The Transformed Wife

“Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate” (Psalm 127:3-5).

A heritage is usually tangible like money or an estate. It’s inherited from someone else. Reward means something is given such as money or a trophy for doing good or winning a contest of some kind. God calls children a heritage and a reward. They are gifts from Him. They are to be valued and treasured above all the stuff this world has to offer.

Happy is the man who has a quiver full of children! Many in our culture try to shame men and women if they have more than one or two children. “You’re overpopulating the earth.” “Don’t you know how to prevent those?” They value the creation over the Creator. God tells parents of many children that they shall not be ashamed! Children are blessings from the LORD!

“Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table.” (Psalm 128) Have you seen a fruitful vine by the sides of a house? It’s usually full of flowers that eventually produces fruit and is beautiful! This is how a wife is described who is open to marrying and bearing children. God calls this good! The children shall be like olive plants around the table. Another good thing!

I looked up the characteristics of olive trees. They are known for their longevity. They’re prolific, indestructible, unparchable, ancient, and sacred (the olive branch). I love that God equated children with olive plants! All the stuff that we are accumulating, the trips we take, our college degrees, our careers, the money we may make, and the things we do are NOTHING in comparison to having children; for they are eternal souls who will last forever.

Godly offspring are indestructible! If raised in godly homes to be Christians, they won’t be affected by our wicked culture because their roots will go deeply into the Word and they will live eternally with the LORD (unparchable). They are the gifts that keep on giving by giving us grandchildren and great grandchildren (prolific). They are gifts from God (sacred). God knew them from the foundation of the world (ancient).

God in His Word has only good things to say about children. It’s His will for married couples to have children and have a quiver full, if they are blessed with them. This is completely opposite of what the world is telling women to do. This shouldn’t surprise us. The prince of the power of the air (Satan) holds many captive in this world and lives to deceive women away from God’s will. He hates marriage. He hates children. He especially hates godly families.

God’s will for young women is to “marry, bear children, and guide the home” (1 Timothy 5:14), to love their husbands and children and be keepers at home (Titus 2:4, 5). It’s a good will, women. In fact, it’s good, and acceptable, and perfect for you! Why would any godly women want anything other than God’s will?

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:9, 10

Written By Ken

Lori and I had little doubt that our children would walk with the Lord when they got older. Perhaps most Christian parents feel this way, or perhaps it’s just a sense that comes from relying on God’s promise that if you “train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). Yes, we understood by watching other children of godly parents depart from the faith, that for some reason, there are children raised in wonderful Christian families who choose the foolish things of this world over a relationship with their Creator God for eternity. But for me and my house we were bound and determined to follow the Lord without wavering or doubt.

Recently we had a few terrific days with three of our precious grandchildren and when they are with us, we find ourselves doing with them many of the things that we did with our own children. Their mom just had number four, a beautiful and precious baby girl, so grandparents to the rescue. We stepped in and took the kids into our home. The truth be told, these kids do more for us by way of joy, fun, and enjoyment than we do for them. I can remember a few tears they shed, but most of the time was fun, games, and laughter.

So what is this training that we are to impart to our children and grandchildren that once they know the way to go they will not depart from it? Here are just a few ideas that we have done to raise four godly offspring who all walk faithfully and joyfully with their Lord. Perhaps it will give some of you a spark of ideas to add to your training tools as you embrace God’s promise fully that your children will walk faithfully with our God.

The top of our list for training is joyfulness. There is nothing worse than a bunch of crabby, crying, or difficult kids in a home. Very little training can be accomplished when a child is not receptive to joy but instead focused on selfish, fleshly things. Make sure the kids are fed well, get lots of sleep, and have no obvious reasons to be unhappy. Children by nature are generally very joyful and fun-loving, at least until they hit their teens, but if they are not, don’t put up with it. That’s right. We have a “grumpy” chair, (or the fireplace mantel when our children were young), where we just said the word and the grumpy child would run to the chair and sit on it until they are ready to return and choose to be joyful.

