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A Founding Mother’s Faith: Abigail Adams
“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 Family
Born 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 Loss
At 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.
A Faith Revealed by Fire
Abigail Adams did not merely endure hardship, she interpreted it through the lens of divine providence. Her letters consistently reveal a woman steeped in Scripture, who saw both personal sorrow and national struggle under the sovereign hand of God.
When British troops threatened nearby Boston, she wrote to Mercy Otis Warren with confidence drawn directly from the Psalms: “Tho an hoste should encamp against us our hearts will not fear [Psalm 27:3]. Tho war should rise against us, in this will we be confident, that the Lord reigneth [Psalm 97:1]. Let thy Mercy o Lord be upon us according as we hope in thee” (Psalm 33:22).
Following the bloodshed at Lexington and Concord, she wrote John:
“The Lord will not cast off His people, neither will He forsake his inheritance [Psalm 94:14]. Great events are most certainly in the womb of futurity, and if the present chastisements which we experience have a proper influence upon our conduct, the event will certainly be in our favor. … Pharaoh’s [i.e., King George III’s] heart is hardened, and he refuseth to hearken to them and will not let the people go [Exodus 8:32]. May their deliverance be wrought out for them, as it was for the children of Israel” (Exodus 12-14).
A few weeks later, as militia units from all over Massachusetts and adjacent colonies converged to surround occupied Boston, Abigail encouraged herself and John from the example of Nehemiah:
“We live in continual expectation of hostilities. Scarcely a day that does not produce some; but like good Nehemiah, having made our prayer unto God and set the people with their swords, their spears, and their bows, we will say unto them ‘Be not ye afraid of them; remember the Lord, who is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives and your houses’” (Nehemiah 4:14).
She added a prayer: “Almighty God, cover the heads of our countrymen [Psalm 140:7], and be a shield to our dear friends [Psalm 3:3]! … May we be supported and sustained in the dreadful conflict.”
After the British burned Charlestown and the costly Battle of Bunker Hill, she reminded her husband: “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong [Ecclesiastes 9:11]; but the God of Israel is He that giveth strength and power unto his people [Psalm 68:35]. Trust in him at all times, ye people, pour out your hearts before him; God is a refuge for us [Psalm 62:8].”
During the continued occupation of Boston, she offered this prayer, “And unto Him who mounts the whirlwind and directs the storm [Nahum 1:3] I will cheerfully leave the ordering of my lot; and whether adverse or prosperous days should be my future portion, I will trust in His right hand to lead me safely through [Psalm 139:10], and after a short rotation of events, fix me in a state immutable and happy.”
Her faith was active, interpretive, and sustaining. It gave her a framework for understanding both suffering and purpose. Notably, she did not see history as random or chaotic, but as guided by “the great disposer of all Events.”
After Boston was ultimately evacuated by British forces on March 17, 1776 — a moment that could have come at tremendous cost — she credited the Lord: “The more I think of our enemies quitting Boston, the more amazed I am that they should leave such a harbor, such fortifications, such intrenchments, and that we should he in peaceable possession of a town which we expected would cost us a river of blood, without one drop shed. Surely it is the Lord’s doings, and it is marvelous in our eyes” (Psalm 118:23).
Just two weeks before the vote on the Declaration of Independence, Abigail wrote with confidence in God: “I feel no great anxiety at the large armament designed against us. The remarkable interpositions of Heaven in our favor cannot be too gratefully acknowledged. He who fed the Israelites in the wilderness [Deuteronomy 8:16], ‘who clothes the lilies of the field [Matthew 6:28], and feeds the young ravens when they cry’ [Job 38:41], will not forsake a people engaged in so righteous a cause, if we remember his loving-kindness.”
Even in moments of deep anxiety—fearing for her husband abroad and her son traveling across the Atlantic—she anchored herself in God’s promises:
“In contemplation of my situation, I am sometimes thrown into an agony of distress. Distance, dangers, and oh, I cannot name all the fears which sometimes oppress me, and harrow up my soul. Yet must the common lot of man one day take place, whether we dwell in our native land or are far distant from it. That we rest under the shadow of the Almighty [Psalm 91:1] is the consolation to which I resort, and find that comfort which the world cannot give” (John 14:27).
This awareness of God’s presence sustained her through years of uncertainty. It also shaped the spiritual atmosphere of her home. Abigail did not merely teach doctrine; she modeled dependence on God in every circumstance.
