“Spiritual Mothering”
May 11, 2025
Speaker, Pastor Amy Peters
Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all.”
(Proverbs 31:29)
I wasn’t particularly musical as an adolescent. I’d given up on piano lessons by sixth grade, and while I joined the school chorus, it was mostly for the elective credits rather than a love of singing. But there was something about Miss Scipione’s music classes —
At thirteen, I was searching for something I couldn’t quite name. I had a loving family, good friends, and I did well in school. Still, I felt a kind of hollowness, an empty space I couldn’t explain. My brother and I went to Notre Dame De Lourdes every Sunday with our mother; we’d both made our First Communion and been Confirmed. I knew God loved me. I knew Christ had died for the sins of all humanity.
So why did I still feel a spiritual ache?
Then one day, on the way out of music class, Miss Scipione quietly pulled me aside.
“I think you’d enjoy our after-school Bible study on Thursdays,” she said.
And something inside me knew this was what I’d been looking for.
She Didn’t Preach—She Discipled
Years later, I recognized what Pam—Miss Scipione—had been in my life: a spiritual mother, just like the kind Paul describes in his letter to Titus.
“Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” (Titus 2:3–5)
Spiritual mothering is not about biology—it’s about investing in the next generation of women with godly wisdom, love, and truth. It’s discipleship. And discipleship is at the very heart of the Great Commission. When Jesus commanded us to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19–20), He didn’t limit that charge to pastors, missionaries, or men. He invited every believer to take part in His redemptive mission.
Spiritual mothers carry out this mission not from pulpits, but in living rooms, classrooms, coffee shops—and yes, sometimes even in music class.
God did not give this role as a consolation prize to women who couldn’t bear children. It is a high calling: a way to pass on the truth of God from life to life (2 Timothy 2:1–2) and generation to generation (Psalm 145:4). In his letter to Titus, Paul doesn’t focus on the outward appearance of these women. Instead, he honors their character. They are to be examples of godly womanhood (Titus 2:3), imitators of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1), and people who “call good what God calls good” (Isaiah 5:20).
The Beauty of a Quiet Yes
I had a godly mother who took me to church and taught me how to pray. I had a godly grandmother who showed joy in worship.
But I also had Miss Scipione as my spiritual mother.
It was through her Thursday Bible studies, the letters she wrote to me each week the summer I was fourteen, and her faithful prayers that I was encouraged to eventually accept Jesus as my personal Savior. It was Miss Scipione—who insisted I call her Pam once I was in high school—who took me on my first mission trip to the beaches of New England with the Children’s Sand and Surf Mission. It was Pam who steered me away from “the wrong boy” in high school and gently showed me what to look for in a godly husband.
Pam married later in life, and to my knowledge, never had children of her own. But to those of us who gathered around her on Thursday afternoons, she was more than a mentor. She was our spiritual mother. Through her prayers, her letters, and her example, she discipled us into deeper faith.
That is the work of the Great Commission. And it’s a calling every woman in Christ can embrace.
Lord,
Thank You for the women who have nurtured our faith with love, wisdom, and grace. Help us to follow their example and become spiritual mothers to others—pointing them toward You through our words, our prayers, and our lives. May we joyfully take our place in the Great Commission, one heart at a time.Amen.
