Encouragements for Women — Helen Leibee

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Learning From Every Believer

It's always with trembling that I come and yet excitement, an air of excitement to look at the faces of my sisters and get to share with them the good things that God has for us. I have a theory in my Christian life.

You know what? I think I'm older than almost all of you here. I stopped to say that. I was telling Suzy that it's unusual for me to be one of the older ones because in most of our other churches there is a little bit more of a balance of age than there is here.

This is a little bit lower age congregation. But I actually am tied as two women in more than one way here because I do think I might be one of the older ones. A few sisters might be up there with me, but I am 49.

Anyway, through these years of walking with Christ, one thing that I have learned is I've learned to learn from my sisters. And I've learned that every believer has the indwelling God inside of them. If they're 15 and they're born again, if they're 13 and they're born again, if they're 48 and they're born again, if they're struggling in sin but they're born again.

They're very mature, but they have the living God inside of them. And so I look at them and watch them. I watch a 13 year old. I watch her for a while while she's with her friends. And I think, she's got something I want.

And when we're counseling someone who's in trouble, someone who is deeply in sin, someone who looks almost hopeless. Maybe they've come with the same sin and the same sin and the same sin. I still sit there and think, but God is living inside of them.

God is living inside of them. And I'm going to sit here and I'm going to learn something from that sister. True, she's failing in this. True, she just did this again, but she has God inside of her and I want more of God.

And I determine that when I come away from being with my brothers and sisters in Christ that I have more of Jesus Christ than I did before. And that's the way we want to look at our sisters. So when I come up here, I look at all your faces and I think right away, why?

All of these sisters have the living God, all that would be born again here, have the living God inside of them. And I want to study them a little bit. And even during last night, during the couples night, I study and watch and think, ah, there's something of Christ that I've missed and I want.

And that way, as years go by, I become more like Christ because I'm leaning from Him. So I have nothing more than you have, but I have the living God inside of me. So it's an amazing thought and nothing that any other religion has.

And so I really don't have maybe any more wisdom than some of you in here or maybe any more insight, but I just trust God that you can just look up here and maybe something of Jesus Christ will speak to you.

Testimony of Conversion and Leaving Catholicism

One of the sisters had asked, actually I came prepared to do a variety of different things. I did sit before the Lord and get something, but then I do speak often enough that I brought several things and thought that I would watch for a while and see what the situation was and see if anyone mentioned something to me.

And I brought a variety of things for different age groups and things like that. But then one of the sisters last night said that some of you would like to hear my testimony before I taunt. So I'm not going to give a long version, but I am going to tell a little of my testimony.

Is it true that most of you don't know either Rick's or my testimony? Raise your hand if you pretty much don't know it. Raise your hand if you do know it, Rita. I thought maybe you'd be the only one. All right, I will tell a little bit just in case it would be something that would bless you.

I was raised as a Catholic girl, very strong in the Catholic Church, in a fairly stable home. Not a traumatic home like many people are, but still not a Christian home. We were well-to-do. My family is well-known.

My family has a lot of political ties. We've traveled a lot all over the United States. I did all over the world. I was a girl that ran with some high socialites. It wasn't uncommon for me to run with high political crowds and things like that.

And then I went to a university setting, and I met Rick, who came from a whole different type of background. Maybe lower class, if you were looking through the world's eyes. And yet something had happened in his life that enabled him to go to college, and we met at college.

I don't promote college at all, but I'm just telling you part of my testimony. And I wasn't afraid of dying, and I didn't know that I was lost. That's contrary to what many preachers preach, that everyone knows that I did not.

I was living in a world of deceit. I believed that religion saved. I was a good Catholic girl, so I had no reason to tremble. I thought the bad guys went to hell and the good guys went to heaven, and the bad guys were, most of them, kind of pretty much in jail anyway.

And so that was pretty much taken care of, and the rest of us good guys went to heaven. Especially us good Catholic guys. And so if somebody would talk about the gospel, I just kind of listened. I don't even remember many people talking about it.

