:30.

I said, “We’re just going to do a half an hour. We’re going to start at six, and we’re going to do one worship song, and then we’re all going to go around and pray.” It has been so amazing, so amazing. It was meant to be small. I don’t know if there’s anybody else out there like me, but I know other people do so much more than this.

But for us, this was an amazing starting point. Just get up. Let’s just go into the living room. This is what it’s going to look like for right now. It has been such a blessing. My children have noticed the difference in the family. Josiah said recently, “And I remember when we started having our morning prayer time that you and Daddy started getting along.” That’s amazing! That’s great!

Of course, at first, everybody . . . they weren’t all really excited about getting up early, because they already have to get up and get out the door. There are so many things to do. But I would set the alarm and go around and wake everybody up. I never woke everyone up before. They all woke themselves up when they needed to get up. So, it was a new thing. It was harder for them to get out of bed.

I’m a driver. I tend to be a cut-and-dried commander sometimes! They would linger in bed, and we only had a half an hour! You have to get to the living room, and everybody has to use the two restrooms that we have and get in there. Actually, we only had one restroom for a while. So, it was, “We have got to get this done!”

One morning, they were all just lingering in their beds. We have two triple bunk beds, with five boys in that room. I said, “The last one in the living room has to do breakfast dishes!” All their feet hit the floor in an instant! [laughter] It was so just straight out of the military! It was hilarious! I thought, “Wow! There is a good discipline for them!” They really didn’t want to do those breakfast dishes. We had to work for it at first is what I’m saying. But everyone loves that time, and we’re thankful that we’re doing it.

Nancy: It just shows you that you have to make things happen. I love that little phrase. I coined it myself. “Things don’t just happen. You have to make them happen.” It is so true. I do believe also that, although it is the responsibility of the husband to lead his family in devotions, I do think that we, as wives, play a big part. Many times, we are the ones who get the vision for it. I’d always had that great vision for them.

When we began, years and years ago, of course, we’ve been pastoring all our years (Colin went fulltime for God when we were engaged). He was a godly man, and yet, he would forget, when we were just beginning in those early days, because men have a one-track mind. If they’re thinking about something else, well, that’s what they’re thinking about.

Whereas we as mothers, God has given us a different kind of mind. We can think about so many things at once, because we have to. We’ve got all these little ones we’re looking after. I would be disappointed if he didn’t remember, because I’m remembering!

Courtney: Of course, you remember!

Nancy: Then I thought, “Well, I don’t want to be, “OK, now you must do that!” Then I got this little idea. As we were coming to the end of our meal, I would get the Bible, or The Daily Light, whatever we were reading, and I would put it by his plate. That’s all it took; it was just that little reminder. I didn’t have to say anything. I wasn’t pushing him. I was just putting the Bible by his plate. That’s all it needed. He would pick it up and read it.

We play our part with the little things. People choose where they want to have their altar, their time, their place. We have always found it works so well at mealtimes, because that’s when you have the family together, especially as they get older. Children get involved in this and that. You’ve got older children in the home, and they’re going out to work, like you have now. The children have got jobs, but they’re still at home, so they’ve got a lot going on in their lives.

I have found that, “OK, you all come together to eat, so if we do our time with the Lord there, we’ve got them all!” If you decide, “Oh, we’ll do it later,” well, you can’t even find anybody. They’ve all gone here, there, and everywhere. I love to do it when you've got them there. I think we play a great part in preparing the meal, having meals on time, and bringing the family together. That helps to pave the way for your family devotions too.

Courtney: I completely relate to feeling like I wanted my husband to lead. I didn’t want to say anything, and I would wait, and “We’ll see if Bible time is important to him! I’ll just be quiet, because surely, he remembers, just like I would remember!” Oh, it’s such a terrible attitude! Honestly, he truly would just forget.

I remember asking him at other times, saying, “Is it important to you? Do you want to have Bible times in the evening? Would you rather I do it at a different time?” No, he did want to do it in the evening. He just honestly, truly would forget, which I couldn’t even relate to, because it was always on my mind.

Nancy: That’s right. But this is typical of most husbands. Often, I have ladies come to me and say, “I’m just waiting for him to take the lead, and he doesn’t!” The poor guy. All he needs is a little reminder. I think we can definitely do our part, not taking authority, but just in little ways.

Courtney: I found that it was OK for me to take that lead if I needed to. But it was important to have our children come together and read to them. There are maybe husbands that it’s not something they want to do at this time. I think it’s OK for the woman to read the Bible to her children. Somehow, we get stuck in our mind that, “It has to be the husband, and he’s not a leader over our family, or not a spiritual head if he’s not doing this right now the way I see it.”

Nancy: That’s right. Sometimes men have to leave very early for their jobs. Therefore, the mother can take it in his place in the morning. It’s good if he can do it for one time in the day. But sometimes he may be away for a few weeks at a time. Then the mother can do it. You don’t just forget about it, no! The mother, in his place, can then take on that role.

Courtney: Right. And you would never portray your husband as not wanting to be the leader to your children, of course! You don’t want them to disrespect him.

Nancy: I find also, even when Colin is reading the Word, he’s so great at asking questions. That is important. That keeps our children listening. All of us can get into a dream so easily. If we can, our children do. They need questions. They need things to wake them up. But even he sometimes forgets about asking questions, and he’s reading on.

So, I will say, “Oh, hey! What about this?” I’ll ask a question, and I’ll pop in a question, so it gets people wanting to answer, and gets them thinking again if they’ve gone off on some wavelength.

There are some really good Scriptures, and we can pop in and say, “Hey! Why don’t we all say this out loud together?” Because maybe husbands can get on a roll reading. They don’t realize, if they really looked around, they’d see their children lost in dreaming. Sometimes we’ve got to help keep them awake too. We can think of things to do. Of course, he’s not going to mind. “Yeah! That’s a great idea! Let’s all do it!”

Courtney: Right. And come with energy. I remember feeling like I didn’t want to train my children to be dull before the Lord. I didn’t know. In our prayer times, and in our worship, it seemed to grate on me to be in a situation where everyone’s half-asleep, praying half-hearted prayers, and singing half-heartedly. I can just burst if I’m in a church service like that! I think, “Doesn’t ANYBODY know the Lord??” [laughter] They should have an excitement about what we’re doing.

I think in our homes it can tend to naturally go that way, because you don’t have the enthusiasm of all your friends, and the other families around you. That’s something to work toward. In the morning, we say, “OK!” Everybody comes into the living room cold in our house because we have woodstove heat. You can relate to that! Everybody bundles up in the big blankets in the living room, and they get cozy right before we actually stand up.

But I say, “Come on! Stand up!” Sometimes I have to say it two or three times. “We’re going to stand up! Get on your feet!” And we stand for worship. I have to wake everybody up sometimes with a motivational “Come on! Aren’t you singing? Let’s sing!”

Nancy: I think that’s all encouraging and inspiring. I think it’s important. All of us, we see the fruit of what you're doing in your own home, because, oh, goodness me, when we come to prayer meetings, all your children are there. Your young sons are praying, and your little girls have their hands raised, praising the Lord, lost in the Lord!

I have never seen anything so beautiful! They’re not putting it on. They don’t know anyone’s watching. They’ll keep their hands raised for the whole worship time! I don’t know how they can keep them up that long! It’s so amazing!

Courtney: I can’t take any credit for that though, because I think our family really prays. We went to the Above Rubies Gulf Coast Retreat straight from Alaska. When we were in Alaska, we were going to a little country church. Everyone sat for worship. I think I was one of the only one who raised my hands. One of the elders shared one morning about how uncomfortable it made him! But he appreciated that I did it. [laughter]

But we were longing to be in a fellowship where people worshipped God freely and with affection. Then we went to the Gulf Coast Retreat, and it was like this flood of freedom for our children. It just freed them. They were so different from that point on.

I remember being there, talking to other families, and saying, “We don’t usually worship like this!” And they said, “We don’t either!” This is so powerful for us too. It has just stuck. It’s the Spirit of the Lord, I think from our corporate meetings that our children have caught. They love the presence of God, and they sense the presence of God. It’s so amazing. It’s so amazing.

Nancy: And it is the presence of God, because it’s not something that they’re trying to do. Oh, they’re just doing it because they love God! So beautiful.

Courtney: They inspire me. And I saw this guy down on Sunday, and they were pouring out prayers for him, because you know the Lord is touching them, and that He’s doing something. This could be the young man who grows up and says, “I was in a church service, and the Lord touched me, and I knew I was called.” Something like that. I see those moments, and it’s, “Oh, God! Touch them. They need to be Yours, for Your kingdom, and for Your glory forever. Have my children, have my generations. Have it all.”

Nancy: Yes. Amen! So wonderful. Tell me some other things where you've had to get ideas, or overcome, and make them happen in your home.

Courtney: Family devotions specifically? We’ve had difficulty during times of knowing where to read in the Bible, where you want something that’s going to really impact. You want to hear from the Lord, but you're not in a certain vein of things. So much of that just comes down to whether we’re in tune with the Lord, and if we’re recognizing that the Lord’s going to speak through us.

I hear the difference from when we’re just tired, and we just pick somewhere to read, or when the Lord is really moving through my husband and giving him utterance. He’s sharing, and he’s encouraging, and he’s asking questions. Sometimes that’s just a focus thing. Those are periods of our life where we have to push through sometimes in dryness. But it doesn’t mean we quit family devotions.

We’ve had to get through obstacles of our little ones not behaving. There have been months when Rob is just done with family devotions, where he has been over it, because the toddlers will not sit still. He’s stopping every ten minutes to spank them. Then we’re all grumpy. We’re all waiting, and we don’t enjoy listening to the spankings. Then everybody’s mad, and Rob says, “I quit!” [laughter] Those are real struggles that we have.

But I can recognize. Even last night, Addison came to us. I had an uncle from out of town. Addison said, “Our little ones were out of control, and I was so embarrassed!” He said, “We’ve got to do something!” Rob humbled himself and said, “You’re right.”

I realized that that’s something that I can do during the day that doesn’t have to happen at Bible time. That’s a blessing that I can give to my husband, because I’m here all day with the children, to sit them down and train them, so that when he comes home at night, they can sit. Because if you're doing something that’s already difficult, you're tired, and maybe there are other things you’re wanting to get to. If I can remove every obstacle that I can control, what a blessing to my children, to my husband, and to myself, and to our company.

Nancy: Oh yes, that is so true. I think our children, we do have to train them to sit. The table, the meal table, is a wonderful place where we train our children to sit. Often, when we have families come for a meal, I’m amazed that you notice that some children obviously aren’t trained in their own home, because they sit down, and they want to pop up. Then they want to pop up again. They haven’t even learned to sit for mealtimes, let alone to sit for the reading of the Word. That takes training. But we have to train them.

Courtney: That can be done.

Nancy: Parents ought to train their children. I think this is why . . . Today it is never like that. Back when I was growing up, we always had church together as a family. Nobody ever had separation of children. We all came to church together, and everyone sat. I must admit, I was often taken out in the middle of service and belted, [laughter] because I was a wild one.

Courtney: But look at you now! [laughter]

Nancy: But anyway . . . Many today, they say, “Oh, we could never have our children in church with us!” So, they send them off to the nursery, or the Sunday schools and everything. But often, they’re just babysitting places, because they’re never the same as being in the presence of the Lord.

In fact, I think the closer your children can get . . . when I was raising our children (of course Colin was pastoring) I would take the children right up the front because I found that when you sit at the back because “I’ve got all these little children,” it’s very distracting. You’re looking at everybody. You can see everything that’s going on. The children are being distracted, and then they get naughty. No wonder you're at the back, because they’re all misbehaving.

But then, if you go right down the front, and they’re under the eye of the preacher, they’re right there closest to the presence of the Lord . . .

Courtney: Wow!

Nancy: They change their behavior! It’s amazing! I often say to moms, “Why don’t you try it? Because it is amazing how their behavior will change when they’re up there in the front seat!”

Courtney: I always avoid the front seat, because I think they’ll be a distraction. You always try to get everybody to come closer. I’m going, “No, you don’t want us up there! We’ll have to leave and get up.”

Nancy: Oh, yes! Children are better up the front! Where they’ll behave. It’s so much easier to behave, because you’re not even distracted. You’re not distracted, your children are not distracted. If they really were, well, what would the speaker say? He might have to say something. [laughter] I think that’s something that’s worth a try.

Courtney: It is. And keeping your children in church with you is worth a try. I think we started keeping our children in church when we were visiting different churches. I would have so much anxiety when I would leave them with different nursery workers in different churches. I decided I’m just keeping them with me. We hadn’t been around anyone that did that.

All the churches we’d been to have all these youth programs. We had been in charge of youth programs ourselves, but it was one of the best things that we’ve ever done for our family. I realized very quickly that they were learning in the church service, because that was why I had sent them away, because I wanted them to learn the Bible!

I remember them sitting and drawing little pictures, and coloring, and the preacher saying, “Repeat after me! Faith!” Or something like that. And all my little ones went, “Faith!” I thought, “They’re listening!” It was this little revelation. I was so excited. We’ve never gone back, and it’s so amazing to have them in church with us. We don’t have to worry about their safety, or what movies they’re watching, or what they’re eating.

Nancy: And usually they’re given sweets, and full of sugar, and all that junk.

Courtney: They love being together! And then they’re used to being in church service. It’s not something they have to adjust to when they become 15, 16, 17 years old. They’re used to being programmed.

Nancy: They have been put out from the church service throughout their age groups. Then they get to that age where they need to come in. Well, they’re not even used to it. And statistics say that that’s when many of them just leave.

They do learn more, because often Sunday school can be just dumbing down. It’s just a little Bible story, a little activity, where here, in the main service, they are learning deep truths. They are going into them. Even though they may not fully understand them, the seeds of those truths are going into them.

I used to notice that with my own children. I would be amazed at the depth of things that they would come out with, having learned from really great Bible teachers. Whereas Sunday school . . . we’ve done all that stuff because we’ve been pastoring most of our lives.

We started off having Sunday school and youth group. Oh, goodness me, our children were the worst in the Sunday school because they always thought they knew more than the Sunday school teacher! [laughter] “She said the wrong thing!” We heard that they weren’t very well-behaved in Sunday school at all! They were the pastor’s children, and they were the worst! But when they were in the service, they were amazing! They were also learning real stuff.

It’s just a bit like when I started off schooling our children, I didn’t know about homeschooling all those 60 years ago. I can remember my oldest children, especially our eldest son, he wondered what school was for. It just did not relate to him.

In fact, I remember going to a parent-teacher interview. The teacher told me, “Your son is actually here, but he's not here. I see him looking out the window.” But she said, “He’s not daydreaming. I see his brow, his furrowed brow across his forehead. I don’t know what he’s thinking about, but he’s not here at school.”

I realized, he was obviously, he just went, because that’s what you had to do. I sent him to school. He was sitting there, and he was thinking how he was going to make this thing when he got home. The moment he got home from school, he began to create. So, his whole day at school was just thinking about how he was going to do it! It was a total waste of time because he just got on with the job at home.

