Run With Your Dreams - Mary Mcleod Bethune

1875–1955

As a child, Mary McLeod had opportunities her parents hadn’t. But it still required personal strength and self-discipline to take advantage of those opportunities.

She was the daughter of former slaves, one of seventeen children. The family was impoverished, and everyone worked from the time they were young to provide the family with basic necessities.

Education was something Mary’s parents couldn’t provide all their children. When a missionary school for African American children opened near their home in South Carolina, Mary was the only one of her siblings allowed to attend. Each day she walked several miles to school and back. Once she learned to read, there was no stopping her. Her thirst for education was great, and she shared what she learned with her family.

But she didn’t educate just her family. After attending Scotia Seminary and Moody Bible Institute, Mary became a teacher. She married Albertus Bethune, and they moved to Florida. In Daytona Beach, she started her own school, now known as Bethune-Cookman University, a private university that still educates students today.

That would be enough for anyone to be impressed with Mary’s accomplishments, but there’s much more. She became a civil rights activist and a special adviser on minority affairs to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She opened a hospital in Daytona Beach to serve the black community. She worked to find jobs for African Americans in the first half of the 1900s. The list of her accomplishments could go on and on.

Mary was inspiring to those who knew her. She’s an enduring example of someone who didn’t allow circumstances to keep her from accomplishing her dreams. Her family gave her what they could. They gave her faith, and they sent her to the missionary school. Mary took those things, trusted God, and ran with them.

Sometimes it’s easy for us as adults to blame the circumstances of our upbringings for blocking us from our dreams. But Mary didn’t allow her circumstances to hold her back, and we don’t need to either.

Do you have a dream that you’ve been afraid to go after because of the circumstances of your youth? Can you choose to trust God and run with it now?

God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.

2 Timothy 1:7