What Would Harriet Tubman Tell Young People About Finding Their Purpose?

Your purpose is not something you discover like finding a lost button. It is something you grow into through obedience and paying attention to what breaks your heart. What did I know about being a freedom fighter when I was born enslaved in Maryland? Nothing. What did I know about leading armies when I was a woman deemed three-fifths human by law? The world would have said: nothing.

But I paid attention to what God whispered. I noticed when cruelty made my blood run hot. I felt the weight of others' suffering in my own bones. When I escaped to Philadelphia, I did not stay there celebrating my own freedom. The thought of my family still in chains would not let me rest. That restlessness was a calling. That was purpose.

Young people ask me: How do I know what I am meant to do? I tell you — look for the thing you cannot ignore. Look for the injustice that haunts you in the night. Look for the people whose suffering you cannot dismiss or explain away. That is often your beginning.

Purpose is not always grand. It does not always look like changing the world in one gesture. Sometimes it is feeding one person. Sometimes it is teaching one child to read. Sometimes it is standing beside someone when everyone else has turned away. The Lord works through small faithfulness, and small faithfulness builds into rivers.

Do not wait until you are perfect. Do not wait until you have all the answers or all the training or all the confidence. I did not know how to run a railroad. I learned by doing it, by trusting that if God was calling me to it, He would show me the way. Every time I went back into slavery, I had to trust in the dark. Every time I led people North, I had to believe that North existed even when I could not see it.

Your purpose will require you to be brave in ignorance. To act before you are ready. To say yes to something that terrifies you. That is how you discover what you are made for. Not by thinking about it safely from the sidelines, but by stepping into the work and letting the work make you into who you need to be.

Listen to what will not let you sleep. Move toward it. Trust that you will be given what you need for the journey.