By a trick of the church calendar, four of the Thursdays assigned to me are commemorations, days in which we remember saints of the church’s past. I rather like that because it gives me some place to start.

Sojourner Truth was born Isabella Baumfree about 1797 as an enslaved person. She escaped to freedom in 1826. Around 1828 or 1829 she had a religious experience and became a Christian. She joined the Methodist Church in 1843 and changed her name to Sojourner Truth. She later became associated with the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. She began traveling, preaching, and advocating abolition, women’s rights, and prison reform. She died in Battle Creek, Michigan, November 28, 1883.

Harriet Tubman (born around 1822, died 1913) was an African-American abolitionist. Born into slavery, she escaped and later made 13 trips to rescue about 70 enslaved people. During the Civil War, she served as scout and spy for the Union Army. In her later years, she became active in the woman’s suffrage movement.

She learned Bible stories from her mother and may have attended the Methodist Church. In the early 1900s she became  active in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. She donated the land that became the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged in New York.

I am amazed at the courage of these women who worked against the gross injustice they saw around them. How much worse off would our society be if there weren’t Christians like these to declare wrong as wrong and devote their lives to righting it? Thank God for inspiring them.

Read Micah 6:8 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne