OCTOBER 18
’Twant me, ’twas the Lord. I always told him, “I trust to you.
I don’t know where to go or what to do, but I expect you to
lead me,” and he always did.
—HARRIET TUBMANHow do people get through adversity?
To Harriet Tubman, a fugitive black woman who, though
there was a price on her head, returned to the South nineteen
times to help move slaves to freedom on the underground
railroad, it was her trust in God that saw her through.
She didn’t know, any more than we do, “where to go or
what to do,” but she trusted the power that had sustained
her and given her courage to prevail against the recurrent
crises in her life.
We each have our own ways, our own traditions, for
meeting the terrors of uncertain futures, the undulating
waves of grief. It is helpful if, in our grief, we can stretch
out our hand into the darkness and imagine the One who
is reaching toward us to offer us comfort, and direction, and
assurance of life to come.
O God, your sea is so great and my boat is so small. Be with me.