Romans 8:26-30
And the Holy Spirit helps us in our
distress. For we don’t even know what we should pray for, nor how we should
pray. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed
in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying,
for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.
And we know that God causes everything
to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to
his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to
become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn, with many brothers
and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And he gave
them right standing with himself, and he promised them his glory. NLT
The Narrative of Sojourner
Truth
“I am pleading for my people, a
poor downtrodden race
Who dwell in freedom’s boasted land
with no abiding place
I am pleading that my people may
have their rights restored,
For they have long been toiling,
and yet had no reward
They are forced the crops to
culture, but not for them they yield,
Although both late and early, they
labor in the field.
While I bear upon my body, the
scores of many a gash,
I’m pleading for my people who
groan beneath the lash.
I’m pleading for the mothers who
gaze in wild despair
Upon the hated auction block, and
see their children there.
I feel for those in bondage—well
may I feel for them.
I know how fiendish hearts can be
that sell their fellow men.
Yet those oppressors steeped in
guilt—I still would have them live;
For I have learned of Jesus, to
suffer and forgive!
I want no carnal weapons, no
machinery of death.
For I love to not hear the sound of
war’s tempestuous breath.
I do not ask you to engage in death
and bloody strife.
I do not dare insult my God by
asking for their life.
But while your kindest sympathies
to foreign lands do roam,
I ask you to remember your own
oppressed at home.
I plead with you to sympathize with
signs and groans and scars,
And note how base the tyranny
beneath the stripes and stars.
—Sojourner
Truth, 1797-1883, Printed in The New York Globe by author in 1878 and reprinted
in her book, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth
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