As I write this column, we’re honoring our mothers for Mother’s Day. Being a mom is no easy task. Being a mom in 2022 is unlike ever before. The demands placed on mothers are continuing to increase, and yet somehow moms continue to show how amazing they are. 

We all have at least one thing in common—we had a mom bring us into the world. 

Recently, Motherly released the findings of the largest statistically significant survey of U.S. mothers. 

• The millennial generation (25- to 40-year-olds) is the first generation in history where women are more educated than men. 
• 47 percent of moms contribute more than half of their household income. 
• 38 percent of moms report feeling completely burned out. 
• 55 percent of stay-at-home Moms report feeling completely burned out. 
• The number-one reason women changed or left jobs last year: lack of child care.
• 25 percent of moms are raising kids on their own.

Ellen White wrote: “We may safely say that the distinctive duties of woman are more sacred, more holy, than those of man.”¹

Then again she wrote, “[The Christian mother’s] work, if done faithfully to God, will be immortalized” and “the Majesty of heaven will write the name of that faithful mother in the book of immortal fame.”²

There are countless moms in Scripture whom we could write pages and pages about. But there are a few that stand out, such as Jochebed and Hannah. The reason they stand out for me is that both knew that they would be able to raise their boys only for the first few years of their lives, and then they would be raised by wolves in leadership. 

Jochebed was a wife, a mother, and a slave. She was poor, and yet raised arguably the greatest leader, other than Jesus, the world has ever known. She raised Moses to love God and honor the Lord of Creation before he entered the palace of Pharaoh and became surrounded by worship of the creation. 

We are told that “she sought to implant in [Moses’] heart love and loyalty to God. And faithfully was the work accomplished. Those principles of truth that were the burden of his mother’s teaching and the lesson of her life, no after influence could induce Moses to renounce.”³ 

“The mother seldom appreciates her own work and frequently sets so low an estimate upon her labor that she regards it as domestic drudgery. 

“Could the veil be withdrawn and father and mother see as God sees the work of the day, and see how His infinite eye compares the work of the one with that of the other, they would be astonished at the heavenly revelation. 

“While the father has been dealing with the things which must perish and pass away, the mother has been dealing with developing minds and character, working, not only for time but for eternity.”⁴ 

¹ Ellen G. White, The Adventist Home (Nashville: Southern Pub. Assn., 1979), p. 231. 

² Ellen G. White, in Signs of the Times, Sept.13,1877. 

³ Ellen G.White, Education (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1903), p. 61. 

⁴ E.G.White, in Signs of the Times, Sept. 13, 1877. 

Jared Thurmon is a consultant for Adventist Review Ministries.