Insisting on joyfulness is not as hard as you might think, but it does take the discipline of consistency to train a child that if they are going to be in a bad mood, they need to have the grumpy mood away from the rest of us who don’t want to be dragged down by it. It is amazing what a couple trips to the grumpy chair can do so that all you have to do is ask, “Do you need to go to the complaining chair?” and the child breaks out in the most fake smile ever, yet they turn their mood around quickly. Too many adults today could have used the moody chair when they were younger to train their emotions so that they learned to control them, instead of being controlled by them.

Making a joyful noise in our home often means singing or squealing with laughter. I grew up in a home filled with Christian music as my godly mom was always singing. She had the prettiest voice that filled the home and it seemed that for each and every trouble we had she would break out into a hymn or song that would capture the answer to what we needed to hear. Who needs a lecture when Mom can sing you to right thinking and straighten out your mood with her joyfulness?

In our home, there are lots of fun things we do together. Just out of the blue it seems a child will be whacked with a pillow by Papa and the pillow fight is on. Three kids all attacking Papa as he punches back with a huge pillow on each hand. At other times, Papa hears grandma teaching the kids the song, “The B-I-B-L-E, yes that’s the book for me…” and he comes down to this harmonious chorus to grab a hold of the littlest one and dance with her. Then the march begins and we march step-by-step around the rooms singing the song as loudly as we can!

Lori was always great with getting our children playing outside during the day. She now opens the garage door and pulls up a lawn chair and the kids play in the front yard. The next thing you know the other kids come running out of their homes and electric cars, scooters, and bikes are running everywhere. This can last an hour or two as other moms and dads join in. Getting our kids outside and exercising was very important to us as our kids played a lot of organized sports or danced ballet. But we feel there are few things better than going on long, regular walks with the children where great conversations take place.

I am still smiling inside thinking about our walk last evening with our grand kids. We got to the park and I told Lori to keep going our normal way and we would meet her after our detour. We went dashing down the grassy hills with other moms smiling and laughing at us. Our four-year-old grandson panting away holding his side saying, “Hold up guys!” and Papa responding, “No we have to go over the edge” as we flew over the small embankment with my precious cargo in the stroller howling with laughter. Then they insisted on running all the way home together, feet flying as fast a little three and five-year-old can go while Papa pushed an empty stroller. It is not by accident that the next morning two of the kids said, “I slept really hard last night.” Children need lots of  outdoor exercise in order for them to be physically healthy .

When they rise and when they go to bed teach them God’s amazing promises and miracles. I am amazed how eager our grandkids are to go to bed at night. Seven o’clock rolls around and one was asking, “Is it bed time?” Then two others come over to my chair and say, “Papa, think of a story to tell us tonight!” Off to brush teeth then they all three hop in bed hiding under the covers. Papa comes in with a loud roar as he jumps on the bed and tickles them all. Then, it is story time. “Give me an age,” I say, and they pick the age of seven.

“Once upon a time a long, long, long, long, long long time ago when Papa was only seven years old …” out comes a story from my wonderful childhood growing up on an island in the Caribbean. Almost every story makes a spiritual point or draws a spiritual conclusion. Sometimes, I am asking the kids not to do what Papa did, or encouraging them to do the right things, and other times I am telling them about my love for Jesus at such a very young age. Stories about  miracles that have happened in my life and the hard times of growing up with an angry brother who lost his arm in an accident, yet he came back to the Lord in his 20’s to be a missionary to France. So much spiritual training can be learned from what a parent did right or wrong, showing our children that we, too, make mistakes, but the blood of Jesus can cover us and make us whole again. The most precious stories are of the times when all seemed hopeless, yet God intervened to give His miracles.

Teach them God’s truths. Rarely does a day, sometimes not even an hour was spent with our children, and now our grandchildren, where we are not teaching them some spiritual principle or a life lesson. Parents, to train up your child in the way they should go is not a part-time job, but it should be constant and non-stop. How much time is spent driving in a car with your children which becomes the perfect opportunity to coach a captive audience. If it is not spiritual training, make it personal, and teach them English and Math. That’s right. Have a math contest: “What is five plus seven plus nine?”