Of course, when I heard about homeschooling, I really gravitated to it. But it’s that same thing. He was just getting taught stuff that didn’t relate to him at all. That can happen in Sunday School . . . they can get turned off Christianity, because it doesn’t relate. It’s not the real deep stuff. Even children can receive deep stuff, even though they may not fully understand it. They’re just getting the seeds of it. Of course, the seeds grow as they hear more and more until they get full revelation.

Courtney: And how many children’s Bible stories cut out the judgement of God, and the main point of the story? If you read Noah’s ark, I have to fill in that everyone perished, that they all drowned, that God killed them, because it’s left out in so many of the stories.

Nancy: Yes, in fact, a lot parents of little ones can just read Bible stories from books. As you say, they can be a little watered down.

Courtney: You just have to be very picky. When I find a children’s Bible story, I often look for those certain stories that I know I want to know, “What are they going to say about this story?” I always go to Pentecost because I want to read about the Holy Spirit being outpoured, and it’s often left out. Anyway, just getting really picky is a good idea.

Nancy: Yes, that’s very important. Very important. Children need to know the whole counsel of God, instead of just little things that kind of tickle their ears. We need the whole counsel of God. That’s why, in our devotions, in our Bible time every day, they’re little by little getting the whole counsel of God.

We have, at different times, we will take a book of the Bible and read a chapter each night. We still love to do this from time to time. But we usually revert back to our Daily Light on the Daily Path. We love it, because it’s only the Word of God. It’s always there; the morning and the evening reading are there for you. If you need something to help you like this, I have it available at Above Rubies. We find that helpful, and then we’ll break that every now and then by just getting into a book and reading it through. What do you do?

Courtney: In our Family Devotions? We have not used The Daily Light. I have it, but I wasn’t as crazy about it as just reading through a chapter. I have to admit it. I don’t know why that was hard for me to adjust to the way that it was written. We do just open up and read. I like to read Proverbs to the children. Rob usually reads a chapter of the Old Testament or the New Testament.

Nancy: Oh, I stayed with a family in Holland. We had come over on the overnight ferry from England, and we arrived in the early morning. It was breakfast time. They were having breakfast and then Family Devotions with their little children.

This husband was reading through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. Well, the chapter they were up to when we were there was a chapter of the “begets.” He had all these little children, but he did not miss one word. We sat there, and we had to go through the whole chapter of “This one begat this one, and this one begat this one.” I thought, “Wow! That is something else!”

Courtney: You don’t skip them, right? I remember reading them with our children. One of our more analytical children was catching who begat who to know, “Oh! He was from this tribe, or he was from that tribe. Wasn’t that so-and-so that did this?” It really helped him draw lines in history, which I had never appreciated before.

Nancy: That is really amazing. In fact, I read somewhere this person wrote or said, “If your name was in the begats, you would be reading them every day!”

Courtney: Oh, right! Yes!

Nancy: Anyway, I think we’ve gone beyond time again. Thank you so much, Courtney, for sharing. I know the ladies love hearing you share from your life, and from your family. So down to earth!

“Lord, we do thank You again for all Your wonderful goodness to us. Thank You that You designed families. Lord, this is Your plan. This is way You plan for us to live, in families. You have no alternative plan. We thank You, Lord. Help us, Lord, to build strong families. Lord, families that are knitted together, families that are strong in Your Word. We ask this in the precious Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Courtney: Amen.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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DON’T FORGET TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THESE PODCASTS AND TRANSCRIPTS.

“LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell, Above Rubies”

DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF.

DAILY LIGHT ON THE DAILY PATH

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 335: Don’t Leave Your Husband Behind

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 3Epi335pic35: Don’t Leave Your Husband Behind

Allison Hartman is with me again today. We discuss what happens to your marriage when the children grow, and the older ones begin to leave the nest. Are you and your husband ready for this new season? Have you kept the love fires burning in your marriage or do they need to be rekindled?

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! I have Allison Hartman with me again. We do love doing podcasts together.

By the way, for those of you who are listening in America, have you received your magazine yet? I hope many of you have. This is number 102. I know it’s going to be such a blessing to you. If you haven’t got it yet, it will be coming, so be looking out for it.

Also, for those who are new to Above Rubies, recently someone landed at my home a box of old copies of Above Rubies. I’m always so excited when this happens because old copies of Above Rubies are like gold! They eventually just disappear. I keep one copy of every one, but there comes a time when there’s only one copy left, and I have to keep that.

So, if you are wanting any back copies, you are welcome to email me, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and tell us what you already have. Then we may be able to find some you haven’t got and send them to you. I’m so happy for you to have them and be blessed. If you send a donation for them, that would be so great, but if you can’t afford it, I will still send them to you. I’ve always made Above Rubies available freely. Oh, I just want to freely give it to you.

Of course, it’s not actually free because I have to pay for it. I have to pay. I have been saying it costs about $80,000 to print and send out each issue. But sadly, I’m realizing that this time prices have gone up. It’s going to come to well over $100,000. I still have to get money in to pay for the sending out of the rest of the magazines and for the printing. So, donations are always so welcome because that’s the only way we pay for it.

Anyway, Allison is with me. We’d better remind them what’s coming up for the retreats for next year. Do you want to tell them about those?

Allison: Yes! We’ve been putting on the Gulf Coast Above Rubies Family Camp for I don’t even know how many years. I’m so bad at that, but it’s a long time! The retreats keep growing and growing. Everybody knows about our big retreat in April which this coming year 2025, it will be April 16th through the 23rd at Panama City Beach, Florida.

Nancy: Doesn’t it come at Easter time?

Allison: Yes! This year, for the first time, it’s going to land during Easter.

Nancy: So, you can have a whole Easter holiday!

Allison: But then, because our retreats have grown so much, and the building that we need only holds 700 hundred people, we have had to open up a . . .

Nancy: But we squashed in more! [laughter]

Allison: We did! But we’ve had to open up a second main retreat. We do that now in January. It’s called our Winter Retreat. This year it is January 3rd through the 10th 2025. We’re currently at 19 families that have already registered, which seems really small, because our main retreat holds about 110 families. But we actually really like the fact that it’s a smaller retreat. You really get to know people. So, if you're scared of that big crowd in April, January is the perfect time to come. Not to mention that it’s cheaper because you're during winter break.

But I’m telling you, one of the neatest parts of our retreat is that it’s not just a one-time thing. Our retreat has become a constant community. It is the source of my children’s friends. It has been the place where I share life experiences, the ups and the downs, and the daily life. Anything that goes on in our lives, I immediately post it to our Above Rubies Signal group.

It is not something that just goes away when the retreat’s over. If you're sitting there going, “Gosh, I wish I had a great community for my children, a great peer group,” well, you need to come and be a part of this retreat, because your children are going to meet friends, and they’re going to continue those relationships.

The next retreat to be a part of is the January retreat. We’d love you to come. The website for it is https://aboverubiesgulfcoast.com/ You can see the link to register. We’d love to have you be a part of that in Panama City.

Nancy: And don’t you have a couple’s week coming up?

Allison: We do! We do. It actually is what we’re going to talk about this podcast. We have decided to do a couple’s retreat. It’s our first ever couple’s retreat. Adults only. Right now, I think we’re at 22 couples. It’s going to be June of 2025. We’re going to an all-inclusive resort in Mexico.

We’re so excited about it. Right now, the couples who are coming are all married couples. Most of us are in that same stage of life, been married for 20-40 years, I guess. If you're interested in that, you can reach out to me. You can find me on Facebook, Allison Frost Hartman, or go to the Above Rubies Gulf Coast page, and you can email us. I’ll send you all the information about the 2025 Cancun Couple’s Trip. It’s going to be so exciting!

Nancy: Wonderful! We were talking in our last podcast about how important it is to have the right friends for your children. These family retreats are the most glorious place to find friends for your children. The friendships that are being made among the young people are so beautiful, aren’t they?

Allison: We just had our third daughter’s wedding. We have two girls who are married to Serene’s two sons which is so fun. But I just thought about their wedding parties. They consisted of siblings and/or friends they’d met through the Above Rubies retreats. That’s all they have for friends.

My boys are 18, 16, and 15. Their friend group is 100% Above Rubies families’ children, from all over. They get together all the time! They’re leaving tomorrow to go to Alabama to hang out with some families that they met through Above Rubies, to go have a bonfire, worship night, spike ball tournament, and volleyball tournament. Just about every month, they get together with some of these families.

Nancy: Just so wonderful! I have to reiterate again this Scripture. It was just so powerful, as I encouraged my children as they were going through their teen years. Proverbs 13:20: “He that walks with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.” So, we hope you can make it to one of these retreats. That would be so wonderful! By the way, can we share the exciting news?

Allison: I say we do it! I say we do it!

Nancy: Oh, yes! Now Allison has two more grandbabies on the way!

Allison: Two more!

Nancy: Because Halle and Cedar are expecting their second baby. And Vision and Eden are now expecting their first baby! And they will be my great-grandbabies!

Allison: Yes! Serene and I are going to share three grandbabies, two one month apart. And yes, we’ll have three great-grandbabies with you guys. That’s so fun!

Nancy: And another amazing thing! Serene is so blessed at this moment, because she has three sons whose wives are pregnant. Her three oldest sons, Arden, Cedar, and Vision are all expecting babies, all close to one another. So amazing!

And, of course, Arden and Esther, if you've read about them in the magazine, and I have done a podcast with Arden and Esther as he shares that incredible seven years they went through as he was fighting cancer. Because he did stem cell replacement at the end, they said that he would never be able to conceive. But God has done the miracle and they’re having this precious baby!

Allison: So exciting!

Nancy: Three more babies coming into their family, two more coming into yours. Isn’t it exciting? Oh, it’s so wonderful!

Allison: We’re excited. Sisters married brothers, so we’ll have babies one month apart. Pretty cool! Praise God!

Nancy: I can’t imagine, well I can. But Eden and Halle having babies together! Aren’t they gorgeous!

Anyway, talking about your children growing up and getting married and now you're a grandmother, what’s so different in your life now?

Allison: Well, again, if you don’t know my story, we have 11 children. They range from 25 down to four. I’m kind of in a very unusual state because I’m 49. I’ll be 50 in one month, in December.

Nancy: Woooo!

Allison: My body changed. It is definitely changing. I always thought, gosh, when I thought about not being able to have children it’s going to be so sad! And it is. It is sad. I look at nursing moms. But yet, I don’t look at it in a sad way, like I’m depressed, because my youngest is four, and my oldest grandbaby is two. I’ve not missed that two-year gap. We literally went from having our two-year-old to having a grandbaby.

Now, it’s just amazing. I was telling you that I just recently made a post on Facebook about my husband and I going on a plane and I’d just got back from Fort Myers, having polarity therapy done to my neck and my back. On the plane, the guy announced, “All the mothers of littles, and nursing babies, board the plane!” I looked around, and I just assumed that was me! But then I thought, “It’s not me! I have no littles! I’m with my husband only.”

But for 25 years, that was me. We always got on the plane first because we always had littles. I’d been nursing for 25 years, with no breaks. I’ve tandem-nursed nine times, so nine babies I’ve tandem-nursed. I think my first three were the only ones I didn’t tandem-nurse. In fact, my four-year-old, I’m still nursing, which is ridiculous when I think about it, because she’s so big. But that’s part of me just kind of holding onto that last bit.

I think us mothers in this stage of this transition from nursing mothers to now this new stage, I just want to encourage you that it doesn’t have to be a negative. In fact, it can be quite positive, because the reason I was able to . . . When I got on that plane, I didn’t have to fight with little ones to keep them happy on the plane. I got to hold my husband’s hand and snuggled on his shoulder. I got to do nothing but hang out with him. What a neat experience that I haven’t experienced in 25 years!

That’s why we’re doing this couples’ trip, because we’re recognizing that now is the first season in my life that I can completely say, “I am focused on my marriage one hundred percent.” I was telling you earlier that I’ve read that one of the fastest-growing ages of divorce in our world is age 50, which is right where I’m at.

It’s because most people, now I’m not in that category, but most people, their children are graduating from high school. When they turn 50, their children are typically going off to college. Their job is done, right? So, they look at their spouse, and they think, “I don’t even know you. I’m divorcing you, because in the last 18, 20 years of our marriage, all we’ve done is parent. We haven’t really worked on our marriage.”

Nancy: You think that you’d do that together!

Allison: Yeah, but that’s what you and Granddad have done, and that’s what me and Daniel have done. But most married couples at that age, a lot of them are getting divorced because they just haven’t focused.

My encouragement is, No.1, if you're listening, and you're that mom of littles, boarding that plane, and you're exhausted, and you're tired, and you're like, “My whole life is about changing diapers and making food!” . . . don’t forget your marriage, because you don’t want to be at that stage at 50, going, “Huh. I don’t even know you. All I’ve done is co-parent with you.”

That’s No. 1. As moms of littles, remember you were married first. Your marriage is what’s so important. It’s interesting, our daughter who we just said is having a baby, when she announced her pregnancy, she said, “I’m having a baby!” And I immediately said, “Oh gosh! When are you due?” She’s like, “I’m due in June.” I was like, “Oh, Eden, that’s when we’re going to Mexico! What if I miss the birth? This is terrible! I’m going to have to cancel the trip!”

When I told Daniel, my husband, “I don’t know what to do! I can’t miss her birth!” He said, “Oh, we’re going to Mexico! We’ll have lots of grandbabies, Allison! We’re going to Mexico because our marriage is what our priority is.” I was like, “OK! I guess you're right!” Yes, I want to be at my daughter’s birth but more than anything, when our children get married, they don’t look back and think, “Oh, but my mom and dad are going to miss me!” No! They’re moving on! Their husband is their most important priority.

Nancy: That’s right.

Allison: But yet, us mothers, now our daughters are married, what are we doing? Are we prioritizing being grandparents and being the mothers-in-law? No, we need to be prioritizing that my role right now is being married to Daniel Hartman. It’s got to be the No. 1.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at, and I thought, “What an important message to send to other moms who are in my shoes!” You’re going through that stage where you're not getting pregnant. It doesn’t look like you're probably going to have any other children. Gosh, if I got pregnant, it would be amazing! But for the first time in my life, I’m not thinking about that. I’m not constantly wondering, “Am I going to get pregnant?” I’m thinking, “Wow! I have all this time now to focus on our marriage.”

Nancy: OK! What are you doing? What are some of the things that you are doing that you haven’t felt that you've been able to do before?

Allison: I think one of the biggest things is, well, two things. Bringing back the point of peers, I’m a firm believer that having good peers for our children is very important. But I am even more convinced, more than ever, that having good peers as married couples is so important.

Nancy: It doesn’t actually matter what age you are. Your peers are always important.

Allison: Absolutely! I notice that when I’m around other women like you, or like Serene, or like other moms, their speech is all positive. Their talk about their husbands is positive. You tend to gravitate and talk about what the ones that you're around talk about. You don’t want to watch for things that are not good for you when you're around people that would never want to watch that.

