Our Guest: Ellie Anderson
Ellie Anderson received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Iowa Nursing School. She worked as a postpartum/newborn nursery nurse in Iowa and then Virginia for about 8 years. Ellie laid down nursing to devote herself to supporting her husband, raising her children, and serving in the church.
She began homeschooling her children in 1992. This continued until her youngest graduated in 2019, 27 years later! In addition, Ellie served as a substitute teacher at a Christian school in Suffolk, VA, and worked in various roles for Classical Conversations, a Classical Christian homeschool organization.
Ellie’s passions include learning and growing in the Lord, as well as encouraging and teaching young mothers. God provided opportunities for her to do this, serving alongside others in groups including Nurturing a Mother’s Heart, Inspired Moms, and MOPS.
In 2021, Ellie made another transition, melding her experience as mother/baby nurse and ministry to young mothers, as she became a Patient Advocate for the Crisis Pregnancy Center. And in this role, she meets with women of all ages facing, most often, an unplanned pregnancy and helps them to make a choice for life.
Ellie and Bruce, her husband of 38 years, reside in Virginia. They have four children and six grandchildren.
Key Thoughts and Scriptures:
Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:13-18 NIV Blessed are those who find wisdom, those who gain understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her; those who hold her fast will be blessed.
- God uses all of our personal circumstances to prepare us in different ways.
Deuteronomy 6:7 NKJV You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.
- Homeschooling is not just a way to educate our children, but to disciple them and have an incredible relationship with them.
- All of the information of the world points to who God is and His order and His beauty.
- When Ellie’s life didn’t meet her expectations, she had to surrender her expectations, her plans, and her perfect picture.
1 Samuel 1 NIV Hannah’s story
- Samuel means “asked of God” or “heard of God”.
- “God was present in my grief and he taught me a lot through that grief. And I had to decide what I was going to focus on. Was I going to focus on my loss or was I going to trust God?”
God is at work in everything.
2 Corinthians 1:4 CSB He comforts us in all our afflictions, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
- We can trust God, even in loss.
- God uses every experience of our life, every season of our life to mold us, shape us, and teach us.
- In Psalms, David preaches to himself the truth of who God is and God’s faithfulness.
- Being a mom is very dynamic. It’s always changing. There are always new seasons, new hurdles to jump over and things to figure out.
Titus 2:3-5 ESV Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.
- Therefore, we need to live in such a way that others will look and see and want to know that Jesus that you rely on every day.
- We’re passing the inheritance of our relationship with God onto our children.
CCAE for Ellie
- First C – I’m a creation of God.
- Second C – I’m a Christian.
- A – I’m an Anderson.
- E – I’m Ellie.
- Ellie encountered one of those times in your life where you see that God was taking care of you all along.
- You don’t have to feel like you need to figure life out ahead of time.
- God is directing you and has it all planned out.
- His purpose in salvation is to free us of that independence. We need to be dependent on Him.
2 Corinthians 1:9 NKJV Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead
- Marriage is not about loss. It is about gain. We have to rely on God as he makes us one.
- In our growing in God, He is going to form in us and accomplish His desires. And we will be far more fulfilled than if we did things our own way and in our own strength.
- Happiness has to do with our circumstances. But joy has to do with eternal things.
- Our relationship with Christ gives us meaning and hope in everything else that we have in life.
Hannah and Ruth’s stories
1 Samuel 1 NKJV Hannah’s story
- Hannah cried out to the Lord for a child.
Ruth NIV Ruth’s story
- She had everything against her. But even in her heartbroken life, she chose to take a hard and difficult road.
- God had an amazing plan for her.
Psalm 143:8 NIV Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.
Psalm 20:7-8 KJV Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God. They are brought down and fallen: but we are risen, and stand upright.
Psalm 20:7-8 NIV Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They are brought to their knees and fall, but we rise up and stand firm.
Proverbs 19:21 NLT You can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.
- As we make our plans and dreams, if we hold them loosely and allow God to shift and change them, we’ll see how loving and good God is and that He has our best in mind.
- His plans for us are better than our plans for us.
James 1:27 NLT Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.
Psalm 125:1 NIV Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever.
Links from Ellie’s Story:
Connect with Us:
Website: HerGodStory.org
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