Sarah Edwards (1710–1758), spouse of the good theologian and revival preacher Jonathan Edwards, is most frequently remembered for her lifelong devotion to God. She had skilled God’s grace whilst just a little lady. At age 16, she confided in her journal that she had been “led to prize nearness to Christ because the creature’s biggest happiness” (Sarah Edwards: Delighting in God, 27).
Along with being a loyal Christian, Sarah was the mom of 11 kids. Having married on the age of 17, she gave beginning to her first child the following yr, and had ten extra kids at roughly two-year intervals till she was 40.
Within the eighteenth century, childbirth was nonetheless painful and dangerous. Charges of maternal (and toddler) mortality have been excessive. Sarah’s life was in peril not less than as soon as throughout childbirth. We must always not romanticize the bodily and emotional burden of bearing and elevating eleven kids.
So how did she reply to the challenges of motherhood? What would possibly her instance educate us right this moment?
God-Centered Residence
Parsonages in Sarah’s time would have guests continually arriving and anticipating lodging. The Edwardses typically had company staying for prolonged durations. Such guests constantly testified that theirs was a joyful dwelling. Enjoyment of God characterised day by day household worship and on a regular basis life as nicely.
“Enjoyment of God characterised day by day household worship and on a regular basis life as nicely.”
The Edwards kids have been skilled from the earliest age to obey their mother and father, however the coaching was not harsh. Jonathan and Sarah’s descendent Sereno Edwards Dwight included this glowing tribute to Sarah in his Memoir, written in 1830:
She had a wonderful manner of governing her kids: she knew learn how to make them regard and obey her cheerfully, with out loud offended phrases, a lot much less, heavy blows. She seldom punished them, and in talking to them used light and nice phrases. If any correction was wanted, she didn’t administer it in a ardour; and when she had event to reprove and rebuke, she would do it in few phrases, with out heat and noise, and with all calmness and gentleness of thoughts. (40–41)
The good English revival preacher George Whitefield visited the colonies in 1740 and was invited to evangelise at Jonathan’s Northampton church. As a visitor within the Edwards dwelling, he was impressed by this completely satisfied and godly household, and he confided in his journal the prayer that God would provide him with a life companion identical to Sarah.
On the identical time, neither Jonathan nor Sarah trusted that their parenting would routinely produce Christian kids. Throughout Whitefield’s go to, Jonathan requested him to discuss Christ with the older Edwards kids (then aged 12, 10, 8, 6, and 4). After this go to, it turned obvious that God was working within the lives of Sarah Jr., Jerusha, Esther, and Mary. Jonathan and Sarah have been overjoyed. They didn’t assume the salvation of their kids; every wanted to expertise God’s grace individually.
In the end, Sarah’s parenting rested on the reality that God offers the reward of kids. So, regardless of the unremitting calls for of nursing, damaged sleep, caring for little ones by means of illness, and the day by day work of coaching them, Sarah regarded every youngster as a present from God. She longed for God to be glorified in every of their lives. And she or he trusted that, by God’s grace, every would in flip inform of God’s glory to the following era:
One era shall commend your works to a different,
and shall declare your mighty acts. (Psalm 145:4)
Her Everlasting Perspective
Sarah liked her kids dearly. However she liked God extra. She was assured that no matter occurred to them, she might belief in God’s goodness, knowledge, and love. He was working, and would at all times work, all issues for his personal glory and for the nice of his individuals (Romans 8:28).
“Sarah liked her kids dearly. However she liked God extra.”
That assurance deepened within the spring of 1742 throughout a time of revival in Northampton. Over an intense three-week interval, Sarah loved a sustained and intense expertise of God’s love. “My security, and happiness, and everlasting enjoyment of God’s immutable love, appeared as sturdy and unchangeable as God himself,” she testified (66).
5 years later, Sarah’s confidence in God’s goodness can be severely examined. Her second daughter, Jerusha, had helped to look after a visiting missionary, David Brainerd, who was affected by tuberculosis (a significant explanation for loss of life at the moment). In October 1747, Brainerd died, aged 29. By then, Jerusha had contracted the illness. She died in February 1748, aged simply 17. Unusually godly, Jerusha had been considered the “flower of the household” (106). Sarah grieved deeply, however she didn’t query God’s love. Her enduring enjoyment of God was based mostly on her conviction that God is sovereign in all issues. She might belief him with the selection of life or loss of life, consolation or ache, for herself and her family members.
By way of this, and a collection of additional trials, Sarah was sustained by her everlasting perspective. God’s supreme objective is the glory of his Son, and Christ seeks the glory of his Father (1 Corinthians 15:24). The final word success of that objective has been secured on the cross. The final enemy, loss of life, has already been defeated (1 Corinthians 15:25–26).
And so, when Sarah’s beloved husband unexpectedly died in 1758, she was capable of reply with towering religion:
A holy and good God has lined us with a darkish cloud. O that we might kiss the rod, and lay our fingers on our mouths! The Lord has performed it. He has made me adore his goodness, that we had him [Jonathan] so lengthy. However my God lives; and he has my coronary heart. (115)
Shortly afterward, aged simply 48, Sarah confronted loss of life herself. She died peacefully, assured that nothing, not even loss of life, can separate the believer from the love of God that’s in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38–39).
Each Baby a Present
Sarah Edwards’s assurance that kids are a blessing from God stands in stark distinction to right this moment’s society. Many view kids as a risk to feminine achievement (and a barrier to the achievement of equal outcomes within the paid workforce). The supply of contraception (typically a misnomer for abortifacient medicine) typically results in the belief that we, not God, are in command of when to have kids. If a child is “unplanned,” many declare the “proper” to kill their unborn youngster.
Such is the depravity of a society that has rejected perception within the Creator God. However the constant biblical instructing is that God is the giver of life. In a fallen sinful world, childbirth and childrearing entails ache and toil, but even nonetheless, kids are a blessing.
Conversely, in a society that elevates private achievement over all else, some declare the “proper” to have kids (with or with no companion). And in church buildings the place, rightly, motherhood is honored, some ladies see bearing kids because the final blessing. They wrongly assume that they can’t be really fulfilled except they bear organic kids.
However Sarah reminds us that kids are a reward, not a proper. If God’s glory is our nice want, we are going to undergo his greater knowledge. He has deliberate from all eternity the nice works he needs us to do (Ephesians 2:10). Christian ladies could also be non secular moms, and a blessing to many, whether or not or not they bear bodily kids.
No matter our circumstances, our deepest pleasure might be present in praising God and in search of his glory. And the testimony of Sarah Edwards can turn into our personal:
The glory of God appeared to be all, and in all, and to swallow up each want and want of my coronary heart. (78)
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