Give them the gift of Discipline. If you could give just one gift to your children, it would be to teach them early in life, by age one or two, that “No” means “NO.” Teaching discipline early in life will be a gift that keeps giving at every aspect of life; College, Marriage, Career, the Law and all Relationships.  Far too many parents confuse their children because “no” often means, “unless you keep nagging me and then I say yes.” What a disaster some parents have taught their children with their inconsistency and then wonder why their children end up texting and driving, drinking at parties, and getting sent to the principal’s office, all because they never learned that “no” means “No way.” Once this lesson is learned by 2-3 years old, life with children is so much easier. It does not mean we never change our minds, or you won’t find a child playing the two parents’ decisions against each other. But a home will be far more joy-filled when our children know the boundaries and choose to live within them.

Teach them about the four most important things in life. I can’t leave off one vital training tool in raising godly children. We must teach them what our family is all about. Imagine Jacob never sitting down with his boys and explaining to them “We are different as we love the One true God. The God of our Fathers. The God who walked and talked with Father Abraham and gave us such great and mighty promises. The promise that through our seed would come many nations. Never forget that you are a Jew, the promise of God.”

For the Alexanders, we set four main principles as our guide to live by. To this day, if you ask one of our children they can rattle them off. I would tell them that these four ideals belong to our family, but when they have their own family they will need to choose if they will keep them or change them. But whatever they decide, their children and grandchildren should know who they are and what life is all about. For the Alexanders this means we:

Love God and serve Him.

Do what is right.

Treat others the way you would like to be treated.

Be the best you can be.

Such simple ideals that allow a young mind to focus on what is most important in life. If we love God, we will do what is right by keeping his wonderful commandments. And the second greatest commandment of all is to love your neighbor as yourself. In doing these things, you must always strive to be the best you can be, because it is not the smartest, or the best looking, or the one with the best personality in life that has the greatest success, but the one who is willing to keep trying to be the best they can be by outworking and out loving others.

Don’t be afraid to show you are human and make mistakes. Yes, we made some mistakes along the way. Things we regret and would not do the same way again. The goal is not to be a perfect parent as that will just get you second guessing yourself all the time. The Christian life should never be spent second guessing but by reaching out and grabbing a hold of all of God’s promises, even those that are hard to believe. We train up our children in the way they should go and they will not depart from God’s ways that we have helped instill into them. But to do this, we had daily time in the Word with our children and Lori faithfully took the kids each Wednesday evening to AWANA where they hid God’s Word in their hearts by memorization.

Love them with generosity and lots of love with hugs and kisses. We clearly taught our children that we would always love them. Yes, no matter what they did, even if it was really bad, dad and mom would always love each and every child as much as we possibly could. Not equally, but according to what we thought was best for each child according to their needs and personality. We put a quick end to “It’s not fair!” as life is never fair. “You don’t want me to be fair with you, or treat each of your equally,” I would say to the kids. “I know the boys don’t want dolls for Christmas and the girls are not interested much in footballs. You must let your parents be generous towards you not just fair. If you want fair, we can only eat one meal a day like the rest of the world and live with just two pairs of clothing. No, God is generous towards his children, so we will be generous towards you and expect that you will be generous towards others.”

Shine Jesus to your children no matter what your troubles. I am convinced that nothing was a more powerful source of training for our children than for them to see our joy in Lord as we lived life prayerfully, joyfully, and playfully most of the time. Whatever marriage troubles we had were hidden from our children as we did not want our sins and bad habits to become theirs. No, we were bound and determined to train these precious gifts God had given us in His ways and with His joy. If you want to grow up kids quickly who understand what life is all about, show them how you handle personal sickness and troubles by keeping God and his promises first and foremost in your life.

We praise God that by His grace four families have spun off from the Alexanders who are all walking faithfully with our God. Our hearts are full of joy and running over, but as Lori’s Dad reminds us, “It’s not over yet.” So we keep them all in our prayers daily knowing that God is always good and true to His promises. And when we feel He is not? We must trust that He still is good and He has our children in His loving hands.