However, when you're hanging around peers . . .  Like our last podcast, we talked about going to concerts that other worldly people are going to, your bar is lowered. So, that’s No. 1. Daniel and I, we purposefully and intentionally choose to be around couples . . . we have wonderful friends in Pensacola, the Dolls, Christy and Doug Doll. We go on dates with them, probably weekly. We’d probably go more if we weren’t as busy as we are. We both own our own businesses.

But every time we’re with them, I said this to them the other day. I thought, “Isn’t it interesting, that every time we go on a date with you, our conversation always shifts to things of God?” Always! We’re always talking about Scriptures. We’re always talking about what God’s doing in our lives. Always, our conversation is about the things of the Lord. I haven’t had a couple of friends like that in most of our marriage. Most of our couple are good. Our conversations are good, but they’re neutral. They’re not bad or good. Does that make sense?

Nancy: Yes.

Allison: They don’t challenge us to be better wives and husbands. They’re not the ones that I would go to and cry on their shoulder when our marriage is struggling, or our children have done something that we’re not happy with. What do we do? What couples are in your life who are going to challenge you to be better? Same with our children. We want them to hang around with good friends.

But then I think the other thing is that we do is prioritize going on dates. We’re constantly thinking of our next date. Not just nightly dates, but we even go on weekend dates, or weeklong dates. We just went to Fort Myers to have this polarity therapy done. Yeah, it doesn’t sound like fun.

I got 80 shots in my neck, because I have this bad neck that is caused by bad posture which is really interesting. I realized that my neck is aligned wrongly because of bad posture. It’s caused by our photography business, so I’m constantly straining my neck towards the computer screen, staring. I have literally shifted my neck, my C-1 and C-2, out of alignment.

That’s what’s causing my neck pain, which in today’s world (I think about every teenager you know, their heads are down, looking at their cell phones). It’s so bad for your posture. But that’s another whole podcast!

We went and had this done and someone said to me, “How neat! You and your husband did do this together!” It was neat! It was fun. We made it fun. We went to Fort Myers and rented a car. We couldn’t find a single car in the town, so we had to go to the private rental car called Touro, where you rent someone’s car. We rented a Tesla. It was fun. We went to this restaurant.

Anything you do with your husband make it a fun experience. Enjoy, savor those moments, because you haven’t been able to do that while you've been raising your children. You haven’t been able to go sit in a restaurant.

I’m around my granddaughters right now. They’re in that two-year-old, one-year-old and all they do is cry and scream in the car. I’m forgetting that that was my life a few years ago! So, as I’m with my husband, and there’s no one screaming in the car, I need to appreciate that! “Thank You, God, for no screaming in the van! No screaming in the car! We can just get in and we go.” I’m preaching to myself because I really want to savor these moments.

Nancy: Oh, yes! That is so wonderful. When you're raising your children, a lot of people say, “Well, try to get out on date nights.” But it never really worked for us. I don’t know. We just found it so difficult to get away when we were raising the children because you don’t trust everyone to look after them.

Allison: But you can have a date sitting in your front yard! In a car. We’d go on Tucker Carlson dates. We’d just go sit in our car and listen to Tucker Carlson [laughter], and then talk about it! Anything you can do. You don’t have to spend money.

Nancy: No. That’s so right.

Allison: You can just go and sit in your car, and not tell your children that you're parked out front! [laughter] You can watch them but just have that time by yourself.

Nancy: I know. I often think of these women who love to have these, what do they call them? Girls’ nights out?

Allison: Girls’ night out.

Nancy: Girls’ weekends away. You know what? I can’t be bothered with it. I think, to go out and spend time with another lady, when I could spend time with my husband, which is so more exciting. Why would they want to do that?

Allison: And it is so popular right now. I mean, Nancy, you have no idea. That’s what all my age group is doing. They’re all doing runs together, 5K’s together. They’re working out, which is great, but they’re doing it with their girlfriends. I don’t really even have girlfriends. I really don’t, because any time I have free that we’re not working, or spending time as a family, I want to spend with my husband.

Nancy: Exactly!

Allison: But I think our world is catering to that, and encouraging that, because most people are in unhappy marriages. So, they want to go spend time with other people who are in unhappy marriages so that they can talk about their unhappy marriages!

Nancy: Yes! And that’s what they do! It’s all so negative.

Allison: So dangerous. 

Nancy: One negative word and then that releases another negative word. Someone only has to say something negative about their husband, and, oh yes, someone else has another negative to say. I have always proved that that if a conversation gets onto a negative, people gravitate to that, so the negatives just become more and more and more. But, if you say a positive, it’s amazing how, yes, that promotes someone to say a positive thing. So, then it becomes more positive.

Allison: Well, it’s almost like peer pressure, right? If your friends are just constantly bad-talking their husbands, you almost feel obligated to also say something negative about your husband. We have a home church, and we’ve got about 13 families. What we found is that we’ve had a lot of young families come to us. What I’ve noticed is if I’m not careful, we can really have that conversation going towards the negative of our husbands. Oh, they overslept. They didn’t want to come to church. They didn’t want . . .

In the same way, you can steer the conversation to make people feel awkward if they talk negatively about their husbands. It’s like the modesty thing. If you're around a modest person, you're very aware of what you're wearing. You want to make sure that you're wearing things that are modest. In the same way, if you're hanging around people who just don’t care, your desire to be modest is kind of different. You don’t really care as much because you know they don’t.

So, what do you do? Well, you intentionally put yourself in a circle of friends whose conversation is constantly aboveboard, who are constantly striving to be where you just want to brag on your husband, even if you don’t maybe feel that way at that moment. You left the house thinking not good thoughts, maybe. He drives you crazy. But instead of wanting to say that, you think of, “Oh, I have such a hard-working husband!”

What’s going to happen is that other mom who’s listening is like, “Oh, I was about to say something bad about mine, but I don’t want to now, because I’ll feel stupid.” You’re right. My husband is a, whatever. Yeah, it’s an amazing thing.

Nancy: Yes, yes. It’s so great, so wonderful. God is so good. It makes you realize too, Allison, that our child-bearing years are really such a short time of our lives. When you think of maybe, depending on when you get married, 22, maybe to just in your 40’s. That is a very short time when you can live into your 80’s or 90’s. It’s not a big part of your life! We do need to embrace that time of our lives and not be thinking of, “Oh, when will these childbearing years end?”

Of course, so many, even in the Christian church, they only have a very short childbearing time. They only have one or two. Oh, that is so terrible! I think in those years, and we are in our childbearing years until we reach menopause. People say, “Oh, so you get pregnant when you're in your thirties.” They’re just astounded! But no! We can get pregnant in our 40’s. How old were you when you had your last baby?

Allison: I was 45.

Nancy: Yes, 45. They say that current statistics are that most women are infertile by the time they’re about 45. But you know, people can get pregnant later than that. It’s all up to the Lord, because He’s in charge.

But we need to embrace our childbearing years because they’re going to end! They’re going to end. Help! It’s been well over 35 years or more since I went through menopause. And look at all these years! Goodness me! So many of those years I still dreamed of having another baby to nurse. Then I did the crazy thing of taking a pregnancy test at 70! Remember?

Allison: I remember you doing that. [laughter]

Nancy: Thinking I was pregnant! I was so nauseated. Thinking I was pregnant. “Oh well, let’s take one!” Of course, Colin and I were so sad when it was negative! [laughter] But I think we make the most of every season. We make the most of our childbearing years. We don’t let them run away on us. We don’t say “No” to God. Then we embrace every baby He wants to give us.

But then, when those years end, OK. Then we have this new season, when our marriages should always be flourishing. But then we can have time to make them FLOURISH EVEN MORE!

Allison: One thing I’m always . . . I don’t know if I’ve ever met someone who’s ever said, “I regret having more children.” No one’s ever said that. No one. We were talking last night how you, Miss Nancy, are kind of famous throughout the world. Well, our big family is kind of famous in our town.

We’re known because we take all the school pictures. People know who we are. We take that seriously because people are watching us like a hawk. Of course, a lot of people probably want us to fall on our faces, so they can pick us apart. But the one thing that I think is interesting is that we’re known because we have eleven children. People think that’s interesting. Interesting. Maybe not something they admire, but no, I think some do admire it.

In fact, I recently got awarded WOMAN OF THE YEAR in our town. It’s kind of funny, because it’s a small town. But one thing that they noticed that they said in my speech where they were introducing me, they kept mentioning that “She’s a mother of many. She’s a grandmother now.” I thought I would get the award because of my community involvement but they didn’t mention that as much, even though we do serve our community a lot. But they did mention a lot about my being a mother.

Because of that acknowledgement, I get a lot of private messages, and a lot of comments on my Facebook post. Almost always, it was, “Man, I regret not having more children! I admire you so much.” Many people are not “I want eleven children,” but most of them that are already past the time, they will say, “I wish I had had more. I wish I had let God be.”

I need to stop and say to everyone who’s listening, just because you allow God to choose the size of your family doesn’t mean you're going to have eleven children. I think that’s probably one of the biggest misconceptions of Above Rubies, that people will say you're all about the numbers. It’s not.

Nancy: Right.

Allison: It’s the idea of just trusting God and that number can be one. That number could be zero. That number could be eleven, or that number could be 19. I just had to say that you never hear people say, “Gosh, I’m so glad I only had two children!” They always say, “I wish I had trusted God, and I had filled my house.” They look at us in an admiring way, like, “I want that.” We couldn’t do what our family does, which is run several successful businesses, if it wasn’t for our family size.

Nancy: That’s true! Oh, yes!

Allison: It’s impossible. We photograph 70 schools, and our competition in our town, I ran into her at the dentist’s office. We’re amiable with her. She said, “I have to ask you. How do you do it? How do you photograph 70 schools? It’s impossible because the numbers don’t line up. You can’t be at that many schools at once.”

I said, “Well, I birthed all my employees! And it’s true! We’re at three different schools at once because of my children. My older children run our crews.” She’s like, “Oooooohhh!” I think she has one child, and I think she’s adopted. I don’t put her down for that, but my point is, you can do so many greater things with a big crew!

Nancy: And that’s the thing. They think, “Oh, I will limit my family so I can do this and this and this!”

Allison: Oh, no!

Nancy: The opposite is so true! You do far more than they can even think. You influence the world more. But as we close, let’s just read the Scriptures. Psalm 92. It’s a picture of those who are getting older. It says here in verse 12: “The righteous shall FLOURISH like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall FLOURISH in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and FLOURISHING.”

I think that’s a beautiful testimony of our marriages, that they shouldn’t get boring and dry and old. That is a sad thing, because there are many people who get into their middle age, and to tell you the truth, they are so boring! You hear that they’re starting to go into single beds!? I beg your pardon.

Allison: Oh, I know.

Nancy: Then they end up in separate rooms? What has happened? They’re meant to be a married couple! Oh, I love that Scripture in the Song of Solomon, because the Song of Solomon is about the husband and the wife. Of course, it can also be a picture of Christ and His bride.

But it says there, the husband is talking to his wife. He says: “Our bed is green.” You notice it says: our bed”? It doesn’t say “our beds.” “Our bed is green.” The word “green” there means “luxuriant” and “life-giving” and “verdant.”

“Verdant” is a very bright, lush green. Did you know there’s a difference in greens? We have beautiful green lawns here in America. They look lovely and green. We have green trees and green vegetables.

But you know, when I go back down to New Zealand (one day you've got to come with us). I go down to New Zealand, and my eyes are freaked again, because everything’s greener! It’s something about the ozone layer down there that makes everything green.

Of course, it’s worse for the sun. I grew up as a child with freckles and sunburn and blisters because the sun was so strong, even though you didn’t think it was. It wasn’t hot. But it was just this strong sunlight. It grows this green, and I go back, and it’s so green! It’s that luxuriant, verdant green.

That’s how we are meant to be in our marriages, in our relationship in our marriages, in even our bedroom in our marriages. Some people may have a green bedspread, but you don’t have to have a green bedspread. You just have to have a green bed that is always FRESH and EXCITING and LUXURIANT, and never boring or dry. What do you say?

Allison: Absolutely! We were just joking, because we went to this hotel room in Fort Myers, and we were both so sore after our procedures. We got a bedroom with one bed, because we didn’t need the two beds. We got in this bed, and we were both so miserable, because we were still stiff from our procedures. We both had it done.

The next night we said, “Let’s get two beds. It’s the same price.” So, we got our bedroom with two beds. He slept in one and I slept in the other. We just stared at each other. I was like, “Wow! This is what most married couples probably do when they’re old!” It was the first time in 27 years we’d ever slept in separate beds! And in that situation, I was so happy to have my space!

He woke up the next morning, and he was diagonally in the bed. He had taken over the whole thing. I was like, “OK, we’re not doing this ever again!” But no, I can’t even imagine. I can’t. But it’s very common.

Nancy: Well, I think you love a . . .

Allison: We love a king bed!

Nancy: Because you've had all your children sleeping with you! I can remember when we had, not just a queen, but what do you call it here?

Allison: A double.

Nancy: We only had a double bed, and all the children would come in. I don’t know how we fitted them in, but we did. But now, even now, the other day I said to Colin, “Come in and help me make this king-sized bed.” It’s good to have someone on the other side. I said to him, “Darling, I’m so glad we don’t have a king-sized bed! I would never find you!”

Allison: [laughter] That’s right. That’s right!

Nancy: We hardly move from one another all night.

Allison: That’s so good.

Nancy: “Oh Father, we just thank You so much that You are our God. Thank You that we can talk about all these things. Thank You for all the wonderful young mothers listening, that You will bless them, Lord, and help them to embrace this glorious season of their lives, which goes so quickly.

“And, Lord, all the older mothers listening, I pray that You will bless them and pour out Your Spirit upon them. Lord, that You will give them such a new vision for their marriages, to make them so glorious and lush and fresh and green and alive. Lord God, that You will save them from boringness and staleness. I pray that You will do a beautiful thing in their lives. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Allison: Amen. Amen.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 334: Should Christians Attend A Taylor Swift Concert?

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 3Epi334pic34: Should Christians Attend a Taylor Swift Concert?

Allison Hartman from Pensacola joins me today, and we talk about the thousands of people attending the Taylor Swift concerts, including loads of Christian mother and daughters. But should Christians attend or not? What do you think?

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Here we are, and if you are listening to this podcast on the day it comes out, which is the 5th  of November, election day, well, actually I am recording this session on Friday, but it’s coming to you on Tuesday morning. So, if you are listening now, it’s right on election day. I hope you voted! If you haven’t, can an I encourage you to do everything in your power to vote today?

And, I have no compunction in saying, “Please vote for Trump.” I say that because I am desperate for this nation, for the saving of this nation. We know that Kamela and Waltz are on a whole different wavelength. They’re taking this country down a road of extreme socialism and communism. There will be, if they get in, there will begin to be a much greater persecution of Christians in this county, which is already beginning.

