The hand that rocks the cradle must not be very talented, or surely it would find something more interesting to do.” That’s the Modern Revised Standard Version of this adage. The original version said, “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” My friends, it’s very important that we understand which one of those versions is really the truth.
In the Old Testament we see that it was Moses’ mother who arranged to save his life.
“She hid him three months. When she could no longer hide him, she took for him a container made of bulrushes and daubed it with tar and with pitch. She then put the child in it and set it in the reeds by the river’s bank” (Exodus 2:2–3).
We forget that were it not for his mother, Moses would never have been alive. He would never have been available for the great and mighty task to which God called him: the giving of His moral law, which has had perhaps a greater influence on ruling the world than any other contribution in history.
In the New Testament we see Timothy, who is probably the most exemplary second-generation Christian found in the New Testament. Who molded his character? The Apostle Paul only? No. In Timothy, said Paul, was the faith that was in his mother, Eunice.
“Remembering the genuine faith that first lived in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and that I am persuaded lives in you also” (2 Timothy 1:5).
For almost a half century now we have been told that it is demeaning to be a mother who stays home and takes care of her children. That’s for the no-talent women who can’t do anything else.
I would urge mothers, young mothers, and mothers of young children to realize that what they are doing has enormous significance. Be not deceived and misled by the so-called wisdom of this world. The Bible refutes it. A godly mother is a great blessing. Just as she was in Moses’ time, so she is today: the bearer of one of the highest callings in all the world.