I listened distantly, thinking thoughts like, I'm Catholic. I wonder why they're talking to me about this. Don't they know that I'm fine? So I did not know that I was lost. And Rick and I, we started out with not much money, because that's the way my family felt about that.

They believed you had to move up the ranks for yourself. And we actually had some sense of religion in us, and so I began to pray, and I asked him, could we pray from the first day we were married, and he said we could, and we did.

And we prayed. But Rick mainly wanted, I didn't know this at this time, to be a powerful international executive, making a tremendous amount of money. Those were his goals. That might be one of the reasons that he married me.

And he was getting those goals. Within a few years of us marrying, he was moving up the ladder. We traveled abroad, lived in London, worked for Lloyd's of London, and we're moving fast up the ladder of the world success.

But we prayed, God, if you ever have anything more for us, we're willing. We were very ignorant. What I was saying to God is, if there's more to Catholicism than I see, I'll gladly do it. The reason we were praying, I'll be glad to be a better Hutterite, Lord, if you show me how.

You know what I'm saying? For you from the Kleine Gemeine, I was saying, Lord, if there's more to this, I'm willing. I was not saying, let me be born again, because I didn't know anything about it. But God, who is merciful, saw me and said, yes, we'll give you more.

I'll give you more than you're asking for, but you're going to be surprised at what it is. And we became deeply involved in the Catholic Church, and I was part of a movement called the Cursillo Movement, the Renew Movement.

We were lay leaders. We had 30 people that we were over that met in homes, and each of them had 10 to 20 people moving in their homes, so we had about 300 people under us in a lay movement in the Catholic Church.

And the Lord began to speak to us, and we began to open His Word, and we began to ask Him for more, and He began to give it, and the Lord saved both of our souls within a six-month period. However, we didn't know the terminology.

He made us new creatures, but we didn't know exactly, because we didn't know enough about being born again to even know that we'd been born again. I remember going and telling people, something wonderful has happened, and they said, what?

And I said, I don't know. All I know is we were one way before, and now we're another way, and we'll never be the same again. And it wasn't until I was reading my Bible, you know, sometime later, that it said, behold, all things are made new, and I said, that's what happened to me, but I didn't know to say that I was born again, that God isn't limited by that box.

So I often say that it was more miraculous that He saved me in that setting than a heathen in some dark jungle, because I was safe. I thought I was safe. So see how much harder it would have been to bring me the Gospel.

Miraculous that He saved me, and that He saved me without even explaining to me what saving is, but He did. And our lives were never the same again. We began the struggle of religion where we wanted to be good Catholics and wanted to stay in the church, and surely they were born again too, and we tried like so many people try.

And that went on for a while, and the priests would come and say, what's wrong with you all? You're getting off course. Maybe you can shuckle at this. We, of course, don't watch television, so I'm hoping you'll take this for what it's worth.

This was us way back. And we went in to visit them, and one of the priests said, you are getting very confused. You must be watching too much Christian television. And I said, there's Christian television?

At that point, that was a good thought to me. Oh, well, I'll go turn it on and see. But of course, after a few months of turning that on, we realized that there isn't any Christian television. But I'm saying that's how ignorant we were.

You know, we were happy to find anything that had to do with Christ. From there, our walk changed in that about a year later, we did not try to leave the Catholic Church. We began secretly visiting Bible-believing churches.

We went to a little church where no one would know me. Because if you remember from my testimony, I would have been known, and I wouldn't want anyone there to know. So we went to a poor little country church where we didn't think anyone would know us.

And the reason we went is because they had a sign out front that said, Bible-believing church. And we said, that's what we want. We want people that believe in the Bible. And little did we know that at that time that many people called themselves Bible-believers and aren't.

But for us, we were thrilled. We secretly went, and we would secretly go to our church back, forth, back, forth. Oh my, it was traumatic. And then, one day, God let us get caught. And we got caught in front of a huge room full of our people.

When I was at a very exclusive party, and I knew no one would be there from this other church. I never even gave it a thought. And in walked somebody who said, Hello, how are you? It's so good to see you here.

And all the other ladies said, How do you know her? And she said, Oh, she goes to my church. And there was stunned silence. And everyone said, No, you must be misunderstanding. Of course she doesn't go to your church.