And you shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sit in your house, and when thou walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.
Deuteronomy 11:19

If you study the beginnings of birth control, you will find that they came from evil roots which was fully supported by feminism. “Family life was and always will be the foundation of any civilization. Destroy the family and you destroy the country” (Erin Pizzey).  “Feminism is Communist both in origin and spirit. It pretends to champion women but in fact neuters both sexes and destroys the basic social unit, the family” (Henry Makow Ph.D.).

God is the giver of life. He wants married couples having babies; for “happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them” (Psalm 127:5).

A friend told me a year or so ago about a doctor named Kelly Brogan who is having great success treating people through natural means to get well. I receive emails from her and the latest one was about the birth control pill.

“I used to think of birth control as a woman’s right, a gift from Big Pharma that exalted women to a place of equality with their male counterparts. That is, until I learned about the horrendous list of side effects — and what women were actually giving up as part of this exchange. When patients come to me with complaints of low libido, low or flat mood, weight gain, hair loss, and cloudy thinking, one of my first questions is, ‘Are you on the pill?’ And when they complain about premenstrual irritability, insomnia, tearfulness, bloating, and breast tenderness, requesting that I sanction a course of oral contraceptives combined with an antidepressant, I tell them there’s a better way.”

She was excited to think that the birth control pill exalted her to a place of equality with men. Why? Does she not like the way God created her uniquely female? Apparently not, and it’s the same with many women today. In their minds, men were free to have sex without consequences (not really) and be able to have careers and then with the advent of the birth control pill, women were free to have sex and pursue careers without consequences, or so they thought. No, the pill was no magic formula that gave women a place of equality with men or gave them free sex without consequences.

Women weren’t made to be men and men weren’t made to be women. When we mess with God’s original design and intention for us, chaos reigns. I know many women who have suffered from the birth control pill. In fact, Dr. Brogan calls it post-birth control syndrome since so many women are suffering from the horrendous side effects. It’s stopping a normal bodily process which is never good. Trying to attain the place of equality with men is never good, either, and neither is trying to prevent children which God calls blessings. Both of these have resulted in far more harm than good.

How were women so easily deceived and convinced to believe that having careers was better and more important than bearing and raising the next generation? How were they manipulated into thinking a little pill taken every day so they can be like men is more important than cuddling their little babies at home? Being at home with children at your feet isn’t bondage, dear women. It’s doing exactly what God has called you to do if you are able! Children bring laughter and joy into homes but they do need to be raised correctly in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. Birth control is not something to celebrate especially since it has led to the slaughter of millions of unborn babies.

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.
Psalm 127:3, 4

Written by Nancy Campbell at Above Rubies

A reader once asked me, “If motherhood is the highest calling of women, what about women who are single or married women who are barren?” This is a very valid question.

When we give birth to a baby and gradually add to our family we are propelled into the realm of motherhood. However, this is not the beginning of motherhood. Every female is ordained at birth to be a mother. Little girls love mothering from the earliest age. Did you know that a baby girl has approximately two million eggs in her ovaries when she is born?

Every woman is created to be a mother, whether she has many children, is barren, or single. God put within every female an innate desire and anointing to nurture. Even those who spurn motherhood, because of the brainwashing of our humanist society, can’t get away from it. If they don’t want to nurture babies, they will nurture a pet. They have to have something on which to pour out their God-given mothering instinct.

Some of the greatest mothers who have lived were not married women and never gave birth to children. Of course, we immediately think of Mother Theresa, who although a single woman, poured out her life in sacrificial love to the poor and the needy. In doing so, she was a great mother and a totally fulfilled woman. A single woman or a woman who is not able to conceive is still a mother.

There is a drought of mothering in our needy and hurting society today. Mothers are the greatest need in society, whether married or single. There are hurting children, disturbed young people, and lonely and needy elderly who are all desperate for the loving touch of an anointed and nurturing woman, whether married or single.

