Sojourner Truth and the God Who Renames

In 1843, a woman named Isabella Baumfree walked out of New York City with nothing but a pillowcase of belongings and a fierce conviction that the Almighty had given her a new name. Born into slavery in Ulster County, New York, she had endured being sold four times before the age of thirteen. Masters had called her property. Courts had called her nobody. For decades, the world labeled her forsaken and desolate.

But on that Pentecost morning, Isabella declared that God Himself had renamed her. She would be Sojourner Truth — a wanderer carrying the word of the Living God across a nation that had tried to erase her. She later told audiences, "I was born a slave, but God did not make me a slave. He made me His."

That is the heartbeat of Isaiah 62. The prophet announces that God refuses to stay silent while His people carry names like "Deserted" and "Desolate." He is doing something breathtaking — stripping away every label of shame and replacing it with "Hephzibah," My Delight Is in Her. Like a bridegroom who cannot contain his joy over his bride, the Lord looks at broken, weary people and speaks a new identity over them.

Isabella Baumfree understood what the prophet proclaimed: when the Holy One renames you, no former master, no old wound, and no human verdict gets the final word. You are His delight, and He will not rest until you know it.