“In My Mother’s Arms: A Story of Faith in the Reeds”
Exodus 2:1–10 | Hebrews 11:23–26
Jochebed – A Mother’s Voice
I had no time to mourn the king’s edict. The Nile was no longer just a river—it had become a grave for sons like mine. But when I looked at you, Moses, I saw something no decree could erase.
You weren’t just beautiful—you were marked. Chosen. Not by me, but by God. From the first breath, heaven had plans for you. And I was only the steward.
They told us to fear Pharaoh. But I feared the Lord. “By faith Moses… was hidden by his parents… and they were not afraid of the king’s command” (Hebrews 11:23).
I wrapped you in linen, but I swaddled you in trust. I whispered the truth to you. Not just who you were, but whose you were. “Children are a heritage from the Lord” (Psalm 127:3). You were His before you were mine.
When I could no longer hide you, I built the basket, sealed it with pitch, kissed your brow, and laid you in the reeds. My arms let go, but my faith held firm. I didn’t release you to the Nile but to God.
Moses – A Son Remembers
They say I belonged to Pharaoh’s daughter, but I remember my mother’s hands. Strong. Worn. Full of truth. I remember her voice—soft, steady, full of songs I didn’t understand then, but do now.
She taught me early that identity is not what the world gives, but what God declares. She told me I was set apart, even when no one saw it. “Train up a child in the way he should go…” (Proverbs 22:6). That path was carved before I could walk.
Palace tutors gave me titles, scrolls, and philosophy. But Egypt didn’t shape my soul—my mother did.
So when I grew up, I chose. “He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to suffer with God’s people rather than enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:24–25).
They gave me position. God gave me purpose. Egypt raised my body, but my mother raised my soul.
Jochebed – Preparing a Heart for Calling
When Pharaoh’s daughter summoned me to nurse you, I secretly wept. Grace. God gave me time I didn’t expect. I nursed you. Rocked you. And I prepared you.
Not for the palace, but for the wilderness. Not for comfort, but for calling.
Augustine once said, “The measure of love is to love without measure.” I gave you all I had—faith, truth, and a name you’d one day reclaim.
Moses – From Reeds to Red Sea
God called me from a bush, but I first heard His voice in my mother’s arms. She gave me a name, but God gave me a calling.
From the reeds to the Red Sea, I walked not because I was strong, but because I was chosen.
Together – A Legacy Etched in Faith
She let go, but the truth stayed. She hid me for three months, but the faith she lived marked me forever.
A godly mother doesn’t raise children to survive culture. She prepares them to walk with God in spite of it.
Bonhoeffer wrote, “The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children.” But sometimes, it’s the kind of children it leaves to the world—raised by mothers who trust God more than fear men.
Postscript: A Love That Echoes from the Reeds to the Manger
The love that held Moses in the reeds is the same love that wrapped Jesus in swaddling cloth and laid Him in a manger. A mother’s arms, a newborn child, and heaven watching over both.
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
— Genesis 1:26–27 (RSV)
Every child bears God’s image. Every story begins with that truth. And every faithful mother builds her legacy upon it.
Closing Words
A mother’s duty is not measured in years, but in what she plants—in faith, trust, and preparation. Her highest calling is to influence her child toward Christ-likeness. But she does not carry this alone.
Family, friends, and the church are not spectators—they are participants. Each has a part in mentoring, modeling, and walking beside every child, in fellowship with one another and under the care of God.
This is not just motherhood. It is discipleship.
This study was inspired by the sermon today from Pastor Barry Jeffries, Crestwood Baptist Church, Crestwood, Kentucky.
Here are my notes from that sermon, but I thought a Mother’s Day story from the perspective of mother and child and connecting it to Jesus’s birth would be more meaningful:
A Mother’s Legacy: Faith in the Reeds
Exodus 2:1–10 (CSB)
“When she saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months.” —Exodus 2:2
The story begins before the basket.
Pharaoh had grown fearful. The Hebrews were too many and too strong. What once was gratitude for Joseph had turned to suspicion, then to oppression. Forced labor, brick kilns, broken backs. When that didn’t reduce their numbers, the king of Egypt chose death. Every male child born to the Hebrews was to be thrown into the Nile—an edict to erase a generation.
Into that terror came a Levite man and his wife, Amram and Jochebed. Their family already included Aaron and Miriam. But the birth of another son under such a sentence demanded more than midwife courage. It required faith that sees beyond fear.