Single women should ask God in what direction He wants them to pour out His loving nurture He has innately put within them. God will lead them to many broken and messed up lives. Often the barren woman ends up with more children than the married. Isaiah 54:1: “Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord.”

The most important thing is for each one of us, married and single, to generously embrace the lifestyle of mothering God intends for us. Mothers with children, embrace your wonderful high calling of motherhood. Don’t hanker for another lifestyle; you are in the perfect will of God.

Single women or precious mothers who cannot conceive at this time, embrace the mothering anointing that God has given you and open your heart to mother all whom God brings into your life. There are so many waiting for you.

Love from Nancy Campbell

Parents are wondering how to handle screen time with their children. We all know that screens, whether they be computers, smart phones, iPads, or televisions are highly addictive. We know they are taking us away from real live interaction with others. Who knows what the long term impact of them will be?

From an article in The New York Times entitled A Dark Consensus About Screens:

“Athena Chavarria, who worked as an executive assistant at Facebook and is now at Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropic arm, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, said: ‘I am convinced the devil lives in our phones and is wreaking havoc on our children.’ Ms. Chavarria did not let her children have cellphones until high school, and even now bans phone use in the car and severely limits it at home…’On the scale between candy and crack cocaine, it’s closer to crack cocaine,’ Mr. Anderson (the former editor of Wired and now the chief executive of a robotics and drone company) said of screens.

“Tim Cook, the C.E.O. of Apple, said earlier this year that he would not let his nephew join social networks. Bill Gates banned cellphones until his children were teenagers, and Melinda Gates wrote that she wished they had waited even longer. Steve Jobs would not let his young children near iPads. But in the last year, a fleet of high-profile Silicon Valley defectors have been sounding alarms in increasingly dire terms about what these gadgets do to the human brain. Suddenly rank-and-file Silicon Valley workers are obsessed. No-tech homes are cropping up across the region. Nannies are being asked to sign no-phone contracts.”

What is all of this technology doing to our brains? These are questions that need to be answered. There were no smart phones when my children were in high school and I am thankful. They came out the year after my youngest graduated high school. My sister said that her two oldest children, who were close in age to my children, would come to her home with their friends and would sit around laughing and talking for hours. By the time her youngest was a senior in high school, almost all of the kids had smart phones. When his friends would come to her home, they would all sit around looking at their phones.

Do you know how much easier it is for your children to be exposed to porn and all types of evil with smart phones? If they go to school, any child with a smart phone can easily show your children this perversion. Many parents aren’t putting Covenant Eyes or some other filter on their phones and computers. This makes another important reason to homeschool your children, mothers. They need your protection from this wicked and adulterous generation which is only growing darker. Satan’s goal is to kill, steal, and destroy and he can easily use the smart phone to accomplish his goals.

Recently, I watched a YouTube of a mother who has eleven children. She is a wise woman and many of you would love learning from her. They don’t have a television nor do her children get to watch any type of screens. They play, learn, and work! My children mostly played, read, and worked. Yes, we had a television but I didn’t let them watch it much. I didn’t like how mesmerized they would become while watching it. I knew it couldn’t be good for them!

Mothers ask me how they can entertain their children without a television. Mothers, you don’t need to be responsible for entertaining your children! Let them use their imaginations and creativity. My children were often making up plays, dances, played with balls, puzzles, games, and always found something to do. Teach them to work along with you as soon as they are able. Let them play outside as much as possible. I go outside in the front yard with my grandchildren often and soon many of the neighborhood children come outside and play, too. They have a great time riding bikes, playing with balls, and making up games. Let your children color, read to them, and play with blocks. Teach them to make their bed after they wake up, clean up after themselves, and work hard. Make sure they develop a love for reading by reading good books to them.

Think twice about allowing your children to have screen time. Don’t let it be a convenient way for you to have your children babysat by a screen. Don’t model to them an addiction to it. It’s heartbreaking to see teenagers and younger children walking around the park near us in a group with other children and all of their heads are buried in their phones.

