“My mother was an angel upon earth. …Her price was indeed above rubies,” wrote John Quincy Adams about his beloved mother, Abigail. Mourning her death in his diary, the secretary of State at the time and later America’s sixth president echoed the words of Proverbs 31:10 in a fitting tribute to a remarkable woman of faith. As we approach Mother’s Day, few lives more fittingly embody the strength, sacrifice, and spiritual depth of motherhood than Abigail Adams.

While she is mostly remembered as the wife of John Adams and the mother of John Quincy Adams, Abigail’s legacy reaches far beyond her proximity to presidential power. During the American War for Independence, she stood on the homefront as a pillar of resilience, supporting her family through an unshakable faith in God. Consequently, our celebration of America’s 250th birthday would not be complete without remembering and honoring the vital role that women played.

If men like John Adams and George Washington declared and fought for the independence of our nation, it was women like Abigail Adams who sustained it. Indeed, Abigail urged John and those men in Philadelphia to “Remember the Ladies.” It is fitting that we do that as well, yet with a particular focus on her faith that was the defining quality and contribution of her amazing life.

A Faith Forged by FamilyBorn on November 22, 1744, Abigail was raised by devout Christian parents. Reverend William Smith was the Harvard-educated pastor of the North Parish Congregational Church of Weymouth, Massachusetts. Though Abigail did not receive a formal education, she was schooled at home mostly by her mother, Elizabeth, the daughter of John Quincy, a prominent member of the colony.

Abigail and her siblings were taught to read and write, and her father made available his extensive library. However, the Bible was the basic textbook, and Abigail absorbed its words deeply into her life. Throughout her copious correspondence, we see plenty of evidence of her biblical worldview, with abundant allusions and citations of Scripture. True to her biblical namesake, Abigail grew up to be a woman of incredible courage and wisdom.

A Faith Deepened by LossAt 19, Abigail married John Adams on October 25, 1764, combining her family’s considerable social standing with the Adams family’s rising status. Together, they would have six children, but only four lived to adulthood. In 1770, they lost Susanna, affectionally called “Suky,” when she was only two years old.

When John Adams left Massachusetts to serve in the Continental Congress in 1774, communication came only through letters that often took weeks to arrive. She wrote assuring him of her prayers for God’s wisdom: “You have before you… the greatest national concerns that ever came before any people; and if the prayers and petitions ascend unto heaven which are daily offered for you, wisdom will flow down as a stream, and righteousness as the mighty waters, and your deliberations will make glad the cities of our God” (Psalm 46:4). Yet while John Adams was weighing in on the growing crisis in the colonies, Abigail was left at home to manage the family farm, educate their children, and navigate the uncertainties of an impending war with Great Britian.

While the public rightly remembers John and the other statesmen in Philadelphia, the private burden of sacrifice fell heavily on Abigail. During these years, she endured devastating losses, including the death of her mother and the stillbirth of a child — griefs compounded by her husband’s absence. John Adams, writing from afar, responded with philosophical resignation: “It is not uncommon for a Train of Calamities to come together.” But Abigail’s response reveals the deeper well from which she drew strength, which was not stoicism, but Scripture.

“It has pleased the great disposer of all Events to add Breach to Breach,” she wrote. Then she pleaded, “How long O Lord shall the whole land say ‘I am sick’[Isaiah 33:24]? O shew us wherefore it is that thou are contending with us [Job 10:2]?” Her grief was real, but so was her faith. She drew encouragement from the image of her sympathetic Savior, weeping at Lazarus’s tomb (John 11:35-36), and declared with Job-like resolve, “Yea tho he slay me I will trust in him” (Job 13:15). She added: “But blessed be the Father of mercies [2 Corinthians 1:3]. … Still I have many blessings left, many comforts to be thankful for and rejoice in. I am not left to mourn as one without hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

This was not simply abstract theological reflection. It was lived faith in the crucible of suffering. The word of God was woven into the fabric of her being.

Source: VidNews » Feed