I have with me today, Allison Hartman. Now Allison and Daniel are the ones who do all the Above Rubies family retreats down in Panama, Florida. Every time Allison turns up, we do a podcast together. I didn’t even know she was turning up! In fact, it’s the ladies’ retreat for Tennessee this weekend, so of course, all the Hartman ladies have come up.

Last night, it was Halloween, and we were going to go to a nearby town and sing hymns in the square in the town. But it started to pour with rain, plus suddenly, Allison and her girls turned up! That was so exciting. So, instead we had dinner together.

Now Allison is here, and we thought, “Wow! Let’s do a podcast today,” because as soon as the retreat is finished, they’ll be heading back to Florida, to make sure they can vote on Tuesday, which will be today, if you're listening as this podcast comes out. Say “Hi,” Allison!

Allison: So happy to be here! One of my favorite things to do. We get to talking, and we come up with all kinds of topics.

Nancy: Yes! Yes! As I said, ladies, if you haven’t voted, a no-vote is a vote for Kamela, and for her vice-president. They are on a whole different level. It is not a godly way at all. We know that maybe Trump is not the godliest man, but we are not voting for a pastor.

We are voting for a man who has the anointing and ability to lead this country and to lead it aways from communism, and to lead it back to our roots, and back to the Constitution. For he loves this country and loves the Constitution. He has, as he proved in the four years he was in when there were no wars, he has the power to work with international countries. He has that power.

In fact, I often think of that Scripture in Psalm 89 where God was talking about David. It says: “I have laid My hand upon a warrior.” Then it goes on to say: “This is My David, who I am raising up to be king of Israel.” When God was looking for a king for His people, and a man who would be able to fight the wars and fight the enemies all around . . . God gave him that power to fight their enemies and bring peace to Israel so when his son Solomon came in, it would be a peaceful reign where they could build the temple. David was the one who wanted to build the temple He had such a heart and passion after God. But God said, “No, David. You’ve shed too much blood. You have been in too many wars. I am going to choose your son to build the temple, and it will be in a reign of peace.” But when God was looking for that man, He didn’t choose just a man who looked so good and right. No, He chose a warrior! He needed a warrior, and we need a warrior in this hour.

Talking about persecution, even now there are people in jail, in prison right now, who have been standing up against abortion. When Biden came in, he put in this FACE Act, which stands for, in case you don’t know, it stands for “Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances.” They call it the FACE Act. They brought this in so that anyone standing up at an abortion clinic could be arrested.

I’ve already done a number of podcasts with Bethany Vaughn. You’ll know how her husband was arrested by the FBI early in the morning. Then eventually it came to his time in court. Praise the Lord, because there was so much intervention (thousands of people wrote and stood up for him), he only got house arrest which was amazing. He was looking at ten-and-a-half years in prison.

But we have others who are in prison right at this moment. About two or three weeks ago, Cal Zastrow, who was at the same time as Paul Vaughn, went to prison. He’s in prison now for six months.

But then, a couple of weeks ago, this black lady (even a black lady, they’re not even stopping at the blacks),  Beverly Williams, a beautiful black mother, was protesting in 2020. Now recently she had her court date. She is in prison for three-and-a-half years just for standing up for life.

Imagine, imagine, if we had Kamela and Tim Waltz coming in who believe, and their paradigm is that you can abort right up to the last moment. If the baby was set for abortion, well, you just leave that baby to die. How much more persecution will there be?

In fact, I’d love to read you a poem that Cal Zastrow, who is an older man. (Hold is he, Chloe? Chloe is my Above Rubies helper. It’s so wonderful to see this beautiful young girl who has such a heart for life, and who has been praying and standing up with these people being arrested. How old is he? [response in background] He’s 70. Wow! And he is there, in prison!

But before he went to prison, he wrote these words. I’d love to share them with you. Actually, Chloe brought this poem from him and gave it to me. He took it from those famous words of Hiram Mann, who wrote back in the 1800’s. He wrote:

No man survives when freedom fails,

The best of men rot in filthy jails;

And those who cry ‘Appease, Appease!’

Are hanged by men they tried to please.

Very powerful words, because there are so many who, through the fear of man, are too scared to say a word. They will just give in to what is happening. But they don’t realize that it will all come back upon them because these people who want to come into power don’t care. They’re going to make happen what they want to happen which is no longer our USA but a whole new world order. Anyway, here are these words Cal Zastrow wrote:

 

No one’s safe when Christians are lukewarm,

When we look away from the coming storm.

Instead of being courage-filled,

We won’t rescue the babies getting killed.

 

No one’s safe when Christians won’t pray,

While we play and stray, refusing to obey.

Instead of volunteering for God’s will,

Our sweat and blood we won’t risk to spill.

 

No one’s safe while Christians hide,

Not standing in the gap against evil’s tide.

Short-sighted, we’re at ease in Zion,

Compromise has left America dying.

 

No one’s safe when Christians are slow starters,

Not prepared for persecution, forgetting faithful martyrs.

But suffering and sacrifice are part of the way

To be prepared for Judgement Day.

 

No one’s safe when Christians shun the cross,

Committed to things, afraid for their loss.

While we love our face, and our place,

We’ve been living under false grace.

 

No one’s safe when Christians hide His Light,

While we refuse to care, ignoring the spiritual flight.

Our own comfort is our goal.

Seeking pleasure, not a pure soul.

 

No one’s safe when Christians won’t be His salt,

For we pretend that we’re not at fault.

Accepting, instead of crucifying sin,

We’re kind of conflicted, so we won’t win.

 

No one’s safe when Christians live in fear,

Making safety an idol, our lives too dear.

Stop listening to the world a-callin’,

Jesus is Lord, Babylon is fallen!

 

No one’s safe while Christians live for survival.

Come on, get up! Let’s trust God for revival!

Repent! Throw off this lethargic spell!

Let’s go storm the gates of hell!

 

We’ll all be blessed when Christians arise,

Living by faith and not by lies.

Our salvation is not from Uncle Sam.

Join me now in shouting, “Worthy is the Lamb!”

 

The solution to our problems now?

Eyes on Jesus, hands on the plow.

No compromises, just press the attack.

Eyes on Jesus, no looking back!

That’s what Cal Zastrow wrote as he was on the eve of going to prison where he is now, a 70-year-old man. But he went there saying, “Well, this is where God has me now. This is His mission for me now.” Those are the same words as this woman, this black woman named Beverly Williams. Let’s pray for her. She had to leave her little toddler at home. Her husband is a single father while she is in prison. But she’s now looking at it as a mission.

But these are just, oh, just the surface of how they are trying to eradicate those who are standing for truth. So, folks, please vote! If you haven’t, you’ve just got to! What do you say, Allison?

Allison: Oh, absolutely! It’s the talk of our family, the talk of our home right now. It’s all we talk about. We stayed up and watched Trump’s rally at MSU the other night for six hours. From our four-year-old all the way up, we’ve got to have them, this has to be such a topic of the family. This can’t be just you and your husband talking about this.

All of your children need to be excited about the day they get to vote. It’s such a privilege. It’s such a responsibility. It amazes me to see the number of believers who are in the no-voting department. “We’re just not going to vote. It’s too bad. There’s nothing that’s going to be solved. We’ve just got to pray!” Absolutely we have to pray! But pray while you're voting.

Nancy: Yes, we have to pray and vote. The statistics are, they said, 40 million Christians are non-voting. Some say 33 million. Well, either statistic is bad enough, because those Christians could save the nation!

Allison: Absolutely!

Nancy: Oh yes! I don’t know what will happen, ladies. I know many of you are living in other countries. I know many in other countries are crying out to God like we are here, because what happens here will affect the whole world. We’ve all got to be praying. Pray today, and vote today. But yes, I’m a great believer in prayer. We have two prayer meetings a week for the nation, plus we’re praying morning and evening at our family devotions.

But I wonder, my greatest longing and prayer is that God will have mercy upon us, and that Trump will be voted in. I believe if there’s no cheating he will be. But I know that they’re trying to cheat again. They have many plans up their sleeve, trying to get this election, even if it’s fraudulent. That’s why we keep praying. Many people are saying, “Just make it TOO BIG TO RIG!” If enough people vote, their cheating won’t work.

But then, on the other hand, I look at what is happening in this country. The evil, the abortions, the millions of murders, because every abortion is a murder. This transgenderism, absolutely mocking God in His face at the way He created us, the worldliness of even the so-called Christians. You were telling me last night about what happened down there where you live. Tell us about it.

THE TAYLOR SWIFT CONCERT!

Allison: Yeah, it was hard not to see the irony of the fact that, in our family right now, that’s all we’re talking about and all we’re praying about is the election. But yet, when I look on my Facebook feed (and just to give some background), I would say most of my Facebook friends, if you will, are fellow believers, professing Christian families, some homeschooling, some not.

But in my world of circle of friends, it’s mainly Christians. I tend to shy away from those who are obviously against what I believe. And yet, my feed, my Facebook feed, was completely full of posts about this Taylor Swift concert they were all going to. I couldn’t believe it!

Almost every other post was of fellow Christian mothers going to New Orleans, because we live in Pensacola, so that was three hours, spending between $400-$600 all the way up to a couple of thousand dollars for tickets, spending probably hundreds of dollars on their outfits, booking hotel rooms. I read today that some people were spending up to the $10,000 range on this weekend with their girls at a Taylor Swift concert.

Not only is their attention diverted from what’s really going on in our country, for which we should be on our faces constantly in prayer, but not only is their attention diverted, but their money is being spent. You can say what you want about, “Well, I’m just going for the beat.” Or, “I’m just going for the experience.” But if you're putting money into this concert, then you're invested. You’ve got a dog in the fight. You’re involved. You’re not just watching it from the sidelines.

Nancy: Wow! That makes me think! Help! I could be putting out Above Rubies so much more if these same Christians really wanted to bless the families of this nation instead of wasting their money on a very worldly concert.

By the way, ladies, the new issue is out. Praise the Lord! Last Tuesday we sent out all the singles across America. Now the company is packaging for the people who get two, or three, or five, or eight, or sixteen. Then, when they have finished, they all come to our place where we send out all the big orders, from 20 upwards. Many, many people get 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 and more magazines because they have a vision to share the message, and get out this magazine that will bring truth and encouragement and inspiration to families, to marriages, to mothers, which really is the foundation of the nation!

And here I’ve been languishing, and praying, and waiting to get out a magazine. It is a whole year since I got out a magazine, waiting for the finances to come in. Now I have paid for the initial ones to go out, but I’ve still got to believe God for all these bulk ones to send out, and then to pay for the printing, because I have the money for the printing, but then I’ve spent it all on the postage! Now I’ve got to believe God for that and get it somehow to pay the printers. When I hear from you that a mother and a daughter will spend up to that much, wow, the money is there!

Allison: Sure.

Nancy: I’m thinking, oh, is everybody out of money? Help! Oh, Lord God! Let’s get our priorities straight!

Allison: Until I started digging in, because I really am not aware, I’m not familiar with Taylor Swift, but I’m thinking that if someone, if a young singer has 80 million followers, 80 million followers on Facebook, she’s probably a big deal. That’s a big deal.

Nancy: How many followers does Trump have?

Allison: Trump has 10 million.

Nancy: How many does Kamela have?

Allison: Five million.

Nancy: Wow! So, she’s more popular than they are, and they’re going to be leading the nation.

Allison: The weekend of the Trump rally at MSU, which was a substantial showing, I think they had 25,000 present for the Trump rally, and about 75,000 just outside. But the same weekend, Taylor Swift brought in 65,000 to her concert. One article I read said she brought in $200 million to New Orleans in a three-day period of time. Another article said $500 million. So, between $200 and $500 million brought into a city for moms and daughters to come and have an experience.

Here’s the thing. None of her music is of Christ! None! You’re either for Him, or you're against Him. There is no in-between. You can’t serve two masters. We know that. It’s what Scripture teaches. You cannot serve two masters. If you're a fellow Christian mother and you're arguing in your head right now, or out loud, saying, “I can go to a Taylor Swift concert and I can praise Jesus on Sunday,” you can’t. It’s impossible. YOU CANNOT SERVE MASTERS!

So, you're going to this Taylor Swift concert, having this great, wonderful girl-time with your daughter. You are not serving Christ in that concert, because Taylor Swift doesn’t stand for Christ. None of her lyrics stand for Christ. I won’t even go far as to say what people are saying about her being a part of the occult or her music being completely devil-worship. It probably is. I don’t know enough about it to say that, but if you just want to base your opinion on what she wears during her concert, let’s start there.

Nancy: Yes, after you talked about her (I’d never bothered to look her up in my life) but  I thought, “Help! I’d better look at this.” So, last night I checked her out on Instagram and every outfit she wore, they’re actually sort of a two-piece. There’s the pants and a bra. And the pants come just barely . . .  in fact you can see her bottom in most of the photos.

Are so-called Christian mothers taking their daughters to this? I was talking to someone, and they said, “Well, she’s not dressed as badly as many female entertainers.” That would be true, because some are showing just about everything. You think of Madonna. But it’s still not godly! It’s nothing to do with godliness! It’s the opposite. It is the world.

Why are Christian mothers taking their daughters to be influenced by the world? I was reading, let’s see, where did I read this little quote? It talks about her latest album. It says, “Eleven of the 31 songs contain an “E” under the album’s description which stands for ‘Explicit.’” Several songs have the . . . I don’t even like saying it. I don’t even like saying the letter! That word . . . included within the lyrics.

Another statement says that “The album is full of minor quips that elevate Swift above God, while also featuring two songs devoted to tearing down the Christian sexual ethic.” So, where are we? I think, “Oh God, we’re crying out to have mercy upon our nation,” but it’s different if the ungodly and the secular are living like this, and this is what they want.

But what of the godly? Where are we? It says Jesus is coming for a bride that is without any spot or blemish or any such thing. We are not there if these are so-called Christian mothers. What does it say? 1 Timothy 2:19: “Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal.” The seal, the seal is our proof of our citizenship in heaven. We have a seal. The Word of God gives many Scriptures about the seal. When we have the seal, we know that we have eternal life.

But what is this seal? It says: “The Lord knoweth them that are His. Let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” If we name the name of Christ, we will depart from iniquity. So how is it that people who do, they say . . . help, I don’t know how they say it . . .  they say they name the name of Christ and yet they go to, and even take their daughters too.

What is in their critique? It’s not holiness. It doesn’t line up with the Bible. It is all the flesh. It is all the spirit of the world. Oh, since you said this, I haven’t stopped being so grieved. I wouldn’t be grieved if it was all against the world. But those 80 million followers are not all the world. Half of them are Christians!

Allison: I think the dangerous part of this Swiftie generation . . .  this is what she’s called. They’re called “Swifties.” I think the dangerous part is that it’s such a slippery slope. It’s such a situation of boiling the frog. You don’t see it because she covers it with a message of love.