Is the Devil in your phone? Does it keep you away from real life with your children, your husband, and others? Does it control you? Does it show you inappropriate and even evil images? Can you walk away from it and enjoy life without thinking about it? Is it stealing time away from the LORD and His Word, prayer, and from keeping your home clean and tidy?

Don’t allow Satan to be in your phone or anywhere else in your home. Discipline yourself for the purposes of godliness and you can because God’s Holy Spirit lives and works mightily within you if you are a believer in Jesus Christ. You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you! Don’t allow it to control you and keep you from real life. Raise your children without the addiction of screen time. It will not only benefit their mind, but it will benefit their overall health and relationships. There is an all out war for the souls of your children, women. Put on the full armor of God every day and stand steadfast in the faith.

All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any…But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.
1 Corinthians 6:12 and 9:27

Last week, I wrote a post about the problems with daycare. When I saw all of the comments being made on Facebook under this post, I came up with a few more problems. For one thing and most importantly, God commands mothers be the ones to bring their children up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. Yes, this command is given to fathers but as our husband’s help meet, we are to help him in this area since we are the ones home full time with the children.

Who will train them if the children are away from their mothers all day long five days a week? Who will discipline and correct their bad behavior? Who will praise them when they choose to do the right thing? Who will read them Bible stories and point them to Jesus all throughout the day? How will they see godly womanhood modeled if they aren’t with their godly mothers full time? How will the daughters grow up wanting to be wives and mothers at home if they don’t see their own mothers doing this? They will want careers instead because this is all that is modeled to them by the world. We need more mothers at home not less. We need less career women and more mothers!

Another thing, what about the high cost of daycare? Yes, I know some in the government are trying to get “free” childcare but nothing is ever free from the government. Someone is paying for it and the higher taxes will only mean that more mothers must leave their homes to pay the higher taxes. No one wins in this situation! It will also encourage more women to work since childcare is “free.” No, providing “free” childcare is not the answer.

I was talking to a young woman recently and she said that a very nice childcare near her home costs $30,000 a year! A mother could easily stay home instead of paying this high cost. I encourage every mother who is working outside of the home to figure out exactly how much income she brings home after deducting the costs of daycare, wear and tear on the car, extra clothing, gas, food that she can’t prepare from scratch, not having time to compare prices and shop frugally, and so on. The amount that she brings home may be much less than she thinks and she may be able to find a way to live simply and frugally within her husband’s income.

On this previous post about daycare, I was accused of “mommy shaming” and judging working mothers. So not “mommy shaming” is more important to women today than teaching what is best for children? How is it “mommy shaming” and judging to teach women God’s will for them? Did you know that it’s not bad to feel shame when confronted with the truth? Instead of feeling conviction when they hear the truth being taught, they are offended and call the one teaching it judgmental and shaming. Our culture makes shame feel like a horrible thing but if it causes people to reconsider the path they are on and begin obeying God, then it’s a good thing!

If some were to tell me that at my age and with no children in the home, I should go back to teaching full time, make money, and do “something” with my life, I would feel absolutely no shame because I know I am right where I am supposed to be. If you know you are doing the right thing, then no one can make you feel any shame!

The Apostle Paul wrote about causing shame when confronting people with truth (1 Corinthians 6:5). If a mother knows she is doing the best she can do and still must work outside of the home, then she should feel no shame. Yes, she will probably still feel guilt and regret while continuing to seek the Lord in making a way for her to come home, but she will freely admit that she knows that it would be far superior to be the one home with her children rather than put them in daycare. She understands that God’s ways are best even if she can’t do them at this point in her life.

Throughout the years that I have been mentoring and teaching women, many have told me that they have gone home to be with their children. Some had no idea how they were going to make it financially but they took a step of faith and went home. They saw God’s provision every step of the way. Sometimes, their husband’s received a pay raise or a better job. Sometimes, they found a way to make money from home but how will one ever know how God will answer abundantly above anything they can ever ask or think if they never take a step of faith in the direction that He calls them to do?

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.
Ephesians 3:20