LOVE THAT BROKE CHAINS

February 14 is known for roses and romance; for whispered promises and tender gestures. But as we continue our celebration of Black History Month, it is also the day remembered by Frederick Douglass—a man born in bondage who chose to anchor his life to a day called love.

Douglass was born enslaved, stripped of family, denied education, treated as property. Yet the love of God found him before society ever affirmed him. He learned his letters in secret. He fed his mind in hidden places. And when he finally escaped the plantation, he did not escape merely to survive but to speak.

Love did that.

The kind of love the Scriptures describe is not sentimental weakness; it is fierce and liberating. “The truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). And Douglass wielded truth like a trumpet blast across a sleeping nation. His speeches were not polite suggestions—they were holy indictments. He exposed the hypocrisy of a Christianity that sang hymns on Sunday and chained men on Monday.

Black history is not merely a record of suffering; it is a testimony of endurance. It is mothers praying through tears; fathers working through humiliation; children learning in segregated classrooms yet rising beyond the ceiling imposed on them. It is the image of God shining through skin that the world once despised.

And today, on Valentine’s Day, we remember something deeper than romance—we remember divine love.

“God demonstrates His love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Before America loved him, before laws protected him, before institutions affirmed him—Christ loved him. That love dignifies all life. That love crowns us with worth. That love says you were never property—you were always a child of almighty God.

So today, I thank God for Black resilience. I thank Him for the spirituals sung in cotton fields; for preachers who sounded hope into hopeless rooms; for activists who marched though dogs barked and hoses sprayed; for grandparents who believed in a future they would never see.

Frederick Douglass chose love’s day to mark his existence. And perhaps that is a word for all of us: We will not let hatred define our story. We will not let oppression write our ending. We belong to the God who is love—and love does not lose. And the “we” there is all brothers and sisters in the human family of God.

Black history is not just about what our Black brothers and sisters have endured. It is about who carried them.

And He still carries all of us now in the fight for what is right.

BDD