Harriet Tubman and the God Who Parts the Waters

In the winter of 1851, Harriet Tubman stood at the edge of the Choptank River in Maryland, ice forming along its banks, slave catchers somewhere behind her in the dark. She had every reason to despair. The route north had been compromised. Her contact had vanished. She was alone, exhausted, and responsible for eleven souls huddled in the frozen reeds behind her.

But Tubman did what the psalmist did. She remembered.

She remembered the God who had split the Red Sea. She remembered how the Almighty had led His people through waters that should have swallowed them whole. She remembered her own previous crossings — thirteen rescue missions where El Shaddai had made a way through impossible terrain.

"I said to the Lord," she later told a friend, "I'm going to hold steady on You, and You've got to see me through."

They crossed the river that night. Every one of them.

Psalm 77 gives us the anatomy of faith under pressure. The psalmist cries out in verses 1 and 2, sleepless and troubled. But then comes the turn — "I will remember the deeds of the Lord." He recalls the thunder, the parted waters, the footprints no one could see. And that remembering becomes the bridge from despair to trust.

When darkness presses in, do what Tubman did. Do what the psalmist did. Remember the God who has already brought you through the waters.