Even her symbol, you put your fingers together and make the sign of a heart. She’s delivering a message of love which is what this generation wants. Everybody’s looking for love! Which is so ironic because that is Jesus’s message. But it’s hard to put your finger on if you're a mother, and you're just not sure you understand why this is so bad.

I read this Scripture today when I was thinking about why this is so bad. It’s in Luke 17. It’s when Jesus says to His disciples: “Temptations are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come.” I read that, and I thought, “That’s talking about Taylor Swift, but it’s not, necessarily.

I want to say this. “It’s better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he was cast into the sea, than cause one of these to stumble” (Luke 17:2). I found you mothers, that’s you, if you're taking your daughter to these concerts, you're also causing these little ones to stumble, because when these young girls, I don’t care who you are, but if you're looking at this amazing 80-million-followers, gorgeous woman up there in these outfits, you're going to want to dress like that. If you're the mother taking them, you're causing your little ones to stumble because they’re going to want to dress like her. They’re going to want to follow her.

I challenge you to rethink your thinking. This is a slippery slope to destruction. We have to have a clear line in the sand, a clear line in the sand where we’re not having one foot in the world and one foot in the church. There are no feet that need to be at a Taylor Swift concert because there is nothing of God at that concert. Therefore, we don’t need to be there at all. You can’t justify it by saying she has a great beat and she dances well. She probably does, but it’s not for Christ.

Nancy: That’s so true. I was just reading this morning in Leviticus, and this was when they were going into the promised land. God said to His people in Leviticus 20:24: “But I have said unto you, you shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it. A land that floweth with milk and honey. I am the Lord Your God, which have separated you from other people.”

The people of Israel were a type of who we are today, His people. He set them apart from every other nation. He separated them. We go to verse 26: “And ye shall be holy unto Me, for I, the Lord, am holy and have severed you.”

The King James uses the word “severed” this time. I think it’s a more powerful word than “separated.” But actually, in the Hebrew, it is the same word both times. But whether you say “separated,” or “severed,” it does mean “severed from the spirit of this world.” “For I have severed you from other people that ye should be Mine.” God is a jealous God. We either belong to Him or we belong to the devil.

Allison: That’s right!

Nancy: OK, we can say we name the name of Christ but going along with that is that we “depart from iniquity.” What does Jesus say in the Sermon on the Mount? “There will be many who come to Him saying, ‘Lord, Lord, I’ve done many wonderful things in Your Name!’ He says, ‘But I never knew you. Depart from Me.’” Oh my.

What does it say over in 1 John 2:15-17: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life are not of the world.” I’ve just got to go there and I must finish it. “And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof. But he that doeth the will of God, abideth forever.”

If we are truly following Jesus, following His way, we will not love the world. We will hate the things of this world. What else does it say in Hebrews 12:14? “Follow peace with all men, for without holiness, no man shall see the Lord.” I think we just can’t go on with this kind of so-called Christian life. We can’t go to every worldly concert and go to all these worldly movies and say that we belong to Christ. It doesn’t add up!

Allison: I was just thinking, when I was growing up, like a lot of young girls, we desired love above everything. All I wanted was the love of my father. I got into a trap where I was so attracted to any influence that would make me feel a part of them, loved, or whatever.

In my day, in my era, it was Madonna. Madonna was so the thing. But yet, Madonna made the mistake of being so disgusting and raunchy that even the Christian moms were like, “Stay away from her!” But I remember wanting to be like her, in a weird way, even though I was raised in a Christian home.

But anyway, what I was thinking with this whole thing, if you're a mom sitting here listening, going, “How do I shift my daughter’s desire for that?” You and I were talking downstairs. Where do we go from this? What’s the positive side of this?

I think the positive is, we’re living in a majorly social-media-influencing world. Our children are . . . We all can agree that at a certain age, our children’s peers are even more powerful than us as parents. But social media influencers, oh! I don’t even know what their influencers are. I’m not going to pretend to know.

But I do know that if you're a parent of a child, and you've allowed them to have a smart phone, then you're allowing them all the influences in the world. We have to ask ourselves, “What influences to we want our children to be influenced by?”

If you're not asking that question, you're foolish, because they’re going to choose influences, and they’re not going to be good. These influencers are way smarter than your children. They know exactly what to say. I was thinking, our family, we’re very tight on tablets and phones.

Nancy: Your 18-year-old son doesn’t own a smart phone!

Allison: Right. We have flip phones for the 18-year-old and the 16-year-old, but even we made the mistake of getting an Amazon Kindle so that we could do homeschool. Sadly, our boys were prey to YouTube, by just watching a few YouTube videos.

They were completely obsessed with fishing. They were watching fishing videos and within a few videos, it went from fishing to pornography. Why? It’s because YouTube, the influence of YouTube is so smart. It’s so destructive and it wants my children’s hearts. It knew exactly how old they were, what they were into. It led them down that path of destruction.

Nancy: They didn’t get into it, did they?

Allison: Well, no! Because we’re so aware of what’s going on. We snatched it as quickly as we could. But I’m telling you, what do parents do who aren’t paying attention to their children, who are sitting in their bedrooms at night on their phones for hours? I can assure you that your children are looking at pornography.

I can assure you that they’re being influenced by the influencers. We have got to recognize it, but then we have to essentially choose our children’s peers and their influences. You might say, “Well, that sounds awfully controlling.” Absolutely! I am all about intentionally choosing my children’s influences.

Nancy: Exactly.

Allison: And I’m not apologetic about it. You have to be! You’ve got to fight for your children’s hearts.

Nancy: Amen! What does Proverbs 13:20 say? I raised my children on this Scripture. “He that walks with wise men will be wise. But a companion of fools will be destroyed.” Of course, social media is going to take them down a foolish path. As you have said, Allison, we’ve got to watch their peers, who our children are with. And, of course, harking back to this concert, if you're taking them to that, you're just saying, “Oh, my lovely, beautiful daughters, this is the way I want you to live! I want you to be in the world, to dress like that!” What are we even thinking?

Allison: Go to the homeschool prom, because that sounds really good and sweet and fun, and you're going to make memories if you go to homeschool prom! But then you look around, and every girl there is exposing all their parts and causing boys to lust after them. You fathers, you mothers who are buying these dresses, shame on you! You’re literally causing boys to lust after your daughter!

Nancy: Now, of course, Allison is speaking from experience.

Allison: Absolutely!

Nancy: They are perhaps the main photographers back in Pensacola where they live. They do all the worldly stuff. And you do the homeschooling stuff. What I can’t believe is you tell me you go to these homeschooling proms, and you can’t believe that the dresses are the same as the public school!

Allison: There’s no difference.

Nancy: Showing all their cleavage and everything! I beg your pardon! How can a godly mother let her daughter out of the house looking like that? It’s unbelievable. And then you show me, oh no! It was Michelle, showing me some pictures of a homeschooling celebration, and she knew all these people.

I can’t believe this! You know what? They were all looking just about (not quite as bad) as Taylor Swift. They all had these . . . These were supposed to be their beautiful, what do you call it? The celebration, whatever it is (graduation drwess). I would have thought they’d want to come in beautiful, long flowing gowns.

Allison: No, no.

Nancy: No, they wore little tight, tight dresses that just barely covered their bottoms! But you know what? They all looked so ugly. They looked so ugly, but they were exposing themselves.

I can’t believe it! Where is the standard in our homeschooling and in the church today? But you know what? We’re going well over time, aren’t we? We’ve kind of got stirred up! [laughter] We can’t even believe what’s happening in the so-called Christian church! Oh, goodness me! Woo!

Allison: Yes. If you're thinking you’re your daughter’s friend by allowing them to wear what’s popular, you're not befriending them, because no friend would do that. No friend would allow them to wear something that is going to cause someone else to lust after them.

I know it sounds so, especially people who don’t know me. “Oh, you probably let your daughters go around wearing blankets!” No! My girls dress so cute and modest and trendy! We love dressing cool. But you don’t have to expose your daughter’s body.

Nancy: No! Absolutely not! That spoils the whole dress. Oh, wow! But you know, it’s not even beautiful! Anyway, dear precious ladies, we’ve just been pouring forth our passion here against the spirit of the world! But let’s leave you on a positive note.

Oh, may we all just choose holiness. Go after holiness, “after which no man will see the Lord.” Let’s raise our children, our sons and daughters, to be holy sons and daughters. Do you know, it’s not a, what would be the word? A boring thing to be holy. No, holiness is beautiful.

BEAUTY AND HOLINESS ARE TWINS

In fact, the Word of God says: “Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” Beauty and holiness are twins. Holiness is beautiful. God loves beauty! So, we are not in any way saying, “Oh, we have to become these drab, boring people.” No! But we have to be holy people, and raise holy sons and daughters, and establish holy homes in this world. Amen? Let’s pray.

“Oh, dear Father, You tell us in Your Word to love righteousness and hate evil. Lord, actually it says, ‘Abhor evil.’ That word means ‘to shudder at it.’ Lord, we pray that You’ll save us from getting used to evil, getting used to even looking at women dressing with cleavage’, and all their short dresses that show off the flesh.

“Lord God, it’s not holy. Maybe trendy, but it’s not holy. Help us not to get used to what is the spirit and fashion of the world, but, oh God, to seek after holiness, to raise our children in holiness.

“Oh Father, we cry out, Lord. We cry out for this nation, for the people of God in this nation. We know there are so many godly people, but there are so many Christians who are on the fence. They name the name of Christ, but are living ungodly lives, fleshly lives.

“Lord God, You said in Your Word that the seal is, ‘He that names the Name of Christ will depart from iniquity.’ Oh Father, we pray that You will come by the power of Your Spirit, and, Lord God, that You will, oh Father, bring a great repentance to the church in this hour. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.”

Allison: Amen.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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DON’T FORGET TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THESE PODCASTS AND TRANSCRIPTS.

“LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell, Above Rubies”

DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF.

 

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 333: Help! I’m Terrified of Needles and Childbirth! Part 3

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 3Epi333pic33: Help! I’m Terrified of Needles and Childbirth! Part 3

The final episode of the birthing of Genevieve’s 11 children. Hear how God showed her how to birth her 12lbs. 6 oz. baby, who came forth with his little hand up by his face. Hear how she learned to overcome fear which continually tried to succumb her.

Hear how she learned to PRACTICALLY EXPERIENCE the Scripture that “Perfect love casts out fear.” She faced her greatest fear in her last birth, and yet ended in victory. You will be strengthened and encouraged as you hear her amazing story.

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies. Here we are again today, again with Genevieve, because we haven’t finished her story yet. She’s just about to tell you how she got victory in the last birth that we were talking about. She’s also going to share the rest of her births with us today. I don’t even know yet what’s going to happen until Genevieve shares with us! OK, over to you, Genevieve!

Genevieve: Well, thank you again for having me, Nancy. Just to recap, when I was a child, I was frightened of childbirth. I used to say, “I’m not going to have any children if I get married! I’ll just adopt them all.”

Nancy: And you had this fear of needles!

Genevieve: Yes, I did. The whole works! The Lord just worked in me. I was a Christian, and as I grew and matured, I really began to think that, no if God is a good God and His creation is good, then His plans are good. And so this plan also for childbirth and womanhood is also a good plan. I had some ups and downs at first, just getting onboard with His plan, and how it was all supposed to go and all supposed to run. But the Lord kept leading me back to peace and freedom from fear.

I’ve had 11 pregnancies. With my first, I had a post-partum hemorrhage and nearly died, and with my fifth, another very big post-partum hemorrhage and I nearly died. With my sixth, I also had a post-partum hemorrhage, but it was managed beautifully and was not so dangerous.

But the trauma from the fifth really created a new fear in me as I would get closer and closer and closer to my delivery date that I was really struggling to overcome. I would go into my room, and I would meditate on Scripture and be at peace. Then I’d stand up, and the fear would just wash back over me again.

So, this next part of my story, this is my seventh pregnancy. It’s here that, just through a very simple biblical concept, the Lord finally helped me to gain complete victory over the fear. I’m really excited to share this part of the story with you.

Twenty months later, after I’d had Sophie, I’m now in labor with Adele. Distressing to me was that this fear that I’d experienced, the heavy weight that I’d experienced during Sophie’s pregnancy came back again. Again, I’d meditate on Scripture. I’d gird myself with truth. I’d guard against the lies of the devil, and I’d remind myself of the promises of God. Peace would come and the fear would disappear, but as soon as I’d stand up, the fear would just come right back down and wash over me.

I want to say that doing all those things is still a good strategy. God’s Word is powerful, like a two-edged sword that never returns to Him void. This is something I do to deal with fear most of the time during my life.

But for some reason, for whatever reason, the Lord wanted me to keep digging deeper for a solution to the fear in this instance. Even though I wasn’t able, through that, at that point, to gain lasting freedom from the fear, something needed to be done. Something was done. The Lord was so gracious. I bought a little booklet called Fear by Lou Priolo. I’d never heard of Lou Priolo, but he’s a biblical counselor.

Nancy: How do you spell the last name?

Genevieve: His first name is L-O-U, Lou, and his last name, Priolo, is P-R-I-O-L-O. He’s a biblical counselor, a Nouthetic counselor. He’s written so many wonderful books on people-pleasing, on manipulation, on discontentment, selfishness, and laziness, and all sorts of wonderful things. I love everything I’ve read by him. I’ve absolutely loved it because it’s so practical! He just gets right into the Scripture and pulls out these gems for you.

But in this book on fear, the verse he focused on was: “Perfect love casts out fear.” This is that simple, biblical concept. In his little book, which is probably about 50 pages long, he talked about how he had a fear of the dentist. When he had to go to the dentist, he would break out in a cold sweat. He was so terrified of going to the dentist.

There was this one time where he couldn’t avoid it. He had to go. He thought, “How am I going to deal with this fear?” And he thought, “‘Perfect love casts out fear.’ OK, I’m going to show love.” And he began to think in his mind, “OK, when I get there and I meet with the dentist, and there’s his assistant, and the dental hygienist, OK, how can I show love to these people? Smiling, maybe opening my mouth as wide as it can go.” Whatever the things he thought of.

He found that as he was thinking loving thoughts, the fear just disappeared. I thought, “Oh, yes! I have got to do this too! I’ve got to implement this strategy.” So, I did. As the time for delivering Adele drew nearer and nearer and the fear was descending, I began to think about how specifically to show love to the children and how to show love to Pete.

Pete’s mum was always our support person. She has been our support person at all the births. She’s been there at all of the births, so how to show love to her? I began planning and strategizing how to show love to the doctors and the midwives at the hospital. I tell you what, when love was switched on, fear was just switched off and it stayed off! I was now free! You know, the strategy worked when it came to needles?

Nancy: Whoa!

Genevieve: If I ever had to have my blood drawn, or an IV put in, I would just think about how to show love to that person. The fear would switch off and I wouldn’t be afraid anymore. It worked with regard to the delivery.

