Lift Up Your Day
Lift Up Your Day with Pastor Rodney Coe — a 5-minute Christian devotional podcast for the heart that needs lifting.
Every Take 5 episode is a true story from history and Scripture about ordinary people God used to do extraordinary things. Pastor Rodney Coe — author of 5 books, devotional writer, and pastor — tells the stories warm, well-paced, and pointed at the part of your day that needs the most lifting.
You'll meet missionaries saved by angels (John Paton), a watchmaker's daughter who forgave a Nazi guard (Corrie ten Boom), a Tennessee farm boy who took a hill in the Argonne (Alvin York), a Senate chaplain who wasn't ready (Peter Marshall), a man who walked with God at 4 a.m. (George Washington Carver), and more.
Each episode ends the same way: "And that, friend, is how God lifts up your day."
Free 7-day devotional When Worry Won't Let Go at rodneycoe.com/worry-devotional. Books and blog at rodneycoe.com.
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Lift Up Your Day
Mary McLeod Bethune: Faith, Education, and Detour
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They told her there was no place for a Black missionary to Africa. She called it the greatest disappointment of her life.
Mary McLeod Bethune was born in 1875 on a South Carolina cotton field, the fifteenth of seventeen children of former slaves. She trained for years to become a missionary. When the door slammed, she opened a school in Daytona Beach with a dollar and fifty cents, charred wood for pencils, and ink she crushed from elderberries. That ragged little school became a college that still trains young men and women today. The woman who was once told she was not wanted ended up advising four U.S. presidents and helping write the charter of the United Nations.
A five-minute reminder that the door God closes is never the end of your story. The detour may be the destination all along.
Scripture echo: Proverbs 3:5-6
Key figure: Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955), educator, founder of Bethune-Cookman College, presidential adviser
Read or listen on the blog: https://rodneycoe.com/mary-mcleod-bethune-detour-that-changed-everything/
Five minutes. Pull up a chair.
A young woman finishes her training at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago with one dream burning in her heart. She's going to be a missionary to Africa. She has prayed for it, studied for it, and given years of her life to prepare for it. So, she fills out the application, sends it off to the mission board, and waits. Then the letter comes back. There is no place for her. The board is not sending a black missionary to Africa. The door she had aimed her whole life at had just closed in her face. She would later call it the greatest disappointment she had ever known. Hold that thought. The story's about to break wide open. Welcome to Lift Up Your Day, a daily five-minute devotional, short stories with a biblical heartbeat. I'm Rodney Cohen, today a slam door, a dollar and fifty cents, and the school that changed the nation. Her name was Mary McLeod Bethune, born in 1875 in a cabin on a South Carolina cotton field, the 15th of 17 children, and the first one in her family born free. Her parents had been slaves. As a little girl, she picked cotton beside them, and more than anything, she ate to learn to read. When a mission school opened a few miles away, she walked there and back every day to sit in it. She was the only child in her family who got to go. So every afternoon she came home and taught her brothers and sisters everything she had learned that day. Education carried her all the way to a Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, and there she gave her heart to one goal, Africa, the mission field, and then came the letter that said no. She could have spent the rest of her life bitter about the closed door. Instead, she made a choice that sounds a great deal like Proverbs chapter 3. She trusted the Lord with all her heart, and she stopped leaning on her own understanding of where her road was supposed to go. If Africa was closed, then her mission field would be right here, among her own people in the American South. In October of 1904, in Daytona Beach, Florida, Mary opened a school. She had a dollar and fifty cents to her name. She rented a little house near the town dump. There were no desks, so the children sat on wooden crates. With no money for pencils, they wrote with splinters of charred wood, dipped in ink she made by crushing elderberries. She started with five little girls and her own young son. And she baked sweet potato pies to sell to the work crews down the road just to keep the doors open. That ragged little school did not stay little. Within two years it had grown to 250 students. One night the clan came and threatened to burn it down, and Mary stood in the doorway and would not move while her students lifted their voices and sang until the riders went away. That school became a college that still trains young men and young women today, and the woman, who was once told she was not wanted, ended up advising presidents in the White House and helping to write the charter of the United Nations. Hear me today. The door closes is not the end of your story. It is the turn in the road. Proverbs says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, and all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your path. Mary McLeod Bethun never set foot in Africa. She changed America instead. The detour was a destination all along. So when a door you were certain about slams shut, do not sit down in front of it and weep. Look around. The path God is actually pointing you down may be the very one that changes everything. And that friend is how God lifts up your day.