And they said, Yes, she goes to our church. And her children, Paige, Wes, and Tanner, at that time we had a four-year-old, a two-year-old, and a baby. Or maybe three, one, and a baby. But anyway, three little ones.

And they said, No, she doesn't go to your church. And oh, I just wanted the floor to open up and swallow me. Rick wasn't there. I was petrified. It wasn't like what Rick talked about today, let faith replace fear.

It was fear, gripping fear. Gripping fear. But she wouldn't let me out of it. She said, Of course I know her. She goes, she sits in the third row. They sing the hymns, you know. By then everyone was just, Oh, in such a turmoil.

So I quickly left and went home and called my husband in tears and said, We're in big trouble. And sure enough, we were in big trouble within a few hours. The family members and different ones and church people were there.

Please know that I don't say this in any way against my people or the Catholic people, but this is the truth of my testimony. And we had to say, What are we going to do with our faith? Does the system say it's like this?

Or are we going to pull out all the stops and live totally sold out for Jesus? And God put us in a corner, didn't he? Isn't he good? He put us in a corner. How many years it would have taken us? I don't know.

But he saw down the pathway of time at the things that Rick would be called to do later. And he must have said, Okay, this is wasting too much time. Let's get on with it. Let's get these people into the battle.

And he put us into the battle. He forced us into the battle. We had to make a decision then. We couldn't either just leave behind all the truth we were learning or what. And we decided then. So we left the church system and moved on on our own in faith.

And that's our testimony from there. It continues on. And now the Lord has brought us to this point. And we praise his name. And that's our testimony. And of course we had a lot to change and we had a lot of pressure from our dear family.

And in some ways. And in some, gave us no pressure whatsoever. They were just done with us. And even now, occasionally, I'll go back into that setting every now and then and just kind of poke our heads in and out.

We actually moved a few years later because Rick saw that we couldn't bring up our children with the situation there. And so we did move. And I thank God for that. Now, I have a... Some of you know, but I'll go ahead and tell you that we have 11 children.

Six natural, five adopted. Makes no difference to us, though. They all just merge in together. We didn't go six natural and five adopted, but they were all mixed up in there. And so we just about forget who's who.

In fact, Paige, to her embarrassment, once was giving a testimony in front of the church. And she said how she'd been to Lancaster. Oh, she's adopted. Oh, she's been to Lancaster. She pities those people.

And she said, I just can't thank God enough for being born into a Christian home. And she saw that a couple of people were looking at her funny, and then she realized and went, Oh, I didn't like that.

And then later she told me, Mom, I felt so silly, but I forget. I forget that I wasn't born into a Christian home. So that's those. And of those 11, nine are at home. The oldest serves among the Cancunba tribal people, breaking down the language of Lekwan with his wife, Charity.

They live in a bush, in a mud hut. Some of you may keep up with them. Some of you, I hope, pray for them. Next is Tanner, and he just got married. He, too, is called to the unreached. His wife, Rebecca, they are both called to the unreached tribal people.

So it won't be long, I think, that they won't be with us any longer. And then from there down, living at home with us, also, are five, soon to be again, six, soon as Michael Morritt joins us once more.

Young people living with us, all of whom are living with us because when they stepped out into the baptismal waters, they couldn't return home for various cultural or religious reasons. So they live with us as our young people.

We love them dearly. They love us. We pour a lot into them, and we also correct them a lot, which they receive, and they have grown in a lot of glory. That's our family life. I thought that, and praise God for it, I look back on who we would have been and what we could have been, and I just can't thank God enough.

Teachability for Every Woman

You can't talk to a group of women without talking about motherhood, and yet, there are always women in the room that aren't mothers. So what do you do with that? Well, you can say, we're having a sisters' meeting for marrieds only, or you can say, we're having a sisters' meeting for unmarrieds only, and that works sometimes.

But I think the best thing to do is to have a sisters' meeting that has a little bit of both in it, and that we learn to approach teachings just as we approach the Bible. You know, the Bible is not afraid to talk a great deal about married women, even though some of you aren't married.