So, I went to the hospital in labor with Adele, free of fear. When I got to the hospital, my labor stopped. The anesthetist really struggled to put in the two IV lines that I needed. She couldn’t get them into my hands, so I actually ended up with two IV lines in my elbows. I don’t know if you've ever had IV lines in your elbows, but now I had to hold my arms straight. I couldn’t bend my arms because of the IV lines.

Nancy: How do you hold on to anything?

Genevieve:[laughter] This was really going to hamper my labor and delivery, because I can’t bend my arms. I could have felt really sorry for myself at that point, but I had this new strategy, and I was determined to implement it. I was determined to focus on the staff, to remember that my history (by this stage, I’d had three significant hemorrhages. Out of the six births, four times I’ve hemorrhaged, half the time I’ve ended up in the operating room).

Just to remember that my history can be really intimidating, and to think and plan about how I could make this delivery as pleasant an experience for the doctors and nurses as I could. That was just a great thing. As I thought about that, my labor picked up again. I kept active on a gym ball and made regular trips to the restroom.

Six hours after I arrived at the hospital, my water broke. Same situation as with Sophie. They asked me to hop up on the bed so I could be examined, and she just shot right out! She was 10 lbs. 7 oz., so she was basically the same size as Sophie. I’m just laying there flat on my back, and she just comes right out, born within minutes. Well, the placenta came out quickly and I did not bleed.

Nancy: Praise the Lord!

Genevieve: Yes, I’ve got seven children, eight years and under and this time I can go home and just rest. And then jump right back into the saddle and not have this huge rest time that you need after a hemorrhage. After a couple of weeks rest, I could jump right back into the saddle and be Mom again. It was wonderful.

Nancy: What a wonderful birth!

Genevieve: So, this concept that perfect love casts out fear, I walked that verse then through all the rest of my labors and deliveries. It did the trick. That debilitating fear never came back again.

Nancy: Praise the Lord! That is a wonderful, wonderful . . . What would you call it? Thing for victory! Principle for victory!

Genevieve: Isn’t God a God of victory? I love that. It took persevering. It took being determined to keep trusting Him. He brought that about, and I just love it. My next four labors and deliveries, if you want a theme for the next four, it would be tests to that victory over rebellion and fear, because the next four were not perfect. They had their own challenges, but the Lord was faithful.

Nancy: How wonderful! That is so great.

Genevieve: Fifteen months after I had Adele, I’m now in labor with Katrina. It was very strange. My contractions were completely painless. After hours and hours and hours, being in the hospital, the doctor realized that Katrina was transverse. You can’t give birth to a transverse baby.

Earlier that morning, I’d been lying in bed and my water had broken. This is a little side note. It was the 11th of September 9-11. As my water is breaking and I had suspected that Katrina was not engaged, I’m thinking, “Oh, dear.” I’m worried, concerned about the umbilical cord coming out with the water. That’s a disaster if that happens. I’m thinking about how it’s 9-11, and an emergency. And I’m thinking, “No! I’m not going to think those thoughts. I’m going to take captive every thought here. This is not going to be an emergency.”

So, I wasn’t in labor, but we decided I needed to be at the hospital anyway, because of the concern of the umbilical cord coming through and my previous history. We got there and they put me on a continual monitoring device. That showed that I was having contractions, but they were completely painless. I didn’t feel any pain with them.

After hours and hours, the doctor came in and realized Katrina was transverse. She immediately went out and organized a team for an emergency C-section. Before she went, I asked her permission to hop up, go to the bathroom, and try different maneuvers to see if we could encourage Katrina into a head-down position. Because my water had broken, they couldn’t do anything manually on my tummy to move her around.

My sister, through the prayer team, texted and said, “Try ‘spinning babies’! Here’s the link!” So, while we’re waiting for the doctor to come back, I’m on the bed, throwing one leg over the other, trying the “spinning babies” techniques. When the doctor came back, she felt for Katrina again, and said, “Hey, this baby’s moved! It’s in an oblique position!” That’s halfway between transverse and head-down.

The doctor began to get really excited. What I heard later, which I didn’t know at this point, was that when she was out in the hallway, she was talking to her back-up doctor and saying, “This lady’s had seven babies naturally. I can’t imagine doing a C-section on this lady!” The other doctor was like, “Yeah, her body knows how to do this! Like they can’t do a C-section on this lady.” I just love that story, because that’s not how you typically think of medical staff.

Nancy: I know! That’s wonderful!

Genevieve: The outcome we got here is one that the midwife later told me, that I wouldn’t have gotten this outcome with any other doctor. But that was so encouraging afterwards, to hear that, that they were gunning for me.

So, she felt Katrina and realized, “Oh, she’s in an oblique position!” She said to me, “You know what I’ll do. I’ll do an internal, and if I can feel her head, then I’ll put you on syntocin, which I think is called pitocin here, and hopefully that would firm up your tummy enough, because after eight babies, everything’s a little floppy.”

Like I’m not really keeping them in a firm head-down position anymore with my tummy. She said, “We’ll see if that works. We’ll see if that can happen.” She did the internal, and felt the baby’s head, put me on the pitocin, and it worked. Katrina swung the rest of the way down into a head-down position.

Nancy: How amazing! Whoo!

Genevieve: What a miracle! The only thing was, Katrina stayed high. We had another situation like we did with Joshua. She would come down, pop back up, come down, pop back up. This was taking a long time. It was a long period of contractions and then pushing. The doctor actually left for a second time to organize the operating room, this time for an instrumental delivery. Her comment when she left was that this was still probably going to end in a C-section.

I negotiated with her for another 35 minutes. I thought in my mind, “How long did this take with Joshua?” I asked her, “Can I have another 35 minutes?” She said, “Yes, as it’s going to take me 15 minutes to organize the operating room so go right ahead.” But I didn’t need the 35 minutes. Katrina was born eight minutes later. It was just such a miracle. From a transverse lie to a natural delivery.

With Katrina’s birth, I had a lot of firsts. I had continuous monitoring, which I’d never had before. I’d always asked for that intermittent monitoring. Katrina ended up with a scalp probe on her head while she was still inside me. They attached a little scalp probe so they could monitor her vitals. I ended up with the induction drug which I’d never been induced before. I’d never had any pain-relieving drugs or induction drugs before.

But it all went well. Technically, I did have a post-partum hemorrhage. I bled about 580 mils, but again it just seemed like absolutely nothing in light of what had happened. We were just over the moon.

Nancy: Another miracle, really. When you think of all the things, you're safe, and all the miracles you had! God was there, doing miracles!

Genevieve: Yes. So, you remember her birthday was 9-11? It was an emergency, but you know, God is bigger than emergencies. It’s so wonderful. Just as a side note, Katrina’s first word was “Oh-oh!” [laughter] We thought it was so funny! “Oh-oh!”

Rather than being resentful for how childbirth had to be this way, after Katrina’s birth, I really found myself very grateful to the Lord for this experience. It was really hard work. It was a lot of hard work. But the doctor coached me through it. She got more energy out of me, more effort than I had ever thought that I’d have to give. I’m just really grateful for those experiences; how they open your eyes, how you gain new understanding about the world, and how things operate. It's really great.

So, sixteen months after Katrina was born, I was in labor with Nadine. Hers was a pretty straightforward birth. She was 11 lbs. She was number nine. At this point, she is my second biggest. She was born, the whole of her, in just one push! The whole thing. It’s pretty amazing.

But after she was born, I began bleeding and bleeding. The doctor was a very young woman, but she stayed calm. She was terrific. She followed the plan that had been drawn up. We’d made a plan for if I ever hemorrhaged again, this is how it’s all going to go. She began following the plan.

I think most women when they are in labour, for the third stage, they get syntocin, which is like pitocin. Well, she skipped that. She went straight to the syntometrine, which is like the next step up. She also gave me ergometrine, which I think here is called methergine. She gave me tranexamic acid, and misoprostal, which I think they call here cytotec. Then she gave me carboprost, which here is called hemabate.

When she went to give me the carboprost, she actually stopped and came and asked my permission. She almost seemed to be very apologetic about even suggesting giving me the carboprost. It was described to me as “the big guns” and having some unpleasant side effects. The side effects were described as diarrhea, but they would give me something to deal with the diarrhea. So I never had diarrhea because of the two drugs meeting in the middle. We gave her permission to give me the carboprost.

After she gave it to me, I experienced what I understand to be a rare reaction. I began burning up. If you felt my skin on the outside, I was cold to the touch. But on the inside, I felt hot. The thermal effect was just hellish. I felt like I was overheating. I couldn’t have any blankets on me. I couldn’t have any sheets on me.

Nancy: That was the effect of this drug?

Genevieve: Yes. I couldn’t have Nadine anywhere near me. The heat from her skin was too overwhelming. I couldn’t have anybody touching me. All of this just exacerbated the distress of the overheating. I couldn’t move. I became desperate to know how long this was going to be in my system.

The only relief I got was being stroked by a wet cloth. Pete and his mom would wet cloths. If they put them on me, I’d begin saying, “Get it off! Get it off!” Like I just couldn’t handle it. They had to actually stroke me, because that would create a cool breeze across my skin. It was the only thing that provided any relief.

This reaction subsided after three hours. Three hours, but my bleeding stopped. It stopped just below 900 mils. I never had to go to the operating room. I didn’t have to have a D&C. It was hellish, but it was worth it, to be healthy, to be strong, to have the bleeding stop before you get so weak.

I actually learned later that carboprost is given to women to induce second-trimester abortions. Every now and then I think about women in that situation. I think about, imagine going in to have your own baby killed, and you end up with a reaction like that where you feel almost like you're in hell. Imagine.

That causes me, every time I think about it, to just pray for women. I just say, “Lord, if there’s anyone going through that right now, turn them to You. Use that experience to pull them to You.” That also makes me glad that I’ve had that experience, because through all these experiences, God has grown me. He’s opening my eyes to things. He’s giving me understanding. He’s increasing my understanding. He is good. All His ways are good.

So, after Nadine’s birth, I was a little bit discouraged and down. I was still in the hospital. That’s three days of being in the hospital. It was all still too new and raw to be feeling like, what if I have to go through that again? Who should walk in, who should walk in, but Annie Barnes? Annie Barnes was assigned to be my midwife. She ran Above Rubies in Australia for a few years. I didn’t know that.

Nancy: Yes!

Genevieve: I didn’t know that. I didn’t know who she was. I didn’t know who she was when she walked in.

Nancy: She was up in Queensland when I knew her. Now she’s down in Victoria with you.

Genevieve: Yes! Yes! So, there I am, and she walks in. She didn’t know who I was at this stage, but she had read my file, saw that this was my ninth child, saw that we had declined vaccines.

Nancy: That’s right! I remember when they left Queensland and went down to Victoria. Actually, they were trying to get out of Australia too. Anyway, carry on!

Genevieve: Yes! So, she starts a conversation with me. I think one of the questions she asked was, “Did we homeschool?” And, of course, we did homeschool. For some reason, I don’t know why I did this, but I mentioned my parents, Craig and Barbara Smith, who ran the Home Education Foundation in New Zealand.

She just starts laughing! She says, “I visited them! I’ve visited them in their home in New Zealand!” I’m thinking, “My home? My childhood home? This stranger to me has been in my home, like she knows me then?” It was so wild. I don’t usually consider hospitals to be places to meet like-minded people.

But Annie’s conversations over the next two days, as she was caring for me, and caring for Nadine, were just like a hug from the Lord. They pulled me up from being discouraged and feeling down. Only God could have organized that. Praise God again for how He does things. He’s always so interesting in how He does things.

Nineteen months later, I was in labor with Laney. She’s number ten. This is July 2021. The covid vaccine and all that had started in March 2021 in Australia. We began thinking, “Oh boy!” With my hemorrhage history, if I had another post-partum hemorrhage and had to have a transfusion, any blood I got would very likely be from a covid-vaxed donor.

We began thinking about this. We did a lot of research. We did a LOT of research, and we found that Pfizer had done this study in which they found that in the covid vaccine, at least the Pfizer and the Moderna ones, you've got the RNA. It’s encapsulated with the fat (lipids). That’s in the vaccine, and when that goes in, the Pfizer study showed that that goes into all different organs in your body, especially in a short period after you've been vaccinated. And it’s found in your blood in quite high quantities.

We thought, “Hm, if it’s like that, and somebody who’s just had a vaccine donates blood, then if I was given that blood, then that RNA in me could teach my body to produce the spike protein. Proteins accumulate in breast milk. On the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, I was reading a lot of reports from women who’d been vaccinated, that their breastfeeding babies were having intestinal bleeding, which putting two and two together, was from the vaccine.

We saw that there were risks, both to me and to Laney, if I was to receive blood from someone who had been vaccinated. We didn’t know how to quantify the risk. It was sort of an unknown risk. We were really desirous to mitigate it if we possibly could.

I talked to the Australian Red Cross, who are the people who draw blood in Australia. I talked to the local hospital. When I talked to the hospital, I talked to the blood bank, I talked to the hematologist. I talked to a lot of the obstetricians and the head obstetrician. They were all fascinated to hear that research that I just described to you.

The hospital, at least, was very apologetic, but they couldn’t facilitate direct donations of blood from unvaccinated family and friends. The Australian Red Cross put their foot down, “No, no way. We cannot facilitate that.” It felt like we’d done everything we could. We had tried to mitigate this risk. We tried to do everything we could. Now all we could do was leave it in the Lord’s hands. Do you know that it is such a great place to be!

Nancy: Yes.

Genevieve: I’ve been in that place now so many times in my life, where you just get to a point where, “OK, Lord, I’ve done everything I can. Now it’s up to You, and I’m just going to leave it there. We’re going to trust You and see how this goes.” 

What He did was pretty amazing. He gave me an amazingly straight forward birth, with absolutely minimal bleeding. Probably 300 mils, maybe less. It was so minimal. I left the hospital the next day. I’d never spent such a short period of time in a hospital before. It was a huge answer to prayer.

Nancy: God was protecting you.

Genevieve: And you know what? Once again, I had this prayer team. They were praying, praying, praying, during that whole birth. They understood. They were all people who hadn’t taken the vaccine themselves, as well. They were very interested, very desirous to pray when I was in labor. They were so kind.

Nancy: Oh, God is so good. That was your last birth in Australia.

Genevieve: My last birth in Australia, because 22 months later, Prentiss was delivered in May 2023. It was December 2021, that we moved over here. Now in May 2023, Prentiss was delivered. We moved to Tennessee, just down the road and around the corner from you! [laughter]

This time, in Tennessee, Blood Assurance here, and the local hospital were all willing to facilitate direct donations of blood from unvaccinated family and friends.

Nancy: Oh, praise the Lord!

Genevieve: It was amazing. It’s a really weird thing to be in this situation, contemplating asking people if they would give you some of their blood. I was so embarrassed. I did not want to have to ask anybody. But people ask you how you’re doing and what are you dealing with in life. We would describe the research we were doing and things. Enough people said, “Well, if you need blood, I’ll donate to you!”

Nancy: How wonderful!

Genevieve: I never had to ask anybody. The Lord cares about things, even those funny little things on your heart.