A Faith That Formed Her Family
Though married, Abigail Adams effectively lived as a single mother for much of the Revolutionary era. With John frequently away—first in Philadelphia, later in Europe—she bore the full responsibility of raising their children.
She managed finances, oversaw the farm, and maintained order in a time of chaos. Yet her greatest labor was not economic or logistical—it was spiritual. “Our Little ones… shall not be deficient in virtue or probity if the precepts of a Mother have their desired Effect,” she assured her husband.
However, she also recognized the challenge of raising children without a father’s daily example. In a gentle but pointed rebuke, she wrote: “They would be doubly in-forced could they be indulged with the example of a Father constantly before them.” Abigail understood that motherhood required both instruction and example. And though she bore the burden alone, she refused to lower the standard.
From his earliest years, Abigail instilled in John Quincy Adams the habits of prayer, moral discipline, and a sense of duty to God and country. After he left with his father for Europe, she wrote:
“Tis almost four Months since you left your Native land and Embarked upon the Mighty waters in quest of a Foreign Country. Altho I have not perticuliarly wrote to you since yet you may be assured you have constantly been upon my Heart and mind.
“It is a very dificult task my dear son for a tender parent to bring their mind to part with a child of your years into a distant Land… You have arrived at years capable of improving under the advantages you will be like to have if you do but properly attend to them. They are talents put into your Hands of which an account will be required of you hereafter, and being possessd of one, two, or four, see to it that you double your numbers [Matthew 25:14-30]…
“Great Learning and superior abilities, should you ever possess them, will be of little value and small Estimation, unless Virtue, Honour, Truth and integrety are added to them. Adhere to those religious Sentiments and principals which were early instilled into your mind and remember that you are accountable to your Maker for all your words and actions [Ecclesiastes 12:1,14; Matthew 12:36]… I would much rather you should have found your grave in the ocean you have crossed, or that any untimely death crop you in your infant years, than see you an immoral, profligate, or Graceless child.”
In June of 1780, Abigail Adams wrote to then 13-year-old John Quincy reminding him about the foundations for personal character and civil society:
“The only sure and permanent foundation of virtue is religion. Let this important truth be engraven upon your heart, and that the foundation of religion is the belief of the one only God, and a just sense of his attributes as a Being infinitely wise, just, and good, to whom you owe the highest reverence, gratitude, and adoration, who superintends and governs all nature… , even to clothing the lilies of the field [Matthew 6:28] and hearing the young ravens when they cry [Psalm 147:9], but more particularly regards man whom he created after his own Image [Genesis 1:27] and breathed into him an immortal spirit [Genesis 2:7] capable of a happiness beyond the grave, to the attainment of which he is bound to the performance of certain duties which all tend to the happiness and welfare of society and are comprised in one short sentence expressive of universal benevolence, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”” (Leviticus 19:18).
Indeed, years later John Quincy would testify to the enduring impact of her influence: “She taught me to repeat daily, after the Lord’s Prayer, before rising from bed, the Ode of Collins on the patriot warriors who fell in the war to subdue the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. … Of the impression made upon my heart by the sentiments inculcated in these beautiful effusions of patriotism and poetry, you may form an estimate by the fact that now, seventy-one years after they were thus taught me, I repeat them from memory.” Such was the curriculum of Abigail Adams, who was a mother shaping not only a child, but a statesman.
A Faith That Impacted the Future
What sets Abigail Adams apart is not only her godly endurance and her biblical instruction but also her clarity of vision. She understood the inseparable connection between private virtue and public life. In another 1775 letter to Mercy Owen Warren, Abigail expressed a principle that she clearly held dear—that patriotism and belief in providence went hand in hand:
“A patriot without religion in my estimation is as great a paradox, as an honest man without the fear of God. Is it possible that he whom no moral obligations bind, can have any real good will towards man, can he be a patriot who by an openly vicious conduct is undermining the very bonds of society, corrupting the morals of youth, and by his bad example injuring that very country he professes to patronize more than he can possibly compensate by his intrepidity, generosity, and honor? The Scriptures tell us righteousness exalteth a nation” (Proverbs 14:34).
In Abigail’s correspondence with John, she argued that civic responsibility must be grounded in moral and religious duty: “[A] true patriot must be a religious man. I have been led to think from a late defection, that he who neglects his duty to his Maker may well be expected to be deficient and insincere in his duty towards the public.”