You know, God is not afraid to say, to point the finger at wives submitted to your husband. And He doesn't think, oh, but some of them aren't wives. But a great deal of what He has to say in the Bible is directed towards wives.

So I think we shouldn't shy away from that, but what we should do is learn what every woman should learn anyway. One of the key things every woman should learn is teachability under all circumstances.

That should be one of the number one things that every woman in the world wants to learn, is teachability under every circumstance. You should get your life so yielded that you can learn as much from a children's lesson as you can from the most powerful sermon ever written.

You should get yourself so teachable that you can sit near where the men are talking and walk away having grown in the Lord. You should get yourself so teachable that when the young girls are speaking, the 15, 16, 17, 18-year-olds, that you can sit over there and glean for a while and go back home and really have something.

That way you won't click your switch off and think, oh, this doesn't apply to me. This doesn't apply to me. This doesn't apply to me. That's a way for a woman to just go downhill in her walk. I've found that a lot of women are either on roller coasters where they go way up high and then way down low.

Like at a revival meeting, they'll hear a lot of solid teaching. Now I've got it, I've got it, I've got it. But then as the weeks go by, down they go, back down the bottom of the roller coaster. But you don't need to be that way.

You should set yourself in a mode. I'm just going to be continually learning, continually growing in the Lord. If they're speaking to the youth up there, from the pulpit, I'm going to listen. God has a word for me.

If they're speaking to the men and I happen to be in on it, I'm going to pray, Lord, teach me something. And that way you don't have to worry about, oh, I'm single or I'm married or I'm not a youth or I'm not a man.

You don't have to worry about that. You just trust in the ever-living God. But you must tell Him that you want this. Just ask Him, God, could you let me learn something here? So I ask you to do the same thing.

Trusting the Lord Above Human Understanding

One thing I thought we would talk about a little, we're going to talk about several little subjects in a row, is trusting the Lord. The word, the best word in the Bible that covers trust, there's several of them, is batakh, B-A-T-A-H.

It's pronounced batakh. I'm not at all a Hebrew or Greek person, but I do know how to use my concordances and my strength and things like that to try to find out what I need to find out. And listen to what it means.

The primary root means to hide for refuge. Isn't that a wonderful word? To hide for refuge. To be confident or sure. To be bold in the sense of secure and sure. To be careless. And it says, in the fact of a woman.

What do you think they mean, be careless? As far as a woman pertains. What do you think that means? Anyone with an idea? Why would they say trust means to be careless? Careless seems to me like, careless is if I leave something in the middle of the aisle and then you all trip over it and break it.

And it's my fault because I was careless. But they don't mean that, I don't think. What do they mean? Yes? That's right. Without a care. As far as women are going. So that means that in the scriptures where it says to trust, that you're not to take up a lot of cares that aren't yours to take up.

To put confidence in. To hope. Those are some of the ideas about trust. I'd asked a few of you to read a scripture on trust. Or to look up a scripture on trust. Who did? Okay, go ahead. Hold on.

I told you it's a little inconvenient. It's okay. Keep it turned on. Proverbs 3 verse 5 and 6. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy path.

Good. Remember, sisters, when you're passing a microphone like this around, it's not a voice magnifying microphone. It doesn't change your voice at all. You still have to speak up. But it just allows it to be taped for other sisters.

Somebody else put one up?

Psalm 4 verse 5. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord.

Offer the sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord. Somebody else?

Psalm 118 verses 8 and 9. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes. Psalm 37 verse 40. And the Lord shall help them and deliver them.

He shall deliver them from the wicked and save them because they trust in him.

How we need to be taught on trust. How we need to study trust. Trust is a cornerstone for every woman no matter what she's doing. I don't care how old she is. I don't care what her circumstances are. Whether they're difficult, whether they're easy.

Whether you're married to Brother Rick. Or whether you're married to a drunkard. It does not matter. All of us have the same need of desperately needing to trust in the Lord. If we can more fully learn to trust the Lord Jesus, we'll bring so much delight to our homes, to our churches.