Nancy: How did that work? They would go to the hospital, and they would keep it especially for you, if you needed it?

Genevieve: Yes. Blood Assurance has a direct donation coordinator. They actually have someone who coordinates this. I opened up a file with her. She gave me a number. I gave that number to all the people. We weren’t collecting platelets. We were collecting plasma, and we were collecting red blood cells. Those will last 42 days. I wanted to cover the two weeks before and after my due date. We figured out a time to ask everybody to donate their blood. Then it takes three days to be tested.

I had arranged to labor in a little county hospital just outside of Nashville. I was over 39 weeks. I was getting really close to my due date when the head anesthetist at the hospital learned about me and my history. He said, “She cannot come over here. There is no way she can deliver here.”

This was, as you can imagine, very, very distressing. You’re emotional enough at 39 weeks, so that was not a fun phone call. I was over 40 weeks when I met the head obstetrician at the bigger Nashville hospital. An ultrasound was done, and when this head obstetrician walked into the room, he just looked at me. He was a big man, a tall man.

He said, “You’re not going to like what I have to say, but you can only deliver at this hospital if you agree to a C-section in the morning.” The Lord was now bringing me face to face with one of my biggest birthing fears, which was a C-section. But He’d been working in my heart, leading up to this.

Nancy: So, it didn’t matter what happened. He just wouldn’t do anything unless it was a C-section.

Genevieve: No. It was because the ultrasound showed that Prentiss was over 13 pounds.

Nancy: What??

Genevieve: And the ultrasound showed that I had a heap of fluid. I guess a lot of times this stuff can come about because of diabetes. I’ve never had gestational diabetes, and I didn’t this time either. She was just a big baby. But the Lord had really been working in my heart. So, my prayer team, I have a list of prayers that I have them all pray—that I won’t hemorrhage and that I won’t have to have a C-section, and I won’t tear.

But as the weeks got closer and closer to my delivery date, I reached out to one friend, and I said, “Would you forget all of that, and just pray that I would be submitted to whatever God has planned here?” I think the Lord already had put it in my heart. He was preparing me that this may be necessary.

The C-section doctor was also kind enough to inform me that no other doctor in Nashville would take me either, under any other circumstances, unless I agreed to an immediate C-section. There we were. We had no other choice.

Again, same situation as with Laney. I’ve done all I can. It’s now in the Lord’s hands, and this is what He’s doing. My only choice is to believe that this is His plan for good, for Prentiss and me. You know, it was. I really just needed to trust God. I had no other options.

Well, as I was wheeled into the operating room, that cooler of the unvaccinated blood was wheeled into the operating room with me. It was quite a procession! All of us! And you know what, I wasn’t terrified, thanks to the prayers of the prayer team, I was able to be at complete peace. I always thought I’d be terrified about having to have a C-section. I’d had on my birth plan all these years, if I have to have a C-section, just give me a general. I don’t want to be awake.

But the anesthetist had explained about how it would really be so much better if I’d agree to a spinal or an epidural. So, I agreed. It was just a couple of hours before I was wheeled in, where I was remembering a difficult time in my life before, which was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, this escaping Australia as you mentioned.

I’d decided, “It would be too bad to travel all around the world in a state of fear. Let’s enjoy this! Let’s have a sense of adventure here.” The Lord helped me remember that. Right before I was wheeled in, I thought, “Hey, hopefully this is just going to be a once-in-a-lifetime thing, the C-section. Let’s have fun! Let’s enjoy it.” And it was. It was an absolute blast.

Nancy: Wow! [laughter]

Genevieve: You wouldn’t think it. All the things I’d been afraid about were all OK. I was told later by some midwives; they said that the group of anesthetists and doctors and technicians that I had in that group were the absolute A-team. They really were wonderful. I wasn’t terrified. I was able to go in with a sense of adventure. I wanted to be able to enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime experience. And I did. It was wonderful.

I was way more mobile after that C-section than I’d been after a lot of my births. I was much stronger afterwards than most of my other births. Which is not to say, I don’t want to advocate for C-sections, but I just want to say, if you're in that situation where you have to have one, God can work good through that. I healed really well.

Prentiss was not 13 lbs. She was 12 lbs. 12 oz. She was pretty big. And very healthy. I have to say that looking at her after she was born, I did think, how could I have ever birthed her? There was no way. And I didn’t hemorrhage.

Nancy: Oh, you didn’t hemorrhage! Praise the Lord.

Genevieve: All that donated blood was given to other people, which was fantastic.

Nancy: You’ve shared with us all these births, and you faced scary situations, but God has come miraculously through every time! But in the midst of all this, you haven’t actually shared, what about motherhood itself? Wow! Tell me how you feel about motherhood. You could have stopped with one. Many women would have stopped at one, but you kept going!

Genevieve: Apart from wifehood, motherhood has been the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done, without a doubt. I want to tell you, Nancy, God has shown Himself trustworthy over and over and over again. The message of my story really is this—put your trust in God. He will prove Himself trustworthy to you too.

I want to speak to your listeners that it may not always look like what you expect, or what you hoped for. My birthing history is not one that most women dream about. My experiences have caused me to trust in God and to draw near to Him. Consequently, He has drawn near to me.

If I could choose to go back and not have those experiences, I wouldn’t do it, because I wouldn’t want to miss out on the joy and the love and the closeness to the Lord I’ve developed through these difficult experiences. He is so good. He is so faithful. He is so trustworthy. If you are weighed down with debilitating fear and scared like I was at many points during my journey, remember this: “True love casts out fear.”

From being a twelve-year-old who was so scared of childbirth that I said I’d never have any children, to drawing near to the end of my childbearing years, as I assume I am, and having delivered 11 children, from Natalie, my eldest (15 years old), to my youngest at 16 months, the children are an absolute delight. It really has been the most fulfilling thing that I’ve ever done.

I’m so glad that I’ve been able to put my trust in Him, that His plan is the best, and that He’s carried me through and shown me that this is absolutely the case. It hasn’t been easy. It’s been inconvenient and messy and painful at times.

But what’s the end result? Eleven souls to raise for the kingdom of God. By God’s grace, in one hundred years, those eleven children might be a thousand descendants, who by God’s grace will be faithfully building God’s kingdom. All because the Lord was powerful to work with a scared woman and take that fear and turn it to trust and love. Thank you for letting me share this story of the Lord’s faithfulness with you and your listeners.

Nancy: Oh wow, that makes me want to cry! So amazing! Thank you. Thank you, Genevieve, for sharing that. We look at your beautiful family and it’s only the beginning of what God is going to do.

Genevieve: Praise God.

Nancy: The greatest privilege, actually, in the earth is to be with God in bringing forth eternal souls. There’s nothing more powerful.

“Oh, Lord, we thank You. Thank You for Your wonderful faithfulness to Genevieve. Thank You that You brought her through every birth with Your miracle-working power. Thank You for the beautiful children You’ve given to her and Pete.

“Lord, we thank You for the destiny that You have for them, and all the future, Lord God, an eternity. Oh, Lord God, we praise You and give You thanks that You truly are, as Genevieve has testified, You are a faithful, good God. We praise You. Amen.”

Genevieve: Amen.

Nancy: Amen.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 332: Help! I’m Terrified of Needles and Childbirth! Part 2

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 3Epi332pic32: Help! I’m Terrified of Needles and Childbirth! Part 2

Genevieve continues the stories of her births, each so different, many of them traumatic, and yet God showed His faithfulness to her and brought her through in victory. You will be amazed and yet so encouraged.

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Here we are again, and Genevieve is with me again today. She is going to continue sharing the story of her births. Well, we’re up to number two, Genevieve! What happened this time?

Genevieve: Thank you for having me on again. When we were talking last week, we were discussing how, as a child I was so scared of needles and childbirth. But the Lord worked through that to help me trust Him, and to acknowledge that God is God, and He is good, and His plan is good.

But I still had in me a little bit of a complaining spirit about why we had to be made like this as women and why we had to go through this messy, inconvenient, painful thing called “childbirth.” But nevertheless, I submitted to God in this area, and decided to trust Him.

Well, with my first, with Natalie, I had a post-partum hemorrhage. I bled nearly three liters and ended up in the operating room with a D&C and large transfusions. After her birth, I really had to trust the Lord again and submit all this area to Him, which I did.

Four months later, I found myself pregnant with Caleb. The fear resurfaced again. But you know what, I thought to myself, “This is really a blessing that I can even be pregnant again after what happened to me with Natalie.” So, I really chose to be thankful and grateful to the Lord. I put all that out of my mind and kept moving ahead.

One of the things I did during Caleb’s birth was that I researched post-partum hemorrhage. Just like you were saying last week, just because you hemorrhaged once doesn’t mean you need to hemorrhage a second time. I did some research into what my risk factors were, why I’d hemorrhaged that time, what things I could do to mitigate a hemorrhage in the future.

All that also helped me to have increased confidence. One of the things that happened during Caleb’s pregnancy was . . . I’d had Natalie at a big teaching hospital in Victoria, Australia. After I hemorrhaged, when I was pregnant with Caleb, they really wanted to control his birth. They wanted to have active management of the whole third stage which included immediate clamping of the umbilical cord.

We were really not comfortable with that because we thought by doing that . . . We understood that they were trying to prevent a potential hemorrhage in me, or possibly an ongoing or active hemorrhage in me. But by doing that, they could also potentially cause a hemorrhage in Caleb. This hospital that we’d been at with Natalie was 25 minutes away. Thirty-five minutes away was another little country hospital. We went there and talked to them, and they said, “Oh, yeah, you’ve hemorrhaged once, but it doesn’t mean you're going to hemorrhage again. Of course, you can come here.”

Nancy: Oh, that was good!

Genevieve: “And we don’t need to actively manage the third stage. We’ll just watch and wait. If something needs to happen, we will, but we’re not going to plan on jumping in if it doesn’t need to happen.”

Nancy: You have to search for hospitals and find the right place, don’t you?

Genevieve: I really learned through all my deliveries that you do have to take personal responsibility for your own health and the health of your children, and really advocate for yourself, although there’s also a balance between the help and the wisdom that they have. You need to cry out to the Lord for wisdom, to navigate all those little details of your own unique birth.

Natalie’s delivery, because I’d hemorrhaged with her, this now was complicating Caleb’s pregnancy, because in the lead-up to my birth with Caleb, they now wanted me to go in twice a week and have blood drawn. More needles, so I could have my blood cross-matched so that they could make sure they had enough blood on hand for if I did hemorrhage again. Then, when I went into labor, I had to have two IV lines put, just in case I hemorrhaged, because once you're hemorrhaging, it’s much harder to get a line in afterwards. Oh, boy.

Nancy: You need needles! You never wanted . . .

Genevieve: Needles and childbirth, yes, were very much synonymous for me from this point on. So, during his labor, sadly, those complaining thoughts came back. I remember actually being in labor and thinking, “Oh, again, why does it have to be this way? Couldn’t God have organized it differently?” And particularly evil at this point was the thought, “What is God going to put me through this time?” I knew it was rebellion to complain against God this way, but I just couldn’t get victory. I fought, but it just kept coming back.

Well, Caleb’s birth went very well. I didn’t bleed, and it turned out that having two babies so close together was actually a huge blessing from the Lord. Because I’d hemorrhaged with Natalie, I’d never properly healed after her birth. Because I didn’t hemorrhage with Caleb, I healed wonderfully after his birth, so a lot of things that had been left unresolved, were resolved and healed by Caleb’s birth. It was a real blessing. You just think, “Why was it this way?” But you realize, no, the Lord had a perfect plan, and it was a good plan.

Nancy: Yes!

Genevieve: I was also ashamed of my complaining. I really said in my mind, “I don’t want to do that again.” My vision for childbirth was walking really closely with the Lord through this. This complaining was getting in the way. [laughter] Although I said I don’t want to do it again, actually I did. The next part of my story is about how God’s loving kindness broke me, and I gained victory over my fear-driven rebellious complaining.

My next labor, 16 months after Caleb, I was in labor with Evangeline. Sadly, that rebellious complaining was coming up again during her labor. This whole “Why did God have to make women this way?”

Well, in the lead-up to Evangeline’s birth, I piled on the expectations. Things had gone so well with Caleb’s birth that I . . . the expectations just piled on. I said to myself, “I want to breathe her out. There wasn’t going to be any pushing. I’m just going to breathe her out.” I wanted to have a completely natural childbirth, including the third stage. With all of them, I never had any pain-killing drugs, never had any interference until that third stage where I had third-stage drugs to clamp down your uterus and things.

But this time, I didn’t want to have those either. It was going to be in the hospital, it had to be in the hospital, but I wanted to have a natural, completely natural birth. Despite all my grumblings and my complaining, God gave me the desires of my heart.

Nancy: So wonderful!

Genevieve: When I was in the first stage with Eva, I was getting tired, and I prayed out to God. I said, “Lord, I’m getting tired. Can we go through transition now?” And with the next contraction, I was in transition!

Nancy: Wow!

Genevieve: When I was pushing, I called out to God again and said, “Lord, I’m getting tired. With the next contraction, can she be born?” And bang! With the next contraction, she was born!

Nancy: So wonderful!

Genevieve: It was so amazing. She was 9 lbs. 9 oz. I didn’t tear. I didn’t bleed. God granted me every single desire of my heart. I breathed her out. I hadn’t had any medication for that third stage. You know what, even when I was rebellious, He was faithful. His goodness and kindness just humbled me.

His love broke me. I was finally able to repent of all that rebellious complaining and be free. God was good. His plan for childbirth was good. It was under the curse of sin, you know, but God was able to work it out for good. I was really able to just grab hold of that.

Nancy: I must say something here. Again, as I mentioned in the last podcast, it is true. Because there are many precious mothers, who after a traumatic birth, even as you went through with Natalie, your first, who will say, “I can just never do this again!” But look how God blessed you! No birth is the same! Not one birth is ever the same. Here you had this glorious, natural birth, even after a traumatic birth.

So, dear precious ladies, maybe those of you who had a traumatic birth, know that that’s not the end. God does wondrous things, and God heals our bodies, doesn’t He? Sometimes we get a cut, and it can be pretty bad. But it always heals. When we have things happen on the inside, they heal too.

Genevieve: So, being humbled and broken enabled me to be free. My repentance and freedom from resisting God’s plan came just in time, because my fourth delivery really required me to submit to God’s plan. When I did, He did marvelous things.

Seventeen months after Eva was born, actually I’m having an ultrasound on my due date. The man doing the ultrasound began saying things I think no woman wants to hear right as she’s about to give birth. He’s saying, “Wow, this baby’s got a big head! Oh, my goodness, he’s weighing in at over five kilograms!” This is about 11 lbs. I remember thinking, “Oh, I know that these things are not accurate. This one must be really out!” And “Why would he tell me this at this point?” Anyway, he was a wonderful technician, and I actually really enjoyed going to him.