This insight would later echo in John Adams’s own famous declaration that the Constitution was made “only for a moral and religious people.” But long before it became political philosophy, it was a wife and mother’s conviction.
In fact, Abigail cited Scripture to John Quincy about the importance of cultivating self-government before attempting to govern others:
“The due Government of the passions has been considered in all ages as a most valuable acquisition, hence an inspired writer observes, He that is slow to anger is better than the Mighty, and he that ruleth his Spirit than he that taketh a city [Proverbs 16:32]. This passion unrestrained by reason cooperating with power has produced the subversion of cities, the desolation of countries, the massacre of nations, and filled the world with injustice and oppression. … Having once obtained this self-government you will find a foundation laid for happiness to yourself and usefulness to mankind. ‘Virtue alone is happiness below,’ and consists in cultivating and improving every good inclination and in checking and subduing every propensity to evil.”
Abigail saw the home as the training ground for the republic. If children were not raised with self-discipline, courage, and virtue, the nation itself would suffer. In an age obsessed with liberty, Abigail Adams never lost sight of the deeper truth: Freedom without virtue is fragile and doomed to fail. With personal virtue and the favor of God, there could be success.
The Legacy of a Godly Mother
When Abigail Adams died on October 28, 1818, her son John Quincy surely had in mind Proverbs 31 as he reflected on her life. On November 1, he took time to write these heartfelt words:
“My mother was an angel upon earth. She was a minister of blessing to all human beings within her sphere of action. Her heart was the abode of heavenly purity. She had no feelings but of kindness and beneficence; yet her mind was as firm as her temper was mild and gentle. She had known sorrow, but her sorrow was silent. She was acquainted with grief [Isaiah 53:3], but it was deposited in her own bosom. She was the real personification of female virtue, of piety, of charity, of ever active and never intermitting benevolence [Proverbs 31:10a, 20]. … [Y]et she has been to me more than a mother. She has been a spirit from above watching over me for good, and contributing by my mere consciousness of her existence to the comfort of my life.”
On November 3, John Quincy concluded his remembrance:
“Never have I known another human being the perpetual object of whose life was so unremittingly to do good. It was a necessity of her nature. Yet so unostentatious, so unconscious even, of her own excellence, that even the objects of her kindness often knew not whence it came… She had suffered often and severely from fits of long and painful sickness, always with calmness and resignation. She had a profound, but not an obtrusive, sensibility. She was always cheerful, never frivolous; she had neither gall nor guile. Her attention to the domestic economy of her family was unrivalled-rising with the dawn, and superintending the household concerns with indefatigable and all-foreseeing care [Proverbs 31:15, 27]… She had been, during the war of our Revolution, an ardent patriot, and the earliest lesson of unbounded devotion to the cause of their country that her children received was from her. She had the most delicate sense of propriety of conduct, but nothing uncharitable, nothing bitter. Her price was indeed above rubies” (Proverbs 31:10).
Certainly, this tribute of John Quincy Adams to his mother fulfilled the call of Proverbs 31:28: “Her children arise up and call her blessed.” Hers was a faith that was quiet but profound, and whose influence endured long after her passing.
As we have seen in her letters and in her son’s testimony, Abigail’s legacy cannot be measured only by her connections to the offices her husband and son held, but in the character she helped shape and the faith she faithfully lived out.
Abigail Adams represents a generation of women whose sacrifices were often unseen but indispensable. They ran households, supported the war effort, counseled their husbands, poured into their children, and prayed for the success of a fragile nation. But more than that, they anchored the American experiment in something deeper than politics: A recognition of duty to God, family, and country.
On this Mother’s Day, Abigail Adams stands as a powerful reminder that the strength of a nation is forged not only in its legislatures and battlefields, but in its homes. She was a woman of deep sorrow, yet deeper faith. A mother burdened with responsibility, yet unwavering in conviction. A patriot who believed that liberty must be rooted in righteousness. Her life asks a question that still echoes today: What kind of mothers—and fathers—are shaping the next generation?
For Abigail Adams, the answer was clear. Teach them to fear God. Train them in virtue. Prepare them for service. And trust, in every season, the One who “carves out our portion in tender mercy.”
Originally published by The Washington Stand.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.
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