The mother’s name is often lost in the retelling. But Jochebed is remembered in heaven—and named in Scripture—for what she did and believed.
I. A Mother Shapes the Way of Faith
Jochebed saw more than a baby. Exodus says she saw “he was beautiful,” but Hebrews 11:23 adds depth: “By faith Moses, after he was born, was hidden by his parents… because they saw the child was beautiful, and they didn’t fear the king’s edict.” The word “beautiful” here points to divine favor—chosen, set apart.
Jochebed recognized something sacred. But she didn’t just feel it. She acted. She hid her son, risking her life daily. Faith doesn’t stay still. It moves, resists, and sacrifices.
As Bonhoeffer said, “Faith is only real when there is obedience, never without it, and faith only becomes faith in the act of obedience.”
By hiding Moses, Jochebed taught her son that obedience to God outweighs fear of man. She planted faith before he could speak it.
II. A Mother Models the Way of Trust
When she could no longer hide him, she did not despair. She built a basket. She lined it with pitch and tar—ark-like. She placed it in the Nile, not with panic, but with purpose. Trust does not mean the absence of fear. It means pressing forward anyway.
Miriam, his sister, stood watch. The family was united in faith. When Pharaoh’s daughter—likely Bithiah—found the child, Miriam stepped forward. “Shall I go and call a Hebrew woman to nurse him?” she asked. The reply came: “Go.”
Jochebed was summoned to raise her own child under the nose of the one who wanted him dead. That is providence. God used Pharaoh’s household to fund and protect the future deliverer of Israel.
As Augustine wrote, “Trust the past to the mercy of God, the present to His love, and the future to His providence.”
This is the heart of a mother—faith, wrapped in trust. She did not surrender to circumstance. She trusted the God who sees. The God who delivers.
III. A Mother Prepares the Way for Life
Jochebed held Moses close in those early years, knowing her time was short. But she made it count. She taught him who he was, and more importantly, whose he was.
Jochebed rocked, fed, and sang to him, tucked truth into his soul before the world could get its hands on him. She knew time was short. Borrowed years. But she made them matter. She didn’t just raise a boy—she formed a heart.
She told him who he was. More than that, who was he? She spoke it softly but steadily every day. Before Pharaoh’s daughter called him son, Jochebed called him chosen.
And when the time came, he remembered. Hebrews 11 says Moses refused Egypt’s name for him. He walked away from power and pleasure and stood with God’s people. That kind of strength doesn’t come from palace tutors. It comes from a mother’s voice—anchored in faith, soaked in prayer, whispered in the quiet long before the Nile ever rose.
She let go, but the truth stayed.
That kind of conviction doesn’t come from royal schools. It’s born at home—from a mother who planted truth before the world could rewrite it. She whispered identity before Egypt ever spoke his name.
And even Pharaoh’s daughter, Bithiah, played a role in preparation. She named him Moses, “because I drew him out of the water.” She gave him a place in Egypt’s house—but God had already given him a place in His plan.
God used two mothers: one to shape the heart, one to shape the context. Moses was prepared to deliver because Jochebed had prepared him to believe.
The Christ Connection
Jochebed’s story foreshadows another: a young mother in Bethlehem, who fled with her baby boy under the threat of another king’s decree. Mary, like Jochebed, wrapped her son in faith and watched him grow into his calling.
Both sons were spared for a greater deliverance. Both mothers had to let go so God could fulfill His purpose. And both stories remind us: motherhood is a calling of eternal consequence.
The Dedication and the Legacy
When we dedicate children in church, we are not simply blessing babies. We are calling mothers and fathers to the work of faith, trust, and preparation. Every child watches their mother’s heart. Every church, too, holds a stake in shaping that child’s walk.
Jochebed raised Moses for God. And Moses—though raised in Egypt—never forgot whose he truly was.
Three Lasting Lessons for Godly Mothers:
Faith: Believe in what God has placed in your child, even when the world stands against it.
Trust: Act with courage. Trust God to guide what you cannot control.
Preparation: Teach them who they are in God, even if you never see the fullness of it in your lifetime.
As C.S. Lewis once wrote in The Abolition of Man, “The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.” That’s also the task of a godly mother—to water the soul with truth, and trust God to bring the growth.
Final Thought
The Nile still runs through every generation, culture, fear, and pressure. But God still raises deliverers—and He still begins with a mother’s faith.
A Prayer:
To every mother who hides her child in faith and releases them with hope, may God strengthen your hands and quiet your fears. May your trust in Him prepare the way for another child to walk in truth.