So then, about six days after that, I was in labor with Joshua. I had the same plan with Joshua. I wanted to breathe him out, but I quickly realized there wasn’t going to be any breathing him out. On that realization, I did the whole pendulum swing. I went from breathing him out to really pushing, like over-pushing, like pushing way too much. He would descend, and then he would pop back up again. He would descend and pop back up again! The contractions sometimes would be strong, and sometimes they would be weak.

Nancy: Talk about every birth being different!

Genevieve: Oh, yes! And this was so discouraging to me, because of not feeling like I was making any progress. I was getting tired. I would look at the clock in the delivery room and say, “OK, Lord, could he please be born withing the next 15 minutes?” And then that 15 minutes would pass, and I’d look at the clock, and I’d say, “Well, how about the next 15 minutes, Lord? Can he be born in the next 15 minutes?” And he wasn’t born in the next 15 minutes.

You know what, God wasn’t giving me exactly what I wanted, when I wanted it, this time. This was a different situation. I realized I did not know how to push this baby out. So I just said, “Lord, please help me. I don’t know what to do.”

And immediately He brought to mind two verses. This was so wonderful. The first verse was: “Be still and know that I am God,” from Psalm 46. It struck me then that it was so odd that I was being told to be still! But you know, I did! I needed to be still a moment.

The next verse was the one from Isaiah 66, which says: “Shall I bring to the time of birth and not cause delivery?” Straightaway I realized, “Oh, yes, every contraction is from God! Those weak ones that I’ve been frustrated by, they’re from God. The strong ones are from God!”

I realized, “Oh, when He sends the strong contraction, I should push in line with that contraction. Give it all I’ve got. Give as much energy as He’s also sending. With those weak contractions, I should rest in them, and not over-push them, and just be guided by Him.” Now we had a plan. It took another one-and-a-half hours but that’s how we did it.

Nancy: Oooh! That’s amazing!

Genevieve: Joshua wasn’t 11 lbs. He 12 lbs. 6 oz.

Nancy: Isn’t that amazing? And you didn’t know you had that big a baby, did you?

Genevieve: No, I did not! He did have a big head. When it came out, it was huge, and it was completely unmolded. All the rest of my babies have had molded heads, you know, the little cone-shape. But not his. It was completely unmolded. And he had one hand up by his face!

Nancy: Really? As well? And you gave birth like that! Isn’t that incredible?

Genevieve: It was incredible. I’ll tell you what, pushing him out quickly, as I had been trying to do, that would have been a disaster.

Nancy: So, listening to God. You know, I have just read a little book about this missionary in India who went out there with great visions to lead so many people to the Lord. Nothing really happened at all. But another missionary came, and he wasn’t going out like she was. He just listened to the Lord; what God wanted him to do in every situation.

She learned, and she began to live that way. Every story in the book is the story of miracles of how, even in impossible situations, she just listened to God. Then He’d tell her. She had to be still, like the first verse was “Be still and listen.” She had to wait and listen. But then God would show her. I thought, “Wow! What a great way to live!” As you did that in childbirth, God showed you. That was wonderful.

Genevieve: His plan worked so beautifully. God really did have a better plan. That was to stretch things slowly. We had picked Joshua’s name already. After his birth, I went back to remind myself about the meaning. You know what it means? “Jehovah delivers.” I was just floored, because, of course, God had literally delivered Joshua.

Nancy: And naturally! Amazing!

Genevieve: Yes! I had the third stage drugs. I did hemorrhage with Joshua, but it was a little over 600 milliliters. We felt like it was a non-event. Considering his size, things had been terrific. Just praise the Lord. It seemed like such a victory to naturally birth such a big boy.

But you know the real victory was in my heart, that I had submitted to God, and to His plan, that I hadn’t been grumbling, I hadn’t been complaining. I hadn’t had any more thoughts of why this had to be this way. You know, when we do submit to God’s plans, He does marvelous things. This was really marvelous.

At this point, I was now really, genuinely grateful for the experiences that God was giving me. Not complaining anymore, but just feeling like . . . I think the reason was, I was drawing near to him through these trials and the difficulties, and He was drawing near to me. The result was just utter joy.

Nancy: So wonderful!

Genevieve: The next birth was another traumatic one. The next part of my story is about how this next traumatic birth brought back that fear again. It became a really debilitating fear. Sixteen months after I delivered Joshua, I’m now delivering our fifth, Josiah.

I was at peace. I was not fearful, not rebellious. Josiah’s birth was very straightforward. He was 8 lbs. 15 oz. He was my smallest. But after he was born, my placenta would not come out, and I was bleeding and bleeding. The doctor in the delivery room tried two manual attempts to remove my placenta. Because I hadn’t had any pain-killing drugs for birth, he did it without any anesthesia. The doctor was able to retrieve most but not all of my placenta. I was still bleeding.

By this stage, they had already begun transfusing me with the blood that they had on hand. They were running out. They only had one unit left and they were faced with this decision: “Do we take you to the operating room with only one unit left, and try to do a D&C, or do we send you back to that big teaching hospital where you had Natalie?”

They decided to send me back to the big teaching hospital. An ambulance arrived, and normally it would take over an hour to get from the little hospital to the big hospital, but it took us less than 30 minutes. Pete and Josiah drove behind us and we left them in the dust.

Nancy: Whoa! They had the siren going for that one then!

Genevieve: Oh, yes! While I’m lying there in the ambulance, I can feel that I’m still bleeding, and that it’s too much. It became sort of a visual thing where I was lying there, and I could see all my emotions, all my mind, just fracture into all these little pieces. I could tell that they’re about to break apart and fly into a million pieces. I was desperate to keep them together, but I didn’t know how to do that.

While I was lying there, I began to think about the hospital I was going to, and how a lot of people at my church worked in the medical field, and how some of them worked at this hospital. I began to wonder whether I’d see them at the hospital. I began to think about how they loved me and how I loved them.

With all that thought of the love of Christ and the love of His people for one another, like all those millions of little parts of my emotions and mind came right back together again and gave me the wherewithal to actually look at this poor nurse who accompanying me to the big hospital. All the staff had actually, literally drawn straws to decide who was going to come with me, because nobody wanted to.

She was scared. She’d drawn the short straw, and she was scared. I was able to turn to her and smile and say, “You know, it’s going to be OK.” But that was the Lord. That was in the midst of that assurance of His love.

When I got to the hospital, the head obstetrician met me in the ambulance bay. He was my favorite doctor at the hospital. He was such a nice man, and this was such a comfort from the Lord, that straightaway I’d been met by someone I know, I’m familiar with.

They took me up to the delivery ward, and I’m surrounded by all these people looking down at me. Who should come into my vision but the midwife who had delivered Natalie! She had heard over the hospital announcement the code blue announcement that I had arrived. She came to see me.

You know, when you've given birth, and that oxytocin is flowing, people call it the “hormone of love,” you fall in love with everybody in the room! You’ve had the baby. Well, I’d fallen in love with her. She was a wonderful woman. She had saved my life with Natalie, and there she was. I was lying there, and my head sort of drifted over to the right. I began drifting away. She called me back, and twice my head just fell to the right. I began drifting away. I was called back twice.

Nancy: She called out loud to you.

Genevieve: Yes, “Genevieve, Genevieve! Come back!” That sort of thing. I was taken to the operating room where they did a D&C. A large piece of my placenta was removed. I lost nearly three-and-a-half liters of blood, which is getting close to a gallon. I got what the hospital records called “massive transfusions.”

Then I was taken into the ICU. That midwife was there again in the ICU. This had taken hours, but she had waited. Her shift had finished a long time ago but there she was again. That felt like a hug from the Lord, familiar faces in the midst of a terrible trial. There she was, just smiling and comforting. It was a really wonderful thing.

Well, after I had Josiah, I was able to debrief both with the doctors at the big hospital, and the doctor at the small hospital. This was a really comforting thing, because they were again able to say, “Hey, this doesn’t mean that you're going to hemorrhage again.”

Nancy: That’s so great. The thing it seems to me, you had wonderful births. It was always the after that was the problem.

Genevieve: Yes. Third stage is my little hill. But they were so good. They all said, “Look, we’ll be happy to have you come back. You’re going to go on to have lots more children.” The doctor, my favorite doctor at the big hospital, he said, “You know, you have beautiful platelets!” You know, the little part of your blood that clots. In other words, he was saying, “You don’t have a bleeding disorder. There are no issues.” Which was just so kind of him to say that.

Nancy: You wouldn’t get that from a lot of hospitals. That was amazing.

Genevieve: They did say, at the little hospital, that they don’t have women after they’ve had their fifth child because they’re not equipped to deal with it. I guess they say it’s more dangerous after your fifth, so I knew I couldn’t go back there. I was always going to be at the big teaching hospital now. That was something I had to reconcile myself to.

But another little tidbit of information I thought may be interesting is that the little hospital also didn’t offer epidurals. That’s because they can’t deal with the c-section full out from an epidural. It was an interesting dynamic there between the two hospitals.

After nearly dying with Natalie, I experienced a lot of sympathy, but after nearly dying with my fifth, I actually felt a lot of antagonism and ill-will. The implied, or the spoken accusation, was how could I nearly die and leave my husband, Pete, with five young children?

This really didn’t make any sense. There hadn’t been any signs of anything amiss before I went into labor. It was as though they didn’t believe that God was sovereign over life or death, or sovereign over opening or closing the womb. Or it was like they would only accept good from Him, and not bad.

At any rate, God used that antagonism for good, actually. In a lot of ways, He used it for good. But one of the ways that He used it for good was to make me begin to consider the perspective of the hospital staff in a new light. I actually began to realize that my hemorrhage history could be intimidating to some hospital staff. This was just a little baby thought at this stage. The Lord was going to grow this thought later. But it was a really good thing, like a good path to be set down.

Well, 19 months later, after delivering Josiah, I was in labor with my sixth. It was September 2015. I’m in labor with Sophie. I again gave my fear to God. I kept seeking to obey Him and trust Him. He had been faithful, and I believed that He would continue to be faithful. As I got closer and closer to her delivery, however, as this reality got closer and closer that childhood fear, exacerbated by the trauma of Josiah’s birth, just came back again. The fear was a real weight, like it was a real physical weight bearing down. I remember saying to Pete at one stage, “I’m just so scared, and I can’t shake it.” It didn’t feel usual for me. I tend to be a fairly . . . I’m not an up-and-a-down kind of a person. I’m fairly stable or whatever the word would be.

But anyway, to deal with the fear, I would go into my room, and I’d read the Scriptures. Some of the Scriptures that were very helpful, there’s that one in Philippians 4:8-9: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. Whatever you’ve learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me, put into practice, and the God of peace will be with you.”

Then there’s Psalm 15. I love that whole Psalm, but just to truncate it down, it says: “He who speaks the truth in his heart shall never be moved.” I thought about that as being not fearful but being confident. Then there’s Ephesians 6, of course, which says: “Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth.”

I really spent time. When the fear became too big, I’d go into my room, and I would gird myself with truth. I’d written down all these things that were true. I would meditate on God’s Word, and on His promises. Pease would fill my heart and the fear would go.

But as soon as I stood up to go back into the rest of the house, get back on what I needed to do for the day, the fear would just descend again, and the weight of it. I wasn’t able to gain lasting peace. I couldn’t shake that fear. I was having flashbacks too, at this stage, of being in hospital again, of drifting off again. It was Pete, not the midwife this time, calling me back, but this time I couldn’t come back.

Those were just awful flashbacks. I had to push them out of my mind. But God was good, and He’s able to organize everything for good. I wasn’t afraid to die for myself, but there was that thought, an awful thought, that if I died, people might not support Pete because of that antagonism we’d felt. Pete might be left to fend for himself with six children six and under.

That was an awful thought. But we knew God was good. We grabbed hold of that. I wasn’t afraid to die for myself. I just didn’t want to cause that antagonism for Pete by dying. I didn’t ever fully overcome that fear during Sophie’s pregnancy, but I did persevere in deciding to trust God.

Sophie was ten pounds, eight ounces. Her birth is such a story of God’s kindness to a struggling, fearful woman. It happened like this. At 2 AM one morning, I’m asleep in bed, and I have this enormous contraction. It’s like one of these ones that lasts over a minute, and it’s so painful. It’s so all-consuming. All you can think about is just getting through this thing.

I jumped up after that, jumped through the shower while Pete got the car ready to go to the hospital. In the car, I had two more contractions like that. Those were all the contractions I had. Three contractions for the whole labor.

Nancy: Wow!

Genevieve: When I got to the hospital, I was wheeled up to the labor and delivery ward in a wheelchair. I stood up from the wheelchair and my water broke. They said, “Please lie down on the bed so that we can examine you.” I was feeling tired and very grateful to just be able to lie down on the bed for a minute. And whoosh! She just came right out!

Nancy: Whoa! That was it! How wonderful! You hardly knew you were in labor!

Genevieve: Yes, exactly right. It was so amazing. And you know what was so amazing? The part that felt really amazing to me was that she . . . I have big babies. I had gone to a chiropractor who had “mapped” my pelvis, which is term from The Pink Kit which is a New Zealand birthing material. The Pink Kit, great material.

She had mapped my pelvis, which is to say, she had told me what shape my pelvis was, and what the best position would be for opening it up the widest. Every time I labored, I always labored in an all-fours, upright, asymmetrical position to open my birth canal. I knew that lying flat on your back is not optimal for opening your birth canal. I’d heard you can close it by up to thirty percent. So, the fact that this 10 lbs. 8 oz. baby would just shoot right out while I was lying flat on my back was just amazing!

Nancy: How incredible!

Genevieve: I still am amazed by that.

Nancy: And no problems afterwards?

Genevieve: Well, here was me, poor, fearful, traumatized me and God would give me this amazing gift. Well, my placenta was delivered quickly. It was deemed to be complete. I was transferred to the maternity ward, but six hours later, my bleeding picked up. I could feel it.

I asked someone to come and check. I was immediately taken to the operating room where they did a D&C and removed one-quarter of my placenta that was still there. I bled one-and-a-half liters, which is borderline for a transfusion, but I was stable enough where they decided not to transfuse me.

Nancy: Praise the Lord!

Genevieve: Yes. Well, the next part of my story is about how, through a very simple biblical concept, through my next pregnancy I was able to gain complete victory over that fear. So, I’m very excited to share that with you.

Nancy: I think we’ll have to have another podcast! OK?

Genevieve: OK!

Nancy: You’ve got to come back for this, because you've got to hear how to get victory, ladies! Would you like to pray for the ladies this time?

Genevieve: Thank you very much.

“Dear Lord and Heavenly Father, You are such a good God. You are our King and our Lord, and sovereign over everything. You open the womb, and You close the womb. Lord, Your Word is so perfect and complete to help us though all things. The next part of my story really shows that, that in Your Word, You have the answers to all the dilemmas that we have in this life.

“Lord, I would pray for all the ladies pregnant right now, that You would work in them, and help them to be free of their fear, if they have any, just the same as You helped me to be free from mine. I pray all these things in the name of Your precious Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”

Nancy: Amen.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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