The Woman Who Knew Her Worth Before God

In May 1851, Sojourner Truth rose to speak at the Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. Some attendees urged the convention's president, Frances Gage, not to let her take the floor — they feared her presence as a Black woman and former slave would muddle their cause. But Truth stood anyway.

Born Isabella Baumfree around 1797 in Ulster County, New York, she had been enslaved, sold multiple times, and separated from her children. In 1843, she took the name Sojourner Truth, declaring that God had called her to walk the land and speak what was true. Her faith was not abstract theology — it was forged in suffering and anchored in the conviction that the God who made her had made her with purpose.

At that Akron convention, Truth spoke plainly about the strength she had known — plowing fields, bearing children, enduring loss — and asked why any of it made her less than fully human. Her authority came not from education or social standing but from a settled knowledge of whose handiwork she was.

The psalmist wrote, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Sojourner Truth lived as though she believed it — because she did. Her faith taught her that no auction block, no lash, no dismissive crowd could undo what God had crafted.

When the world questions your worth, remember where Truth found hers: not in the opinions of a room, but in the hands of her Maker.