Whether we're wives, mothers, widows, youth, singles. Show me a woman that trusts in the Lord and I'll tell you that she's a delight among the people of God. And a light among the people who are not of God.

She is a delight among the people of God. And a light among the people who are not of God. One reason is she's not ruffled by every little disturbance. The things that throw either an unsaved woman or an unconsecrated woman into a tiz do not affect her the same way.

Her ultimate refuge is in the very one that created the universe and holds the stars in place. Think of it that way. Surely the God that holds all the stars in place can handle our little crises down here that seem so big to us.

And they are big to us, but he can. Which woman are you? Are you the woman that trusts in the Lord for those things or constantly is struggling with trust? I don't want to weigh you down here at all. If you're failing in this area, I just actually want to lift it up as a high standard.

It would be such a blessing to all of your loved ones, whatever situation you're in, if you began to trust in the Lord so much that you could face trials with a very steady outlook. And how the church grows when there are several women in the church who are steady, and they have a confidence in God, and they have a peaceful attitude.

Interestingly enough, if you begin to trust God more and to press through in this, you'll actually trust your fathers, your husbands, and your ministers more. The more you can get to where you trust God, the more you can trust those that he placed in authority over you.

Because after all, he's the one who placed them there, so you can trust him. I can honestly say that years ago when my husband said he was going to quit his job of 20 years, leave our church, leave the hometown where I had been raised up for 40 years, leave my family, leave everything behind, and move to Pennsylvania and possibly build bunk beds or lawn furniture, I had complete and total trust in him.

I did not waver. I can honestly tell you that. Now, I have many failures in other areas, but in that I just said, Aha, okay, I'm with you. But the reason was not that I trusted Rick, but that I trusted God.

And I looked past, beyond Rick, as he was saying he was going to do those things, and I trusted God. Now, I don't always feel that confident, but in that case I did. Did God pour extra grace out on me?

Maybe he did, knowing what was ahead of us. Nevertheless, I was able to look to God, and it was such a blessing. Can we not trust him like Sarah did? Do you remember how Sarah trusts? Oh, I love how Sarah trusts.

You know, God could have given us any example of trust. I mean, Mary. Now, there is an example of trust. Behold, the handmaiden of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to thy word, she said. Now, that's trust.

But God didn't decide to use her as our example of trust. He decided to use Sarah. That makes me feel pretty good because, remember, Sarah laughed. Remember, she laughed. She wasn't perfect. Isn't it wonderful how God points us to David and says how wonderful David is?

And David failed. And he points us to Sarah, and Sarah laughed. I'm glad he does that to show us that it's not perfection I'm after. It's the heart I'm after. And here in 1 Timothy 3, verse 6. I've lost my place.

Can someone find it for me real quickly? Trusting is true. Mm-hmm. Thanks. Thank you. My mind was going blank like it does when you're standing up here. Isn't it a wonder the men's minds don't go blank?

Okay. 3, 6. First here. For after this manner, what manner, God? What manner? That's 5, verse 5. What manner after this manner? So then you always back up. Why did God say this manner? Okay, it was the manner of a hidden heart, quiet spirit, meek and quiet spirit.

Do you know what a quiet spirit is? It's a spirit that's not raging. It doesn't mean a... It's a spirit that's not raging on the seas of life. A quiet spirit is not ruffled, not anxious. A quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.

Okay, so for after this manner, the one that's not ruffled by the seas of life. In the old time, the holy women also who trusted, there's our trust in God, adorned themselves being in subjection unto their own husbands.

Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters you are, as long as you do well and are not afraid with any amazement. Sometimes I write that down. Not afraid with any amazement. And I stick it somewhere.

Not afraid with any amazement. For a couple of years I've lived on that. Not afraid with any amazement. Not afraid with any amazement. Maybe some of you have heard me give testimonies on how I've grown in that area because I often would laugh in that area myself.

But amazement is where when your father or your husband or one of the brothers in the church or all the brothers in the church says something and you go, What? That's amazement. All of you women have experienced that before.

