Sarah Edwards - Faithful in the Mundane

From our study of Chapter One of Faithful Women & Their Extraordinary God, by Noel Piper

Sarah Edwards, born Sarah Pierrepont, was a woman who walked with and experienced God from a very young age. In fact it was one of the first things that her husband noticed about her. Jonathan Edwards, who was to become her husband eventually, wrote a description of her, in the days before their courtship. I love the way he describes her:

"They say there is a young lady in [New Haven] who is loved of that Great Being, who made and rules the world, and that there are certain seasons in which this Great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight; and that she hardly cares for anything, except to meditate on Him...[Y]ou could not persuade her to do anything wrong or sinful, if you would give her all the world, lest she should offend this Great Being. She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness, and universal benevolence of mind; especially after this Great God has manifested himself to her mind. She will sometimes go about from place to place singing sweetly; and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure...She loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have some one invisible always conversing with her."

How I desire to be described in such a way. That my experiences of relationship with God would be such that nothing could entice me to sin against Him. That I would walk in continual communion with Him, "always full of joy and pleasure" - there is an example of praying without ceasing, for prayer itself is talking to God. That my delight in Him would spill over into my interactions with other in such a way that I would be marked by love and calmness and sweetness toward all and I would wager under all circumstances.

Sarah was a woman who was put under great stress and scrutiny, both from her husband's constantly changing moods and hours of secluded study and his role as a pastor in the community. However, far from fainting under the strain, she created and maintained a home in which her husband could fulfill his calling from the Lord, which may include up to thirteen hours a day of study, despite having eleven children and frequent house guests.

One of these house guests, a man named Samuel Hopkins, commented on Jonathan and Sarah's relationship, "In the midst of these complicated labors...[Edwards] found at home one who was in every sense a help mate for him, one who made their common dwelling the abode of order and neatness, of peace and comfort, of harmony and love, to all its inmates, and of kindness and hospitality to the friend, the visitant, and the stranger." Oh how I hope that my future home could be described in a similar way! There is nothing demeaning about Sarah's role as a housewife in this. She is commended for making her home a delightful, restful place for her husband, children, and visitors to be.

Again, I would hope to emulate their example in Jonathan's description of what a family should look like, "Every family ought to be...a little church, consecrated to Christ and wholly influenced and governed by His rules. And family education and order are some of the chief means of grace. If these fail, all other means are like to prove ineffectual." Wow, what a strong statement. What an exhortation to maintain order and teach your children about the Lord.

Later in the chapter there is an "episode" described in which Sarah had, what I believe to be, an encounter with the Lord that was so powerful that she was physically effected, though not to the point that it stopped her from doing her duty in the home. Wow, Lord, let me have such an encounter! It would appear from every account that her life was radically changed after this point into a more benevolent frame of mind and actions. To quote Jonathan in his description of her experience, "if such things are enthusiasm, and the fruits of a distempered brain, let my brain be evermore possessed of that happy distemper! If this be distraction, I pray God that the world of mankind may all be seized with this benign, meek, beneficent, beautiful, glorious distraction!" That doesn't sound like a husband who is discontent with his weak and fainting wife to me.

Lastly, not only did Sarah Edwards care for her family, her actions and example became a heritage through generations of her descendants. A. E. Winship, the historian who studied their family between 1728 and 1900, commented that "whatever the family has done, it has done ably and nobly...and much of the capacity and talent, intelligence and character of the more than 1400 of the Edwards family is due to Mrs. Edwards."