Thirteen Times She Walked Back Into Darkness

Between 1850 and 1860, Harriet Tubman made thirteen rescue missions from St. Catharines, Ontario, back into the slave-holding territory of Maryland's Eastern Shore. She had already secured her own freedom in 1849, fleeing Dorchester County under cover of night. She could have stayed safe. Instead, she went back — again and again — guiding roughly seventy people along the Underground Railroad to freedom in Canada.

Each journey south meant walking back into the very system that had once held her in chains. After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 made even Northern states unsafe for escaped slaves, Tubman extended her routes across the Canadian border. She traveled in winter, when long nights gave more hours of darkness. She carried a revolver — not from malice, but from resolve. And in all thirteen missions, she never lost a single person in her care.

Not once or twice in a burst of courage, but thirteen times over a decade. That is perseverance.

Paul wrote to the Galatians, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Tubman understood this truth in her bones. Freedom was not a private possession to be hoarded. It was a gift meant to be shared, and sharing it required walking back into hard places.

The call for believers today is the same. Christ has set us free — not so we can retreat into comfort, but so we can persevere in bringing that freedom to others, no matter how many times the journey demands we return.