The Midnight Train to Freedom

In 1850, a young enslaved mother named Harriet Tubman made a desperate choice. Word had reached her that she was about to be sold further south, separated forever from everything she knew. Under cover of darkness, with nothing but the North Star to guide her, she fled through swamps and forests toward the free state of Pennsylvania.

Like Joseph, who woke Mary in the dead of night and fled with the infant Jesus toward Egypt, Tubman understood that survival sometimes means abandoning everything familiar. There was no time to pack carefully, no opportunity to say proper goodbyes. The threat was immediate, and the road ahead was uncertain.

What makes Tubman's story echo Matthew's account so powerfully is what came after the escape. She did not simply find safety and settle into comfort. She returned south thirteen times, leading roughly seventy people to freedom along the Underground Railroad. Her suffering became a pathway for others.

The Holy Family's flight into Egypt was not a detour in God's plan — it was part of it. The Almighty used exile, danger, and displacement to preserve the One who would deliver not just a single family but all of humanity. Every desperate midnight journey, every parent clutching a child while running from violence, finds its meaning in this truth: God works redemption through the very roads we walk in fear.

The detours of faith are never wasted in the hands of the Most High.