When a man said, we're going to do this. We're going to go do this. Or we're going to do this. Or we believe this. And your heart kind of goes, That's amazement. And it says that we're supposed to obey the men without amazement.

And that means our fathers, the brothers in the church, that we're to just be at rest and quietly praying for them. Do they make mistakes? Of course they do. But we're trusting above their heads to God.

And so we don't have amazement. A good example I have of that is when I was praying with Rick. He had asked me into a council room and there was a sister there. Beautiful sister. Beautiful face on this sister.

Lovely. It looked like she really had her act together. Really seemed to love her children, love her husband. I didn't know her. But very peaceful look on her face. She was crying. She was a hurting lady and she was crying over something.

And we were in there and Rick had asked me. Sometimes Rick will ask me to just do for a while. But he wasn't giving it much to me. So I asked a few questions and then I stepped back and he seemed to be doing it.

And she was in the middle of talking and Rick said, You're a very bitter, angry lady. And I went, I'm serious. That is, I think, the biggest example I've ever had in my life of fear and amazement. I'm telling you.

I thought, what is he doing? And I could actually feel my heart kind of go like that. And I was finding that yours should say, oh, well, actually. And try to soften things. But anyway, she said, no, in a very sweet tone.

And I don't think that's the problem. So I thought, okay, we've got past that. I wonder what came over Rick that he did that. And then Rick, a very gentle man, continued on. All of a sudden Rick said, do you children, if I were to go and ask your children, are you a very angry, bitter woman?

What would they tell me? And again, that horrible fear came in my life. And then I thought of that scripture. Oh, this must be what they're talking about. Oh, this must be how Sarah was tempted to feel when she got sent into the harem.

You remember that Sarah got sent into a harem. She must have gone at first, but evidently, believing the scriptures, she was able to go, okay, I trust God without fear and amazement. Can you imagine doing that?

She did that. And so I chose that day. Okay, I'm going to calm my heartbeat down. And I'm going to sit back. And as it says in Ruth, sister, and see what the matter will, how the matter will fall. Sit still and see how the matter will fall.

And I decided, I think I'll sit still and see how the matter will fall here. But I was, you know, and the sister looked with that soft, sweet face. And then she said, I'm so angry. I'm so angry. And she just began to go on and on and on.

But I have every right to be. I have every right to be. And then we watched her go on. And I went. And then I realized, oh, the beauty. The beauty of trusting with no fear or amazement. Because what were my fears anyway?

That she might think bad of Rick. That she might get her feelings hurt and leave the room. That he might be off course and hurt her deeply. I mean, I did, you know, those were the kind of fears that I was thinking.

But here Rick was listening to God. And I was listening to Helen's emotions. But he was listening to God. And I had to get to the point where I looked over my emotions and looked to God too. And said, okay, God, you placed Rick here.

What can I do? I'll just sit back. And do you know, she got born again. And later she wrote us a wonderful note of thank you so much. For the first time in my life I'm free. I'm not hiding all this. And when you asked if my children knew, of course they know.

But they've learned to hide it too. And thank you, thank you, thank you. And I wanted to write her back a letter and say, don't thank me. I almost wrecked the whole thing by trying to cover it up and fix it.

But I didn't. We must trust without any fear or any amazement. Right now I want everyone in the room to stop and think for just a minute. And we don't have time. I'll give you a little more time to think.

But try to think of a time in your life when you had a struggle. A struggle trusting in your father, your minister, your husband, or some other elder in the church. And I do realize that men make mistakes.

Please don't think that I miscount that. But just for a moment, can you picture, nod to me. Can you picture a time in your life when you just, or even a small time, when you had a little bit of a struggle trusting.

I'm surprised that I'm not seeing many nods so you're always trusting. Or you're just pondering for a minute. Okay, got it in your mind? Now meditate on Job for just a minute. Recently I read Job again.

Isn't it amazing all the things he had to face? Could any of us face all the things Job had to face? And all at once, just back and forth. And Job said, Though he slay me, yet will I trust him. Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.

So surely we can trust God in these small instances that are now in all of your minds and my mind. None of those instances are like what happened to Job. And yet we struggle with trust. But Job said, Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.